11.04.1996
Summer Offensive
Party notes
The Party’s 13th Summer Offensive will be launched at a London meeting on May 5 and will run for two months through May and June.
For the uninitiated, the Summer Offensive is a period of intense fundraising conducted by our organisation every year. During this annual campaign, Party comrades take second jobs, cut back on personal consumption, fight for donations from sympathisers and from people even on the most distant periphery of the Party and generally use their gumption to raise funds for their personal targets.
This year, the collective target we have set ourselves is £25,000. This will provide us with some of the financial resources needed to conduct the next general election campaign. Apart from campaign materials, this may involve the update of technical equipment or the expansion of our printshop to meet the extra demands.
Thus, the fundraising is linked to specific political goals that our organisation has. During this period of growing fluidity on the British revolutionary left, the specifically communist pole of attraction must be strengthened. An essential element of this must be the fight for sufficient financial resources, the sinews of war of our struggle.
Party organisers must start to draw up lists now of sympathisers and contacts in their area who should be approached for a pledge for the SO. Plans must be made, events organised. Comrades must start immediately to avoid the traditional ‘slow start’ syndrome that plagues the Offensive every year.
This annual campaign of the Party turns us outwards rather than in. The SO is normally a high point of the Party’s public work, campaigning and active engagement with its periphery. This year - given the importance of our SLP work - the SO must be an exemplary one. Party comrades should show in practice what a communist organisation is capable of. We have been proud of our achievements in the past and we are confident that with the new, more fruitful political arena we can make the 13th Summer Offensive one of the very best we have ever organised.
In particular, the comrades and organisations who have been involved with us in the process of communist rapprochement should be encouraged to take a full part in the fight for the victory of the Summer Offensive. The Party we are struggling to build together is not the property of a particular faction, shade or tendency. Participation in the SO will be an important step towards strengthening communist unity
All Party comrades must start to make detailed plans now. Keep Centre informed of special events, problems and potential pledges.
Mark Fischer
national organiser
Build the Party!
Launch of the 13th Party Offensive at 5pm on Sunday May 5. All Party supporters and sympathisers are urged to attend and join the vital struggle for Party finance.