Left-Liberals and Revolutionists at Harvard

Members of Harvard's two largest left-wing student groups do not like to be asked what they would have done during the Harvard strike of 1969. Although they acknowledge that student activism is now at an ebb, they do not like to be portrayed as radicals who are looking back over their shoulders at a period that was more felicitous to the "struggle." All of them would just as well work on the problems they consider to be important now.

This attitude makes sense, because both the New American Movement and the Democratic-Socialists Organizing Committee--in their national and Harvard-Radcliffe incarnations--sprang up after the climaxes of student protest, and because the Students for a Democratic Society, one of the last organized holdovers from that era, dissolved earlier this month.

R-H NAM organized in early 1972 and crystallized during the Mass Hall take-over of that spring. H-R D-SOC formed almost one year ago after its national founding convention. NAM spokespersons claim around 25 diehard members, while D-SOC spokesmen say their group has 15 stalwarts. Barring the growth of either the Revolutionary Student Brigade or the Party for Workers Power, they are the biggest and most coherent leftist organizations at Harvard.

On the Harvard front, the two groups differ little on positions. Although NAM members are harder-working, they acknowledge that in their support of the printers' strike and of the United Farm Workers boycotts and in calls for the hiring of more radical faculty, they are compatible with D-SOC. In the coming months, the groups anticipate a national mineworkers' strike and the organization here of clerical and technical workers; both groups are prepared to back the two struggles at Harvard.

However, reports that a marriage of the two organizations is in the offing are exaggerated. Beyond variations in tone, in theory, and in national policy, the two groups' compositions are quite different. Most of NAM's members live off-campus or at the Quadrangle, while a "smaller number" live in the River Houses. The name itself, R-H NAM, reflects this. D-SOC's constituency, on the other hand, is largely in the River Houses, and the group is predominantly male.

Dennis J. Saffran '76, a member of D-SOC, says that there is a "lot of overlap" in individual members' politics in both NAM and D-SOC, but that in general, NAM members would subscribe to a more rigid class analysis.

Saffran says that NAM puts more emphasis on the plight of "oppressed peoples," and he cites the relationship between the Harvard Corporation and the Harvard Faculty as a possible point of contention between his group and NAM.

"I don't think that NAM gives enough consideration to the independent power--and the often reactionary power--of the Faculty," Saffran said Saturday. "In responsibility for the shoddy education here, the Faculty is stronger than the Corporation."

Saffran said NAM would be more likely to term the Faculty a body oppressed by the Corporation.

Both groups agree that blacks are among the "oppressed peoples," but neither organization has any black members and both are largely upper-middle class. Both Saffran and NAM spokesperson Laura Burns, a second-semester junior, say this owes to Harvard's make-up.

Burns says that a valid concern in supporting the liberation of oppressed peoples is that her group is being patronizing, but she adds that the liberation of others would be in "my self-interest, too."

Members of both groups say that differences can be traced to the premises of the national organizations. The Democratic-Socialist Organizing Committee, founded largely by author-academic-organizer Michael Harrington, is dedicated to working within the Democratic party, and the rhetoric of the local group shows that bias.

Nicholas Minard '76, a D-SOC member, uses the seeming conflict in terms "left-liberal" often when he speaks of "legitimizing socialism in the electoral process" or of "expanding the entire range of the American political perspective."

Saffran says D-SOC will support Cambridge City Councilor Saundra Graham's campaign for the Massachusetts House and will urge New Yorkers at Harvard to file absentee ballots in favor of Ramsey Clark's bid for the U.S. Senate.

Saffran even envisions annexation of the Harvard Young Democrats, a group he says is "apolitical." He said Saturday, "I could see trying to push our point of view, take over, without being devious."

NAM members are unequivocal in their disdain for electoral politics. Just as Minard says of D-SOC, "We are not all revolutionaries," Lise Newcomer '77, of NAM, says determinedly, "We are revolutionaries." But from then on, the definitions get a little vague.

Kaarli Tasso '76-2, a NAM spokesperson, says that revolution is any process that leaves society "radically changed." And Saffran suggests that what NAM means by a revolution is massive civil disobedience and labor and tenant strikes, that "could lead to violence."

"D-SOC's vision," Saffran said, "is electoral politics that would be buttressed by that kind of civil action."

Such arguments are academic except as they do indicate the nature of the groups at Harvard. Still, the styles of the two groups seem to reflect such ideological differences.

NAM's Laura Burns says that although NAM has not yet reached a "consensus," the group will probably put less emphasis this year on study groups within the group than on working at organizing or picketing. On the other hand, D-SOC's Minard talks ambitiously about discussion groups and guest speakers.

An easy generalization is that D-SOC is more closely-allied with academia, while NAM is alienated, and this notion is borne out somewhat by the large proportion of NAM members who take semesters or years off. NAM member Brian K. Allen '75-3 says, "We have a clearer idea than others what lies outside Harvard."

NAM members harbor a stern faith in equality; they say they are democratic, and in meetings they fiercely assert the right of every member to speak his or her piece without "getting trampled on," as Allen says. D-SOC members do not seem so obsessed with this purist notion, perhaps because they have already made the concession to work within the system.

In spite of such easy conclusions, the organizations are compatible in their positions on local issues, and spokespersons for neither group will rule out formation of short-term coalitions. It has been a long time since 1969, but both groups foresee another long haul, over which they must do their own work, separately if similarly.