The Militant Student is a new paper written by students, for
students. The intention of government and big business to cut
education, training and jobs to service the bankers debts, means that
we are left with little option but to organise and fight. The situation
that looms before us shows that capitalism today is at a dead-end and
offers no future for workers and youth. This is the Statement of the
Miltant Student Editorial Board in its founding edition.
Under capitalism today society is at a dead end. It is 20 years since
the fall of Stalinism, in which time a generation has grown up being
told that socialism is a thing of the past. The mass media has
repeatedly told us that history is over, that there is no working class,
and that the free market (where everything has a price) is the best of
all possible worlds.
Today it is clear the world over, where unemployment is growing and
school and universities are being cut to the bone, that the system
offers no future for workers and youth. Those of us who entered the
schools system as New Labour came to power crying ‘Education! Education!
Education!’ are now entering an economy in crisis. What use is an
education with no jobs at the end? The unemployment rate now stands at
8% – the highest for a generation. Many are staying on for Further
Education rather than join the back of the dole queue.
The government is making ordinary people pay for the cost of
the economic crisis. They are cutting public spending to pay back the
money they used to bail out the banks. This means severe cuts in
education. At the end of 2009 Lord Mandelson, Minister for Business,
announced cuts of £1billion to higher education. This means at least
6,000 job losses in universities and colleges throughout the country.
Included in this figure are 1,300 losses in FE colleges. In total over
100 colleges and universities are in the process of making serious cuts,
potentially effecting over 100,000 students.
The Institute of Fiscal
studies estimates that, whoever is in power after the general election,
£2.5 billion in cuts will be needed if the government is to meet its
commitment to halving the debt by 2013. The University and College Union
(UCU) estimates this could see 30 universities close as a result.
Because of these cuts in funding, thousands of school leavers, through
no fault of their own, will be denied a place at university this year as
the government caps the university intake.
Aims and Tasks
The task of the Militant Student is to provide a conscious lead for
workers and youth in the face of the situation that looms before us. It
is founded on the ideas of Marxism, and therefore recognises the need to
link up the students in the schools, colleges and universities. It must
link up the students with teachers and lecturers. Fundamentally it must
build bridges between the students, young workers, the growing ranks of
unemployed youth, and the wider working class. As a Marxist paper the
Militant Student recognises that it is only the workers, who are daily
becoming more radicalised, that can change society. We, the youth of
today, will be the workers of tomorrow.
The Militant Student seeks to gather together and organise the most
conscious elements of the youth, whether they are in work or education,
in order to explain the need to fight against the cuts. It strives to
make conscious the unconscious feelings of workers and youth to change
society. We encourage our readers everywhere to set up school students’
unions, university societies, socialist discussion groups or Militant
Student supporters groups. Contact the paper and find out what you can
do in your area.
This is your paper – write for it. We need articles to make this a
living paper. It should become a focal point and regular bulletin for
militant youth throughout the country. Send us reports, letters, collect
money for the Fighting Fund. Make it the paper for socialist youth.
It seems that the fall of Stalinism 20 years ago was but a prelude to
the fall of capitalism. But it will not go quietly into the night. The
bosses and the super-rich that own the system will defend it to the end.
But growing ranks of workers and youth will not stand for a system that
cannot offer a future. To change society we must be organised, and
nothing worth fighting for ever comes easy. But we must remember that we
are the many, and they are the few.
www.militantstudent.com
