STUDENT MILITANCY
Intimidation right and left
JOHN VAIZEY
In the last few weeks I have been correcting the proofs of a book I have been writing called Social Democracy. It has some pic- tures in it, and the publisher's picture re- searcher has unearthed some brilliant photo- graphs. Two of these—a snapshot of Jan Masaryk who fell or was pushed from the window in 1948, and a Hungarian security guard hanging by the neck from a lamp-post in the 1956 uprising—particularly interested and moved me. I have always been and re- main a social democrat. Yet the story of social democracy is a very sad one. Their enemies on the left always seek to betray them; often they betray themselves; and when constitutional government collapses, it is the left that is defeated, that is pushed from windows or hanged from lamp-posts. If there is a breakdown of constitutional rule in this country, as a result of direct action, then it will not be the left militants who take over, it will be the right wing. Far from industry being run by shop stewards, or militant blacks taking over Notting Hill, or students running communal colleges, it will be the militant right that will win. Almost every Frenchman breathed a sigh of relief when Napoleon took over; so did a good many ordinary Germans when Hitler came to power.
This, I take it, is the fundamental tenet of constitutional social democrats. And that is why social democrats must look with special apprehension at mass meetings, at demonstrations, at extra-parliamentary mili- tancy. It is the left that will go under. The lamp-posts are for them.
When you are faced with student mili- tancy it is, I think, this consideration which must be ever present in your mind. The breakdown of order, the submission to mili- tancy, is an invitation to anarchy, and anarchy has always been followed by re- pression. The only hope for ameliorative, action is for constitutional procedures to be abided by.
What is moderately depressing is how little this is generally accepted. There is, of course, a tiny minority of students, usually pushed to the forefront by militant staff (especially the American so-called `refug- ees), who do not accept the doctrine at all. They believe that by continuous militancy, first on one front and then on another, they can create circumstances in which they will `win'. Their winning would consist, so far as one can interpret their somewhat hyper- bolic documents, in establishing situations in which there were no degrees, nor any formal teaching as such, but 'meaningful' confronta- tions on matters of current interest, like drugs, South African arms, the martyrdom of Dutschke, etc. Now, the obvious point about this millenarian ideal is that if it were seriously to develop it would not be sup- ported by public or private funds. A uni- versity, or a department of a university, converted to such a policy, would sirrkply cease to exist. It would get no money, and no staff or students of any calibre would come to it. Furthermore, as the history of radical movements in the West suggests, if such an institution were created in conditions of social breakdown (which is the explicit aim of its propagators) it would be militantly suppressed, as far less radical programmes have been suppressed in Czechoslovakia. To suppose otherwise seems to me to be just plain barmy.
In any case, most people in universities don't want the millenarian solution. Their view of the nature and purposes of the universities is totally incompatible with that of the militants—and by 'totally' I mean `totally'. No compromise is possible. This is for two reasons. Most students and most university lecturers want to go on with their work peacefully and by their 'work' they mean carrying on with their teaching and other business much as they do now. Of course on any particular issue or set of issues there are differing views, and change occurs. On examinations, for example, which have been the proximate source of my little local difficulties, I am a kind of agnostic liberal. I have looked at many of the sug- gested alternatives to existing examinations, and tried to work some of them, and on the whole I have come to the conclusion that what I do at present is about right. I wrote recently about my present university: 'It has been . . . policy that no student who works regularly, and is able to profit from his course, should be failed.' I stick by that.
But that,- of course, is not the issue. Examinations are the excuse for trouble, not the cause. And the aim is to change the nature of the university by mass meetings. On mass meetings I would hope that all reasonable people are agreed. It is impos- sible to conduct public business by mass meeting. Those regimes which apparently do so—such as Nazi Germany—have as their quite clear purpose in holding such meetings the intimidation of those who are in a minority, or who, though in a majority, are unwilling to spare inordinate amounts of time, or raise^ their voices against abuse, to register their opposition to what the organisers propose. The purpose of such meetings is to further the ends of small groups—ends arrived at in private and in secret—in fact, conspiratorially. The only way for decisions to be openly arrived at is by constitutional procedures, after secret ballots to elect representatives, and at meet- ings free from intimidation. To attempt to conduct any large organisation—and above all a university—in any other manner would be utterly contrary to every principle of constitutional democracy, principles in which I wholeheartedly reaffirm my faith.
These principles were arrived at, we may remind ourselves, to replace the arbitrary tyranny of corrupt regimes, and where they have been overthrown, the consequences are open for all to see.
`It is clear beyond any doubt that univer- cities have such constitutional procedures, and that they have worked well. There may be some students who do not share such principles. They are entitled, in a free country, not to do so. They are not entitled, nor should they be permitted, to intimidate their fellow students and their teachers in order to achieve their own ends. The calling of mass meetings, without consultation, at which people are jeered at and shouted down, is intimidation of the most repre- hensible kind. Those students and staff who do not wish to share in these fascist activities are entitled to protection. Universities must protect their rights to a peaceful university career. It is always open to a few students to disrupt the university, to wreck their own careers and the careers of their contem- poraries. It is open to them, especially, to disrupt a new university, seeking a reputa- tion, trying to attract good scholars to work in it, trying to do its best for its students. Let us be quite clear that this is what the organisers of attempts at mob rule are doing.'
Apart from a few verbal changes, that is the view I expressed in a purloined memo- randum, which has been described as 'hard- line', and 'polarising' opinion. Indeed I hope that it does polarise opinion. At one pole stands the university; at the other pole stand the millenarians.
For, behind this issue, vital though it is, stands a further one. It is the integrity and responsibility of academics for the absolute standards that are embodied in their own disciplines. Unless a university teacher be- lieves in this, he has no place in a university. And unless students accept this, there is no place for them either. I remain an un- repentant expansionist. I did not and do not believe that 'more will mean worse.' But I do believe that whether higher education expands or not, whether it changes its in- stitutional structure or not, it cannot abandon its intellectual standards. Unfortunately recent events have shown that some univer- sity teachers are prepared to compromise on this matter. I have no time for them. The difficulty—and it is a real difficulty—is that though the overwhelming majority of uni- versity people agree with this argument, they
will not stand up and be counted on this issue. It is understandable why this should be. The trouble may blow over. Compromise is what we are rightly trained to accept in most of our lives. And, after all, why should we man the barricades? It is not our job. Unfortunately, and alas that it should be so, it seems that it may be our job.
Previous page
