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Students
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 5, 4 February 1933, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The existence for some time now of the National Students League in the United States, organized through the instrumentality of the Communist party and YCL, requires from the Left Opposition a fundamental statement of its attitude toward the NSL. Can the Communists stand by quietly when there is formed an independent students’ organization, with its own programmatic policy? Moreover, can Communists assist in, and be responsible for, the formation of such independent student organizations?
The recent activities of the NSL and its assumption of various roles in the class struggle bring this question sharply to the forefront and demand a clear enunciation of policy on our part. The organization recently of the Students League of Canada only adds to the need for clarification on the question. The writer presents his views here in sketched form in order to initiate a discussion which will speed the adoption of a position by the Left Opposition. Communists in principle, must oppose, in our opinion, the formation of an independent or separate organization of either the students or the intellectuals. This position, which has been the principle position of the Communists and the Young Communist International in theses adopted at the second congress of the Y.C.L., requires no revision today.
The students have no independent role to play in society and require no separate organization. The division of the students may be roughly made into rich, middle class or petit-bourgeois and proletarian students. Even so, the particular social, economic and political positions of these groupings in society negate any idea that these groups can have an independent role in the class struggle as student groups. Our concern here is mainly with the proletarian students who have historically no interests separate and apart from the industrial proletariat, from the working class as such The proletarian students to be at all effective in the labor movement, must link themselves organizationally and politically with the vanguard of the revolutionary movement – the Communist party and the YCL, and conduct such activities as they are able to on a Communist program. The Communist student would necessarily, therefore, direct his energies primarily among the proletarian students.
The matter becomes even clearer when it is seen that the National Students League and the Students League of Canada are not formed on the basis of a “broad” student organization which supposedly might appeal to all classes of students for the preservation of student rights and needs on the campus, or conduct “general propaganda” and education for liberal, socialist or revolutionary ideas. Both Student Leagues, on the contrary, recognize the weakness of such a position and make their appeal on a “revolutionary” or even “Communistic” basis. In fact, they regard themselves as Communist student organizations. The Spark, official organ of the Students League of Canada, is most clear and explicit on the matter of the character of its appeal to the student body. In the issue of December 1932, the Spark editorially says:
“... The majority of students ... are not members of the proletariat, even though a good many come from working class homes. Because of this fact Marxism, however logical, can have no appeal to most university students for it is inimical to the interests of their class. Accordingly, the Students League has no illusions regarding the student body as a whole ... We only aim to attract the small number of students who see an identity between their interests and those of the working class and who are, therefore, willing to take an active part in the working class movement. After all, a few active members are far more valuable than is a passive recognition of the validity of our views from the majority of the student body – and again on this latter score we have no illusions.” (Our emphasis)
What the Spark says is correct. But if there is this identity of interests between the students minority, that is, the proletarian students and the workers, then why a separate organization? What are those special tasks of so-called revolutionary or Communist student organizations which cannot better and more correctly be performed in the revolutionary political organisation of the youth – the Young Communist League? In our opinion, none; and such an independent student organization can only lead to confusion and malpractices in the revolutionary movement, and bring about just the opposite results from those intended, as will be shown.
The Communist Left Opposition particularly has every reason to reject the organization of separate students organizations. The Left Opposition, in its condemnation of the Stalinists, has stated often, and correctly, its opposition in principle to the creation of so-called “anti-imperialist” Leagues, “peasants” parties, “workers and peasants parties”, labor or Farmer-Labor parties, etc., etc. We condemn the formation of these bodies on the ground that they usurp, or attempt to, the role legitimately and necessarily belonging to the Communist party, and, further, that every concession to the formation and activity of such organizations brings successive betrayals of the working class, emasculates and caricatures the revolutionary position, and weakens or destroy the Communist party or YCL. In short, the theoretical position of the Left Opposition, based on historical experiences, refuses to attribute an independent or revolutionary role to such hodge-podge bodies. Our attitude toward the NSL and the Students League of Canada must flow clearly from our fundamental position to analogous organizations in other fields. In the case of an independent students organization, the issue is even plainer.
The Left Opposition contends that the role of a “peasants” party, an “anti-imperialist League”, a “four class Kuo Min Tang”, a Labor party, etc., proves in every case to be false to, a betrayal of, and reactionary in relation to the working class as a whole, and also, thereby, to the Communists and their organizations, the C.P. and YCL. In such cases, where “independent” organizations like the NSL pretend to a “revolutionary”, even Communist position, they place themselves directly in the road of the genuine revolutionization of the proletarian students who, if they accept the revolutionary, the Communist position, should join the organization of their class, the YCL, and function actively therein in their allotted tasks. Wittingly or otherwise, the “revolutionary” position of the NSL, sponsored and organized by the YCL, actually forms a bulwark against – and not a bridge to – students joining the YCL. Yet what is demanded of them in the way of profession of belief and activity in the NSL that is not demanded of them in the YCL – minus the discipline required of a member of the YCL? Little or nothing, under ordinary circumstances.
It is demonstrated, not merely in theory but by numerous practices, that when the students or intellectuals undertake tasks, in lieu of no objection by others, which are not theirs historically and which they cannot properly execute – they bungle the job badly, confuse and mislead the workers, ignore the revolutionary position and, by default, usurp the role which only a C.P. or YCL can undertake. They are not to blame, since no one says them nay, and, worse yet, the Communists themselves urge them on in their false steps.
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Last updated: 16 April 2015