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WHAT THE CPGB WAS UP TO
The CPGB's conception of the purpose of the student movement was never spelled out in front of student audiences. But it was at least partially explained in more limited forums. The February 1972 issue of Labour Monthly carried an article on 'Student Action' by Jeff Staniforth. Staniforth was one of the key Communists on the NUS Executive. It was he, more than anyone else, who functioned as the Executive's hatchet man against the Trotskyists, and he visibly relished this role. The function of his article was to explain to the traditionalist wing of the CPGB, which took its bearings from Palme Dutt and Labour Monthly rather than from Johnny Gollan and Marxism Today, and had considerable reservations about the CP's involvement in student politics, what he and his comrades were up to.
He began by addressing these reservations in a manner which has become extremely familiar to observers of the present Labour leadership, that is to say, in terms of images:
'Ten years ago the working class image of students was little different from that of 50 years ago A privileged élite with the prospect of becoming the next administration generation of the ruling class; with rag-days, boating and boozing thrown in as fringe benefits.
'By 1972 a very different image is emerging. Many student unions now have strong links with their local trade council. The National Union of Students (now with over half-a-million members) has a long-term policy of wages instead of grants, and even hopes for eventual affiliation to the TUC. These more than any other single item reflect the deep basic changes taking place. These changes are fundamentally reflected in the extension of higher education and the political struggles which have accompanied these developments.
'The rapid expansion in student numbers allied with the effects of Tory and right-wing Labour Governments, has inextricably linked the future of the majority of students with the future of the working class.'
He went on to argue that the expansion of higher education, and in particular the growth of the 'public' sector (polytechnics, technical colleges and colleges of education) at the expense of the universities had meant that most students were now being trained for roles as skilled workers, that only a minority of students could look forward to high-flying ruling class careers, that many students had to take the threat of unemployment seriously and that students of working class origin could "retain pride in their class and identify with it". Having set the sociological scene, Staniforth then explained the politics of student unionism:
'Based on these changes the left in the student movement was able ten years ago to launch a long-term campaign under the slogan of "reclaim the student unions for students".'
This slogan alluded to the fact that before 1969 the NUS (but not local student unions) was run by a coterie of Labour Party careerists who were willing to accept a measure of covert funding by the CIA. Staniforth went on:
'This movement was based on the perspective of moving masses of students into action on the issues facing them. The early successes of this campaign caused a series of NUS right-wing leaders to conduct a particularly vicious anti-left campaign… However, the left policy was correct in inception and in implementation, and consequently the gradual quantitative change has now developed into a qualitative change, with the leadership, policies and campaigning tactics so altered that those from ten years ago would have some difficulty in recognising it as the same organisation. The task of course is by no means completed; rather is the student movement now sufficiently broadly based for further developments.'
At this point Staniforth digressed from the matter of "further developments" to talk about the reaction of the Tory government and its "anti-student union campaign". But he returned to the theme of the development of the student movement in the last two paragraphs of his article.
'…the past two years has been a period during which the NUS has proved itself genuinely in support of trade union activities. As a result unions are now much more ready to discuss questions with NUS and to give real advice and assistance. The forging of closer links with workers and their organisations is crucial to the continued development of students and their unions. In this respect the building up of relationships with trades councils has been of particular value, and must be the centre of continued liaison.
'Prospects for the future are tremendous. The continued development of building a strong progressive student movement will have an immense effect on higher education in Britain and will convince many more students that their real position is as allies of the working class movement. The growing links between students and workers are more than symbols of political desires; they are the guarantee of moving another large section of the people into an anti-Tory, anti-monopoly position and strengthening the central position of the working class in the struggle for socialism.'
It emerges from this that the student movement, in Staniforth's conception of it (which was, I think, that of the entire CP student leadership), had no independent aim or agenda of its own. Nowhere in the article did Staniforth give any hint as to what he might have had in mind when he spoke of the student movement having "an immense effect on higher education in Britain". Its chief purpose (and the only aspect of its purpose which Staniforth discusses) was to constitute students into allies of the working class movement. And the latter's student allies were not to get above their station: although allies, they were not equals; in so far as "the growing links between students and workers" were handled in the right way, they would not subvert but, on the contrary, strengthen "the central position of the working class in the struggle for socialism". And strengthening this was linked, in the CPGB's view, with the business of moving students "into an anti-Tory, anti-monopoly position".