28.02.2008

Making propaganda for Marxism in elections

A revolutionary platform was too much for some 'revolutionary' students. Mohsen Sabbagh reports

Campuses across the country are holding elections for university sabbatical positions as well as National Union of Students conference delegates. Over the last two years Communist Students in Sheffield have attempted to put an end to the apolitical popularity contest these elections usually involve by standing on a revolutionary platform, and in 2007 actually managed to get an NUS delegate elected.

This year, instead of Communist Students standing alone and in one case being opposed by a comrade from another left group (Sam Durk of the Socialist Workers Party in 2007), it was decided to see if we could form a united left slate with students belonging to the SWP, Socialist Party in England and Wales, and Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (in short all the other left groups on campus). Each was approached to take part in discussions on agreeing a minimum platform and maybe, just maybe, take a small step towards left unity on the Sheffield campus if nowhere else.

Good progress was made in initial conversations. It was decided that comrade Laurie McCauley (Communist Students) would stand for president, with comrade Durk contesting the education officer post and Dan Randall (AWL) standing for NUS delegate - ie, not actually on the slate for sabbatical positions at all, but looking to use the slate’s name to increase his chances of being elected to NUS. With the positions agreed upon, our next task was to come up with a common platform.

The initial platform offered by members of CS came out clearly against capitalism and for communism, demanding free education, an end to imperialist wars and principled left unity. In short an openly Marxist platform. Whilst it was agreed that free education was a crucial thing for students and something that we could all call for, the other proposals were met with strong opposition from comrade Randall and the AWL. Where we called for the immediate withdrawal of troops from the Middle East, it was proposed in usual AWL fashion that we leave out the word ‘immediate’. Members of CS flatly rejected this, seeing opposition to imperialism as a crucial issue - one where compromise was out of the question. Comrade Randall, though, instead of arguing the politics of his position, asked whether we really thought students would notice if the word ‘immediate’ was not there - surely calling for the withdrawal of troops - at some stage - would be enough?

The second bone of contention was the section CS had drafted on communism. While everyone in the room was quite happy to call themselves a communist and professed their own acceptance of communism as an aim, it was only CS who were happy to stand on this. Comrades representing the AWL, SP and SWP all wanted to change the word to ‘socialism’ and in fact omit all reference to communism from the platform - even though the largest group in the slate was Communist Students. Comrades argued that ‘communism’ was such was a dirty word that people would be put off voting for us. Comrades from CS urged that it was not the word that was the issue, but people’s perception and that the only way to change this was to reclaim the word and show that communism is not Stalinism - something impossible to do if we completely avoid the subject.

The other groups eventually agreed to the platform - including the immediate withdrawal of troops and communism - with the addition of several points made by the AWL mainly based around trade union questions, it appeared that a united left slate was actually on the cards. The next thing to do was actually sort out the logistics of campaigning.

CS comrades wanted to use our whole platform in order to gain publicity and educate students on what communism is and why it is necessary. But the others showed that their acceptance of the common platform was meaningless - comrades from the AWL and SWP wanted to campaign exclusively around six short bullet points, the argument being that people simply would not read the entire platform anyway - 1,000 words is obviously far too long for university students - indeed comrade Randall declared that he “would not read it” himself. What a condescending and patronising attitude. If we are to believe that reading a short political statement is too much to ask of students, then how on earth do we expect to win them round to the ideas of Marxism?

In the final discussion called to discuss publicity for the slate, comrade Durk was not present. Then, on the day before nominations closed, he backed out altogether, arguing that as a member of Student Respect he could not stand with CS on a revolutionary platform, which would alienate too many people. What was needed was a ‘broad’ platform capable of pulling in support. It was the same theme that had dogged discussions from the beginning and lay behind the reluctance of all the others to use the word ‘communism’. As a result the whole slate was abandoned, as only CS comrades were now willing to contest the sabbatical positions.

Communist Students will therefore be contesting under our own name - Laurie McCauley is standing for president and Huw Groucutt for education officer. The platform and all their election material is available on the CS website (www.communiststudents.org.uk). Results will be announced on March 6.