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Students
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 6, 11 February 1933, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
If there is any instance where only the Communists can lead effectively and correctly, it is in the struggle against capitalist militarism and imperialist war. Yet, witness the spectacle at the Barbusse Congress at Amsterdam when the Communist International abandoned its rightful role of leadership to the intellectuals! Comment here is superfluous; the Militant has dealt fully with this Congress and at the Student Conference Against War at Chicago, initiated by the NSL and the Communists, the Amsterdam spectacle was repeated in an even more grotesque manner. The YCL abandoned its field and the results of the Chicago Conference were – confusion, disorganization, perversion and misrepresentation of the revolutionary ways and means to combat imperialist war except as clarified by delegates and supporters of the Communist Left Opposition. (See the articles on the Chicago Student Conference in the Militant by Aderhabe and A. Glotzer for an analysis of this Conference). It was inevitable there, as at Amsterdam or wherever the same stunt is tried, that when the intellectuals or students took over the leadership in the anti-militarist movement, the real basis of struggle against war was vitiated and the workers misled. The C. P. and YCL stood in the wings, behind the scenes, witnessing, approvingly, the spectacle and abandoned their leading role. Was the revolutionary student participating in such a conference doing his duty in attempting to lead this struggle against capitalist war? He thought so. But he was doomed to failure. Yet subordinate to, and a part of the YCL, the revolutionary students could take a part, howsoever small or large, in a united front movement against war on specific issues.
On other questions, the NSL has taken a position which on the one hand is correct and on the other, false. For instance, the “revolutionary” NSL endorsed the Communist party in the November elections: a correct action. But it motivated its support of the C.P., not on revolutionary class grounds, but on the fact that the C.P., of all political parties consulted, had alone taken a stand for the students on their specific problems of class fees, etc. How ridiculous for an organization presumably pivoting on a revolutionary axis! Why should any such confusion arise among revolutionary students? It shouldn’t; the confusion is unnecessary and springs largely from the concept of an independent student role and the belief that revolutionary students should put forth more “palatable” or “adaptable” reasons for their revolutionary conclusions. This is the manner in which liberals and opportunists justify their stupidities or betrayals.
Yet, and this is another decisive factor, the Young Communist League, measured by its theoretical and organisational basis, is or should be a sufficiently broad organization to include within it not only young workers, but also the revolutionary-inclined students. The Communist Youth organization does not demand that young workers or students who desire to join it, shall be full-fledged Communists when they make application. It requires, arid properly so, that those joining it shall be willing to learn to be Communists, in theory and through participation in the struggles of the workers. We speak here not of the caricature that the YCL in the United States, and elsewhere, has become, but of the foundation upon which the Young Communist International was erected and the manner the YCLs were expected actually to function. For such students who join the NSL today because of its revolutionary program, we have to say that their place is directly in the ranks of the Communist youth organization.
It is a totally false conception of bridge organizations and their functions to accept the formation of an independent students’ organization as a part of that schema. An ILD, which defends class war victims irrespective of their political or economic views, is one thing. An independent students’ body with a political program and functions is an altogether different matter. An ILD has an obviously legitimate function to perform. An independent students’ organization can, and already has done great harm to the immediate and historical interests of the workers. That which tends to and does usurp the role of a revolutionary political party or YCL becomes a perversion of Marxist theory on the role of a Communist party. When the Stalinists aid in the formation of such bodies as the National Student League, workers and peasants parties, Labor party, anti-imperialist Leagues, etc., etc., they only further undermine the theoretical foundations of Marxism, and particularly the role of the C.P. and YCL. The NSL, in our opinion, is but another version or application of Stalinist theory, and as in the other cases it results only in additional blows delivered against the revolutionary movement. The Barbusse Conference and the American replicas of it are the demonstrations of how these blows are dealt.
But while the Left Opposition, hence, must stand opposed to the formation of independent students’ organizations, and more so when they masquerade as “revolutionary” or “Communist”, this by no means excludes work among the students. In whatever students’ organizations exist, the Communist must build fractions, even as they do in trade unions and other mass organizations of the workers, and there seek to develop Communist influence and win the individual students to the revolutionary banner and organization. Even as anti-imperialist papers can be issued by the Communist without special anti-imperialist organizations, so can Communist student papers be issued to proclaim its cause for the workers and proletarian students.
Nor need there be any neglect of neutralizing or trying to win as allies to the proletarian cause the middle class or petty bourgeois students, in the same manner, relatively, as we seek to make allies of the poor and exploited farmers But while we recognize the need to win such groups to accept the leadership of the proletariat and the Communists in the struggles against the bourgeoisie, yet it is not for us to aid in the creation of organizations of the petty bourgeoisie of various descriptions. Bigger and more important tasks remain for the Communists. Wherever any organization exists, however, which contains workers and other elements upon whom we can exert influence, the Communists enter, build fractions and conduct their work accordingly. But certainly Communists can never think of relinquishing the role of leadership, politically or organizationally, to such elements; for they are historically unqualified to do so; they cannot serve, with their confused and false programs, the interests of the working class and the vast mass of exploited. Trotsky points out in connection with the building of the Red Army: “The petty bourgeois intelligentsia could give the army a considerable number of lower officers. as they had done under czarism, but they could not create a commanding corps in their own image, for they had no image of their own.” Likewise, by analogy, the Communists nowhere must concede leading historical roles to forces incapable of “creating a commanding corps.” Wherever Stalinism has permitted them – and, worse, justified it – there have resulted debacles: in China on a tremendous world stage; in Amsterdam (Barbusse Congress) on a lesser, but still important scale; and in Chicago (Youth War Conference) on an illusionary and comic scale.
In short, the Left Communists must come to the conclusion, in the writer’s opinion, for the liquidation of the National Student League and similar creations, and insist that the Communist party and YCL take over the duties and role that properly belongs to them.
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Last updated: 16 April 2015