TO STAND AND BE THE WHOLE IDEA IS UTTERLY NONSENSICAL HAVE * HE HA 10° HE HE THE OUTCOME? - THE HUMILIATING SCENE WHERE THE CHAIRMAN OF THE VICE CHANCELLORS, WITH JACK STRAW AT HIS ELBOW, LIKE A BARON TO PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR AN OFFENE BING AND PUBLIC APOLOGY FOR AN OFFENCE THAT HAD NOT BEEN COMMITTED AND WOULD NOT BEEN AN OFFENCE ANYHOW...
HE HA age in these weeks. It has followed its own path quite distinct from that of other countries.
This revolt of students in Britain takes on a particular aspect in relation to the forces of British society generally. It is quite unlike the political situation in France and Italy but not unlike Germany. In Britain the so-called socialist left has disappeared into the state. The Fabians in the Labour Party have become the advisors to the Treasury, Departments of Education, etc., in Britain there is a vacuum on the left, not a monoTithic communist party. There should be no need to go through the old arguments as to whether or not students involved in confrontations can develop potentially revolutionary positions Whatever their class position may be after they leave the university, students themselves are not a class,. Their special institutional position however, has placed them in the forefront of revolutionary arworker-student alliance but any action, because mystified objective reasons.
The forms of oppression in capitalist society have been undergoing since the Second World War, a steady transformation away from the oppression of ruthless competition and the individualism that went with it, towards a more corporate and monolithic oppression organised and operated in large part by the state. The universities are without individual capitalists, and their individualism has been a fragile academic one. The development of managerialindustrial campuses, completely revealed by the Warwick documents, has crushed down upon the students. Students have been the first to feel the oppression of the state in this new role as reproducer as well as guardian of capitalism. In response, they have turned towards a collective political self-defence, still shot through with individualism, but often of a new and creative This democratic and collective resposte coupled with agressive and provocative actions, are signs of future developments of the working and industrialised middle classes. Students have been In the forefront of suffering state institutional oppression and they are in the forefront of combatting it-not just for themselves, but for the working class as a whole.
As a result new relationships were established between theory and practice. Suddenly, by personal experiences, Sine theoretical understanding of many thousands of student. was deepened. To achieve this the struggle had to strike at a particular concrete point which was both obvious to all students as being obnoxious and at the same time had a real practical and symbolic significance. The files and correspondence were such a point.
A point is not enough. So far few students revolunonanes are conscious or tne need lOr a programme of activity on their part. There are certain advantages, however, in the fact that already many regard Marxism in some form as the means by which changes may be produced More must be won for this position.
At the present time the student movement is poised after its recent leap. Every effort will be made by the universities administrators to re integrate mose Who have rejected capitalist society. The revolutionaries must see this does not happen. New lines of action must be developed, new objectives defined. Spontaneity has taken the student movement a long way. Conscious planning now becomes essential in order to develop the latent potential of the revolutionary forces of which students are a small but important part.
The practice has now become general of making breaches in the working class quarters of our big cities, particularly those which are centrally situated, irrespective wheter InZS occasioned by considerations of public health by the demand for big centrally located business premises or by traffic requirements (such as the laying down of railways, streets, etc.). No matter how different the reasons may be the result is every where the same: the most scandalous alleys and lanes disappear to the accompaniment of lavish self glorification by the bourgeoisie on account of this tremendous success, but-they appear at once again somewhere else, and often in the immediate neighbourhood. Engels 1870 to the Common The genesis of this plan is remarkably coincident with the investment decisions taken by the motor manufacturers in the carly sixties and late fifties. By 1962/63 they had between them completed expansion programmes which brought their production capacity to the 3 million cars per year mark, treble the output of 1955. Even with the most optimistic predictions for export sales, it was clear that most of this output was intended for the home market. Morover the expansion of the car industry had been accompanied by a still greater investment on the part of the steel industry and the car component makers. No hitches, no slackening of the growth of the car industry, could be permitted. Hundreds of • Future of London shopping— millions of pounds had been invested and were at stake. Equally clearly the existing roads and cities were not capable of absorbing the extra traffic that would be generated. Subsequently in the early sixties governmental spending on the motorway progra given priority over spending on other public transport systems. This was the Beeching era of control at British Railways.
The speed of this response is the more remarkable since the drawbacks of the private car as a means of urban transport were fully appreciated at the time. A survey made as early as 1954 had shown private cars forming 37% of all moving vehicles in Central London but carrying only 18% of the passengers, while buses on the other hand formed 7% of moving vehicles but carried more than 50% of the passengers. The authorities were aware therefore that their revolution was to be carried out to The Black Dwarf 23rd March 1970 Page 6 London or any other city. The long term impact, will completely reshape the existing form of city lite, first fragmenting finally shattering local communities until the entire metropolis is atomised. The motorways will divide communities, and like the Victorian railways will form huge continuous barriers across the cities. The widening and adjustment of existing roads to serve as feeders for the motorways will help to obliterate localised activities. The G.L.C. already plans several vast shopping centres in the middle suburbs, and Londoners, will find themselves forced to use them, whether or not they travel by the motorways to do so. While city dwellers will become as isolated as those who live in the rategic Shopping Centres Across type shopping centre The motorways will force other adjustments Land values in their immediate vicinity will fall. Inevitably local authorities will allow new council housing projects to gravitate toward: these areas. Equally private housing along the RA PICKI opportunities for future Rachmanism. Ultim ately tose uvas within signt and sound or the roads will be the poor, those least likely to use them.
WHO BENEFITS The public authorities ostensibly responsible for initiating the scheme have blandly announced that there is no alternative to these developments. What they mean is that they understand their role (only too well) and have deliberately refrained from investigating other solutions. Other solutions certainly do exist. They range from one-way systems, cul-