FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF
EXAMS EXAMINED
Tom Fawthrop's "Education or Examination" is without doubt one of the most important studies to come out of the contemporary radical student upsurge. The first part of the booklet is devoted to "an examination of examinations" and questions some of the assumptions upon which the system works. Are examinations reliable in relation to their aims? are they objective? and linked to these questions - are they relevant? These are all answered by an impressive battery of arguments which expose examinations as a gigantic fraud. Take, for instance, these quotations which Fawthrop has managed to find: "It isn't a matter of knowing all about your subject, it's a matter of knowing all about examinations," (Dennis B. Jackson, Educationalist) or, "All the experimental data has shown that for a particular performance expressed [illegible] of an examination script assessment by different examiners produces marks with considerable variety such that in the determination of these marks the part played by the examiner can be greater than that of the examinee". What can be more damning statements than these?
Not only are examinations unreliable within their own terms of reference - they also have positively harmful effects both academic and non-academic. Among the academic effects cited are the limitations imposed upon the syllabi and the necessity to cram; among the non-academic are the suffering and misery of failure and the problems of mental illness - "the final witness for the prosecution".
AN ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM
Having established the case against examinations Fawthrop goes on to suggest alternatives, and this section of his booklet is for socialists the most exciting and stimulating. Not only must examinations be abolished, but students must abolish the power structure from which they originate. Thus the student can become an "active participant within an intellectual community" instead of a "passive consumer of the knowledge factory". Along with new rights and power students must take corresponding obligations and responsibilities and possibly in the last resort sanctions may be evolved to prevent their evasion. Education cannot stand apart from society; it has to take sides. The authoritarian nature of education now is to shape, mould and manipulate students from the primary school through to the university to fit into place in capitalist society. Instead of obedience to authority, education should stimulate critical awareness, geared to human values. "I am arguing for revolutionary education which takes the side of the 'masses'. This is the whole point of humanistic education." Fawthrop is, of course, aware that real student power cannot be achieved without a new society and sees the necessity for united action within the working class. In this context Student Power is closely related to the demand for Workers' Control. [illegible] He argues that action by students should include whatever sanctions are at their disposal - the final sanction being a boycott of examinations themselves - and urges support for the Radical Student Alliance. Students should not be afraid to lose their respectability - they will not succeed if they attempt to keep it.
One point of criticism arises. In the study there seems to be some doubt as to the feasibility of dropping examinations entirely in the natural science subjects. There is a gap here which must be followed up. To abolish exams in the arts and social sciences but not in the natural sciences would act as a strong disincentive to the study of the natural sciences. But with this, and a degree of repetition discounted, "Education or Examinations" is a definite must for all students.
Brian Davey
LABOUR'S LEFT LUGGAGE
Northcote Parkinson is slightly less right-wing and decidedly less funny than Peter Simple. What he has attempted to do in this book* is to critically follow the progress of the Labour Party from Keir Hardie to Wilson.
His thesis is that by the 1950s Labourism had run out of steam and ideas. He makes a number of telling points but none more devastating than to tell straight how Crosland, in his "Future of British Socialism", tried to construct an ersatz ideology for Labourism. Crosland assembled a programme of twelve socialist points and then sadly dropped all but two - welfare and the desire for equality — which might be electorally useful. Workers' Control and Clause Four went early on in this particular balloon debate.
The book is at its funniest when Harold is quoted, "We are not a flag-waving party, but we are a deeply patriotic party." Parkinson comments, "This is true: and often, one might add, appallingly true."
The High Tory Parkinson sees no role left for Labourism. They have nothing left to say on the great issues of the day. "....the founders of British Socialism ended, many of them, as Communists. To stop short of this, in the style of British Socialists, talking of democratic equality but dreaming of the plan which is to save the world, is merely futile. Without Marxism as its logical sequel, socialism is nothing."
Julian Atkinson
* "Left Luggage" by C. Northcote Parkinson, published by John Murray at 25/-
CUBA—THE ACID TEST
After the October Revolution in Russia, most marxists anticipated that successive socialist revolutions would follow more or less the same path. Soviets would come into being which would [be] the instruments for taking over power and establishing workers' power. Leadership would come from well-organised vanguard parties. It was also confidently expected that the advanced countries of Western Europe would be the first to follow the Russian example. Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev and other outstanding leaders of the Communist International in the early 20's were, however, not unaware that historical development does not always take the desirable course. Because of uneven development, not only between countries but also within specific countries, a revolutionary situation could ripen before a vanguard party reached the necessary maturity to lead it. The THESES ON TACTICS adopted by the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in 1922 provided for such eventualities. It emphasised that a coalition of working class parties could form "workers' governments" (or "workers' and peasants' [governments]") which would not be the same thing as the "dictatorship of the proletariat" but could under given conditions be pushed in that direction.
Dogmatic marxists, anxious to maintain their virginal purity, even if objective conditions demand new solutions, have stuck to the formula "no vanguard party, no soviets no workers' state." These people, of whom the Socialist [Labour] League is an outstanding example have, therefore, obstinately stuck to the position that Cuba is a capitalist country ruled by a petit bourgeois clique in the interests of Wall St.
WALL STREET CAPITALISTS KNOW BETTER
The Wall Street imperialists, of course, have taken a more realistic view of the situation and have drawn a "cordon sanitaire" round Cuba to prevent this "petit-bourgeois" contagion from spreading to their vassal states in Latin America.
The National Education Department of the Socialist Workers Party of the United States has done marxists an outstanding service by publishing the record of the controversy on the Cuban question in which marxists have been engaged since 1960. It contains the DRAFT THESES ON THE CUBAN REVOLUTION adopted in December, 1960, by the Political Committee of the SWP, which traces, step by step the [illegible] developments in Cuba from the time Castro [came] to power in January, 1959, showing how the [illegible] of American imperialism and the propertied classes in Cuba [forced] the July 26th Movement [and] the Castro Government to turn to the left. [By] the autumn of 1959 Cuba could be said to be [ruled] by a workers' and farmers' government as foreseen in the Comintern's THESES ON TACTICS. [illegible] Under the impact of this pressure the [Castro] Government was compelled to resort to the establishment of a monopoly of foreign trade [and] nationalisation of the latifunda, expropriation of American and Cuban capitalist holdings. These property relations in Cuba began more and more to resemble those established by the October Revolution. Cuba became the outpost of the socialist world in the Western Hemisphere. The old state structure was smashed and the new state structure is so committed to a planned economy that only bloody counter-revolutionary invasion could restore capitalist property relations. The Cuban economy was tied to that of the Soviet bloc.
NO SOVIETS YET
The THESES underlines the fact that organs of democratic workers' form of power (soviets) have not yet been established in Cuba. In this sense Cuba can be described as a deformed workers' state just as the Soviet Union, where the soviets were destroyed by the stalinist bureaucracy is correctly designated by marxists as a degenerate workers' state. But the absence of these norms of workers' democracy in no way invalidates the fact that both Cuba and the Soviet Union are workers' states which must be unconditionally defended by socialists against attacks from imperialism.
There is abundant evidence that the Cuban leadership is painfully seeking to overcome this lack of workers' democracy. They are constantly discussing ways and means of preventing the consolidation of a bureaucracy and to absorb the necessary lessons from the experiences of the Soviet bloc, China and Yugoslavia. Above all, they have recognised the international character of their revolution and have not hesitated to place their own gains at risk in order to extend the revolution to the whole of Latin America. Their unconditional solidarity with the fighting people of Vietnam is also proof of their working class internationalism.
Cuba is today the acid test for all who call themselves marxists, just as the October Revolution was in 1917. This publication, with its valuable appendices which include extracts from the debates on the THESES AND TACTICS at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, will help to clear away the cobwebs which clutter the minds of those who attach more value to the traditional forms of the revolution than to the real revolution which is taking place today.
George Cunvin
* THE NATURE OF THE CUBAN REVOLUTION, obtainable from Pioneer Book Service, 8, Toynbee Street, London E.1.; 7/6d plus 10d postage.