02.08.2012
Summer Offensive
Feel the Pain - do it anyway. Mark Fischer gives an update on the Summer Offensive
Before we get into the specifics of the past seven days of our annual fund drive, the Summer Offensive - and it has been another good week - I have to put out a special call for support.
We actually need at least £3k by Monday of next week (August 6) to enable us to kill some rather large, ominously looming bills. I know there are comrades out there with SO donations still screaming to get out of their pockets; comrades wracked with guilt because of their unpaid Communist University ‘fees’; still more who feel they should come to the event, know they need to, but … I feel your pain, comrades. But now it’s time for you to feel some of ours.
Contrary to the lurid financial stories hatched up about us by some of the more putrid imaginations of the left, we have no source of regular income outside a narrow circle of pretty hard-pressed working people. The annual Summer Offensive is essentially the period when we make a determined effort to turn outwards and impress upon our readership and sympathising periphery that, whatever the political strengths of our project, it remains extremely fragile in terms of core personnel and resources, especially its financial resources.
So it is pleasing to report another invigorating week for the campaign, with an additional £2,654 added to our total, taking us to £12,333 - a good platform from which to attack our target of £25k by August 26. It is important to emphasise, however, that this total does not simply represent cash in hand. Much of it is spent already or earmarked to be spent in the very near future.
So it’s unfortunate that this stage of the 2012 SO coincides with a number of painful debt obligations that we need to fulfil without getting into further debt, as it were. So, don’t sit on it. If you were thinking of making an SO donation, do it now. If you haven’t stumped up for CU, jump to it. And if you can’t come at all, how about donating so someone else can. (We often subsidise lower-income comrades - particularly the younger).
Of course, I’m being slightly facetious. I am well aware that comrades have tight financial constraints of their own and it is not simply inertia that stops them rushing the cash in. But I would urge those that can to hurry donations in sharpish over the next few days; it would be a tremendous help, comrades.
It’s always encouraging to know our efforts are appreciated and comrade RT showed some love with a £30 resub to the paper, combined with a £30 donation. He sends his “congratulations for a very helpful and informative weekly publication” and adds that “over the last six months I have learned a lot from the articles, as they have helped clear up many areas I have been uncertain about for many years!”
The entire point of the Weekly Worker and the website whose content it drives is exactly that. Clarification and education of the advanced part of our movement as a vital precondition for it to face up to the huge challenges that capitalist austerity and the offensive of the ruling class present. The paper is a unique and indispensable publication on the left.
This is why the most recent meeting of the leadership of the CPGB thought it essential to emphasise again that the paper is at the very centre of this year’s Summer Offensive. It forms the spinal core of the whole, interconnected project that this organisation is committed to: the reforging of a principled, united, democratic Marxist party.
From this flow our priorities, as we move deeper into the second half of this year’s fundraising campaign. With (hopefully, my dear, generous comrades) our urgent financial obligations met, we can reconnect properly with what the campaign is actually all about - ie, politics and, in particular, the concrete vehicle for the politics of this revolutionary trend in the movement: the Weekly Worker.
We will be contacting comrades individually and collectively over the next week to explore what they can do to help build the financial base of the Weekly Worker (account number 00744310, sort code 30-99-64).
But don’t wait to be asked. Above are the details of where you can offer your support by transfer from your bank account. We look forward to hearing from you, comrades.
Mark Fischer