Highly successful symposium held in Leeds

Both ditions the British and Cliff Slaughter 'MAKE Marxism a real force in the Universities': this was the theme of the winding-up speech by Cliff Slaughter at the symposium organised by Leeds University Students' Marxist Society from June 22 to 25.

Over 100 students from 13 universities, with visitors from the Continent had attended the sessions to discuss the impact of Marxism in various fields of science and social thought.

'Cybernetics and Capitalism', the first paper read to the symposium, provoked a lively discussion. Dr. C. S. Smith, who read the paper, had to insist on a Marxist view of the relation between society and technical advance against those who speculated about 'rule by machines', on the one hand, and those who contented themselveswith drawing parallels between the mechanism of cybernetics and the laws of dialectics on the other.

Qualitative change

He drew attention to the qualitative change brought by cybernetics and automation to the clash between capitalism and the advance of humanity's techniques.

From the beginning, it was no abstract discussion. As the chairman, Jane Morris, had pointed out, the old 'dislike of theory', which has characterised British politics, rested on certain privileged conditions of British capitalism.

As these conditions are being • undermined, and the class struggle takes a new form, particularly thrusting forward the youth of the working class, so Britain must and will become the cockpit of important advances in Marxist theory. The symposium had to be seen in this light.

Matter

Several papers were read on recent discoveries about the nature of matter, and work has now been commenced which will prove of real value in strengthening the materialist view of the world upon which a revolutionary party in Britain must be based.

The symposium went on to discuss the Marxist theory of social development, beginning with Professor Peter Worsley's paper ' "Origin of the Family" Revisited'.

In this discussion, the whole question of 'stages of social development' was raised in relation, both to theories of history, and to problems of whether under - developed nations could achieve the transition to socialism without first going through capitalism.

Confusion

was pointed out that most of the confusion on this question had been a direct consequence of Stalinism in the USSR, with its insistence on the separate development and analysis of the class struggle in each country.

On Thursday, the symposium discussed various papers on 'Marxism and Philosophy beginning with Dr. Axel Stern's paper 'Is There a Marxian Morality'. Dr. Stern gave a thorough exposition of Marx's ideas of alienation and humanism, as expressed in the early into industry to make possible faster growth through the expansion of the industries producing means of production, i.e., expanded reproduction.

The principle of primitive socialist accumulation imposed itself with necessary force upon the state if it were 1o systematically substitute socialist relations of production for capitalist relations based on the law of value.

It therefore assumed the status of a law which interacted with and stood in contradictory relationship to the law of value in the 'Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844'.

In the discussion, many participants pointed out the later developments in Marx's thinking, and the need for a much more specific and class approach to morality.

Other papers in this section included W. McElroy on 'Professor Pepper and Karl Marx'-a reply to the arguments that Marx's theories of society are unscientific-and a contribution on the bourgeois philosophy of pragmatism, read Secretary of the Young Socialists.

The novel David Caute, author of 'Communism and the French Intellectuals', -and himself a novelist, spoke on 'Marxism and the Novel'. He sketched the history of Marxist literary criticism, and presented, in detail, the ideas of Lucien Goldmann in his book 'Towards a Sociology of the Novel' (published in French).

A vigorous discussion suggested that before the literature of today can be understood, the nature of the epoch must be seen as one of the crisis of leadership, and not only of wars and revolutions.

On the last day, five hours of intensive discussion took place on the international situation, with participation by comrades from Eastern Europe, the Arab countries, and East Africa. This discussion based itself on earlier papers on imperialism by Tom Kemp and Peter Jeffries.

Vietnam

On Vietnam, it was hammered out that without a struggle to build the Fourth International, all talk of support for the Vietnamese people would lead to nothing. A campaign against the British government, rather than to win its support for 'negotiations', is the first necessity for this internationalism in Britain.

However, within a few years, the kind of discussion of which "The New Economics' was a part was no longer permitted. The work itself was never completed. Preobrazhensky was forced to retract after the break-up of the Left Opposition in Russia, though this did not save him from death during the purges.

Bukharin, whose opposition had been based upon conciliation with the peasantry and 'socialism at a snail's pace', later met the same fate when Stalin had no further use for him.

Preobrazhensky's book emerges as an honest attempt to face a complex and difficult problem on Marxist lines.