Revolutionary Communist Youth NE SLETTER 10¢ Number 17 ~~,~~~, X-523 May-June 1973 Budget Cuts Hit Campuses- Only Workers Can Smash Phase III! It should be apparent to radical tically drive down the living standards deficit which was further aggravated The educational system is part of a students that the current education of workers in order to bolster its by the inflation generated by finanCing capitalist system which, just as it budget cuts and tuition increases, as competitive position internationally. the Vietnam war through massive de­ seeks to monopolize social wealth for well as cuts in other social services, We have pointed out the inherent im­ ficit spending. U,S, capitalism simply a tiny ruling class, also seeks to mono­ are manifestations of a more general potence of "student-power" struggles began to price itself out of the world pOlize the fruits of social wealth: capitalist crisis. But a pervasive and the need to fight the budget cuts market, losing its economic hegemony learning and culture. The ruling class New-Left mentality continues to see in the context of the class struggle. and declining to a position of first tailors the educational system to serve the struggle against budget cuts as A "program to fight the budget cuts" among equals within the context of bourgeois ends: the training of its gov­ limited to the campus and students, must be part of a working-class pro­ the re-assertion of inter-imperial­ ernment administrators and industrial in isolation from more general social gram to fight and overthrow capitalism. ist rivalries. It responded by cutting its managers and the general propagation struggles. The RCY has played an The irony of capitalism is that the losses in Vietnam, devaluing the dollar, of bourgeois ideology, The working active role in the anti-budget cuts spoils of its seemingly triumphant attempting to control the budget deficit class is to get just enough "education" and anti-tuition struggles recently at successes turn into catastrophe. The through massive slashes in social ser­ so that the capitalists can extract profit the City University of New York U.S. emerged from World War II both vices (but, of course, not in the military from its labor power. As for the (CUNY) and in the past at Laney militarily victorious and economically sector) and reduction in wages through specially-oppressed black and Latin College in Oakland, City College of hegemonic among its former imperial­ inflation, union-busting and wage con­ youth, for whom there are no jobs, San Francisco and other campuses. ist rivals. Thus the U.S, military trols. public schools are simply daytime or­ We have tried to present to student became the policeman for the imperial­ phanages, In fact, some a cad em i c militants the more general political ist system just as the dollar became its Campuses Part of pimps for the government-with their lessons of these struggles-the rela­ world reserve currency. However, the Capitalist System Ph.D's in SOCiology and 20 years of tionship between budget cuts, rising former forced the U,S. to maintain a formal education-have decided that the tuition costs and the capitalist crisis, huge world-wide military establish­ Tuition hikes and budget cuts can­ reason workers are "discontented" with i.e., that the cutbacks in education ment while the latter encouraged the not be defeated by struggles restricted their drudgery is that they are "over­ and social services are part of the export of U.S. capitaL Combined, they to the campuses because the cause of educated": attempt of U.S, capitalism to systema- created a chronic balance-of-payments cutbacks in education is off-campus. Students do not have the social power to make even the limited reforms ~.< '. >~~' ~'- ~ ~, relating to the campus stick. The Ji' • .- ~ strength of the working class to fight capitalist attacks lies in its access to the means of producing wealth-its ability to withhold its labor power-and NAn:~ll '[ in the material basis for its class UN'Vl \~, consciousness in its social organization UN", I , of work. In the epoch of illlperi?,lism, [ '~ \"''''~..:.a.~ .... Vq~ """~ thoroughgoing and long-lasting reforms STUDEI" are impossible: Only the working class has the power to squeeze even limited TEACH£\~c. and temporary reforms from the capi­ CONTROL "\Il\ talists, and the power to smash capital­ Itey .~ ism, to end raCial, sexual and all other forms of social oppression, An important step in the struggle to prepare and organize the working class for the proletarian revolution and for running a SOCiety free of social oppression is the immediate struggle against all forms of discrimination, inclUding the elementary democratic Rev Photo demand to open up the limited but none­ theless valuable reservoirs oflearning, science and culture to the oppressed and exploited. The RCY actively supports the fight against the budget cuts; we support the What Defense Policy for demands for open admissions and no tuition, However, we point out that these demands by themselves do not go far enough. We seek to broaden the movement to include demands which Revolutionaries? pose the need to link up with the struggles of the working class in order The decline of U.S. economic hege­ of bourgeois democracy, a contempt unless it introduces complete democ­ to defeat capitalist attacks-demands mony and the resultant economic chaos that will be violently amplified in deal­ racy, so the proletariat will be unable which cut across the class bias in­ has meant intensified capitalist attacks ing with an actuaZleft threat. The strat­ to prepare for victory over the bour­ herent in bourgeois democratic rights. on the labor and radical movements. egy to defeat ruling-class attacks on the geOisie unless it wages a many-sided, consistent and revolutionary struggle The demand Simply for "Open Ad­ FaCing an increasing inability to pro­ labor and radical movements must be miSSions, No Tuition" is not only not vide the minimal democratic and eco­ based on an examination of the historic for democracy." -Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 133 a revolutionary demand, it is not even nomic rights of working people and op­ experience of the working-class move­ a genuinely democratic demand, for it pressed minorities, the American capi­ ment. The International Red Aid was also an application of the united-front policy would exclude all those who could not talist class has pursued a dual offen­ afford the time away from their jobs sive: governmental legislation to curb The International Red Aid of the CI under Lenin and Trotsky, which proposed joint action of workers' or­ and their families to devote themselves the power of the trade-union movement t 0 systematic education even if that and tie it more closely to the state In the early 1920's, the Communist ganizations over specific and concrete tasks. The united front was designed to education were free. ThUS, it would machinery, combined with persecution International (CI) organized the Inter­ exclude most workers and the unem­ of the left to forestall any resurgence of nation Red Aid as a broad defense or­ unite the working class against capi­ talist attacks and in dOing so create an ployed with fa mil y responsibilities. even the ref 0 r m i s t social-protest ganization of working-class militants. The demand for "Open Admissions, movement of the 1960's. Central to the While the CI rej ected bourgeois-demo­ arena in which the Communist parties, retaining full freedom to criticize other No Tuition" must be linked with the ruling-class policy is to forestall the cratic illusions and idealizations, it continued on page 3 growth of any organized left opposi­ recognized the need to defend the demo­ partiCipants, could counterpose their tions in the labor movement. While the cratic gains of the bourgeois revolu­ program to the social-democratic mis­ radical students, women's liberation­ tions and proletarian struggle as an leadership in order to "set the base ists and black nationalists who typified integral part of the class struggle. against the top." The slogan of the Lessons from History 1960's radicalism lacked the social Lenin summarized the communist per­ united front was "March Separately, strength to seriously threaten capitalist spective toward democratic struggles: Strike Together." rule, the current growth of the left in The International Labor Defense WIt would be a fundamental mistake to (ILD), the American affiliate of the "Resolution the labor movement poses a much suppose that the struggle for democra­ greater potential threat. The gross vio­ International Red Aid, led the cam­ cy can divert the proletariat from the paign to defend Sacco and Vanzetti, Tom lation of democratic rights in the socialist revolution, or obscure or on the Youth" Mooney, C.E. Ruthenberg, imprisoned #atergate affair indicates the Nixon overshadow it, etc. On the contrary, regime's conteml1t for the formalities just as socialism cannot be victorious Wobblies and numerous strike efforts. page 4 continued on page 6 2 Rey Newsletter interference in union affairs (no matter what "progressive" face it appears to take) opens the door for future state Rey Newsletter ~®OiI©lmOt!\~ [M©iI~£) control and destruction of the organiza­ Editorial Board: Paul Friar (managing tions of the working class. Instead of editor), Libby Schaefer, Reuben seeking a common struggle with Team­ Samuels. ster militants against the class treason Production manager: Pat Michaels. Circulation manager: Tony Br:mdler. any militants, its hand is strengthened of the Teamster bureaucracy, Chavez's YSA, Pl/SDS Revive against all organizations of the working reformism dooms the farmworkers to The RCY Newsletter is published by the class and left (see" What Defense Poli­ begging for favors from their exploit­ Revolutionary Communist Youth, youth Student Power cy for Revolutionaries?", this issue, ers' government.