colleges attended the 3rd national conference of the LCDSU. Lasting for two full days, the delegates debated the very fundamentals of the LCDSU, its political basis and perspectives as well as discussion on the numerous actual or impending struggles in the colleges.
The debate which took up most of the conference, was over the political basis of the LCDSU.
The differing ideas on this question reappeared again and again in all the issues on the agenda.
The debate was essentially between the International Socialists and the IMG. The main question, was whether the LCDSU should remain and develop itself as a united front on the basis of a platform which restricted itself to the specifics of the tactical line on the fight for autonomy and the technocratic reforms, or whether a much more comprehensive programme should be adopted which would relegate these questions to a minor place and include positions on the Labour Party, the Industrial Reintions Act and many other questions. In the event, the substantial majority of the conference accepted the argument of the IMG, for a platform. The whole question of the United Front and the centrality of the political autonomy issue were argued out in the last issue of The Red Mole. The essentials of the argument were encapsulated in the theses printed here.
Organisational Perspectives All the documents presented to the conference will be produced shortly together with relevant decisions in pamphlet form by the LCDSU.* Hopefully those who were unable to attend the conference will thereby get the favour of the debate and the precise political positions of those involved. It was also agreed to produce a regular bi-monthly newspaperthe first edition to appear the beginning of next term. But most importantly of all, it was decided really to strengthen the organisation of the LCDSU at local level. There will be an all out campaign as of now to get local SocSocs to affiliate to the LCDSU and, where these do not exist, to set up local LCDSU action committees. It was agreed that all these local supporters groups must be non-exclusive the only condition of membership being that of the platform accepted by national conference. At the same time, local supporten soups will be urged to effect all manner of tactical alliances, as conditions permit, for waging a common struggle amongst students on all the vital issues in the colleges and in society generally which are of concern. It is clear that the revamped Thatcher proposals and the continuing harassment of the college authorities will now have to face an organised and more effective opposition in the coming months. At the very least, this last conference has provided a political and organisational basis for the possibility of a real fight against the State to be realised. The platform below-basis for members of the LCDSU- was adopted by conference. I.R.Clynes Anyone wanting a copy of this pamphlet should contact the LCDSU c/o Students Union, Northern Poly, Holloway Road, London N.1.
THEORETICAL PRACTICE: No. 6 Hindess: Lenin and the Agrarian Question;
Cutler and Taylor: Theory of Transition;
Ranciere: Concept of Critique: ili 35p from bookshops or 13 Grosvenor Avenue, London N.5.
RED CIRCLES Weekly meetings to discuss revolutionary politics.
North London meets every Tuesday at 8.30 p.m. in the General Picton Pub, Caledonian Road, (near Kings Cross Station), N.I Tues. 13 June: The Stoke Newington 8' Notting Hill meets every Monday at 7.45 p.m. in the Britannia Pub meeting room, Clarendon Road (near Ladbroke Grove Tube ). Buses 52, 7,15.
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in the lona Community Centre, 214 Clyde Street.
students to fall inevitably into the dichotomy of either student reformism (RSA) or ultra-left sectarianism (RSSF).
5. The objective basis for the L.C.D.S. U. is therefore the fight against the capitalist rationalisation and against the attacks on student: unions by the state, which can be taken up spontaneously by great masses of students. The political axis of the organisation must be to combat efforts to fight the rationalisation from a reactionary standpoint the defence of the old position of students in hieher education and of the old students union arrangements. Instead the LCDSU must organise the fight on these questions from a revolutionary standpoint, for a fight in the direction of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
6. The validity of the LCDSU for the mass of students is that it presents the only realistic strategy for combatting the capitalist rationalisations. The validity for revolutionaries is that it presents the most effective way of pulling over and organising a great mass of students to the side of the struggle for working class power.
7. The NUS conference and the experiences of various college struggles-especially those of the Polys- indicates that the LCDSU can become a mass force on this basis. In so far as it is successful, the organisations of the revolutionary left will be numerically swamped by forces who by no means accept the full program of revolutionary Marxism.
rioration in staff/student ratios, to any increase in the number of terms per year, to any restriction of choice of college to be attended, to any enforcement of a particular course of study.
(b) the LCDSU demands provision of adequate accommodation and maintenance grants tied to the cost of living and opposes absolutely any attempt to introduce loans. (c) the LCDSU is opposed to the financing of any part of higher education by capitalist enterprises, all finance to be provided by the State. It is opposed to the direct tying of college courses and apartments to any public or private enterprises within the capitalist system. No to the business college (d) it is opposed to the binary system or any other scheme which creates a hierarchy of qualifications within the higher education system. For this reason, it is opposed to the James proposals which create yet another division in the introduction of a two-year diploma.
Democracy and Participation: the idea that higher education can be progressively dejocratised rests on the premise that colleges are above the needs of social classes and that the content of education is neutral and universal. Education under capitalism is not provided for the free all round development of the potentialities of the working class. On the contrary, it exists at once to ensure reproduction of the exploitative relations of capitalism and to provide skilled manpower in all forms for capitalist Iousty Participation is therefore not a way of ensuring a say in these transformations and will not in any way alter the fundamental course of the state. Representation and participation are simply a tactic of the state to ensure collaboration of students with the aims of the bourgeoisie and we are therefore opposed to this.
The free university or anti-institution can only be understood as a tactic of struggle. Students are not the carriers of an alternative mode of production and cannot effect the transformation to socialism. In particular, there cannot be socialism in one college.
The LCDSU will however, struggle for the power of veto over any attempt to transform higher education. This is not to be understood primarily, if at all, in Flat to let-London £4.50p.w. inc. For the month of August. IMG member/sympathiser preferred. Write to Daniel Rose c/o Red Mole.
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8. The basis for membership of the LCDSU should be acceptance of the basic tactical line of the organ.
isation on the fight for autonomy and against the "technocratic reform", and acceptance of the need to strategically link these struggles with the struggles of the working class and the anti-imperialist movements. It should not be conditional on acceptance on any particular line on, for example, Ireland, or the struggle against the Industrial Relations Act. Any attempt to make the basis for membership acceptance of a full revolutionary programme would involve turning our backs on the objective potentialities present within the LCDSU.
9. All forces within the organisation should, of course be free to agitate within it for their particular policies on all questions of the class struggle in Britain and internationally, and they should be able to try to achieve support from the LCDSU for their analysis and actions (as for example presently exists in the irish question) but on no account should they be allowed to make acceptance of these a pre-condition for membership. To*do so would be to try to turn the LCDSU into an RSSF type organisation which would have very limited potential and would involve abandoning in practice the duty of revolutionaries in the student field to organise the student masses on the side of the working class BOYOTCHE institutional forms. It is the description of the sort of struggle needed to effect even temporarily the transformations which colleges undergo. It is an indication of the line of mass struggle directly counterposed to, on the one hand, representation, negotiation and pressure, and on the other hand, the utopian 'free" institution. While we reject participation in representation as an overall strategy, opposing to it the student veto, nonetheless in specific circumstances we may choose to participate in "so-called' representative structures on a tactical basis.
Democracy in the NUS: In order that these policies can be fought for in the most effective way possible and that policies when adopted are implemented, th LCDSU campaigns for the following changes in the NUS structure: (a) a yearly election of all executive committee mem bers and the right of immediate recall; (b) executive meetings to be open to all members of the union; (c) all negotiated agreements to be ratified by whole membership with simple majority deciding: (d) complete overhaul of constitution and prosedure to simplify debating and decision making; (e) election by constituent organisations" Union general meetings of all delegates and observers to And in the structure of local unions: (a) that all executive officers and members are directly elected from Union general meetings; (b) that all executive officers and members be recallable to Union general meetings by a simple majority.
Student Worker Solidarity: the LCDSU recognises that the battle to defeat the aims of the bourgeoisie in higher education will not be decided simply inside colleges themselves— what is possible in the colleges will depend on the overall balance of forces in the class struggle. Moreover, not being carriers of an alternative mode of production, students are dependent on the actions of the working class to smash those relations of production which oppress them. Therefore the LCDSU pledges itself to support for the workers in struggle.
Solidarity with all Anti-Imperialist struggles: the LCDSU adopts a parallel position in relation to the international class struggle. It pledges support for all anti-imperialist struggles.
EDITORIAL BOARD: Tariq Ali, Dave Bailey, Robin Blackburn, J.R.Clynes, Peter Gowan, Alan Jones, Pat Jordan, Branka Magas, Martin Meteyard, Bob Purdie, Daniel Rose.
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