Nowhere is the
abysm between leadership and rank and file more seemingly unbridgeable than in
the student movement. In 2009, students in the UK have spontaneously occupied
universities to protest Israel’s
war on Gaza, to
fight against deportations of university cleaning staff, and against massive
cuts in teaching staff. At the same time, they face the worst attacks on their conditions
in living memory in the form of increasing fees, the end of grants, and the
vanishing jobs market. This is clearly an explosive combination.
On the other
hand, the leadership of the student movement (i.e. the NUS leaders, led by Wes
Streeting), charged with defending students in an era where compromise is
clearly not a possibility, has abandoned any pretence of an opposition to
student fees, and also recently won its fight to eliminate democracy from the
union.
This situation
has led many student activists to despair at the NUS itself and various cries
for a campaign to launch a new, more democratic NUS have been heard, emanating
particularly from Sussex
University, a place long
known for a high level of activism. In so far as we think a more democratic,
fighting national union is needed, Socialist Appeal is
sympathetic to such calls. However, it is not sufficient to merely recognise
a symptom, or even the root of the problem itself. This is important, but it is
only one side of the task and by itself such an attitude is completely
inadequate for solving the problems of students. If we are serious about
this, we must understand why the NUS is like this and, in considering this,
on what basis we may establish a fighting, democratic students union. Socialist
Appeal inside
the NUS does not think that those student activists calling for a new NUS
have conducted such a study, taking into account the history and conditions of
the student movement and, as a result, are mistaken in their conclusions. The
struggle for a democratic and fighting students union must take place
As we have said,
the contradiction between the mood and conditions of students and the student
leadership, is great. In fact, it would be difficult for the chasm to be much
greater. It is likely that this contradiction, which really represents the
lingering of yesterday’s leadership, yesterday’s mood of compromise, will soon
cause convulsions which can throw a much more left-wing leadership into power
quickly. The question is, how do we, as student activists, help to resolve this
contradiction? It is certainly not by setting up a completely separate and new
NUS with an ideal constitution, which would in reality be empty and even more
removed from the mass of students it claims to represent.
First of all we
must be realistic and take into account the fact that the NUS is a very
peculiar union indeed. Not only do most of its members (of which there are many
millions) have membership for only three years, but they also generally become
members when they are very young. As well as this, the NUS is not one union, but
quite a loose federation of many small students unions. This means that
students are generally quite unaware of their leadership, what to expect from a
union, and how to participate in the NUS. This also means that the traditions
are weaker. Students are also generally members automatically, unlike other
unions. This means they have not actively chosen to participate in the union,
or been recruited through some campaign. Finally, the NUS does not represent
workers, at least not primarily. Students, as students, do not engage in
socialised production under the exploitation of a boss. They work individually
and competitively, and come from a range of different backgrounds, and most
importantly are moving towards (at least in their heads) different classes.
What does all
this mean? First of all, it means that due to the looseness of the NUS, and the
intellectual characteristic of the student’s aims, sectarianism is rife in the
student movement. It is all too easy for student activists to separate
themselves from the mass of students, into warring grouplets representing the
various, usually honourable ideals of activists. The fact that university is
supposed to be the place where people lay the basis for a career, is also part
of the reason why there is so much careerism in the student movement, a
phenomenon we are all opposed to.
For these
reasons, a sense of history, a broad analysis of the way in which the student
movement must develop as it turns to the left and patience whilst we engage in
the long and non-linear task of helping build this movement, are absolutely
necessary to ensure we do not slip into sectarianism and cut ourselves off from
the mass of students, looking for quick solutions and eventually growing
frustrated and giving up.
But the conditions
of the student movement described so far are, on their own, too pessimistic. Many
times it has been said that the mood of the students is like a barometer of
society, anticipating the coming radicalisation of the labour movement. This is
because students are free from the burdens of tradition and routine, are often
engaged in the questioning of our society in their studies, and tend to have
more free time than workers. And although the latter factor is being
significantly undermined by the increasing proletarianisation of student life
(indeed, the vast majority of students work part-time in term time, just to
cover basic expenses and to avoid slipping into too much debt), this also means
that as well as most students now coming from a working class background, most
suffer some of the worst exploitation in a workplace.
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| The NUS must be reclaimed,not abandoned to careerists |
In this way,
students are embroiled more and more in the problems of workers and the labour
movement. And thanks to the unprecedented economic attacks students are facing
since the introduction of top-up fees and withdrawal of grants, both of which
effectively went unchallenged by the NUS leadership, students are consequently painfully
aware of the crisis of employment which affects them most severely. Finally,
students are badly affected by the housing crisis, since they are forced into
some of the worst housing conditions under the control of some of the most
crooked landlords, which is a scandal. These are all problems faced by students
en masse, and the distance between the ideal of student life, and the
reality, has the potential to cause mass student unrest.
Now we have
already stated that there is a vast chasm between the leadership of the NUS,
who in reality represent only the atomisation and lack of time of the mass of
students, and those they claim to represent. Part of the reason for this, as
was said, is the aspects of careerism inherent in areas of student life.
Clearly a small layer of students desire a career in politics and the NUS is
the best existing platform for their ambitions. By and large, they do not care
about the NUS itself, of have any real understanding of students’ interests –
it is historical accident that the platform for their careers as bourgeois
politicians is in a union.
But why are such
people elected to represent students, if they do not care about them? It would
be completely wrong to draw the pessimistic conclusion that students are
right wing – for one thing those elected do not run on a right-wing platform
(they could hardly say ‘vote for me and I will do nothing about top-up fees’),
generally they run on vaguely leftish programmes. But they do not carry them
out. Why are they allowed to get away with it with so little fuss – and why do
more or less the same characters get elected again the following year?
One fact stares
us in the face – the absence of the mass participation of students in their own
union. As with workers, a student’s time is limited, and thanks to a heavy
workload and having to work to pay the bills, he or she will most likely keep
their head down for the duration of university, whatever they think about their
conditions. It is also true that students have been progressively alienated by
the weakness of their own leaders, who inspire no confidence in the students at
all. The responsibility for this must be laid on the shoulders of the NUS
leaders.
Furthermore,
students are reliant upon the situation in society as a whole – if the working
class is in no mood to fight, this atmosphere will pervade society and in turn
universities. It is very difficult for students to win serious reforms without
the participation of workers in their struggle, because these reforms are tied
up with the political and economic condition of society as a whole – for
instance, the return of grants would require a massive increase in education
spending for all, and an end to the problems of housing would require a
national programme of house building. However, it should be added that the
increasing proletarianisation of students has massively increased the likelihood
of a mass student-worker movement for reforms.
Rather than
being a positive representation of the state of the mood of students, the
careerist leadership of the NUS is merely a negative image of the student mood
– the frustrations and patience (which is reaching breaking point) of the
students, has allowed an entirely separate section to establish what looks like
a talking shop with no reference to students at all.
Now since the
basis for this hopeless leadership lies in the withdrawal of student participation,
and nothing else, we must say that all attempts to set up a rival and more
radical NUS are doomed to failure and bureaucratic mess. If this leadership is
the expression, and not the cause, of the withdrawal of students, then no
amount of left-wing electoral combinations, organised completely independently
of a mass student movement, will have any effect.
This is to say
nothing of the attempt to set-up a new NUS independently of the mass of
students in the hope that they will later see sense and join. In reality, in
such a climate of a lack of student participation, a new student union
established without their involvement or consent will inevitably pass by the
majority of students unnoticed. And we must add that when the students do move en
masse, it will be because they need to, to defend and improve their
conditions. It will not because they are disgusted by the right-wing leadership
and attracted by the saintly appearance of the untarnished-because-unused
alternative student’s union, if it ever even comes into existence.
We are in
complete agreement with other activists over the disastrous state of NUS
democracy following the governance review, which passed an ‘extraordinary
conference’ that was called for January 2009. These rules will certainly make
our tasks harder, mainly because the leadership will hide behind the rules and
the ‘advice’ of the ‘experts’ that are now called in to tell the NUS to cut its
services. Socialist Appeal was completely opposed to the governance
review and recognises its passing as a step back.
However, it
would be extremely melodramatic to give up on the NUS on the basis of some
bureaucratic rules. If we adopted such a stance, how would we ever participate
in the struggle to overthrow capitalism, which places all sorts of
‘insurmountable’ barriers of rules to our eventual goal. Although the new rules
may represent a real step back, was the NUS beforehand not extremely
bureaucratic? Why now has it suddenly undergone a qualitative transformation,
and become so much material for time wasting and nothing else? This has not
been explained. These activists merely tell us ‘the process of
bureaucratisation has become irreversible, we must abandon ship and construct a
new organisation!’
When we look at
an organisation, particularly one of struggle such as the NUS, do we see simply
a collection of rules? And if that were the case, how would such an
organisation ever change its rules? If the NUS’ previous rules were not too
bureaucratic, why, and how, did they transform into more bureaucratic rules?
But rules are
only ever ink on paper, or light on a screen. They reflect today’s (or more
often, yesterday’s) balance of social forces in the given organisation. It is
entirely possible that for a time the NUS could come under the pressure of a
mass movement of students, resulting in a much more left-wing leadership, whilst
retaining today’s undemocratic structures. Such an NUS would in reality be
much more democratic than an empty alternative NUS with the most democratic
constitution, but which meant nothing to most students.
The history of
the NUS is itself proof of this process. It was formed in 1922 when the
majority of students in the Universities were drawn from the wealthy.
Generally, students were overwhelmingly hostile to the labour movement, as
their behaviour in the General Strike of 1926 demonstrated (bus loads of
students were bussed in as strike breakers). The NUS was strictly
‘non-political’, in other words completely accepted the frame-work within which
it worked and avoided any criticism of the status quo. It was exclusively
concerned with student welfare and conditions in the most narrow context.
The leadership
of the NUS saw it as an ‘educational pressure group’ and prided themselves on
their good relations with the Department of Education. Needless to say, a
position on the NUS Executive was seen as an important stepping stone to a good
career in the professions, the civil service or the bureaucracies of the Tory
Party, the Labour Party or the trade unions.
But this began
to change in the early 1960s. Expansion of higher education drew in not only
much larger numbers of students, but students from much wider social strata,
including a proportion of working class students. Rapid expansion gave rise to
new tension in the universities. At the same time, the students, who can be
regarded as a barometer of underlying trends in society, began to sense
impending change and to move in unconscious anticipation of a new awakening of
the labour movement. This was bound to shake up the student unions and bring
changes in the NUS itself.
In 1965 the NUS
supported the NUT’s salaries campaign and organised protests against the
government’s reactionary White Paper on Immigration, which had serious
implications for overseas students. At the same time, there was growing
discontent at the undemocratic, bureaucratic structure of the NUS, especially
on the part of the new universities and those older universities which had
managed to democratise their student unions. How else could an undemocratic
union, representing the social composition of the past, transform itself into a
democratic one, representing the new social composition?
In 1967 came the
most significant development, the formation of the Radical Student Alliance. The RSA was formed against the background of widespread
dissatisfaction among students at the NUS. A series of no-confidence votes
in the NUS executive was passed in Student Unions throughout the country.
Needless to say, many student activists, exasperated with the historical
cronyism and careerism of the NUS, abandoned it. But in the end, the NUS was
transformed, from within and by a mass student movement, into a more
democratic union. There is no reason why this cannot and will not happen today.
As we described
above, the mass of students will not move according to theoretical analysis and
ideals. They will not be attracted to the principled politics and fighting talk
of activists if they do not see themselves reflected in it, i.e. if these
activists are organisationally cut off from the vast majority of students. The
working class and students do not view their own movement as a source of
intellectual pride, but as a necessary collective struggle against their
current conditions. The first port of call is therefore the largest
organisation in (perceived) opposition to the status quo.
Since the
leadership of the NUS actually represents the adaptation to the status quo, the
mass student movement against the status quo must initially take the form of a
struggle in the NUS against this leadership. Hence the above example of the
movement in the NUS in 1967. We should also add that students will not
immediately realise that the NUS leadership represents the status quo.
This is the
logic of the movement which necessitates that activists participate patiently
in the NUS (and outside it, where possible) to win the struggle against the
present leadership and their governance review.
Many activists,
in their frustration, have understandably labelled the post-governance review
NUS a ‘charity’ or ‘pressure group’, rather than a democratic fighting union.
We are also told that the NUS means nothing to students now, and that it is
little more than a body to get cheaper beer and TopShop discounts. First of, we
must point out that, given the financial difficulties and stress of student
life, a union which organises social activities and cheaper products is not
meaningless to students and should not be abandoned.
If, as some
activists have argued, a new NUS is built by ‘vanguard’ universities such as Sussex
disaffiliating and forming their own independent and radical union, what would
this mean? It would mean forcing higher prices onto students at Sussex, and it
would mean occupying leading Sussex
activists’ time with organising the complex and slow task of forming a new
national student organisation, bit by bit, when we already have one. This would
in fact be much more bureaucratic and time wasting than struggling to
democratise the NUS we have now. For this reason, we disagree with those
activists who have argued that to engage in such a struggle would be a
bureaucratic waste of time, as if establishing a whole new national union
structure would be quick and painless.
Organising
independently of the mass of students will lead to a dead end. One cannot
create an organisation ideally, declare it, and then realise it by waiting for
everyone to join and give it life. An organisations structures are an
expression of an already existing membership. In one article, an activist
involved in this movement even complains that his motion that the ‘new NUS’
“take on flesh and blood” was not supported! But flesh and blood cannot be
created by ink and paper! Unfortunately you cannot vote it into existence!
As regards the
above statement that the NUS is merely a charity or pressure group, and some
sort of consumer’s association, we believe that those who draw this conclusion
are making another mistake. It is one for thing for the NUS to be this in the
eyes of its current leadership, quite another in the eyes of students. To
confuse leadership with organisation as a whole can have dangerous conclusions.
According to this logic, the 87% of students who voted against
NUS disaffiliation at Sussex (which was the one place this was likely to go
through on a left wing basis – the Guardian here lists the vast array of
other student unions to reject disaffiliation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2003/nov/20/students.uk)
are clearly in favour of such a superficial union, and are therefore a lost
cause to activists. Either that, or they do not see the NUS as merely a
charity, and actually value its mass structure as a powerful tool for student
interests.
In actual fact,
it is for precisely this reason that on most campuses the Tories, whilst using
the NUS to further their careers, tend to launch campaigns for disaffiliation.
They understand that it is a mass organisation, and would prefer it to be
weakened, benefiting rich universities and rich students. We should not align
ourselves with such people.
The historic
task for the student movement is the building of a fighting union, linked to
the labour movement in struggle against privatisation and fees, and for grants
and a mass programme of green house building. The conditions and rights of
students have criminally been allowed to fall some way off what they once were.
But we do not want simply to go back to the situation of post-war grants. That is not enough. If we limit ourselves to
this, we will be weakened and driven even further back than where we are now.
The present
crisis of capitalism has destroyed the bourgeois state’s capacity to provide
serious education reforms. The whole situation demands that students struggle
with workers nationally and internationally to overthrow capitalism and
transform society. The experiences in Europe
of 1968, and the recent university and factory occupations throughout Europe and the world, show that this is possible if we
adopt the right strategy and tactics. Ultimately, the struggle for this
movement lies within the NUS and the mass workers organisations. It can
only be achieved by patient work. And it is the mass of the students and
workers, not handfuls of sincere activists, that will transform these
organisations.
