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Build the student protests against Gaza slaughter

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University students across the United States have set up encampments to protest against the brutal onslaught on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state. This comes after the US Government agreed an extra $15 billion for the Israeli military. Students are calling on universities to cut ties with companies making huge profits aiding the Israeli military and its occupation in Gaza.

There has been vicious police suppression against the protesters, showing how cruel the university managements are by encouraging these attacks on students and staff. In Columbia University, for example, students were faced with hundreds of riot police who barbarically attacked protesters and arrested students and staff en masse.

It is not only university management; the pro-capitalist Democratic and Republican parties support and encourage these cruel responses by police and university security.

UK protests

Students here have seen the events in the US and have taken action onto their campuses with solidarity protests and encampments. Students fighting against the war do not have a mass party that represents them either.

In order for students to defend the right to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian people, students need to have their own democratic organisations. They could link up with the workers’ movement and the trade unions. Socialist Party members are fighting in trade unions to bring together workers in the arms and logistics industries to discuss and debate what action they can take against the war – workers in the same companies students are protesting against.

Students, linked to the workers’ movement, could help take the necessary steps for genuine workers’ political representation, to fight against the barbaric war on Gaza and the right to protest on campuses and in the workplaces, but also to fight against the housing crisis, never-ending cuts and exploitation here in Britain.

The fight against war means fighting for socialism. It’s the working-class and students internationally who have the power to bring that change about.

Socialist Students says:

  • Stop the Gaza slaughter – for the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from the occupied territories
  • Solidarity with students occupying universities across the US and Britain. Stop arming Israeli state terror!
  • Defend the right to protest on campus. Student unions must lead campaigns to defend any students victimised for protesting against war and oppression
  • Kick out the Tories! But Starmer’s Labour is no alternative. Help us build a new workers’ party with socialist policies to end war, austerity and capitalism
  • For a socialist Middle East and world!

Oxford

Appearing overnight, the newly formed ‘Oxford Action for Palestine’ added Oxford to the long list of Palestinian solidarity encampments spanning the world. So, with leaflets, Socialist newspapers, and six boxes of cereal in tow, we headed down to lend our support and put forward a socialist programme.

The group’s appointed media liaison explained the group is comprised of a mix of students and professors standing in solidarity with their Palestinian counterparts. She said that they don’t intend to leave until their demands are met, which are:

  1. Disclose all finances and open the University’s books
  2. Divest from Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
  3. Overhaul university investment policy
  4. Boycott Israeli genocide, apartheid, and occupation
  5. Stop banking with Barclays
  6. Support Palestinian-led rebuilding of education in Gaza

Plenty of positive aspects to their demands, such as opening the University’s books, are mirrored by their collaboration with students at other universities and with university trade unions. The group has been working alongside the University and College Union (UCU) branch which sent out a statement supporting the camp. Further collaboration was seen with the camp swelling to around 500 as part of a healthcare workers’ vigil.

When asked what message the group would like to send to socialists, the response was very direct. She called on socialists to get involved in their local camps, or build new ones if not already established.

I agree, socialists should get involved, but also use all the levers available to workers in addition to occupations. Only with workers and students acting side by side will their full demands be met.

Rachel Cox, Oxford Socialist Party

Manchester

On the 1 May, students at the University of Manchester (UoM), including Manchester Leftist Action, Youth Front for Palestine, Youth Demand, and Manchester Palestine Action, occupied Brunswick Park as an escalation of a series of short occupations resisting Israel’s assault on Palestine and the university’s ties with arms companies.

When I visited the occupation in Manchester for an interview, they had just renamed it Dr Adnan Al-Bursh Park, after a Palestinian doctor and professor who died in an Israeli prison on 19 April.

Among the groups’ demands is no disciplinary action against students involved. Already a student is facing suspension for their journalistic work exposing UoM’s vice chancellor saying she was comfortable with arms industries being on campus.

So far, other than the threat of suspension, the university has put up no resistance to the occupation. A spokesperson for the group said: “If the university wants to put a possession order through, they’re welcome to, and we will decide collectively what we want to do about that.”

I asked what the group want people to do: “Show your support, be loud, keep shouting about Palestine because the second we don’t, we lose the rich legacy of the Palestinian people.”

Socialist Students calls for students to organise democratically, and link up with the broader workers’ movement, to resist war, occupation and university marketisation. Universities having strong ties with the arms industry is a product of the broader issue of treating education as a market rather than a public service. Governmental funding has been slashed, and so management turn to wealthy companies, exploitative student rents and high international fees to fill the deficit. A socialist transformation of society is the only permanent solution, and if you want to help get us there get in touch with Socialist Students or the Socialist Party and build a mass movement of students and workers to resist war and capitalism.

Sam Hey, Manchester Socialist Students

UCL

Students at University College London have gone into occupation demanding an end to the institution’s support for the Israeli state onslaught on Palestine.

The tent encampment follows an earlier room occupation. UCL management has responded by having security close the campus to the public.

A solidarity protest on Friday 3 May attracted around a hundred across both sides of the gates at short notice. Supporters outside were open to discussing socialist ideas to end the war, with one telling me he had voted for the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) in the London elections the day before.

To defend and extend protest actions like the UCL occupation, students need their own democratic campaign organisations that can draw together the various strands of student struggle and link up with campus trade unions. Join Socialist Students to help us build that!

James Ivens

Warwick

Students and supporters gathered to hear speakers at the Warwick protest from the anti-war and trade union movement. The speaker from the Fire Brigades Union (FBU) mentioned the potential role of workers in stopping arms supplies to an illegal war.

As we tried to hand out TUSC election leaflets, a self-admitted prospective local Labour Party candidate in a mask and hood tried to take our leaflets, claiming this wasn’t a political protest!

Warwick Socialist Students

Leeds

Socialist Party members visited the encampment opposite Leeds University Union. While we visited, university staff members also came down to offer support. We explained that we stood in the elections opposing the war on Gaza as part of TUSC, and our election leaflets were added to those being handed to supporters of the occupation.

Student occupiers joined the Leeds TUC May Day march for peace at the weekend which swelled to over 500 strong.

Solidarity with students occupying against Gaza onslaught

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Socialist Students sends our solidarity to the thousands of students occupying universities across the US against the ongoing onslaught on Gaza.

We condemn the brutal police suppression of these protests, and note the rotten role played by university executives and pro-capitalist politicians who have encouraged these attacks on students and staff.

It is not only in the US where students have faced repression for protesting in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

In the UK, the Tory government has given universities the go-ahead to suspend students and student societies protesting against the slaughter in Gaza, like at SOAS. University bosses have hired private security firms to spy on student activists and forcibly break up protests. At Queen Mary University, management authorised security to raid the campus office of the University and Colleges Union (UCU).

To defend against attacks on our safety and right to protest, students need to be organised. We need our own democratic organisations, which link up with the workers’ movement and fight back on all the issues affecting students – including the war on Gaza, but also the cost-of-living crisis, student housing crisis, and cuts to staff.

If you want to organise a protest against the brutal onslaught on Gaza, and defend students against the ramping-up of repressive measures on campus, then get in touch with Socialist Students.

  • Stop the Gaza slaughter – for the permanent withdrawal of the Israeli military from the occupied territories.
  • Solidarity with students occupying universities across the US. Stop arming Israeli state terror!
  • Defend the right to protest on campus. SUs must lead campaigns to defend any students victimised for protesting against war and oppression.
  • Kick out the Tories! But Starmer’s Labour is no alternative. Build a new workers’ party with socialist policies to end war, austerity and capitalism.
  • For a socialist Middle East and world!

See more from our Gaza archives

Nigerian students face deportation from UK – but Surrey students show fightback is possible

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Nigerian international students are in a desperate situation.

As a result of the severe economic crisis in Nigeria, and drastic devaluation of the Nigerian currency, the naira, many students are unable to cover the eye-watering costs of living and studying in the UK.

This crisis was set in motion by the disastrous policies of the Nigerian president Bola Tinubu, whose government last year decided to ‘float’ the naira – essentially allowing the currency’s value to be determined by market forces for the first time in years. This policy instantly led to the biggest-ever collapse in the value of the naira.

300% increase

The naira has lost two-thirds of its value against the pound in less than a year. For Nigerian students in the UK, this means a 300% increase in the cost of tuition fees, rent, and other living costs.

Disgracefully, universities across the UK are moving to exclude Nigerian students who can no longer pay their tuition fees. This would effectively mean deportation, as students would no longer have a sponsoring institution for their visas.

In response to this threat, Socialist Students members at the University of Surrey approached the university’s Nigerian Society, and helped launch a campaign to stop the expulsions.

The campaign began with a joint meeting, which agreed a set of demands aimed at university management:

  • Ensure no exclusions for Nigerian students who are unable to pay their tuition fees
  • Extend the payment period for Nigerian students struggling to pay their tuition fees
  • Allow students to pay their tuition fees at the pre-floatation naira rate of N584.20

As a way to galvanise support for these demands, and put pressure on management, the meeting also agreed an emergency protest for the following week. We decided to march through campus on 22 April, and deliver a joint letter to the vice-chancellor’s office, to put forward our demands, and request an in-person meeting between the vice-chancellor and representatives of the campaign.

Joint meeting hosted by Socialist Students and the UoS Nigerian Society

Protesting works

Our campaign has shown that protesting wins! The university management has now said that it will allow Nigerian students to stay on at the university, if they pay 50% of their originally agreed fee instalment for this term. This is a welcome concession, and importantly gives us time to regroup, and plan the next steps for the campaign.

However, for any student who cannot afford 50% of their instalment, we must continue to demand no exclusions, while also continuing to raise the demand for students to pay fees at the old rate of naira. If necessary, we will organise future protests to back up these demands.

Spread to other unis

Another crucial way to strengthen our campaign at the University of Surrey is to spread these demands to other campuses. This crisis is affecting Nigerian students at universities around the UK. That’s why Socialist Students groups will be reaching out to Nigerian societies around the country to initiate similar campaigns on their campus.

As part of our campaign, Socialist Students members in Surrey have also contacted campus trade unions which, like students, are in battle against management – in their case, over the threat of up to 140 job cuts.

Vice-chancellors cut jobs for the same reason that they charge international students ridiculously high tuition fees – to make up for a broken higher education funding model. That’s why Socialist Students calls for a united movement of students and staff nationally to win fully funded, free education for all.

Sign our open letter to Professor Max Lu, University of Surrey Vice-Chancellor.

Do you want to campaign to end the expulsion of Nigerian students at your university?

Get in touch:

← Back

Thank you for your response. ✨

Read more from our Nigeria archives:

Student cost-of-living crisis shows system is broken

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Fight for free education!

Mohammed Osman, Surrey Socialist Students

Being a student is hard. You constantly have to worry about deadlines and upcoming examinations. Balance that with any extracurriculars you take part in, while also trying to increase your employability – trying to find placements, internships and whatever else you can do to stand out as a worthwhile candidate in the increasingly saturated job market. Now imagine being a broke student which, for many of us, is the case.

More often than not, the student loan you receive is simply not enough to cover the cost of living. I’m ‘lucky’ enough to come from a poor enough family to receive the maximum maintenance loan, which will be £10,277, for 2024-25.

I study in Guildford and, unfortunately for me, there’s no student accommodation available. If I’m lucky enough to find a house on the cheaper side in Guildford, where housing prices rival London, I’ll be left with a total of £1,877 after paying rent. That’s £1,877 to last me an entire year! With the cost-of-living crisis continuing to run rampant, the money I have left will mostly go to bills, leaving me pennies to figure out how to feed myself. I’ll likely be forced to find a job so that I can afford to feed myself and enjoy the little free time I’ll have left after all that. And I’m one of the lucky ones.

Many students whose families are only slightly better off than mine get a significantly smaller amount, often resulting in prospective students being forced out of the opportunity to study. Had the threshold for maximum student loans gone up with inflation since 2016 it would be at £32,535 instead of the measly £25,000 it currently sits at, and more students wouldn’t be in such a serious hole.

“There’s no student accommodation available. If I’m lucky enough to find a house on the cheaper side, I’ll be left with £1,877 after paying rent. That’s £1,877 to last me an entire year!”

The burden of student loan debt also disproportionately affects poorer students, who graduate with £63,000 in debt compared to their wealthier counterparts leaving with £43,600. Wealthier students are also much likelier to get higher-paying jobs in the future, while students like me are much more likely to be stuck with this loan, paying off the interest until it’s eventually written off in my fifties.

This system is broken. It’s unfair and unsustainable and has led to universities caring more about the number of international students they can bring in, whose fees have no cap, and less about the overall quality of education.

We need free universities and living maintenance grants rather than our current system, where universities are run like corporations and top management can make massive salaries, while students are forced to live off bulk-purchased noodles.

Socialist Students says:

  • Fight for fully funded free education – scrap and refund tuition fees, cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • Take universities under the democratic control of elected bodies of campus trade unions, students and communities
  • Build democratic student organisations to link up with the campus trade unions and fight for what our universities need
  • Build a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers
  • Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

See more like this

2024 election campaign: Preparing to kick out the Tories and take on a Starmer government

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14 years of Tory rule, and what have students got for it?

The highest university fees in Europe

Maintenance loans that don’t even cover rent

Record student debt

Packed-out classrooms and lecture halls

Unpaid and overworked staff

And it’s not just students who have suffered.

Millions of workers are worse off now than when the Tories were elected in 2010, as wages have fallen thousands of pounds behind inflation. Public services, a lifeline for the majority of people, have been cut to the bone. NHS waiting times have never been so bad, public transport doesn’t work half the time, and entire councils are now declaring themselves ‘bankrupt’.

So it’s no wonder the Tories are so hated. Plagued by infighting and scandals, they are headed for disaster in the next general election, which has to be called this year. According to one poll, just 1% of 18 to 24-year-olds plan to vote Tory in the next general election!

So what do students do in the elections?

Keir Starmer has made clear that his Labour Party will rule in the same capitalist interests as the Tories. He has helped transform the Labour Party back into a ‘safe pair of hands’ for big business, putting capitalist profit-making firmly before the lives of working-class and young people.

That’s why Starmer has abandoned the pledge of former leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to scrap tuition fees and restore maintenance grants for students. For the same reason, he has refused to back workers taking strike action for better pay and conditions, including staff in schools, colleges and universities.

While many students will ‘hold their nose’ and vote Labour just to get the Tories out, others will find the stench of Starmer’s rotten policies too much to bear. That’s especially true for the thousands of students who have protested against Starmer’s support for the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Some may see the Green Party as an alternative. But their record in local government – where Green-led councils have carried out devastating cuts to jobs and services – shows that, when push comes to shove, the Green Party will fall in line and carry out the bidding of the capitalist class.

We need representatives in parliament and the council chambers who point to the massive wealth hoarded at the top of society, and actually fight for it to be in our hands.

Vote Socialist!
Vote Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition!

Solving all the crises facing students and young people – crumbling education, a housing crisis, the sky-high cost of living, climate breakdown, war, discrimination and oppression – means replacing the anarchic, profit-driven system of capitalism with socialism.

We think that includes using the platform of elections to help spread socialist ideas. Workers and socialists standing in elections shows that we don’t have to leave ‘politics’ – ultimately, the struggle for control over society – to different shades of pro-capitalist politicians.

At a time when none of the main parties stand up for us, even a handful of socialist candidates getting elected could be an important step towards a new, mass party with socialist policies, which stands up for workers, students and everyone else currently suffering under capitalism.

That’s why Socialist Students has joined the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC). TUSC was set up to allow workers, trade unionists, students, community campaigners and anti-austerity activists of various different organisations to stand under a common banner against the pro-capitalist establishment parties in elections.

As part of TUSC, we are fighting for a working-class, socialist alternative to appear on as many ballot papers as possible in the upcoming local elections and general election.

Fight for socialism

In a socialist system, the banks and major companies that currently dominate the economy would be owned and run democratically by workers themselves, as the ones who actually keep society running day to day, not the capitalist bosses. Resources and technology would be taken out of the private hands of a tiny minority, making it possible to democratically plan the economy to meet everyone’s needs. It would be an international system, joining together socialist governments on the basis of cooperation, not competition.

That is the kind of world that Socialist Students is fighting for. Winning it will require a massive international movement, led by the working class and organised behind socialist ideas. That would then lay the basis for a world free of all oppression, division, climate destruction and war. The job of socialists is to help build that movement, in whatever way we can – including at the ballot box.

Join Socialist Students and help us build a political voice that unites the struggles of students and workers in the fight for socialism.

Socialist Students says:

  • End the student housing crisis
    Introduce rent controls in all student accommodation. For socialist councillors who take on dodgy private landlords.
  • End the student cost-of-living crisis
    Replace maintenance loans with maintenance grants which cover all living costs. Scrap tuition fees, cancel all student debt – make the super-rich pay.
  • Stop war and occupation! End the siege of Gaza
    Workers and young people internationally: unite and fight the capitalist warmongers!
  • Combat climate change
    Carry out a massive switch to green energy NOW! Take the energy companies under democratic public ownership, to be run by workers and not the bosses.
  • Fight for socialism
    For the banks, monopolies and major industries to be owned and run by the working class to meet people’s needs, not the profits of the super-rich.

Uni bosses say: ‘increase fees’ We say: ‘Abolish them!’

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Ted Boyle, Sheffield Socialist Students

Behind closed doors, a major university policy change is being discussed and, typically, its not good news! Vivienne Stern, the CEO of employers’ organisation, Universities UK, insists that students finance the gap in university budgets yet again, through ever-higher tuition fees. This is off the back of a broad financial report, which outlines the very real mess that university managements have found itself in, where issues such as an exodus of international students, whose higher tuition than domestic students many universities rely on, have been compounded by unprecedented inflation.

Yet there are no illusions about the popularity of such a move: “Political suicide”, Stern describes it – very hot in Westminster right now. She urges whoever is in power to implement it that they “act quickly” before an inevitable wave of student outrage. Yes, ‘before anyone notices’ seems to be the strategy they’re going for here!

And no doubt such outrage would be fierce: students are already bearing the brunt of major systemic failings. With the confidence built during the continuing wave of agitation for Palestinian liberation, no doubt we would be on the streets in our thousands, as students did over a decade ago the last time tuition fees were tripled.

But why wait for things to get worse? We students don’t need permission to organise and fight to make university life bearable. Stern says raise tuition fees, we say: ‘Abolish them!’ And secure ample student maintenance grants in turn. Keir Starmer, likely future prime minister, U-turned on Jeremy Corbyn’s free education policy. We need a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers.

Socialist Students says:

  • Fight for fully funded free education – scrap and refund tuition fees, cancel student debt, replace student loans with living grants tied to the rate of inflation. Make the super-rich pay!
  • Take universities under the democratic control of elected bodies of campus trade unions, students and communities
  • Build democratic student organisations to link up with the campus trade unions and fight for what our universities need
  • Build a new mass party that will stand up for students and workers
  • Fight for socialist change – for democratic public ownership of the banks, monopolies and major industry to provide us with a future

IWD 2024: Fight the backlash against women’s rights!

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FIGHTING THE BACKLASH AGAINST WOMEN’S RIGHTS

From the dismantling of Roe v Wade in the US, which saw the removal of abortion rights from millions of women, to the mass movement in Iran following the murder of Mahsa Amini by the ‘morality police’, a movement which could have brought down the corrupt government. There are many examples of attacks on women and women’s rights being met with protests and resistance.

Here in Britain, when a woman was jailed for taking abortion pills after the legal limit, the anger was palpable. The woman was then released on appeal. This shows that the establishment fears a new generation of women beginning to fight for their rights.

FIGHTING TORY AUSTERITY

Today working-class people across the country are struggling from the cost-of-living crisis, from low pay and growing debt. This includes millions of women who are more likely to have childcare responsibilities and be in low-paid or precarious work. For students, even the highest level of student loans won’t cover the average rents. So how exactly are we supposed to make ends meet?

Tory austerity has seen the gap between the richest and the poorest in society grow. At the same time they have whipped up division as political cover for their disastrous policies. Back in 2011 when they trebled tuition fees to £9k, the Tory universities minister said that women were to blame for working-class men not being able to attend university!

Yet actually it has been Tory policies that has put a decent education out of the grasp of millions. We are crammed into overcrowded campuses; our staff are run ragged and there is little to no extra support. This is the real impact of Tory cuts in education.

University management can’t be trusted. Students and university workers need democratic oversight over all policies relating to sexual misconduct and violence to ensure they are fit for purpose and properly enforced. This would also show that sexism and violence will be properly dealt with and help challenge attitudes on campus.

A STARMER GOVERNMENT

There has to be a general election called this year, which Labour leader Keir Starmer is likely to ‘win’. We say ‘win’ because while he will most likely be the next prime minister, this doesn’t mean that working-class, young people or students have any faith that a Starmer-led government will stand up for us.

In fact, growing layers of big business are moving from supporting the Tories to supporting Starmer’s Labour because they think a Starmer government will help them grow their profits with low taxes and privatisation.

But no government can serve the interests of the rich and big business while also supporting working-class, young people and poor students, so a Starmer government will continue to attack the living standards of ordinary people in this country and internationally. That’s why we need our own independent voice, a new mass political party, which actually represents the interests of workers, young people and students.

FIGHTING SEXISM

Starmer’s government will offer no route to genuinely challenge sexism or the falling living standards of millions of people, mainly women. He says his government will “halve violence against women and girls”. But this is an empty pledge for a government which is sidling up to big business. The best way to fight for the movement needed to challenge capitalism is by getting organised on campus, including around a programme to improve students’ conditions and oppose sexual harassment.

We call for proper street lighting as well as free public transport so that students can go out and get home safely. There are far too many examples of university managements putting their interests before students, who have reported incidents of sexual harassment. We say they can’t be trusted to oversee this process. Instead, students and university workers need democratic oversight over all polices relating to sexual misconduct and violence to ensure they are fit for purpose and properly enforced. This would also show that sexism and violence will be properly dealt with and help challenge attitudes on campus.

But fighting these ideas on campus is not enough. They are perpetuated across society by institutions,
corporations, and the capitalism system. To seriously challenge sexist ideas would mean building a movement against the capitalism system which is fundamentally unequal. Capitalism is underpinned by sexism, oppression and exploitation.

Therefore, we have to build a movement that can fight to take the wealth and power out of the hands of the rich and the elites. It will only be under a democratic socialist plan of production that the material basis for sexism can be removed and all of the ideas and attitudes that go with it can be properly challenged.

Read our article on The Origins of Women’s Oppression and How to Fight it
←

The origins of women’s oppression and how to fight it

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Despite the numerous advances in women’s rights that have been won through mass struggle over past decades, many on International Women’s Day in 2024 will be questioning why the basic problems that women face – lower pay, greater risk of violence, objectification in the media, to name a few – still continue to exist today.

To understand how we can end the oppression of women it is necessary to first analyse where it comes from and the conditions that led to its creation in order to understand what conditions are needed to remove it.

We republish here an article written by Christine Thomas (author of ‘It Doesn’t Have to be Like This: Women and the Struggle for Socialism’) on the contribution of Friedrich Engels, one of the founding figures of Marxism, to analysing women’s oppression, its evolution over time, and how it can ultimately be abolished.

The ‘Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’, published in 1884, was Engels’ main contribution to the issue of women’s oppression. It showed that women’s second-class status in society, the inequality, discrimination and oppression we face, hasn’t always existed.

In the late 19th century this was explosive stuff. At the time, women’s inferior status was considered ‘natural’, explained by their biology or ‘God’s will’, and absolutely necessary for maintaining social stability. At the same time, the patriarchal family, with a male breadwinner and an economically dependent wife in the domestic sphere giving birth to and raising children, was a central, core institution of capitalism, and to challenge its universality was to challenge the entire fabric of society.

Of course, Engels’ book should be viewed in the context of the time in which it was written, and in conjunction with more up-to-date material. But the general ideas he outlined regarding women’s oppression are still relevant today, and still just as explosive.

He explained that gender inequality, discrimination and oppression are rooted in class society – in the emergence of societies where a small minority, an exploiting class, owns the means of producing wealth in society and exploits the class that actually produces the wealth.

Before that, in pre-class societies, people lived in communal, cooperative, egalitarian societies in which the main social unit wasn’t the nuclear family as we know it today, but a kinship group – that Engels called the ‘gens’ – which today are usually referred to as hunter-gatherer societies, based on how they made a living.

In these societies, in which humans lived for 99% of the time that we have been on the planet, there was no private ownership of the means of producing wealth, no classes and exploitation, no state apparatus and no systematic oppression of women.

Although Engels got some of the detail wrong, because of the scant anthropological and scientific evidence available at the time, the evidence that has come to light since backs up the general thrust of his ideas.

Pre-class societies

There was a gender division of labour in pre-class societies, although it was not necessarily a rigid one. In general, men were usually responsible for hunting and fishing, and women for gathering wild foodstuffs and looking after children. But this did not result in any economic or social disadvantage. The economic contributions of women and men were both vital for the maintenance of the group. Childcare was a public responsibility carried out on behalf of the group as a whole.

This was very different from the situation today. One of the main reasons why women are suffering so much more during the pandemic in terms of job losses, and pay and hours being cut, is because they are concentrated in the low-paid, part-time, often precarious jobs in retail and hospitality that have been the hardest hit by lockdowns and the economic consequences of Covid. And the principal reason why they are concentrated in those kind of jobs is that they are usually the main carers for children in the family.

During the first lockdown, women were responsible for 70% of home-schooling. In one third of the cases where women have lost their jobs or had their hours cut, it has been because they have been unable to access the childcare they need. Covid has turned an existing shortage of affordable childcare into a disaster for working-class women especially, which can only be solved by bringing childcare provision into the public sector, democratically run by service providers and users.

Engels wrote that the situation for women drastically changed following an economic revolution in which some hunter-gatherer societies discovered how to domesticate animals and cultivate crops. This unleashed economic and social processes which, in some societies, over thousands of years, led to the development of an economically exploiting class extracting surplus production from the labour of others, and expropriating it for themselves. A special state apparatus was also created to ensure that the exploited class continued to produce, and was kept under control.

As an intrinsic part of these processes, the individual household, or family, replaced the communal kinship group as the main economic unit in society. At the same time, women of the ruling class literally became the private property of men within the family.

Wealth and property

In order to ensure that their property and accumulated wealth could be passed on to legitimate heirs, the sexuality and reproduction of women of the ruling class came under the authority and control of husbands and fathers, including through the use of violence and physical chastisement. And, as the state apparatus developed, the legal system, religion, education, and ideology generally served to legitimise and reinforce women’s inferior, second-class status, and deny them basic rights.

This is the historic basis for all of the inequality, discrimination and oppression that women still face today. It is at the root of domestic violence and abuse, rape, sexual harassment, the double standards and stereotyping of male and female roles and behaviour, and sexism in general.

Many feminists believe that the main cause of women’s oppression is the patriarchy, but Engels showed that there isn’t a structure of patriarchy separate from class society. Women’s oppression and class society emerged together as part of the same process – they were inextricably linked together then, and still are under capitalism today.

Therefore, gender oppression, Engels explained, can only be eliminated by ending class society – a fundamental transformation in the way that society is structured, organised and run. Today, this would mean moving away from an economy based on the private ownership of the means of producing wealth by a small group of super-rich capitalists interested only in making a profit, to one where the principal industries are publicly owned, and democratically run and planned by working-class people.

It would then be possible to immediately release the resources for changing the economic and material situation for women. Everyone would be guaranteed a job on a decent wage, which would mean that women would have real economic independence.

It would be possible to do what Engels put forward in the ‘Origin of the Family’ – to socialise the unpaid labour of women in the family by the state providing flexible, quality childcare, social care, affordable community restaurants, affordable housing – things that would totally transform the lives of women, and working-class women in particular.

We would add, that ending gender inequality in the family and in the workplace would also lay the basis for eliminating gender violence and the sexual and cultural oppression women face.

The values in society would change. Capitalism is a system based on unequal wealth, hierarchies of power, and competition. The capitalist class is prepared to resort to the use of force and violence to defend its interests and control where necessary – against strikers, protesters, and in wars. Those values have an impact more broadly in society and affect how we relate to each other.

A socialist system would be based on cooperation and solidarity, and those values would be reflected in personal relations and culture, just as they were in pre-class societies.

And of course, there would no longer be a privately owned media, or beauty, fashion, and leisure industries, and all the other industries that turn women’s bodies into a commodity to make a profit, and promote stereotypical expectations and norms about how women and men should look and behave.

If we removed all of those things, while at the same time initiating a programme of awareness-raising and education, then all gender oppression could be ended over time.

Engels outlined the origins of women’s oppression and what would be necessary to end it – a socialist revolution led by a united working-class.

Socialist Students campaigns for:

● Government funding for what women need on campus – properly funded support and counselling services, campus lighting, childcare services and affordable housing. Scrap tuition fees, cancel student debt and replace loans with grants which increase with inflation.

● Democratic oversight of sexual harassment reporting and campus safety procedures by joint trade union and student-led committees

● For democratic trade union, staff and student control of university syllabuses and teaching procedures with proper training around handling inappropriate behaviour

● Fully funded and affordable public transport available at all hours to ensure students get home safely

● Students get organised! Rebuild fighting, democratic student organisations to campaign on campuses. Build a new mass workers’ party to give workers and students a political voice

● Fight for a socialist alternative to capitalist inequality and chaos to end all forms of oppression

JOIN US!

Socialist Students protest on budget day 6 March

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No to Tory attacks on young peoples’ future

The Tories are set to announce their latest spending plans on 6 March, budget day. It will be yet another budget for the super-rich, enacted in the interests of big business and the banks.

Of course, the Tories will do nothing to solve the crises facing students and young people – a broken housing market, the sky-high cost of living, decaying public services, climate breakdown – the list seems endless.

So it’s no wonder the Tories are so hated. Plagued by infighting and scandals, they are headed for disaster in the next general election, which has to be called this year.

But who else can we vote for?

Many will look to Keir Starmer’s Labour Party as the best tool to get the Tories out, albeit as the ‘lesser of two evils’. Starmer has made clear that his Labour Party will rule in the same capitalist interests as the Tories, repeating his catchphrase of ‘fiscal discipline’ – a not-so-subtle codeword for more cuts and privatisation.

Starmer has transformed the Labour Party into a ‘safe pair of hands’ for big business, which puts capitalist profit-making before the lives of ordinary people, and young people’s futures. How can we trust a Labour leader, who has backed the slaughter of Palestinians, to defend young people and workers in Britain?

Socialist Students supports any election candidates prepared to make an anti-war, pro-working-class stand against the Tories, Starmer’s Labour, and all the other establishment parties. We also want to help stand student candidates in the general election, who put forward socialist demands to give young people a future – including free education, rent control, and a real living wage for all.

Socialist Students says:

  • Tories out! But Starmer’s Labour doesn’t fight for us
  • We need election candidates who stand against poverty, war and oppression
  • Build a new workers’ party with socialist policies
  • Prepare to build a new student movement against a future Starmer government
  • Fight for the socialist transformation of society in Britain, and across the world

Get campaigning 👇

Queen Mary uni management orders break-in of union office

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Queen Mary Socialist Students

Queen Mary university security raided the campus office of the University and College Union (UCU), on 20 February, on the orders of uni management. They removed all posters and messages around the office showing support and solidarity with the people of Palestine and Gaza.

The previous day, management had requested access to the office. Management claimed the posters were having a “chilling effect on freedom of speech”.

The UCU agreed to allow them in, but explicitly said that all the posters and material should be left alone.

But instead, campus security broke into the office without permission and, before proper access was arranged, tore down any material in support of Palestinians or a ceasefire, damaging the office in the process.

Management’s defence was that prominently displayed signs may be misconstrued as the stance of the university itself, rather than the UCU. This is not even possible, as all these posters had a clear UCU logo on them.

This is a blatant attack on freedom of speech and freedom of association. Queen Mary management is infamous for its continuous attack on the rights of staff and students.

Just last year, Queen Mary management threatened to deduct 100% of pay from teachers taking part in a marking boycott, just one part of their job, and tried to have students snitch on striking lecturers. Queen Mary has a history of intimidating and threatening students protesting during rent strikes.

Queen Mary plays a national role for universities in testing and pushing these types of attacks. This serves managements on other campuses. They can say: ‘We’re only docking 50% pay, we’re not invading your union offices. So you should accept our ‘milder’ attacks’.

Students have been protesting Queen Mary university’s complicity in the slaughter in Gaza. Queen Mary invests in Barclays, a bank that provides financial services to arms companies supplying the Israeli army. In many on-campus student-organised protests, students have continuously called for our institution to divest funds from Barclays, and formally condemn what is being perpetrated by the Israeli state.

Of course, management just dance around these demands, and claim that this would be a ‘conflict of interest’, and that any condemnation of the Israeli state could be seen as antisemitic.

The Tory government has openly tried to stop students on campus from even talking about Israel-Palestine, not to mention protesting about it. And many institutions are following in their footsteps. SOAS university in London suspended several students who organised and participated in a rally in solidarity with Palestinians, before management was forced to back down.

This is a very clear attack on the democratic right of workers to organise. Rash and extreme acts such as this show just how worried university management and the Tories are by the collective efforts of students and unions.

We will not stand idly by as they try and strip us of these rights. Jo Grady, general secretary of the UCU, has recently launched the union’s ‘Exposed’ campaign, in order to challenge right-wing and Tory government attacks on free speech in education.

Jo Grady should go to Queen Mary, and tell the UCU branch that the whole of the union is behind them. Jo Grady should immediately release a statement, through the union, condemning this attack.

The UCU leadership should call and mobilise for a national demonstration in support of the Queen Mary branch, and against ongoing attacks on trade union organising rights and freedom of speech, as well as coordinating a solidarity campaign across the whole union. The student union should add its voice to mobilising people to oppose this attack too.

Queen Mary management can’t be allowed to succeed in this attack, and the whole of the student and workers’ movement must come to defend the UCU.

Solidarity with Queen Mary UCU!

Queen Mary management can’t be allowed to succeed in anti-union attacks on right to protest!

  • UCU leadership should call and mobilise for a national demonstration in support of QMUCU branch, and show the branch that the whole union is behind them
  • QMUL students’ union must mobilise students against this attack too – and appeal to the NUS and other students’ unions nationally to add their voice against this attack
  • Defend the right to protest and show solidarity with the people of Palestine and Gaza