04.07.1996

Summer Offensive, Scargill and “the Turks”

Party notes

As is traditional, the last few days of this year’s Summer Offensive will see a mad scramble as individuals and Party organisations hurry to fulfil their pledges. The rush will probably continue for a week or so after the formal end of the SO as standing orders clear and cheques arrive in the post. Comrades must not be casual, however: please make every effort to finish by Sunday, July 7.

In general, this Summer Offensive has been a successful one, but we cannot claim that it has been one of the most intense. Most Party members have now taken part in at least one SO and newcomers are quickly assimilated into the spirit of the campaign by a core who have quite a few under their belt. The Offensive has been technically proficient rather than really concentrated or inspired.

At the end of the SO, we may be short of our £25,000 target. This would be more than a ‘shame’; it would create a real problem for Party finances for the remainder of the year. We have the option to extend the SO by a week or two for a last push, of course. But this is something we want to avoid if possible. Comrades must pull out the stops now to ensure that a target collectively agreed by our organisation as a minimum is reached and, if possible, passed.

Comrades in and around our organisation will be aware that the SO forms the financial backbone of our Party’s work. As evidenced with this year’s campaign, it acts as a purge on our organisation. Participation - at high minimum levels - is compulsory for Communist Party members.

To non-communists, this approach is incomprehensible.

Comrades will be amused that Arthur Scargill’s investigations into the shady sources of Communist Party finances led him to the comforting conclusion that we “were financed by the Turks”. What Turks and why he has not so far elucidated.

Of course, there is a sense in which our finances are ‘Turkish’. The comrades who raised the banner of Leninist revolt against the opportunist Communist Party leadership in the early 1980s were heavily influenced by revolutionaries from Turkey. Characteristic of these exiled comrades was their single-mindedness, their serious approach to revolutionary organisation and their unswerving devotion to the cause. From its earliest days, our organisation has sought to emulate the positive lessons of the rich revolutionary tradition of Turkey. We adopted their two-month campaign of intensive fundraising - which they called their Summer Attack - and launched our first SO in 1983.

Rather than sneer, Arthur should ask himself a rather obvious question next time he addresses the London May Day rally. Why is the audience he speaks to perhaps 90% Turkish and Kurdish, with just a small gaggle of a few hundred British lefties tacked onto the end of their thousands-strong contingents? Perhaps they have something to teach us, comrade Scargill?

The Communist Party is financed by no-one except its own hard working and dedicated members and supporters. Our financial independence is a precondition of our political independence - we will tell the truth to the working class, no matter who it upsets.

As we reach the end of this year’s campaign, let me congratulate all comrades who have taken part in the 13th Summer Offensive of the CPGB. I also acknowledge our debt to “the Turks”, as Arthur rather chauvinistically dubs revolutionary organisations from that part of the world.

Historically, these comrades have contributed something of pivotal importance to our organisation: they have helped teach Communist Party cadres a way of approaching politics that makes our annual Summer Offensive - and thus our organisation itself – possible.

Mark Fischer