Which Way the Students & Youth - Some Important Questions
After a long period of lull as workers are showing signs of revolt and struggles, of late students and youth also seem to follow suit:
November 10, 2010, England - Tens of thousands of students marched noisily through London against plans to triple university fees in the largest street protest yet against government's sweeping austerity measures (Hindustan Times 11/11/10).
October 2010, France - Amidst workers' strikes and demonstrations against proposed pension reforms 'for the first time students and school students joined ... in large numbers.... Concerned both about their parents and the later retirement for older workers means fewer jobs for young....' ( www.jcmullan.fs./1010trans.html)
June 9, 2010, Germany - 85000 school, university and apprenticeship students went on strike against cuts in education, tuition fees and increasing pressure to 'perform' in education. This was the third strike in last year. (Mass Strikes for Education www.socialistworld.net)
November 2009, America - Last November, 4 years after Hong Kong WTO and 10 years after battle of Seattle... I was behind barricades again, that word (neo liberalism?Ed, FAPP) ringing in the air, this time at the University of California in Berkeley. 'Whose university? Our university!' echoed across the campus as student fought university police... 'No to privatisation' signs draped windows across campus (Students Perspective: New-liberalism how one Wonky term Just won't leave me alone ? Puck Lo)
Then three has been notable students and youth anti-war demonstrations against Iraq war in 2007 in America, the successful students protests against the proposed labour law to hire and fire young newly employed workers at ease - known as CPE in France, the repeated outbursts of Greek students and youth, sometimes against privatisation of education, then police shooting of a teenage boy...
The Hindu later covered the march of 50,000 students on November 10, 2010, England, in a column in the editorial page on November 23 ? "Britain headed for French-style protests?" by Hasan Suroor. The columnist commented, "The recent attack on the Conservative Party's London headquarters by angry university students protesting against the planned increase in tuition fee and cuts in higher education funding has sparked fears that it may prove to be the "tipping point" in the simmering public fury against Britain's six-month-old Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government. Anger against its decision to go ahead with massive spending cuts despite warnings that they would wreck the lives of millions of ordinary Britons has been building up for some time, and the success of the student protest, critics warn, may encourage other disaffected groups to take the plunge." That the masses of students became 'uncontrollable militants' could be confirmed by - "The Guardian warned that the impact of the students' march and their invasion of the Tory headquarters should not be underestimated. Although the violent tactics of some of the protesters were widely condemned (National Union of Students which had called the protest was the first to denounce them as "despicable"), the protest itself had significant public support, it was claimed." Hasan Suror informed us quoting from The Guardian, ""You do not have to believe that the country's students and lecturers are the most downtrodden victims of the coalition's spending cuts ... to recognise that they may be a lightning rod for wider public unease with the government's public spending strategy," the Guardian argued in an editorial "Demonstration effect." Its main front-page headline, the day after the protest, was: "This is Just the Beginning," a quote from a student leader."
Of course much of those are in advanced, imperialist world. The previous wave of struggles of students had been long time back in the famous 'spring of 1968' along with rising M-L struggles in many backward countries.... After which the revolutionary communist movement slid into degeneration and defeat.
The spontaneous outburst of students then rose up against the increasing stranglehold of big capital, the multinationals corporations over education system, the imperialist war and aggression in Vietnam, Palestine. In Nanterre, near Paris, the student leader of the uprising Daniel Cohn-Bendit said: "the present educational structure ensures that the majority of working class children are barred not only from the bourgeois society we are trying to overthrow, but also from the intellectual means to see through it" (1968-2007 Anti-War Student Movement Then & Now - Ron Jacob).
The students' campus occupations, confrontations with police spread throughout from Columbia University in U.S. to France, & other parts of Europe as even workers came out in large mobilizations in France. Reverberations of similar protests, and students struggles, often in active solidarity and support of workers and peasants struggles against price-rise, Mao-led CPC's fight against revisionism and capitalist roaders within the party, against imperialists' Vietnam aggression, blockade of infamous hero of Vietnam killings Robert McNamara's visit to Calcutta, held aloft the students revolutionary spirit of rising up with passion and consciousness against society's ills and exploitations. But with the advent of failure due to left- adventurism and the revisionist led degeneration here also the high tide of struggle gave way to a long lull and disorganization.
Today once again the ruling classes of France, Germany, Greece are apprehensive of revival of the students spirit of 'spring of 68'. So-called neo-liberal policies have been assaulting the workers but it has also made education system its target?through privatisation, fee-hikes, authoritarian laws to stifle rights of students and teachers and further bifurcate the total system?a separate education structure for elites and the other for the common masses, the would-be workers and toilers in small jobs.
On the other hand, in spite of curbs on students to react to social - political issues, and inculcating careerism, which in effect means serving the capitalist state and its industrial houses, the society's ills of so-called War-on-Terror, increasing authoritarianism of the state on the plea of it, financial crisis, and unemployment are stirring up the students and the youths.
Even in our country, the plans and recommendations of World Bank Taskforce On Higher Education, the Ambani-Birla Committee for Reforms in Education, the Lyngdoh Committee recommendation on student union elections are all harbingers of the same policies of the rulers.
In such a situation the positive thing that is being noticed is the stirring and starting of struggles of different section of masses - the workers in particular and now even the students and youths. Thus in this context like workers struggles, the struggles of students and youth is also more and more acquiring importance.
A student and youth organization Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS) working in and around Delhi University have raked up an interesting debate on the prospect and future course of the student organizations. In the absence of a revolutionary working class movement and a revolutionary party, those lofty ideals for which the student intensely surged forward widening their struggle to reach out in society in many ways are also absent from reality. But the sharpening of contradictions and injustice of society on the other hand is constantly drumming it into our ears that all is not well and the footsteps of coming struggles are also being heard in different parts of the globe. In such a situation KYS's polemics is like a fresh whiff in the air.
The debate was stirred up during the joint campaign of some students and teachers and their organizations in the name of University Community For Democracy (UCD) against the eviction of the Delhi-University students from hostels for the recent Commonwealth games. The KYS's criticisms, about the functioning of the UCD have raised many valid factual shortcomings of the present student organizations in general, no matter how little or more UCD in particular is afflicted by this - the university-centric approach of issues such as eviction in this case, the NGO like approach carrying on mere extra-curricular social activities, with 'good intention' to ameliorate the deprived, poor within this exploitative system and the elitist approach of token support and sympathy towards the workers and toiling masses of the society.
In contrast KYS brought out the much more important question of transforming student politics in alignment with working class politics. In fact the appreciable fact was that they did not bring that to the surface only in words but tried their utmost to follow it in their deeds when they mobilized unemployed youths from working class neighbourhoods along with the university students for their dharna and submission of memorandum regarding rent control to the Chief Minister of Delhi. Then they joined the workers dharna at Miranda house, at the Commonwealth Games labour camp in the Games village and polo grounds. They tried their best to bring the message before the students and youths that it was not only the evicted students that were affected by exorbitant rents, and it is not only their battle, a large multitude of common masses - workers and others are affected by the same policies of the state and liberation from this means preparation for a political struggle - a working class struggle. In spite of the fact that such basic points have been raised not standing amidst a student 'movement' involving a spontaneous struggle of mass of student but by mere propaganda, it is not merely on "form of politics" on which they have addressed but rather the content of student politics that they have discussed and debated - in effect which draws us towards a revolutionary working class viewpoint of student politics.
But certain extensions made by them on their thesis probably have scope for further examination on experience based on development of students' struggles. Admitting that students consist of different class background and they also follow different 'class trajectories' until they get themselves aligned in the different class positions vis-?-vis the production relation in society, they have recognized that ultimately the students' class position is determined later as a combination of class background from where they have come and the 'class process' through which they land up in the class hierarchy of society. They have said, hence if 'we don't see the different class position within [the student community ? ed-FAPP] (and its implication) we will land up reducing university politics into ... (having identifiable, common interest vis-?-vis other special entities and the state)' [More On What Continues To Ail University Democrats and The Likes! ? Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS)]
In this context they have pointed out to a very glaring reality of today's education system through out the world - the dual education system, which is being further divided sharply through the neo-liberal policies of privatisation and expensive courses which is further affecting even this country's already existing discriminatory system - the 'charvaha vidyalayas / Ekal School for children of agrarian workers and poor peasants; Navodayas for children of agrarian elites; Sarvodayas for children of urban working class; Kendriya Vidyalayas for children of Central Govt employees (a strata ... divided into ... petty bourgeois and working class positions); and expensive private school like Woodstock, Doon , Mayo, Modern, DPS etc... for you know whom'. [ Ibid]
Then further on in the same article they say, 'To sum up... for students politics to be truly transformative... address the class divisions present within the student body. It is only with consistent political work amongst working class students and working class youth... that organization can build a stable and formidable base for a consistent anti-systemic movement.... It is only when a strong base has been created within working class students and youth that the issues of other student can be galvanized (forming united fronts) affectively into an anti-systemic movement'.
Now the increasing dual nature of education system, more so in the present period of globalization is an undeniable fact. In fact many of the present student outbursts and struggles are directly targeting these ruling class policies. But if 'we don't see the different class position within ... we will end up reducing university politics into ... (having identifiable common interests...' or, 'for student politics to be truly transformative ... address the class division present within the student body....' ? Does such statements imply that simply their class backgrounds have to be recognized as final determinants of their class position! KYS themselves have criticised and debated one Paresh Kumar for theorizing student as workers and now how come that they have forgotten about their own logic that 'class background' and ' class trajectory' both of which together decide class position.
Lenin, in his The Task of the Revolutionary Youth (LCW Volume 7), recognized the existence of 'groups differing greatly in their political and social views'. To him, "The student would not be what they are if their political grouping did not correspond to the political grouping of society as a whole." But why? "... because" as Lenin explained "they are the most responsive section of the intelligentsia, and the intelligentsia are so-called just because they most consciously, most resolutely and most accurately reflect and express the development of class interests and political grouping as a whole."
Did Lenin say ' class divisions.... within student body'? No, he talked of political grouping of students where similar types of groups can be found in society also and the ultimate basis of which is class division of society. "But this ultimate basis becomes revealed only in the process of historical development and as the consciousness of the participants in and makers of that process grows. This 'final analysis' is arrived at only by political struggle, some times a long, stubborn struggle lasting years and decades...." [LCW Volume 7, Ibid] Later also in the same article Lenin argues - "The best refutation of the bourgeois democrat's phrases about unity is the course of political development and of the political struggle itself. And in Russia the growth of actual movement has already led to this kind of refutation.... As long as there was no real struggle, the academics did not stand out from the 'general student' mass and the unity of the whole 'thinking section' of the students appeared inviolable. But as soon as it came into action, the divergence of unlike elements became inevitable".
So it is the 'class trajectory' through which students pass and ultimately occupy a position in this class divided society that is far more important - but also not merely class trajectory in a passive sense of mobility of different sections that occur objectively upward or downward in society. In today's society even large sections of petty bourgeois are getting pauperised or swelling the ranks of the working class continually. From another angle the mere 5% to 7% of the youth that make it to the higher education in this country. Within that how much percentage comes from workers and poor toilers families? It must be a miniscule number. And when they come to this stage after much struggle at the individual level they land in a vortex of opportunities, competition and rat race for career building into which, generally, he or she is sucked in. Many lower class backward students get themselves co-opted into the system in this way.
Hence 'class trajectory' from a revolutionary working class viewpoint, means for students not only the ultimate positioning himself in the objective conditions of a worker, but also the revolutionising of such sections in a comparatively bigger scale under the influence of real revolutionary working-class struggle and socialist ideology or large scale social & political churning. In a much smaller scale it occurs at times of lull.
Probably among those comrades who stay steadily through this course towards adoption of working class ideology in word and deed ? those already coming from a worker or toiler family background may become a more consistent fighter, adapting to the revolutionary condition of life in a better way. Even the present sharpening contradiction of dual education system and unemployment etc... in society may objectively push forward a larger number of students of such background into the revolutionary struggle. But looking back at the history of post-revolution Russia or China, even on reaching the stage of transition to socialism after completion of the tasks of democratic revolution it is seen that the communist party leadership urged the students and youths to stay beside and learn from experience the rigours of revolutionary life of the working class in all spheres of production and society and politics to become real soldiers of socialist reconstruction. The party leadership then also identified those similar qualities in people of young age ? immense receptively, urge for sacrifice and valour, truth and sincerity. This 'class trajectory' if we say in KYS's own words means that which revolutionises students and youths not merely through a passive existence in objective conditions but a conscious role in integration with class struggle.
From that same extract of KYS 'to sum up ...for student politics to be truly transformative...' in the very next sentence it is said 'It is only with consistent political work amongst working class students and working class youth... that organizations can build a stable and formidable base for a consistent anti-systemic movement...'
'... consistent anti-systemic movement'?that can only be made by a class! In the present society the working class through its class struggle involving large section of society is capable of doing it, and the base for it is its revolutionary organization, the party, in which its advanced elements get organised. Today the class is disorganized, even its advanced sections are dispersed and there is no real working class party. In the absence of strong class struggle the workers themselves are getting entrapped in bourgeois politics of class collaboration and reforms. In such a situation can a section of student and youth, who have not yet entered their real life that is, in the relations of production of society, in spite of coming from a 'workers' background' (probably working class is not appropriate) can they become the base for anti-systemic i.e. revolutionary struggle?
Rather they may become part of a small section of revolutionary intellectuals who starts understanding the science of working class struggle and its mission of a communist society and start integrating and learning from the workers through their struggle and from their advanced aliments. So that out of today's painful state of disorganization the working class can start preparation to form a real base of their revolutionary struggle, a real working class party. But in today's condition such a section will be small in number. Thus Lenin in 1912 (LCW Volume 36) in 'The Question of Party Affiliation Among Democratic minded Students' agreed with the writing of a student M ? 'On students' party affiliation' in which M writes ? 'a comparatively limited section of the students are members of leftwing organizations.' Lenin says about this - 'the author is quite right when he says that with us in Russia, particularly in the current political conditions 'the strength of organizations is not determined by the number of their members, but by their influence on the masses'. This would not hold true for Europe; nor would it hold true for Russia in the autumn of 1905; but for present day Russia it is so true that one might even venture what looks like a paradox: the number of members in the organization should not exceed a definite minimum, if its influence on the masses is to be broad and stable!'
Thus it was a period of setback after failed revolution of 1905-07 and party membership from students were restricted. Today amidst a long lull in class struggle even a party is not there and the working class is disunited and dispersed. So even a further smaller number of students, baptised into revolutionary struggle, but seriously committed to the working class mission, is the potential of a sincere process of revolutionising in the existing objective situation - who may remain side by side with the advanced workers in preparation for the real base for a consistent 'anti- systemic' movement.
In the latter part of the same excerpt of KYS states ? 'it is only when a strong base has been created within working class students and youth that the issues of other students can be galvanized [forming United Front] effectively into an anti-systemic movement.'
The question of united front crops up here. Does it mean working-class students and youth have been accepted by KYS to be part of the working class? That may only be the reason that the issue of forming united front with 'other students' probably from petty bourgeois and bourgeois background has come up. Now accepting students and youth from working-class background as part of the working class has problems as we have discussed earlier. Further, even if they be accepted as part of the working class, just by the dint of that do they represent the working class and can they exercise hegemony on the other sections? Where is the working class party?
Here again Lenin in the same article 'The Question of Party Affiliation...' (LCW Volume 36) puts forward the first priority, especially when it is once again 'an anti-systemic movement' - 'Hence the first thing is to do is to achieve a clear, definite, precise, well thought-out delimitation of 'positions', platforms and programmes?and then to combine the forces that can march together by conviction and social nature.' Just before this he says - 'It is absolutely necessary' to join forces for common action.... This does not obviate a definite party stand but, on the contrary, demands it ...'!
So the question of our working class party, the question of 'a clear, definite, precise... delimitation of 'positions', platforms and programmes' has to be resolved before going for a united front etc... Further often we seem to forget that united fronts grow up in those periods when movements erupt over broader sections of diverse masses. We are now only in a position to conduct agitation-propaganda and attract the advanced, conscious students in the absence of struggle / movement.
Looking at this issue of united front from another angle KYS recognizes that there are 'issues of other students, that can be galvanized (forming United Front) effectively into an anti-systemic movement' Obviously issues among students have been differentiated. It means for 'consistent political work amongst working class students and working class youth' there are issues different from 'the issues of other students' that 'can be galvanized (forming United Fronts)....'
Now, how do we visualize such situations. Once again let us take the help of Lenin's evaluation of such experience. In 'The Student Movement and The Present Political Situation' (LCW Volume 15) we find - the students have given a call for an all-Russian student strike which according to Lenin was supposed to be a 'fairly broad academic movement'. But questions came up such as 'will it not be a debasement of the aims of Social Democracy if it decides that it is necessary to support the academic struggle in some way or other?' Even a group of Social Democratic students wrote a letter to the editorial board of Proletary in which among other things it was written '... The platform of the strike is an academic one and the meeting even welcomes the 'first steps' of the Moscow and St. Petersburg Professiorial Councils in the struggle for autonomy. We are puzzled by the academic platform put forward at the St. Petersburg meeting and consider it objectionable in present conditions, because it cannot unite the students for an active struggle on a broad front. We envisage of a student action only as one coordinated with general political action and in no case apart from it ...' Lenin's argument in reaction to this starts with - 'such an argument is radically wrong. The revolutionary slogan - to work towards coordinated political action of the students and the proletariat etc... - here ceases to be a live guidance... becomes a lifeless dogma, mechanically applied to different stages of different forms of movement.... One must be able to agitate for political action making use of all possibilities, all conditions and first and foremost all mass conflicts between advanced elements, whatever they are and autocracy.'
Explaining this further Lenin said when an academic movement lowers the level of an existing political movement, divides or distracts from it, then Social-Democratic students groups would be bound to agitate against such a movement. But anyone can see that the objective political conditions at the present time are different. The academic movement is expressing the beginning of a movement among the new 'generation' of students, who have more or less become accustomed to a narrow measure of autonomy; and this movement is beginning when other forms of mass struggle are lacking at the present time, when a lull has set in, ...in such conditions Social-Democrats would make a big mistake if they declared 'against academic action. No, the groups of students belonging to our party must use every effort to support, utilize and extend the movement.
Thus there may occur students movement which encompasses broader student masses, not conforming strictly to the working-class politics, that is based on 'the issue other students'. (as per KYS) Depending upon the then political condition and stage of working-class movement, such apparently unified student movement may be supported and utilized. On another occasion also Lenin said in The Assessment of The Present Situation, [LCW Vol. 15] '...The Social Democrats who carry on the independent class policy of the proletariat will never adapt themselves either to the student struggle or to New Zemstvo Congress... it is unquestionably bound to make use of each and every conflict, to inflame it, extend its importance, to link with it its own agitation for revolutionary slogan...'
This does not mean 'reducing university politics into ...having identifiable common interests vis-?-vis other social entities and the state' as KYS fears, but recognition of a stage or temporary period when the movement is still either in its earlier stages or the broader 'issues of other students can be galvanized... effectively into an anti-systemic movement', as KYS themselves recognize.
Thus Lenin clarified in The Tasks of Revolutionary Youth [LCW Vol. 7] 'What actually should be understood by 'achieving ideological unity among students', 'revolutionising' the students and so on ... If the political grouping of the students corresponds to the political grouping of society, does it not follow of itself that 'achieving ideological unity' among students can mean only one of two things: either winning over the biggest possible number of students to a quite definite set of social and political ideas or establishing the closest possible bond between the student of a definite political group and the members of that group outside the student body.' About revolutionizing the students in the same breath Lenin says - 'a perfectly definite content and character of this revolutionising process... To the Social-Democrats, ... it means firstly, spreading Social Democratic ideas among the students and combating ideas which though called 'Social-Revolutionary' have nothing in common with revolutionary socialism; and secondly endeavouring to broaden every democratic student movement, the academic kind included, and make it conscious and determined.'
This two very very important issues of revolutionizing students and 'expanding', 'inflaming' and linking the student movement with the working class, class struggle in society, agitating for those revolutionary slogans is what the KYS tried to repeatedly emphasize on during the debates in the context of anti-CWG-hostel-eviction campaign.
There have been shortcomings in KYS's presentation but it has been a welcome whiff in the air. Most of the communist revolutionary organization are in different ways struggling and faltering with these very questions of 'revolutionising' be it the advanced workers or the advanced elements from students, intelligentsia at large. Many a times only acquiring of theoretical knowledge and the subjective desire to commit for the cause of working class' emancipation has become yardstick of becoming 'conscious revolutionaries', only to falter, sometime later. Rarely this realisation is seen that in spite of communists, independently of them, class struggle continues in society in some form or the other, may be in much subdued and underdeveloped way. That it is the conscious act of identifying and integrating with it along with studying its implications concretely in the light of long experiences of past communist movement, so that the class struggles not only develops and revolutionizes further but the educator also gets educated.
Further at what a peculiar conjuncture of history we are passing through that many of the revolutionary communist forces do not even recognize! There is no real working class party - the communist party, and numerous attempts by the communist revolutionaries (CR) have remained elusive for four decades! The CR groups are in existence detached from the principal revolutionary class, going on extending their party like structures. The defeats in international fortresses of revolutionary working class in Russia, China, in our country since 1960s and 1970s do not still compel the communists to deal not only in theory but also in practice in a more serious way the question of attaining class basis, the necessity of presence of major section of advanced elements of the working class, not merely petty-bourgeois-turned communists in the party.
In such a situation KYS raised the importance of not only debating and polemising in the name of working class but actually trying to integrate, even though at present with their partial practical struggles, integrate and learn from them the concrete problems of the movement and theorise on its basis. Thus their emphasis on 'revolutionising' the advanced and expanding, linking the students campaigns (obviously it is not yet in the form of a movement in this country) - which every CR organization is even in reality supposed to do even working among the workers. The positive thing being there are signs of churning amongst these masses - which gives the bigger scope to identify political advanced elements and in bigger numbers comparatively. That is why probably KYS has raised the question of 'a base' necessary to influence other students - which must be build for the 'anti systemic movement' with 'consistent political work'. In short it amounts to the much needed emphasis on real ways to baptise and organize advanced members committed to understand today's working class' dilemma in such unprecedented situation and carry on the struggle standing beside the advanced elements of working class for the revival of the revolutionary working class movement in its glory and spreading it among wider sections of students and youth.
In expressing the urgency of that deed because of this peculiar juncture through which the revolutionary movement is passing, various unusual admixtures of party work and work of frontal organization are often getting combined and entangled, and that seems to have crept in some of the extensions of their basic premises. After all, it is an important issue raised by the KYS comrades very much involved in the nitty-gritty of the present day struggle. We hope the KYS organiser comrades will take it as a friendly criticism. And perhaps it will not be an unrealistic hope that we shall see, in a sense, a new beginning among the students in NCR.
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