At this year’s national conference of the National Union of Students, held in Liverpool, three delegates from the Marxist Student Federation made an intervention with a fringe event on capitalist crisis and education, by distributing a bulletin spreading Marxist ideas, and by selling the Socialist Appeal newspaper. Through this action we were able to meet a number of students enthusiastic about learning more about Marxism.
On 26th-27th March 2014, student unions organised a strike of university students across Spain in response to the austerity measures being implemented by the right-wing government against public education. We publish here a report by Arturo Rodriguez of the Oxford Marxist Society, who took part in the strike at the University of Alicante, which gives a background to the strike and a comparison to the situation in Britain.
This academic year has seen significant steps forward for students fighting for the ideas of Marxism on their campuses. This has been reflected in the success of the founding conference of the Marxist Student Federation (MSF) in February 2014, and also in the campaigning and election of Marxists as student representatives in a number of universities.
Hidden away in all the smoke being generated by the Tories about the economy is the grim reality that youth unemployment remains scandalously high in Britain today. Nearly a million youth are officially on the dole, about 19% of the total. Felix Lighter reports on the grim future for youth under capitalism.
The annual conference of the National Union of Students is being held in couple of weeks time in April. On the agenda for this year’s conference are amendments and motions submitted by members of the Marxist Student Federation. Marxist students from UCL, Sheffield and Cambridge universities will be attending the NUS conference as delegates from their universities, elected on a fighting programme of socialist policies for the NUS.
Saturday 15th February 2014 will go down as a historical day for the student movement in the UK, as it saw around 70 student represenatives from 20 Marxist societies across the country, along with international visitors, meeting in London for the founding conference of the Marxist Student Federation. The conference was a great success, and marked an important step forward for the Marxist students in Britain.
The SOAS Marxists enthusiastically welcome the initiative of a group of staff and students to launch the “Democratise SOAS” campaign, which has seen strong support with over 200 people at a recent meeting. But what is the next step for the struggle for student-staff democracy in our universities?
With only one week to go until the founding conference of the Marxist Student Federation, we publish here the full agenda for the one-day conference, being held in SOAS, London, on Saturday 15th February. We encourage all our student readers to attend what promises to be a fantastic event.
For young people today, the situation under capitalism is particularly bad. They are the forgotten generation, dumped by a system in crisis. A new official report from the United Nations reveals that global youth unemployment has now reached dangerous levels.
Across the world, the youth are facing the most severe impacts of the global crisis of capitalism. However, they have also consistently been at the forefront of the revolutionary movements against the system, most recently in Turkey and Brazil. Nick Parker of the Leeds Marxists looks at youth unemployment today and the radicalising effect it is having on consciousness.
We warmly invite our student readers to the Marxist Student Federation’s founding conference, to be held in London on Saturday 15th February, 10am-6pm, with sessions on: the relevance of Marxism; perspectives for the student movement in Britain; and a discussion on the strategy of the Marxist Student Federation. This one-day conference promises to be an important step forward for the Marxist students in Britain.
The streets of London were filled yesterday – Wednesday 11th December – with thousands of students angry against the presence of police on university campuses and the increasingly violent use of force by the police against student protests. The stage is now set to build for mass national action between students and university workers next year.