László Molnárfi and Aidan Moran
This year, the so-called Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a Trotskyist group, decided to use its great wealth of political capital to push for three of its members to run for President of their local students’ unions. They ran candidates for President of the Students’ Union in the University of Cardiff, the University of Sheffield and the University of Lancaster in the March 2025 election cycle. The courage of these students to put themselves forward is commendable. In history, campuses have been bastions of red politics when the workers’ movement was in an ebb.
However, the above-mentioned candidates were vastly unsuccessful in this endeavour. All candidates lost massively to what they described as liberal establishment figures. They garnered merely 406 votes in Lancaster (10%), 360 in Sheffield (10%) and 984 (12%) in Cardiff. Far from being a victory, these results are equivalent to what a joke candidate in any student union election would garner. However, it does raise the point that, for decades now, the communist left has abandoned student union politics.
There are a plethora of criticisms that can be levelled at students’ unions – the ‘officialized’ arm of the student movement – and addressing them would take another article. However, we maintain that if you are a student and a communist, you should absolutely be involved in your students’ union. It is one of the first places you can experience collective organising to achieve change. It connects you with various projects. It can force you into direct confrontation with the authorities, meaning you can learn and develop your skills for the future. Moreover, a grassroots student movement can play a significant role as part of a radical bloc that challenges the capitalist system.
While communists have taken positions in and made changes with students’ unions, the student movement as a whole is not as strong as it once was. If you are looking to get involved with your student union and build change, look no further for learning material than the RCP. Their runs showed exactly how not to conduct a campaign, build a movement, and achieve change.
This article attempts to explain what should be done by comparing that to whatever the RCP decided was the right approach. The aims, strategies and tactics of the RCP were completely off-track. We will address what your aims need to be, how your strategies will ensure you achieve those aims and the tactics you can use to supplement the strategy.
Aims
The basic 3-point programme of the candidates was (1) to kick capitalism off campus by building a mass movement to resist marketisation, (2) for student-worker control of the universities and (3) to open the books for financial transparency. Moreover, for certain candidates, there were additional demands of free housing, abolishing fees and divesting from the military-industrial complex. Ambitious!
There are several issues with making such grandiose demands. If you are promising massive change, then you need to have credibility proving you can achieve it. This can be earned by referencing times you have managed to achieve change in other cases. The RCP’s candidates were not able to present any evidence that they could make change, small or large. People are naturally going to be disbelieving if you tell them you can run a marathon when you get out of breath climbing stairs, and this is no different. Credibility can also be earned by acquiring the support of individuals or groups who have made change. Unfortunately, all of the change-makers at the respective universities, whether these were the trade unions, the pro-Palestine encampments student societies, seemed to be unsupportive of the RCP’s campaign. This is well-illustrated by the RCP being kicked out of Sheffield’s Palestine encampment in May 2024 for the “deliberate co-optation of the encampment’s political momentum and community engagement for the advancement of their party’s agenda”[1]. There is a serious lack of credibility to this organization, which proclaims its support for students, workers and Palestinians, but never bothers to ask: do the students, workers and Palestinians support us?
Each demand made also needs to emotionally resonate with students. The copy-and-paste policies that the RCP adopted as if each campus was uniform, repeating the same mantras during each campaign, represent a stunning lack of awareness of the genuine issues that are impacting students, and therefore a lack of understanding about the contradictions occurring between students and the authorities. Slogans must resonate with the immediate experience of students. When it comes to housing, do students constantly think about free housing? Or do they resent their landlord and wish rent would stop going up? In other words, the campaigns spoke only of maximum demands, but seemingly no minimum programme. In this, there is a distinctly ultra-leftist streak to the campaigns.
| DO NOT COPY-PASTE YOUR POLITICS Every campus is different – treat it that way. ❌ DO NOT: Run the same campaign speech at each university. . |
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Students, upon hearing of these grandiose demands, would rightly surmise that these candidates are incapable of catering to their very real needs in the present moment. This does not address the material conditions at the university, nor does it engage with students and attempt to understand their needs. There needs to be an organic link between issues faced on campus and the systematic picture, which needs to be logically elucidated in the manifestos, with achievable, pragmatic and measurable targets. Even with credibility, there needs to be a logical process that people can follow from the action you are wanting them to take to the end result you are promising. This logical process was, according to the RCP: “vote for our candidate and they will mobilise students to force the authorities to give into our demands!”. The credibility of this claim is immediately cast in doubt given they could not mobilise any of the progressive communities that would be the easiest to get to support their campaign. Also, while mass mobilisation is necessary for genuine change, it is not sufficient. You cannot just have a mass, you need a lever and a fulcrum. Simply saying you can mobilise people and then change happens betrays a stunning lack of understanding of how movements work in real life. It is also important to note that a successful run only guarantees a candidate a year in the role. If that year is spent solely on attempting to make drastic changes which are unlikely to happen, then that is a year wasted. It is easier to fight for grandiose demands that are unwinnable, as a safe bet covering for a defeatist attitude, than it is to engage with winnable demands that are actually achievable through hard work. The fight for smaller issues contributes to a snowball effect to take on systemic issues, and if the material conditions align, historic moments can happen.
Minimum demands, as such, need to complement their maximum counterparts. Fee increases, rent hikes, underfunded welfare services are key areas of concern to students that do arise from the marketisation of academia, and that can be readily dealt with by a radical student movement. Additionally, mobilising on lecture recordings, unethical investments and tackling gender-based violence by implementing bystander training and resisting the far-right are examples of practical ways to help students. Setting up a food bank for students who are struggling financially can alleviate the pressures associated with a cost-of-living and housing crisis.
| START LOCAL, THINK BIG
Huge slogans like “kick capitalism off campus” sound exciting, but they mean nothing if you are ignoring the issues students face right now – rising rents, expensive food, lack of student spaces and such. Organize around concrete problems, show people you can win small things, and connect the dots to bigger structural issues. A food bank today, a housing campaign tomorrow, and a mass movement next year. This is called the “mass line”, to be cognizant of the issues on the ground and formulate solutions, implement them, and repeat the process. Use it. ✅ DO: Tackle issues according to the strength of your movement. |
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Academic issues, such as curriculum reform, are worth considering too. The student union, as an institution, encompasses campaigns, welfare and education supports as well as a myriad of other services. It operates in close contact with the bureaucratic university, in which students are treated as consumers and products, offering both opportunities and challenges for making change under this framework. A radical candidate understands the role of a student union, and offers a well-rounded approach, which extends far-beyond the vague call to catalyse militancy. Undoubtedly, the anti-establishment messaging of turning the student union into a fighting body resonates with the student population, but only if this is under the umbrella of a holistic approach. The student union can channel radical energies. However, it must be understood that the student union will never be curtailed to just an activist group, but that it can temporarily spawn, in a semi-detached manner from its liberal core, radical social movements on and off-campus. This is the modus operandi of the student movement, it being a mix of grassroots activism, semi-detached groups and official structures, all of which contribute to change in times of political upsurge.
To mobilize on deeply-felt, popular issues, in other words an “emphasis on maximizing mass participation by focusing on a clear set of popular demands, rather than attempting to address “everything at once” with an already-radicalized core, is what Camejo refers to as independent mass action”[2] is a workable approach. It is then these campaigns that would lead to subsequent bifurcation points. Organizing around Palestine leads to an open letter, then to a protest, then to an encampment… and then a possible ‘May 68 and its student-worker alliance. However, for the RCP, the entire process is flipped on its head; upon electoral victory in the student union, ‘May 68 is supposed to drop from thin air, and this should be the starting point. This teleological approach puts blind faith in a preordained sequence of events rather than the organic evolution of movements. History stands topsy-turvy!
When it comes to “kicking capitalism off campus”, communists cannot organise these demands into existence by speaking about them. They would be all the result of a historical shift due to major political events. Rather, communists can organise by proceeding from concrete issues that the student body faces, packaging this through the lens of the class struggle, and building a movement therein (viz. mass line). Concretize; think global but act local. It is necessary for communists to declare their political views, but this should be done through the elucidation of the organic link between immediate issues and the need for systemic change. It is not possible to speak of a universal that is present in the symbolic order and for this then to drop from the realm of the abstract to the material. Socialism in one campus is not possible. As literally understood, to “kick capitalism off campus” would entail the cessation of the operation of the law of value, which is impossible without broader economic transformation on a national and international scale. As a rhetorical device, understood to resist the marketisation of academia, it is weak due to its vagueness, and it would be wiser to say what is actually meant; social-democratic reforms on campus through pressuring senior management and the state to offset neoliberalisation by public funding.
| SAY WHAT YOU MEAN – AND MEAN WHAT YOU SAY Students can handle the truth. Tell them. You do not need to pretend revolution is around the corner. What people really want is clarity, honesty, and a realistic path forward. That is what builds trust. Admit mistakes, apologize and reassess if you make a misstep. Furthermore, political education is important. Do not be afraid to explain complex concepts to students. In 2023-2024, the Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) distributed pamphlets on student-worker solidarity, commercialisation of academia and the Irish government’s austerity-driven neoliberal agenda. Theory is important, and the masses are more than capable of absorbing, and participating, in intellectual discourse. Feel free to produce flyers, pamphlets and articles to distribute via various means. ✅ DO: Be upfront about what is achievable right now, and what needs longer struggle. Explain your plans, your aims, tactics and strategies, and your limits. |
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The transformation of bureaucratic decision-making into democratic student-worker consensus is similarly problematic. This is the call to set up the student-worker council which takes over from the bureaucratic organs of the university. This can only be the result of a protracted struggle given the adequate historical conditions. On the one hand, the deus ex machina approach of RCP that conceives of this type of structure materializing out of nowhere is a mechanical materialist mistake. It is believed that organizing, specifically the election of a single candidate to the students’ union, can bring about revolutionary conditions with a mass movement of students and workers. In this interpretation, the object comes to dominate the subject, as a historical God, appearing out of nowhere. On the other hand, the voluntaristic-idealistic kernel is covertly present, in which the belief in collective enunciation can bring about revolutionary conditions, and the subject comes to dominate the object. It is possible only to intervene in the present moment as per historical materialism, within its subject-object collapse, and in relation to bifurcation points which abound on campus, that is hunger for change already present amongst students and in relation to immediate issues, and activate these politically through the lens of the class struggle to push towards systemic change.
This proposal for student-worker control of the university is also hard to take seriously, not because it is not needed, but because of the way it is being presented. As a result of there being no whitepaper produced for the precise operation of a student-worker management structure, it comes across as sloganeering rather than a practical proposal. At the very least, it should have been highlighted that the initial step is consistent student participation in the workers’ struggle, and practical plans drawn up for how this will be done. Teach-ins, teach-outs, bringing food and water, etc. outside the picket lines are all viable plans. All this being said, it is the duty of communists to tell the truth; an instance of actual student-worker control of academia has not taken place since ‘May 68, and while it is desirable, it is also far-off.
The desire to “open the books” similarly reeks of naive utopianism that is conducted without empirical basis. It is true that senior management are on high-end pay scales and waste money that could be better spent on welfare services, stopping fee increases and rent hikes. However, the extent to which grassroots control over the finances of the universities would alleviate the issues faced by the community runs the risk of being severely overstated. For instance, at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), in 2022/2023, key management personnel, amounting to 15 people[3], earned €2.8 million[4]. If they all were reduced to a living wage salary, calculated as €35,000 per annum, this would be reduced to €0.5 million, representing a saving of €2.275 million. While this is a significant amount, it represents a drop in the ocean of what is needed. This highlights that although cutting executive salaries could contribute to additional funding, it would not be enough to resolve all financial pressures faced by students and staff. It is, nevertheless, viable to reason that cuts to courses, staff redundancies, fee increases and rent hikes as well as underfunding of welfare services could be prevented by a radical movement in third-level education as shown by historical experience.
However, it is important not to overstate this to such an extent as to give the impression that universities could just get rid of tuition fees and rent charges altogether, as the RCP is calling for. Ultimately, the state is severely underfunding academia, with the University of Sheffield being in £50 million deficit[5] and the University of Cardiff being in £32.8 million deficit[6]. The University of Lancaster, on the other hand, has no deficit issue, albeit it too is exposed to the ongoing crisis in the higher-education sector[7]. All this to say: the financial statements should not be twisted for rhetorical purposes beyond what is valid. Criticising bloated senior management pay, pointing to surpluses and questioning certain expenditures are reasonable targets but communists should understand that these institutions are locked into financial and legal structures which means that considerable amounts of money are path-dependent. For instance, it is not possible to redirect money from the construction of shiny buildings into community initiatives under the capitalist regime. Thorough investigation into the nitty-gritty is necessary when arguing one’s case for financial issues; for instance, TCDSU pointed out in 2023 that “during the academic year 2022-2023, Circuit Laundry generated €405,000 in revenue, assuming 1,800 students each paid €7.50 per wash and dry, with an average of 30 washes per student over a 34-week term. If TCD forfeited the €50,000 rent and refunded it to Circuit Laundry, the price per wash and dry could be reduced to €6.50. This reduction would result in a total revenue of €351,000 (1,800 tenants × €6.50 × 30 washes), which, when combined with the refunded rent, would restore the original revenue figure”[8].
| KNOW THE STRUCTURES BEFORE YOU ENGAGE WITH THEM
It is tempting to blame everything on greedy administrators, but the truth is more complicated. Universities are locked into legal, financial, and political systems that shape what is possible. You cannot organize effectively if you do not understand the terrain you are fighting on. ✅ DO: Research university finances. Find out what can be changed – like laundry fees, food pricing, or unfair policies – and build campaigns around that. Similarly, research the exact types of links your university has with Israel – in-house/external investments, contracts and unilateral/multilateral academic ties – and find out how it is possible to cut those ties within logistical, legal and technical limitations. The key point is, do your own research. |
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The risk of overstating the greed of senior management as a factor for the issues that arise is a move away from empirical investigation into dogmatism. This is all a move away from concretization into abstraction; proceeding from the universal rather than the specific, it is flipped on its head. Needless to say, this runs the risk of killing creativity and community self-organization with the pre-existing resources on campus.
| WATCH OUT FOR BURNOUT True change comes from collective effort, not just individual sacrifice. Burnout in activism is real and can lead to exhaustion, cynicism, and a sense of being overwhelmed. It takes a toll on personal relationships with friends, family and lovers. Watch for signs like irritability, fatigue, lack of motivation, depression, anxiety and physical symptoms like headaches. Relying on one person for the entire movement can be dangerous, as it creates burnout, leaves the cause vulnerable, and risks stagnation, so make sure to delegate tasks with clear deadlines. Personalistic power is inappropriate for a collective movement. ❌ DO NOT: Spend every waking moment engaging in activism. |
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Strategies
The mistake of believing that a single candidate to the students’ union can bring about revolutionary change is enlarged to farcical sizes when considering the manner in which the candidates are being run. The candidates have been parachuted in, with no prior participation in student union structures. Or indeed, without grassroots backing.
The title of vanguard of the student body has to be earned, not proclaimed. In the case of TCDSU and Queens’ University Belfast Students’ Union (QUBSU), communists organised in grassroots groups, Students4Change (S4C) and the Solidarity Action Network (SAN) as well as in official structures, for years preceding victory in student union elections in the early 2020s. With this approach, a truly organic community of student radicals can be built up, who run as a slate in the student unions, rather than relying on a single candidate who appears out of nowhere and promises to change everything; this reeks of bourgeois idealism. In this lies a necessity to discern between positioning and maneuvering. Maneuvering from a position of weakness is not going to result in a strong series of actions, so in periods where the contradictions in capitalism are not heightened, the focus needs to be building the position of the organisation so that maneuvering in times of conflict becomes more effective. Engagement ebbs and flows according to events as they come and go, rather than being fixed; this, coincidentally, is also why the RCP’s focus on turnout as a sign of dissatisfaction is lacking in context.
| KNOW WHEN YOU ARE POSITIONING – AND WHEN YOU ARE MANEUVERING You cannot make bold moves if you have got no ground to stand on. Sometimes, your job is to build strength quietly. Other times, it is to strike boldly. Knowing the difference is what makes a good strategist – not just a loud one. ✅ DO: Spend quiet periods building your group, alliances, skills, and legitimacy – so when the time is right, you can act with real power. |
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Trust is earned by displaying active participation in the student community, which includes the nitty-gritty of helping students through their everyday issues. Passing motions at the decision-making organs of the student union on single-issue concerns, contributing to ongoing campaigns and being lower-level representatives before running for higher-level positions is a prerequisite. Overturning limitations, for instance on a ban on political activity, in the constitution via referendum can precipitate future struggle. The struggle must be waged continuously inside and outside the student union. Have friends outside of politics, network, help people! Running for class representative elections allows radicals to establish a structure similar to shop stewards in trade unions on the grassroots level. A survey, a petition, an open letter, and a performative-artsy protest with meagre turnout can work to activate a burgeoning hidden social transcript and establish a political subjectivity; each of these is an “‘Event’ – a ‘type of rupture which opens up truths’ and disrupts the current situation”[9]. This allows the movement to demonstrate that the communist approach of grassroots power in all areas of life is a workable alternative to top-down management. This is all a day-by-day intervention in the present moment to propel the student movement. This is called deep organizing; one cannot merely appear out of nowhere. It is quite jarring to see, for a student, a candidate out of nowhere promising the stars, while having nothing to show for so far. This is an isolated spectacle to draw members into the RCP, not political organizing. Importantly, communists should not do this with the intention of securing an election to the student union, but should be about working in the community to help people; this is what the communist ethos is.
This is why communists should be interested in all aspects of student life, not just impose a view of student life. Are working class students struggling with rent payments and the lack of cultural capital? Do women feel safe on campus? How do students on placement handle essentially working for free while receiving a pittance to keep them afloat? Do international students feel that they are accepted and supported by their university and the student community? Do ethnic minorities feel safe after far-right mobilizations around town? These might be shrugged off as “identity politics” by the RCP, however, the lack of ability and interest to engage in the nitty-gritty displays a fundamental lack of analysis and betrays an inability to see class dynamics at play, a lack of foresight in predicting potential coalitions that could be formed, and more bluntly, a stunning lack of compassion and empathy for the turmoils their fellow students are facing.
| DEEP ORGANIZING BEATS QUICK OPTICS If you are not in the community, you are not leading anything.
Movements do not happen because one person with a red banner gets elected and makes fiery speeches. That is not organizing. Revolution is made by people, not saviors. Build relationships, not cults of personality. ✅ DO: Build a team of diverse, left-leaning students. |
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The mistake of inorganicism is evident in the campaign teams for these elections. The campaign teams of the RCP in each of the universities consisted only of party members, rather than in an organic composition made up of diverse left-wing students, as evidenced by the carbon copy speeches used during lecture shout-outs. Promising to build a grassroots movement, they have already failed before even beginning, by recruiting only from within their small cadré-based party operating on democratic (viz. bureaucratic) centralism. This is not a promising sign for a burgeoning social movement. S4C as well as SAN were multi-tendency left-wing groups, numbering 125 and 200 at their peaks respectively. These were organic movements, whose members participated in the student community, in diverse but radical ways. There has to be this grassroots dual-power scaffolding around the student union in order to break bureaucratic inertia by applying external pressure and so as to mobilize students (viz. Mao Zedong’s “Bombard the Headquarters”). This is crucial so that the elected radical can carry out their promises.
| BUILD YOUR SCAFFOLDING BEFORE YOU TAKE POWER
✅ DO: Grow a multi-tendency group, organize teach-ins, help with tenant issues, and show up for workers – before you run for anything. It is best to run as part of a team with roots. |
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The sheer inorganicism of the RCP becomes farcical when one considers that in Cardiff’s case, the RCP ran a candidate in the elections against another left-wing candidate. This candidate stood against the staff redundancies and course cuts. This risks splitting the vote and lays bare the inability of the RCP to be flexible in strategy to deliver the best possible outcome for the radical student movement, and cements its reputation as engaging in member-farming rather than actual political organizing.
Tactics
On the communist ethos, be confrontational, but do not be impersonable. In multiple instances, the communist candidates call the other candidates at hustings careerists, which is off-putting. The candidates and their teams have social reach, and the message of this sort of dogmatic inflexibility spreads quickly, hurting the radical’s chances of election. Furthermore, a sense of cooperation is needed to form a broad alliance so as to carry out one’s programme, especially if the elected radical is to be co-workers with those at hustings. It is wiser to speak of the structural forces of co-optation[10], rather than personalizing it.
| BE NORMAL, NOT ANNOYING
You do not need to be the loudest person in the room or accuse everyone else of being a “careerist”. Start by being friendly, genuine, and helpful. Build trust by talking with people, not at them. Nobody joins a movement because they were shouted at with a megaphone between classes. Gently point out the failings of the current leadership if need be, and suggest a radical route. The political tactic of provoking a reaction to expose a reactionary essence, which can later be used for recruitment is valid, but select your targets carefully and heed optics. ✅ DO: Listen to what people care about. |
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In another instance, the RCP are shouting at passers by on campus through a loudspeaker, rather than discussing with their peers in a calm manner. It is as if they hold contempt for members of their own class. Lecture shout-outs are decent, but it bears the mark of a campaign which seeks to make a point (viz. recruit members to the RCP), rather than win. Their entire election tactic revolves around talking to, but not with students. There is no sense of deep organizing. If the RCP believes that the student union is fundamentally reactionary, then they should state as such and use the platform to recruit, but if the RCP believes that the student union can be reoriented towards radical activism, then they should engage with it in a genuine way, and build a movement to win. Students are not dumb. Rightly so, they would ask, which is it? At the heart of it, there is a commandist attitude lurking in the ideological hinterland. As evidenced by certain comments on social media, the RCP believes that as a ‘vanguard’, by accessing the mailing list of the student union, they can conjure up a mass movement out of nowhere, without having done any of the day-to-day work, and indeed without historical events, contradicting every known principle of historical materialism. Rather, a spider-webbed network of community connections stands far more powerful than mass-email blasts to the student body. Furthermore, a ‘historic moment’ can only appear when the leadership and the student body is interlinked in a singular moment in the present that potentiates pre-existing attitudes into actualized expression through a harmonious political dance; there is a “historic moment” only when the present is ordered in terms of the future, on the condition that the future makes its way into the present not in an immediate manner but having been mediated by the past – that is, by an already accomplished action”[11]. When leadership calls an encampment it is because students’ attitudes are already arranged in such a way as to want an encampment; and then the crowd declares itself as an encampment. The leadership leads but is led at the same time. The material conditions have shaped the environment but contingent class struggle determines outcomes. The past, present and future are collapsed into one ‘historic moment’. It is only when the suspense between what is and what could be reaches critical levels that a line of flight, like lighting, potentiates this tension by connecting leadership and the student body, and a transduction[12] occurs, closing the dialectical loop between molecular attitudes and their molar expression, transforming quantitative change into qualitative change, bifurcating history. All in all, the RCP has an utter lack of a theory of change that can be applied and tested against real-world conditions.
| KNOW THE MOMENT, KNOW WHEN TO ACT Effective organizing requires a deep understanding of the current moment and the material conditions shaping it. It is not just about creating a movement – it is about recognizing when attitudes and conditions align to make that movement possible. Leaders should lead, but also be attuned to the people they aim to lead.
✅ DO: Recognize when attitudes shift and the moment becomes ripe for action. |
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In yet another instance, the outgoing President of the Students’ Union in Sheffield, Daisy Watson, is accosted while painting a mural with daisies, as if they were a government minister, and is visibly made uncomfortable by RCP members shoving a camera and microphone in her face, asking about Palestine. She calmly responds that she is in negotiations with the university, to which derision is heard. Reportedly, at the same time as this was happening students were participating in an occupation of an administrative building on campus for Palestine, showing how detached the RCP is from praxis. In any case, it is a terrible look. It is doubtful if the RCP carried out the research to determine whether these negotiations are proceeding in a fruitful manner, or whether they are a sham and could do with more pressure, or perhaps negotiation methods which are more hardline. At Cardiff, a similar confrontation takes place against a liberal-centrist candidate in the election, as he is walking to the bar to have a drink with his mate, the entire interaction coming across as farcical; in fact, the manifesto of this candidate speaks to student issues in a concrete way, ironically being of a materialist nature as opposed to the RCP’s bourgeois idealism. All the RCP see is abstract categories, not material reality. The structures of capitalism are to be engaged with on a material level, not as a theoretical adversary. Otherwise, it looks like fighting a straw-man, punching in the air towards some Platonic ideal, rather than taking into account the materialisation of capitalist social relations in the given context of the specific university. Capitalism does not operate according to a ‘pure’ economic logic, but is mediated by social, political and cultural institutions, through which capital’s drive for ceaseless self-expansion is expressed. The political instinct to provoke a reaction, expose a reactionary essence and subsequently use what is revealed for recruiting is valid, but this has to be carried out in a measured way with the targets carefully selected, so that it is optically viable.
It is, accordingly, that students would surmise that these communists are unable to engage in tactical considerations, that is respond to changes in political events from one day to the next. There is a wide assortment of tactics that can be deployed by a student union. Importantly, as leadership engages with these tactics, the utmost transparency must be provided to students on the basis for picking one over the other, as well as their progress, and revisions made if necessary, so as to keep in the loop and build a mass movement that holds to account. The tactics at hand must remain flexible, while the principles inflexible. The production of a policy paper can lead to change within bureaucratic committees. A legal action taken by the student union against conditions in student accommodation, such as TCDSU’s case at the Residential Tenancies Board in the South of Ireland against TCD’s restrictive overnight guests policy, can overturn unpopular policies. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request can be used to find out information for various purposes. The bureaucratic Union of Students In Ireland (USI) and National Union of Students (NUS) can be exploited by radicals, a discussion which was glaringly omitted by the RCP, a group that ostensibly seeks to establish a national movement. Should a protest be organised, and it be effective, and the university responds, it requires fine-tuning of tactics, namely collective bargaining at the meeting table. An instance of this is the negotiations for divestment from Israel in TCD and QUB which were an amicable cooperation after due pressure was applied, between key stakeholders, leading to temporary suspension of the class struggle and as a result of which direct action ceases. Bourgeois institutions must be engaged with, for even if in form they are reactionary, in content they can occasionally be used for progressive politics. Similarly, it is also worth specifying where the pressure at senior management on campus ends and where it transitions into pressure on the state. For example, at the inflection point of resisting the marketisation of education, the class interests of senior management are fluid, meaning that a level of cooperation between students, workers and senior management is possible in some cases, in others not, to target the state. The RCP’s campaign makes no mention of these considerations which are necessary for tactical success, coming across as utopian dogmatists.
| USE EVERY TOOL IN THE BOX Movements win when they stay flexible and creative. There is no one “correct” tactic. Sometimes it is a protest. Sometimes it is a smart use of the local or national press. Sometimes it is a legal complaint, a teach-in, or a committee proposal. Sometimes it is an email picket, a phone picket, or an in-person picket. The key is knowing which one fits the moment – and being willing to adjust. ✅ DO: Mix tactics – direct action, negotiations, policy papers, referenda, legal pressure, media strategy. |
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All of it fails to win, and all of it fails to agitate, hence the aims, strategies and tactics of the RCP must be rejected. So, what can we learn from this as communists seeking to be active in the student movement? We need to build up our credibility by being involved with and leading movements that have made coherent change. Whether this is acquiring more financial support for students, ensuring consent training is accessible for societies, divestment within a department or more support for learning difficulties, make sure that you and your peers acquire the skills and experience to make change. Once you have done that, you will understand the dynamic you are in, know who your allies and opponents are and how to build a mass movement in order to win.
It all summed up: A baby is made over 9 months, a stork does not drop them from the air in a carrier-bag!
- CPGBML. (2024). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/CPGBML/status/1807925716983435650 ↑
- Von Klark, L. (2025, January 5). Ultraleftism Ascendant: Understanding the Infantile Disorder – Aontacht Media. Aontacht Media. https://aontachtmedia.ie/2025/01/05/ultraleftism-ascendant-understanding-the-infantile-disorder/ ↑
- Trinity College Dublin. (2018). Management Structures Handbook. In Trinity College Dublin. https://www.tcd.ie/media/tcd/secetary/pdfs/governance/Trinity_Management_Structures_Handbook.pdf ↑
- Trinity College Dublin . (2023). Financial Statement 2022/2023. Trinity College Dublin . https://www.tcd.ie/financial-services/external-assets/pdfs/Consol_Financial_Statements_2022_23.pdf ↑
- Cox, C. (2025, January 29). All the Russell Group unis which are culling your lecturers’ jobs in 2025. The Tab. https://thetab.com/2025/01/29/all-the-russell-group-unis-which-are-culling-your-lecturers-jobs-in-2025 ↑
- Ibid ↑
- University of Lancaster. (2024). Financial Statement 2023/2024. University of Lancaster. https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/finance/2024%20Lancaster%20University%20Annual%20Accounts.pdf ↑
- Paraphrased from Molnárfi, L. (2023b). X (Formerly Twitter). https://x.com/LaciCloud/status/1818674876066017460 ↑
- Reynolds, A. (2022). Contesting the financialization of student accommodation: campaigns for the right to housing in Dublin, Ireland. Housing Studies, 39(6), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2021.2023731 ↑
- Molnárfi, L. (2023). Photo-ops and Goodie Bags: Co-Optation of Student Unions. SPR | TCD. https://www.tcdspr.com/copy-3-of-article-one-1 ↑
- Alexandre Kojève, & Queneau, R. (1947). Introduction to the reading of Hegel / Lectures on the phenomenology of spirit / assembled by Raymond Queneau ; edited by Allan Bloom ; translated from the French by James H. Nichols, Jr. Basic Books. ↑
- Simondon, G. (2020). Individuation In Light Of Notions Of Form And Information. Univ Of Minnesota Press. ↑