In the past three weeks, the Revolutionary Communist Party’s ‘freshers offensive’ campaign is off to a flying start!
Our comrades have been out in force at freshers fairs up and down the country: Anglia Ruskin, Bath Spa, Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Cheltenham, Derby, Edinburgh, Edinburgh Napier, Exeter, Glasgow, Hull, KCL, Lancashire, Leeds, Leeds Arts, Leeds Beckett, Leicester, Lincoln, Liverpool, London City, LSE, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, QMUL, Reading, Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam, SOAS, Southampton, Sussex, UEA, York – the list goes on and on…
The results already speak volumes. More than 35 new recruits have joined the RCP straight away; hundreds more have signed up to get involved with our Marxist and Communist Societies; at least 1,000 copies of The Communist have been sold, thousands of leaflets have been handed out, and our books, pamphlets, and magazines are flying off the stalls.
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Appetite for Marxism
One of the most striking things has been the students’ appetite for Marxist theory. They approach our stalls with an open mind, saying things like: “I agree that capitalism sucks, but I don’t know anything about communism. I want to learn more.”
Branches have reported that students have been very excited at the idea of study groups on Marxist classics like the Communist Manifesto and State and Revolution, as well as our recently republished What Is Marxism?.
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One student in Liverpool took out money from her savings solely to stock up on Marxist literature. Meanwhile, two first-year students in Preston even bought every single copy of In Defence of Marxism we had available on the stall, in order to study them together.
There is a hunger for clear ideas; students are seeking a rational explanation of the chaotic world around us. They know that they have no future under capitalism, but they want to know the way forward as well.
This is exactly what we offer at the RCP, through our public discussions on campus, our reading groups and day schools, as well as national events like the upcoming Revolution Festival.
As one student remarked to us, pointing to the wealth of literature on our stall: “You guys take this stuff seriously – you’re the real deal!”
Electric mood
Everywhere we have mobilised, we have found an electric mood.
At King’s College London, over 80 students signed up, with 15 of them joining comrades in the pub afterwards for lively conversations ranging from Farage and right-wing populism, to the lessons of the USSR, anarchism, and the importance of philosophy.
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At the nearby London School of Economics, one comrade remarked: “I had assumed LSE would be far more conservative, but that wasn’t the case at all. The most common reason people gave for being interested in communism was simply ‘the state of the world’.”
Down in Sussex, comrades turned up in big numbers, riding the wave of explosive growth in the branch following our recruitment campaign. The mood there is electric, with members eager to build a strong communist presence on campus. They managed to get 76 sign-ups, and 8 students joined a reading group the next day, eager to learn more.
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In Manchester, Fiona Lali kicked off her nationwide university tour by addressing a packed room of over 60 students.
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At the University of Lancashire in Preston, meanwhile, the newly-affiliated Marxist Society reported a record attendance at their opening ‘Why you should be a communist’ discussion.
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Join the Gen-Z revolution!
Everywhere we go, students are not only interested in communism, but are also deeply engaged with the struggles going on across the globe.
Palestine comes up time and again, but young people are also following events in Indonesia and Nepal, and want to know what these ‘Gen-Z revolutions’ mean and how we can learn from them.
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In Newcastle and at London City University, students were discussing the recent revolution in Nepal, and drew connections to the urgent need for radical change here in Britain in the face of the cost-of-living crisis, falling living standards, and the rise of Reform.
At the Sussex stall, we spoke to a student from Indonesia who expressed disappointment that the revolution there seemed unclear in its aims, and said she was hoping for genuine radical change.
When we explained the decisive role of leadership and the need for a revolutionary party to bring the working class to power, she immediately agreed. She recognised that this was exactly what had been missing, and left eager to learn more about the ideas of Marxism.
From Edinburgh to Exeter, from London to Leeds, the mood is the same. There is a real thirst for revolutionary ideas. Students everywhere are looking for clarity, for theory, and for a revolutionary way forward – and they are finding it in the Revolutionary Communist Party.
And we’re only just getting started. Next week we have Cambridge, Durham, Lancaster, Oxford, Warwick, and more. So stay tuned for further updates!
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