Now that the second conference of the RSSF has taken place, let us try to assess what was achieved there, and where the revolutionary student movement goes from here.
First of all, the reformist element in British student politics (the advocates of reform within the [illegible] significant force. That in itself is a healthy development. The conference was united on the point that students could not achieve their aims within the capitalist system, or without uniting with the working class to smash that system. Yet there was a clear split on two decisive, and linked, questions. Firstly, how can the mass of students be won to a revolutionary socialist position; and secondly, how do students unite with workers?
The question of how to develop a programme which can mobilise large numbers of students in opposition to the educational system, and to the whole system of capitalism, is the most crucial one for revolutionary students. A minority at the conference (somewhat less than one-third) put forward what was in my opinion a most un-marxist view, though they loudly proclaimed their marxism. Starting from the (correct) standpoint that student struggles are doomed to defeat unless linked to the struggle of the working class, they proceeded to condemn struggles for student demands as essentially reformist, and counterposed the perspective that students could be won to revolutionary politics by a combination of socialist propaganda and involvement in workers' struggles and anti-imperialist movements (e.g. Vietnam solidarity) - that is, struggles of which they are not organically [illegible]
The majority viewpoint, on the contrary, was that students can only be mobilised IN LARGE NUMBERS on demands related to their environment - demands for revolutionary change in the structure of higher education and its function in society, and, above all, control of their education. Such demands must be of a kind which can mobilise tens of thousands of students, but which cannot be granted within capitalism - that is, TRANSITIONAL DEMANDS. In the course of fighting for such demands, students can begin to understand the nature of the education system and its role in capitalist society; and be won to a revolutionary socialist position. In the course of such a struggle, universities and colleges can become "red bases" - centres of opposition to the capitalist system, and from there, IN AN ORGANISED WAY, not just as individuals, students can unite with workers in anti-capitalist struggles.
[illegible] committing RSSF to fight for the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with workers' power, and to educate its members as revolutionary socialists, made it clear that RSSF's immediate perspective was to mobilise students on the Action Programme for student power adopted on the first day of the conference.
The adoption of the Action Programme was the most important decision of the conference, and provides a framework within which RSSF can lead struggles in every educational institution involving really large numbers of students, and become a real mass movement. It incorporates the following six points: (1) all power to the general assembly of students, staff and workers - one man, one vote on the campus; (2) abolition of all exams and grading; (3) full democracy in access to higher education; (4) an end to bourgeois ideology - masquerading as education - in courses and lectures; (5) abolition of all inequality between institutions of higher education - against hierarchy and privilege; (6) break the authority of union bureaucracies - institute mass democracy.
The conference adopted a decentralised constitution. The main function of the national committee (entirely elected from the localities) will be to co-ordinate and provide information to the local sections. This was undoubtedly a correct decision at this time (though not an irreversible one, in my opinion). Given the present fairly weak state of most local organisations, any attempt to impose a political line from the centre could have led to serious fragmentation. The main task for revolutionary students now is to build mass bases in the localities on the basis of the action programme, so that the next RSSF conference in March, 1969, is representative of a large and viable revolutionary [illegible]