The Attack on Higher Education: Marxist and Radical Penetration by the Institute for the Study of Conflict is the opening shot of a new campaign to isolate and purge Marxists and radical teachers. The ISC is becoming practiced in the art of issuing blacklists and McCarthyite innuendo. Among its previous publications are Sources of Confilet In British Industry, published in February 1974 and providing copious information Marxist influence in the trade unions, and a guide to Trotskyism: "Entryism' and Permanent Revolution by Peter Shipley. The Council of the 1SC combines a few right-wing professors with such gentry as Brigadier Thompson and au cous Le baly, descnoco as LACCEDI General of Intelligence, Ministry of Defence 1974-5'. In this instance the Report itself is compiled predominantly by the academ Professor Jallus Gould as author of the final draft.
The Report purports to supply a critique of Marxist and radical joces but the render i continually reminded that something more sinister is afoot than the struggle of ideas: "What is urged is that... such analyses so accumulate as to yield a faise or loaded account of society with practicai implicarions..." (p.3).
The Report comes to a menacing, but vague, conclusion. "Why need one feel so cautious about extremists on the left? They constitute a clear and present danger to the liberal mode. They thrive on perversions of theory and perversions of fact. They rely, like any other network, on mutual support in the making of appointments. They depend for their influence in oducation on their skill at exploiting the ambivalence of others — especially of administrators or of colleagues. There is nothing undemocratic - let alone McCarthyite -in insisting, as this report seeks to do, that such ambivalence is neither honorable nor becessary.' (p.47)
At some points the Report attempts to rebut what are held to be Marxist and radical arguments. The critique of Marxist and radical ideas is cursory and lapdash. Marxist scholarship in Britain today is range of insider anything Сов ої Ео кером ems primarily University in 1976.
There is also a 'Coda on Publishing" which seks to finger "red" infiltration of major publishing and other appendices demisine material" in the form of exam papers and reading lists which Blustrate Marxist bias. The latter appendix does not inform the reader of the general context of the bibliographies supplied and in any case seems mainly designed to list the favoured reading matter of the radicals. This "false and loaded" account of Marxist penetration" evidently itself has proctical implice tions, though these are left to the imagination of the reader.
Who is expected to read the Report? Nominally it costs t5 and is hard to obtain. It is untikely, therefore, to be of much use as a pusely ideological weapon for combatting Marxist Ideas. Indeed I/ this had boen the purpose of Gould and company then they could certainly have tound some more effective ouclet their critique. The red has yer to take over Encounter magazine or supplements. There are even capitalist publishers left prepared to consider anti-Marxist books.
Specialised purpose Photo Evidently this Report has a more specialised purpose than that of mere ideological disputation Complimentary copies seem to have found their way in large numbers in Principals and Vice Chancellors, as well as to the lay membership of Boards of Covernors. In short it is directed n potential academic George Wards, prepared to cleanreds outof tbecolleges just as George Ward nas CCHIT HEIE factory.
The reception accorded to the Report in the bourgeols press has been mixed. Most papers have ircaled its publication as a major news event and very few bave objoaed to the naming of names which was its malor fonction. The Bronomit did suggest that the intellectual calibre of the Report elt somethme to be desined and that et was unwise to smear Marxists as indiscriminately as the Report had done. The Drily Telegraph was predictably ecstatic over the Report. The Times, though more were indeed "enemies of liberty". bur innocently enquired what the ISC thought should be done about it and suggested tbat the extent of Marxist penetration had been examocrared.
union militants out of his factory'.
Margaret Thatcher acknowiedging the applause at a recent Tory meeting. Her election to the Tory Party leadership swung it further to the right. She employed Robert Moss as a speech-writer and graced some of NAFF's "social occasions'.
conference in Brighton this week might succeed in preserving a shoddy unity, but the fact remains that NAFF Ideologues are acquiring an Increasing influence amongat the party rank-end-file.
It wouk be wrang to suppose that the mildty critical response to Gould's Report will significantly reduce its effectiveness. After all George Ward's behaviour has been criticised in much sterner terms without the Grunwick strikers getting ibeir jobs back. In 1969 the sacking of Bateson sod myself from the London School of Economics was deplored in a Times editorial with similar lack ol bractical effect.
By treating Marxiso as a totalitarian poisor equivalent to fascism the major journals of bourgeois opinion are already opening the path to a purge of Marxists, even if they are distressed by some of the metbods that will then be used. There is certainly good reason for all those who work in Robin Blackburn, himself a victim of a witch-hunt in 1969, argues that the Gould Report Is 'directed at potential academic The Tory Party higher education lo strengthen the work of thi unions and of the Council For Academic Freedon and Democracy. Prior to the publication of the ISC Report there were already mapy signs of a new witch-hunting campaign; aller a previous article by Gould, the authorities of the Opes University sel up an enquiry into the extent of Marxist influence on its courses.
An article by Robert Moss in Free Narion of 30 September points to the major practical implication ofthe findings of the Gould Report. He writes oftbe urgent necessity of rooting out chose whio seck to use lecture hall as a platform for the class readers the device whereby the West German Government restrains radical Influence la cbe the West Germans made it a base principle chat "there is no freedom to oppose freedom", and, on this basis, they proceeded to enact a law that farbids the Government to employ people who are hostile to the constitution. Teachers and university lecturers, like civil servants, are defined as civil servants... The law has prevented more than balf West Germany's universities falling under pre dominantly Marxist influence. But the principle is one we should note: that our tolerance towards the enemies of the open society cannot be unlimited.
The absurd throw-away remark about Marxist influence in West German universities should not lead as to imagine that Moss belongs simply to the lunatie fringe of the right and does not need to be taken seriously. The National Association for Freedom is neitber absurd oor ineffective. It has excellent lines of commanication to tbe leadership of the Tory party and is linked to the most dynamic element within contemporary Conservat ism. The drive towards the strong state in Britair will be mapped out by the respectable ultra-right, of which the NAFF and ISC are important pillars Despite NAFF's cant abour freedom and liberal ism, the authoritarian thrust of their politics is clear enough. Fortunately this offensive of the new right coincides with a tendency for the left to pay democratie rights than has been the case for a long Libe. Recause of ils lanks to the Soviet or Chinese bureaucracy a section of the left was for a long time unable to take up an uneguivocal and candid defence of democratie rights. Even on the revolutionary left the role of democratie demands in the strugale for socialism, and the scope of democratie rights under the dictatorship of the proletariat, were enly rarely considered, and then discussed in the most generalised termas.
It is surprising, to say the least, that George Novack's important contribution to the discussion of chese questions, Demonicy and Revolution, published in 1970, Arousea no discussion controversy in this country. The debate Portugal and on Eurocommunism has certainly begun to pose all these questions in a timely fashion. The Fourth International's theses Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariar fumish a major theorisation of the Marxist conception of socialist democracy and its relationship to bourgeois democratic forons, which begins to oquip us with the perspectives we beed.
I stress the wider political context of the drive towards the strong state and the role of democratic objectives in the class struggle since a clear understanding of these questions will be vital in tackling the campaigns of the NAFF and ISC Typically tbe "strong state' recipes of the new right seck to qualify and withdram those parliamentary democratic rights which allow bourgeois democracy itself to refleet anti-capitalist forces in society as a Although casures they propose strengtben the powers they do replace parliamentary regime or parliamentary legitimacy As Robert Moss hints in the article quoted abow the nim is to improve on the West German mode not that of De Gaulle's original Fifth Republic The new right also specialises in an ideological appeal to the mass of the population in which they offer themselves as champions of individual lherty this demagogic concern for rights and liberties CES TOCIO LO A CONCESOr LE CHIER liberties of trade unionists, black workers, Marxist and hypocrisy is a vital task for revolutionary socialists in Bricain today, which cannot be lett to liberals or social democrats The tactics boeded to combat this new right" must dramatise the real distribution of power, and tbe real limits on democracy, in contemporary bourgeois society. There has been a quite erroncous and counter-prodocuve reacnon ta toc new right which soeks to deny the mneans of exoression to irs represcotalves. Ooe could sumi up chis reaction in tbe slogan No Platform Reactionaries. This style of political protest may give momentary expression to the feelings of those lavoived but is Javanably impotent and self-defeating in the long run. An attempt to ban Sir Keith Joseph from speaking in universities, for example, would certainly fail, and certainly brand its authors as intolerant bigots despite their failure. policians of the sea light add a tinge, or mone The fact that academic: or than a linge, of chauvinism or racism to their ideas does not alter the need to confront those ideas ideologically. Eyseock's pseudo-scientifie notions have acquired greater currency as a consequence of the campaign supposedly designed to prevent bim expounding them. When the labour movement or any oppressed or exploited group of the population finds itself the target of physical attacks and provocations, then the organisation of a defensive force is obligatory The attacks and the provocations of the new right are ideological in charcrer, reiying on bourgeois legality for pratical implementation. effective way of combatting this offensive is to and in society as a whole of the need to defend and tactics which clearly bring out the repressive obiectives of those who have mounted Et
BUT SOCIALIST CHALLENGE 12 October 1977 Page 14
----- pull-quotes -----
*Perversions of theory"
witchunters of the new right
George Wards, prepared to clean reds out of the colleges just as George Ward has cleaned trade
Democratic objectives