04) YOUNG COMMUNISTS MEET TO BUILD STUDENT STRUGGLES

Special to PV

            Members of the Young Communist League from as far as Montreal, Quebec and Windsor descended on Hamilton, Ontario in January for the 2nd annual YCL conference on the student movement. The conference brought together YCL student activists from eight university campuses to reflect on the turbulent battles of the past year and the way forward for the student movement.

            "The uprisings of students in the Middle East and North Africa, the brave united battles of the Chilean students, and the massive struggle in Quebec last winter and spring have shown the validity of the optimistic claim that the young people, united with the working class, are continuously an important catalytic force for social transformation, overthrow and revolution," the call to the conference said.

            "At the same time, new, contradictory and even confusing developments are taking place internationally and locally. We believe that the student movements in Quebec and English‑speaking Canada are at a difficult but significant and even historic juncture. At stake is our basic access to education," it added.

            Speaking to People's Voice, YCL Ontario organizer Drew Garvie said that the YCL believes there is "very positive potential" to build a united student fightback against the Harper Conservatives, reactionary governments and the corporate austerity agenda and even push, with labour and people's movements, towards a real counter-offensive.

            "The key question is how? and I think we made a pretty good effort at outlining that direction over the weekend," he said.

            The conference analysed the role of both reactionary and social democratic political parties in the student struggle.

            Marianne Breton Fontaine and comrades from Québec made an evaluation of the 2012 Québec student strike.

            First, they said, the movement has to have programme; you cannot draw people into the streets based on demands that have little or no substance. The students started with the solid demand of access to education and popularizing the question of free education. They also linked up their struggle with the battle against austerity and for democratic rights; taking the battle beyond the campus won critical support from the people.

            Second, in whatever form it takes, mass participation and empowerment is essential. In Québec, this went beyond just the way decisions were made, but really entered into the life of the struggle as one in which the students and youth took ownership over. Nor did the drive of the struggle simply come from the organized bodies of the students alone; it came from the grassroots. The battle became everyone's struggle, and from this came the strength and confidence to keep going and escalate the fightback.

            Third, there is the connection of unity and struggle. The two must be together ‑ because whenever a real struggle develops the response of the ruling class has been to spread divisions. It became clear that the ruling class had widespread support in the media as well as the courts, police and prison system. its "tool box" against the students. What the people have is numbers, which becomes a real force when organized.

            All this means struggle and unity. From the start in fall 2011, the student organizations agreed on a basis of unity, including not condemning each other publicly and standing together in the negotiations. They took the attitude that they could not wait to "ride out the storm," but needed to start right away. They kept that unity in the face of serious assaults and differences of tactics and approach, like when the government tried to exclude CLASSE from the negotiating table and in the face of Bill 78.

(The above article is from the March 1-15, 2013, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)