29.09.2010

Marxism as a guide to action

As the new term started, Manchester CS found that the mood has changed on campus, writes Chris Strafford

As students flooded back the Manchester branch of Communist Students was out to greet them. Apart from the usual conversations about Stalin, the Soviet Union and Cuba, many wanted to discuss the cuts, not just in higher education but across society. Here our comrades, who were running four stalls, excelled at explaining that the Marxist project is more than just fighting against the coming cuts but is about moving beyond the status-quo. Contrasted against the economistic dumbing down on offer from other socialist groups on campus, we gained a good hearing and fantastic support, signing up over 140 to our University of Manchester student society and 30 at Manchester Metropolitan University.

On Wednesday September 22 we held a meeting on ‘Communism and human nature’ where 23 students attended. The discussion was introduce by Liam Conway who explained what CS is about, the centrality of Marxist ideas, unity and breaking the divide between communist thought and action. The main part of the meeting was addressed by Ronan McNabb, who dismantled the myth that capitalism is natural and that socialist planning is against some natural order. He spoke of primitive communist societies and how cooperation and solidarity is the basis of human society. Comrade McNabb attacked social Darwinism as an insult to Charles Darwin’s monumental contribution and underlined that humans, whilst still being animals, have evolved to break themselves out of their genes and organise the world in a way we choose.

The discussion that followed was wide ranging, as you would expect at a start of term discussion. We looked at the anarchist Piotr Kropotkin’s contribution to our understanding of evolution, whether genes determine our behaviour, Richard Dawkins, social Darwinism and what socialist planning actually means. An SWP member kicked off a much needed discussion on the formation of socialist consciousness; he contrasted CS’s Marxist discussion circles and the activism of his organisation. Many in the room pointed out that whilst demonstrations, stunts and selling papers might be important, socialist transformation of society is based on the assimilation of the ideas of Marxism and the communist programme. Whilst others on the left seek to play down or ignore Marxist education and propaganda; communists should be unashamedly presenting our ideas. During the discussion students showed that they believed it essential for ideas to be at the centre of any political movement serious about change; and that you cannot fight capitalism successfully without understanding why and what the alternative is.

At the end of the freshers week members of CS attended a 25 strong anti-cuts meeting. Last year we had built a decent anti-cuts group that was committed to free education, working with the unions and run on a democratic basis. Over the summer the union executive altered all of this. The meeting was presented with a fully formed campaign where the use of “consensus” decision making was used to thwart opportunities to strengthen and widen the political scope of the campaign. Unity was presented as the only thing that mattered. Last year CS and SWP members argued successfully for democracy, free education and worker-student unity. This year the SWP did a complete U-turn, lining up with the student union officials to shut down debate. It has already been decided that the key action we would be building for would be the NUS national demo, which would be de-politicised to the point of attracting students with drink offers.

In the coming months Manchester CS will look to replicate our successes of last academic year where we built and organised the postal workers solidarity group and fought to move the anti-cuts groups beyond just opposing this or that cut to higher education but linking it to the other struggles we face, the fight for free-education, democracy and most importantly socialism.