Communist Students remains united despite controversial debates, reports Liam Conway

The annual conference of Communist Students was held at the University of Manchester student union on April 17. Despite numerous factors preventing comrades from attending (including, yes, the recent volcano eruption in Iceland) it proved a lively day of discussion.

Conference began with the usual business of reports from our respective branches. I summarised Manchester’s activities over the past academic year, emphasising our education programme, which included two public series on revolution in France and Germany. Both have been well attended and sparked a good amount of debate. Other activities included solidarity with postal workers and strong support for the Manchester for Jobs and Education campaign. I concluded with a brief summary of the recent elections that have taken place at UMSU as well as at Manchester Metropolitan University, noting how CS fielded candidates in both elections and helped to increase our profile on the two campuses.

Next up was Laurie Smith (CPGB). He gave the London CS report, which again placed a heavy emphasis on education. The comrades had organised a stimulating series on ‘Party and programme’, as well as successful public meetings on feminism and anarchism. CS member James Turley had garnered a rather modest 50 votes in elections at Kings College. The report on school students was given by Callum Williamson, who had helped organise several talks on issues ranging from the BA air strikes to the nature of fascism. He also reported that he had been drafting a manifesto for communist school students, which is in the final stages of completion.

There was a good deal of discussion on student elections and in particular the various education programmes. It seems that both London and Manchester admire the work done by the other branch in this sphere. Cat Rylance from Manchester believed that CS London’s commitment to theoretical study was something Manchester should be looking to emulate next year. That said, comrades from London believed that Manchester’s revolutionary series on specific countries should be continued, as this had attracted a lot of people.

Executive

The outgoing executive report was given by Chris Strafford, another CPGB member. Comrade Strafford talked briefly about the economic crisis and the poor prospects facing many students when leaving university. He stressed the need to carry on building and increasing our membership, while emphasising that newer members needed to pick up the mantle of graduating students and become more involved in organisation. Comrade Strafford stated that the national executive had not been as effective as he would have liked (a criticism that was widely echoed), and proposed a smaller body meeting more frequently.

The outgoing executive then put forward its wide-ranging motion, setting ambitious political and organisational tasks for the coming year. It was suggested that the incoming executive regularly meet on Skype and an amendment from comrades Rylance and Strafford proposed that the executive should aim to meet at least once a term face to face.

Robi Folkard put forward a motion stating that the leadership was becoming too centralised – she feared CS was becoming a top-down organisation. In the words of her motion, “CS does not require a political leadership”, and so the executive must be “a purely organisational body”. Any political decisions – such as whether to sign up to a left unity initiative – must be taken by “the membership as a whole” through a vote on the e-list.

Comrade Folkard’s motion also laid down detailed instructions on how the non-political executive ought to allocate and fulfil its tasks and what ought to happen if it did not do so. For example, “failure to produce reports” would be “grounds for recall” (the precise procedure for implementing this was also set out).

Comrades Rylance and Strafford proposed an amendment to this motion, including the declaration that “CS requires both organisational and political leadership”. They pointed out that, contrary to comrade Folkard’s motion, the constitution already contained a provision for recalling executive members. The criticism of the outgoing leadership was, however, left in place by their amendment.

Comrade Folkard accepted that there was already a provision for recalling members of the executive, but insisted that the rest of her motion should stand. In the end the amendment from comrades Rylance and Strafford was passed, and an additional change, that cooption onto the executive should not be allowed, was also agreed.

CPGB and CS

After lunch one of the main discussions was on the national campaign against fees and cuts which CS had been involved in. The issues ranged from whether our involvement had achieved anything to whether CS could benefit from standing in National Union of Students elections. This set the scene for the later debate on elections in general.

Comrade Rylance then put forward her motion on how CS should be described with regard to our membership and origins. Up to now the CS ‘What we fight for’ declaration had included the sentence, “Communist Students is an autonomous organisation established by members and supporters of the Communist Party of Great Britain – but you do not have to be a member to join us.”

Comrade Rylance’s amendment sought to replace this with: “Communist Students is an organisation open to all those who are interested in or committed to revolutionary communist politics. It was set up by members of the Communist Party of Great Britain, but is now run independently of them.” After much discussion, the word “autonomous” was retained, but the gist of the motion was accepted after comrade Rylance explained her intention was to make it plain that CS was open to members of “other revolutionary groups”.

After comrade Strafford’s uncontentious motion on opposition to imperialist threats against Iran and CS’s support for Hands Off the People of Iran, comrade Folkard moved two further motions. The first dealt with production of our magazine Communist Student and her claim that its editorship was not accountable to the organisation. The motion also complained that submitted articles had frequently been “politically edited”.

An amendment from Ben Lewis (CPGB), however, asserted that “producing our publication and maintaining our website necessitates political editing and making decisions about the focus/target audience/emphasis of our articles and reports”. This was agreed and, although comrade Turley conceded that some editing might have been heavy-handed, everyone agreed that Communist Student ought to reflect the various views of the CS membership.

The next motion from comrade Folkard concerned communists and liberation. It stated that women, blacks, LBGT and disabled people “may at times” need to “organise autonomously”. They should, however, so do so “as working class people” and not on a cross-class basis. An amendment from comrade Lewis warned against the “ghettoisation of struggles”, but this was considered unnecessary and this time comrade Folkard’s motion was passed (with minor amendments).

Communists and elections

The next topic of the day’s discussion was to be the most vibrant and heavily contested. The topic covered was elections, and was introduced by two opposing statements on their nature and the tactical possibilities they offer.

Mark Harrison’s motion sought to delete two sentences from ‘What we fight for’: “Communists enter parliament to win the biggest possible working class representation in elections on all levels. Communist Students are in favour of revolutionary socialists standing in elections on a revolutionary platform.” He contended that parliament had no relevance for the working class and, like elections to student unions and the NUS, should be boycotted. The communist method demanded soviets and workers’ councils, he said.

The discussion from the floor lasted for at least an hour. Many comrades agreed with comrade Harrison on the need for soviets, but also believed that this did not negate the necessity of standing in elections to existing bodies. Others argued that the deletion of the two sentences did not mean that CS must not contest elections – only that this particular tactic was no longer specifically favoured. According to this line of argument, we would be more “tactically flexible” if the motion was carried.

The debate was so varied that it is impossible to cover it in any detail here, but issues that arose included the nature of workers’ councils, trade unions, careerism and George Galloway! When the vote was taken, those for and against were exactly equal, and the motion was therefore not carried. It was agreed that comrades would submit written arguments and that a day school would be held on this topic in the autumn.

As the conference drew to a close, a five-person executive was elected: Mark Harrison (The Commune), Callum Williamson, Cat Rylance, Robi Folkard and Ben Lewis, the only CPGB member. The new leadership got straight down to business by holding a brief organising meeting.

Despite the fierce disagreements, the open nature of CS stands us in good stead for the coming year and we look forward not just to consolidating the achievements of the past year, but continuing to make gains in the next.