01 F STUDENT OuT I UT JONS HINIONS STRANGLE NO THAICHER NOT STUDENT UNIONS The coming Easter NUS conference at Birmingham will probably prove to be the livelest for years. The left is now of sufficient strength in the NUS to throw off the suffocating strait-jacket imposed upon it for a whole period by the CP. This year there is every possibility that real politics will come out of the narrow confines of the left caucus and provide the major focus on conference floor itself. The possibility is of course not reality and the CP (not to mention the right) will do all in their power to prevent any political discussion of the crucial issues allecting student militants both inside and outside the colleges. The way will ha ve to be charted through bureaucratic manipulation and demogogic red herrings to get the key issues debated. But the discussion around the elections in which the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Student Unions is offering a slate, the continuing pressure of the autonomy issue and the struggle in Ireland will offer sufficient openings for this. Of course, if we are to make maximum use of this opening the left militants around the LCDSU will have to be crystal clear where it is and where it wants 1o go.
SECOND PHASE OF THE STATES ATTACK We are now in the second phase of the State's attempt to reintegrate students unions and NUS. The impact of the first phase was primarily ideological. At one How the State focussed attention on its main enemy in the student field, the rexolationary student, and identified him for college authorities and moderate students alike as the main problem. At the same time the way forward was outlined for college authorities. In both these enterprises the State has registered a certain success. The leading representatives of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principles (CVCP), at LSE and Northern Poly in particular, are now applying this message ruthlessly and in a more or less coordinated way. In this they have been assisted by their ideological success, although their initial disarray somewhat lessened this. But the mobilisation of the moderates' at a number of colleges (N. Poly, Aston, Reading, etc.) and the move of some backward colleges to withdraw totally from the NUS because it is too left wing (sic) e.g. City Poly, is indicative of this.
The Red Mole has of course argued right from the very beginning that this struggle at the local level was quite as important as any mobilisation against government proposals and was one of the major reasons why we took the initiative in founding the LCDSU and why this was one of the major planks of this body from the start. However, given the recommendation of the CP and thereby the NUS leadership to seek collaboration with these same college authorities many students have remained blind to their true role. This second phase.
of the State's attack has thus found most students, even relatively politicised ones unprepared. It will be our task at this conference to sort this one out.
WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE COMING PERIOD What has to be spelt out to all the delegates at this conference is the national importance of all local struggles. College authorities treat every struggle at local level as merely an element in the general campaien. This appears clearly in the organisational coordination which is exhibited in these struggles. So we see that the tactics of fund freezing and so on indulged in at Northern Poly and LSE are repeated in even the smallest most out of the way colleges. At Newport College of Art for instance this is precisely what happened. As a matter of fact, in this case, resolute action by the students involved (occupation) resulted THAT T MMITTEE - HANDS OFF N.U.S UN TUDENT UNIONS! in their funds very quickly being unfrozen. Each local struggle is in fact a crucial part of the whole campaign: a defeat in a local college sets back the whole national struggle. Quite clearly, therefore, this conference must pledge its full support to all mass action in the colleges on the autonomy issue. Last conference in passing the amendment demanding full political, constitutional and financial autonomy. was a first necessary step in getting the campaign on the right footing. This must now however be spelt out in concrete terms: verbal commitment is worse than useless. Next term is an inevitably quiet period in the colleges. but events in a number of places will nonetheless come to a head next term. Certainly, the beginning of next session will see massive struggles.
A PROGRAMME FOR THE NEW LEADERSHIP The strategy that has been decided upon by college authorities seems to have two main strands. On the one hand the invocation of "the law of the land", and on the other the in the campaign for full student union autonomy.