As the November conference of RSSF approaches it is becoming clear that many important questions concerning the student movement and our tasks within it will not be fully examined, let alone answered over the weekend of November 8th-10th. It is therefore necessary for those of us who wish RSSF to establish itself as the vanguard organisation of the student movement to try to ensure that the conference concentrates on the most essential problems.
We must face the fact that no revolutionary organisation can live on conferences alone. It must develop a successful revolutionary "PRAXIS" which deepens its roots in the mass and drives it forward to higher levels of political struggle. And yet in Britain socialist student activity at the NATIONAL level has been centred almost entirely on conferences of one kind or another. NALSO saw itself as the student section of the organised labour movement and accepted the established channels of communication inside that movement: therefore it was never more alive than when voting on resolutions at its annual conferences. Its aims were revolutionary enough perhaps but it wasn't a revolutionary ORGANISATION, because it lacked any revolutionary practice. NALSO as a national body was simply a forum for debating the problems which concerned the local socialist societies. RSA has also failed to show any revolutionary potential. The explanation for this most often heard is that its leaders were reformist or stalinist or both. This is at best only part of the explanation and it betrays a paralysing idealism on the part of those who put it forward. For the basic reason for the death of RSA as a national organisation has been its failure to involve the student mass in meaningful collective action - meaningful both in the sense of touching the actual grievances felt by students and in the sense of demonstrating an effective form of struggle. In other words, like NALSO, RSA has lacked any kind of revolutionary practice: it has lived only in the world of ideas, only at conferences - its own or those of NUS.
It became evident at the RSSF conference in the summer that the new organisation is in danger of succumbing to this old disability. Some comrades seem to harbour the belief that to be revolutionary simply means to hold and expound revolutionary ideas. Others, less deluded and more numerous, are aware that revolutionary politics is nothing if not political action but can envisage such action only at the local level: for them the function of a national organisation became that simply of a channel of communication for the exchange of ideas and experiences. This may be a tenable view in the present situation but if we accept it we must be aware of its implications for RSSF as a national organisation: RSSF then becomes a club for revolutionaries, a centre of debate, and not a revolutionary organisation. In other words to accept such a view is to wish for nothing more than a revival of NALSO under a new name. If this perspective is adopted in November a crucial opportunity will have been lost.
A third tendency was evident at the LSE conference: those comrades who recognised the need for action on a national scale, the need for RSSF to establish itself as a national political force but who would seem content to leave the working out of such plans of action to an executive body elected by the conference. If previous experience of such student executives is any guide, it would seem probable that the energy and resourcefulness required of such an executive would be more than it could be expected to possess. That being the case RSSF would very rapidly degenerate into a scene of sterile denunciations of the leadership such as has been such a marked feature of student politics in the past.
Thus, those of us who wish to see RSSF as a genuinely revolutionary organisation of British students should try to ensure that the November conference focuses attention on the central problem of developing a revolutionary practice. But we must go further than simply winning the conference's approval for the principle of such a perspective: we must try to commit RSSF to a specific plan of action, a particular campaign which it can develop during the months after the conference.
There would seem to be at least three criteria for judging the efficacy of such plans:
1) the demands they make on the resources available to RSSF.
2) the degree to which they exploit the specific opportunities open to RSSF in the present situation,
3) the degree to which they raise the level of consciousness of the mass and open the way for a broader and stronger assault on the bastions of the British ruling class,
1. At the present time, the membership of RSSF is almost entirely confined to students, and university students at that. Secondly, while the revolutionary left is undoubtedly the most politically energetic section of university students, it is in most cases far from occupying a position of hegemony within the student community. Thirdly there is great variation in the struggle of the left from one university to another. Acceptance of these limitations means recognition of the fact that any NATIONAL action on the part of RSSF must be [illegible] a particular issue which confronts ALL university students. (This does NOT mean, of course, that the work of LOCAL RSSF branches should be limited to the university campus). Further, [illegible] required of both the membership and the executive should correspond to their level of commitment and of political development and with the resources of time and money available to RSSF,
2. Any campaign must be grounded on the specific grievances felt by students in their daily lives. The forms of action which RSSF opens up for students must take account of both the general level of consciousness and of the wide variations in mood from one university to another at any given time. Only then will students begin to see the need for, and relevance of, RSSF.
3. The issue, or issues, on which RSSF chooses to act should be ones which will tend to throw up other questions in the minds of students and which will lead them forward to their demands which the ruling class will be unable to meet. Further, there is much evidence that the most explosive sectors of the educational system in Britain may at present lie outside the universities, in other areas of higher education and perhaps in the secondary schools. It is therefore very important that the actions of RSSF should be orientated to rapidly broadening its base outside the universities.
This may be a useful framework for beginning the urgent task of working out in the most concrete detail a campaign that could win acceptance at the November conference. I will finally suggest one possible campaign - national action against the examination system: RSSF could call for a national stoppage for one day in the spring term in all universities, a day in which students could discuss the question of examinations and how to abolish them. Local RSSF branches could set up ad hoc committees to prepare for the day-long strike against the exams. The central organisation of RSSF could prepare literature and produce posters and arrange for speakers to tour the country building up support at local meetings. The advantages of such a campaign would be the explosiveness of the exam issue amongst students, the appeal of the campaign beyond the universities and the possibility of running it at a level which would be within the capacities of RSSF.
There will have to be exhaustive discussions on each proposed campaign for the next period in the life of RSSF. What this paper seeks to establish is that the central concern of the November conference should be with developing a plan of action at a national level. The questions of programme and organisation cannot be given any final form at this stage. A programme can be put together as the movement develops. The nature of the organisation set up in November should depend on the tasks RSSF sets itself. The most fundamental of these tasks is the development of revolutionary political action.