Communist party opens branch at UvA
Starting February 6th, a branch of the youth movement of the New Communist Party of the Netherlands (NCPN) will be active at the UvA. The movement hopes to organize a working class among students to fight for a socialist university. “By the same token, we cannot say that a revolution is going to happen tomorrow.”
At Crea, the Communist Youth Movement (CJB) will open a branch at UvA next Tuesday, February 6th, at 7:30 p.m. The youth movement is part of the New Communist Party Netherlands, a political party founded on the socialism-communism of Marx and Lenin. In the coming months, the organization therefore wants to recruit as many members as possible at the UvA for their class struggle.
The party intends to eventually compete in student council elections, but not yet. Rafael Malagolli, secretary of the UvA chapter, says: “Like our national parent party the NCPN, we first want to gather sufficient support before we participate in elections. By the same token, we cannot say that a revolution is going to happen tomorrow, either.”
The movement aims to make its voice heard on student issues with as yet unspecified actions. Among other things, it wants to push for a substantial increase in the minimum wage and paid internships. But history student Malagolli is also vehemently opposed to the “bourgeois,” capitalist nature of universities like the UvA. “Several universities still have ties with Shell or with Israeli universities. In our opinion, that is directly linked to the interests of capitalists in the Netherlands.”
No cooperation
The socialist study association Jan Romein was also founded last year. A study association of the history program, it brings socialists together to learn from each other at get-togethers and lectures. In its founding year, the association grew to 35 members, who also attend commemorations of the February Strike and on Labor Day.
The socialist youth organization Rood, which previously belonged to the SP, also emerged in 2021 and severed ties with its own youth party. The Amsterdam branch of Rood is also often present at demonstrations.
The CJB is not yet interested in cooperating with these youth organizations. “We don’t want to seek extensive cooperation among leftist political organizations, but we do want to build ties with the students themselves.” The Jan Romein study association had hoped for such cooperation, though. “Ideally, we would like to put up a big front with socialists, Marxists, and communists,” president Kiki Kranendonk stated. So on Tuesday, her board will attend the founding of the CJB chapter. But Kranendonk acknowledges that Jan Romein is more of a substantive social club than a political movement par excellence. “So we don’t get in each other’s way.”
The CJB also wants to guard against alienating students from the class struggle by “occupying buildings” too quickly. The communist revolution should be seen as part of “an escalation path,” starting small and then growing with support in academia. Malagolli believes that some radical groups at the university, however, are more concerned with their own actions, and lack support from students. Whether he is referring to CSR President Noah Pellikaan’s activist party or others is not entirely clear. In any case, Pellikaan will welcome the new movement on Tuesday.
“Bourgeois”
The CJB strongly agrees with the university’s actions against house rules such as banning demonstrations and recently closing its doors due to pro-Palestine actions. “We also oppose the tendency of some parties at universities to always compromise. There is still a huge number of issues to fight for.”
For example, the organization wants to equalize financial resources in the society. “Students often tend to be people who are currently workers in their side jobs and will later become members of the working class. They rarely acquire capital.” Except for the members of the “bourgeois” ASC/AVSV, or other traditional student associations, where, according to the CJB, “pernicious elitist ideas” prevail.
According to the CJB, the UvA also actively spreads such bourgeois ideas in every discipline, in addition to anti-communist distortions. Fighting anti-communism is a core task of the new department. To that end, members of the UvA department will interact with UvA students and staff to “formulate appropriate tactics for action.” In doing so, the CJB hopes to expand its membership at the same time. However, the board does not keep track of how many members and sympathizers are already affiliated with the UvA chapter. “We don’t keep track of who is a member because of everyone’s safety.”
