Militant Students at Freshers Fairs

Marxist ideas have never been more relevant and more needed than in this
present epoch. Students, especially those entering university for the
first time, have become radicalised and are asking profound questions
about our society. Above all they want to change society in a
revolutionary way – from Wall Street to Cairo radicalised students are
demanding a different kind of society and are experimenting with
different methods of mobilisation to effect that. Underneath this
process lies a thirst for revolutionary ideas. This enthusiasm was
certainly experienced by Militant Student supporters up and down the
country as they took part in freshers fairs.

Queen Mary’s Marxist Society

QMUL Marxists

As
anyone involved in the freshers’ fairs across the country in the last
few weeks will have noticed, there seems to be a growing interest in
Marxist ideas and solutions to the current crisis of capitalism among
young people. This was especially felt at Queen Mary’s University in
East London, where interest in the Marxist Society was unprecedented. We
were approached by many students already familiar with the ideas of
Marx, and several students had even read Capital as part of their
studies.

Despite torrential rain, a good turnout of new students attended our
first meeting to hear Rob Sewell give an excellent lead off on Marx and
Engels’ predictions in the Communist Manifesto, and how society can be
transformed to meet peoples’ needs. A lively discussion followed, with
contributions ranging from the impact of Marxism in peoples’ places of
work, to questions surrounding the USSR.

Stressing the importance to act upon theory, it was discussed how we
might support the current struggle of over 50 staff facing redundancies
at the University. Links are to be made with Unison, who represent the
workers, and we are offering support for their campaign.

It is hoped that this meeting will launch the start of a successful
term of activity on campus. It is vital that we actively engage with and
educate young people in the theory and methods of Marxism. University
Marxist societies therefore have an important role in this task.

Glasgow Freshers’ Fair Intervention

Student life witnessed an explosive second semester at the end of
last year, culminating in a march of 3,000 against cuts, the biggest
demonstration in the history of Glasgow University. There was also a
student occupation that successfully resisted a full scale police
operation trying to evict it through mass action and was in the end able
to win significant concessions from management. This sets the scene for
new action with Scottish universities starting to set fees for students
from the rest of the UK and the prospect of more cuts to come.

For the first time there was a Glasgow Marxist intervention at the
freshers’ fair over two days. We had a stall at the fair and were able
to set up an official society after getting more than enough support
from students over the fair. Despite the tail end of an American
hurricane over both days we were able to collect names and attracted a
wide range of interest from students from Scotland, England, Ireland and
some from other parts of Europe.

On the Thursday, the day after the fair ended we had a successful
founding meeting at which the political editor of Socialist Appeal Rob
Sewell spoke about the development of the international crisis of
capitalism. He emphasised the deepening of the crisis in the Eurozone
and the inability of capitalism to find a way out of the situation. The
ruling class of all countries are desperately floundering from one
method to another and repeatedly being forced to resort to bailouts and
quantitative easing. However, across the world in Tunisia, Egypt, Greece
and in Britain we are seeing millions of young people in particular
starting to question the legitimacy of capitalism and looking for an
alternative.

The society intends to connect with this layer and go on to build
regular meetings explaining Marxist ideas whilst intervening in the
movement at the University and in the wider movement in Glasgow.

Sheffield University

We are now passing through a new epoch of capitalism where growth
will not be the norm and western economies will collapse. If William
Hague knows this and announced it to the Tory conference then the youth,
who are streaks ahead of the backward reactionary Tory party, certainly
know the self evident truth that capitalism is in crisis. This
realization that capitalism will not be able to offer employment,
housing or a better life for future generations has resulted in the most
advanced layers of the youth actively seeking an alternative. This can
be seen in a concrete form in the expansion of students at university
fresher fairs seeking out societies that can offer education on the
turbulent times they find themselves in. The societies we are setting up
across the country can offer a suitable explanation for these layers by
basing themselves on the classics of Marxism with a dedication towards
being active within the labour movement.

This is certainly true at the University of Sheffield where I found
myself as a fresher setting up a Marxist society. In the space of a
couple of hours without a stall within the main fair, myself and a
fellow comrade had so many students come up to us that at times we
couldn’t cope and people were forced to queue to talk to us! We managed
to distribute all the flyers we printed and were just shy of filling in
all the contact detail sheets for the setting up of the society. The
only reason we didn’t manage to fill out all the contact sheets was
because our voices became hoarse with talking to students about Marxism.
The level of enthusiasm and the political level of the students were
great to experience. We had many people saying that the society’s ideas
were what they had been looking for and were unable to find anywhere
else.

It is not an accident that we had initial success at the University
of Sheffield. It is a direct consequence of the objective situation and
our orientation towards revolutionary theory. The most serious students
and workers will not be conned with simplistic reformist arguments but
by a serious approach to the problems that face the working class as a
whole.

Manchester Freshers’ Fayres

On the 21st and 22nd of September, comrades set up a stall outside
the Freshers’ Fayres for both Manchester Metropolitan and the University
of Manchester in order to raise the idea of a new Marxist discussion
group for students of both Universities. We were present outside the
Manchester Metropolitan Fayre from 10am to roughly 11.30am and were the
only non-corporate stall outside. However, we were eventually told to
leave by one of the stewards, but in the time we were there we did
manage to get E-mail addresses of interested students.

Next, we went straight down the road to the University of Manchester
where there was a multitude of different stalls advertising a wide range
of societies (particularly political societies). We pitched up our
stall beside the Labour students and hoped for a better result. Over the
next four hours we had a great amount of interest and discussed with
many students as well as selling papers and leaflets/books etc.
By the end of the Fayres, after more or less one and a half days the ‘Manchester Marxist
Discussion Group’ had over 40 possible members, we had sold 15 copies of Socialist Appeal and several books!