The world is on fire – in some places, literally – with fatal consequences. Trump’s presidency guarantees only one thing: the next period will be one of deep instability.
This can feel so big and far away, but the reality is this chaos is impacting all of our day to day lives.
When going to university, students are presented with an idealised ‘student life experience’, but for many it’s nothing but a pipe dream. Course closures, cuts to healthcare and social services, bars and venues closing down, all in conjunction with inflation and high rent means students find themselves struggling to get by.
40 percent of Britain’s universities will run a budget deficit according to the Office for Students, with many of these universities on the brink of bankruptcy. This is resulting in at least 67 institutions engaging in ‘redundancy and restructuring’ programmes.
On top of this, Starmer broke yet another promise only months into assuming office. Instead of abolishing tuition fees as promised in 2020, he further increased it to an all-time high of £9,535 per year.
Student politics, which reached a peak last year with university encampments, has suffered a drastic repressive response from university management. There were victories in some places, but they have not carried into the new year.
What can we do?
In those conditions, an important question is often raised: what can we actually do?
The role of a revolutionary communist student is to answer this question. Real answers are needed about why the world is the way it is, and what we can do to change it. It was Lenin who explained ‘without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement.’
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It’s for this reason that the Revolutionary Communist Party will be relentless in raising the banner of communism on campus.
We will be putting on meetings, reading groups and events. We are waging an ideological battle against the fog that is present at universities to clarify: What is imperialism? Where does war come from? What is the state? Is a revolution possible? And what is the role of a communist student in the class war?
We invite everyone who is searching for answers to these questions to our events, and to join our ranks.
We are looking to train a core group of revolutionary students at every university that can pick up the fight. That can mobilise students and staff collectively against university management, yes – but also to take part in the wider struggle against this government and the rotten system it represents.
Back to the campuses
Alex Falconer, Cardiff
Two weeks into 2025 and I already know ‘dovetail’ is going to be my word of the year. As the word suggests, the main thing we’ve been discussing in Wales and the West is how best to tie different aspects of branch work together.
In Cardiff and Bristol, there is huge potential to turn the universities into serious strongholds for the party. Both districts already have a large number of students and last semester showed us the huge potential that exists to recruit more.
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When I joined the party, I was always advised to build where you are strong. With that in mind, preparing in these districts to prepare to orient all branches towards the universities.
Our aim is to return to a programme of weekly open meetings, making sure comrades are prepared politically and build for them meticulously.
We’ll do this by aligning branch education discussions with the weekly open meetings, to both raise our own level of comrades and create an environment that exposes those we meet to a wide array of Marxist theory.
Our paper sales and stalls will be focussed on campuses; experience shows this is how we build for the meetings and add to the strong base we have at each university.
Imagine what we’ll be able to do with 20-30 students on campus, steeled in Marxist theory and embedded in the life of the university. We’ll become the leading political force on campus and an influential factor in future events.
We’re not reinventing the wheel, but strengthening all aspects of the branch and making sure we’re focussing all our energy where we’re strongest, because ‘he who has the youth, has the future’.
