06.08.2015

Wurzels revisited

How do we do it? Mark Fischer reveals all

I promised in last week’s paper that if in the coming week we hit double figures in terms of new contributors to our Summer Offensive - the CPGB’s annual fundraising drive - I would remind comrades of some of the more bizarre rumours about the campaign that once got the left gossiping excitedly about us. We have and I will!

But before I do it is worthwhile noting that we get far less of this sort of nonsense these days. This actually reflects the positive fact that, through decades of hard work and consistent commitment to principle, we have built a relatively large sympathising readership - as opposed to an indignant following that initially felt it had to find out what we were saying … and resented it deeply. This supportive layer is not as engaged as we would like it to be - particularly financially, as we always note at this time of the year - but it certainly doesn’t brook any of the type of crap about our organisation that was once the ‘common sense’ of swathes of the left.

Back in the day, people were reliably informed that CPGB members were selling their livers for the fund drive; that all student comrades had been instructed to give up their digs and live together in squalid squats in Brixton; that we had a T-shirt sweatshop in Turkey that supplied the cash; that Jack Conrad was a descendant of novelist Joseph Conrad and we financed our political activities from his literary estate; also that the very same Jack Conrad was the minted heir to a nationwide chain of dry cleaners (we had fun answering this one with talk of “laundering money” and “washing dirty linen in public”, of course) and, as if we weren’t awash with enough cash, that we were financed by MI5, the Communist Party of Turkey, the German Democratic Republic, the Revolutionary Communist Group … or some exotic combination of the above. The simple explanation - that genuine communist politics inspire revolutionaries to high levels of self-sacrifice and inventiveness - did not occur to people at the time.

My personal favourite started life as a throwaway joke in a 2002 article by an ex-member of ours, which eventually found its way into a Guardian diary column (also with tongue firmly in cheek, I think), but which then, amazingly, was repeated as good coin by gullible lefties. Apparently, I personally had hit upon an eccentric financial wheeze, by acquiring the rights to the back catalogue of the Wurzels - a 1970s ‘scrumpy and western’ band with such comedy classics in their repertoire as ‘I am a cider drinker’ and ‘I’ve got a brand new combine harvester’ (they were actually about as funny as a burning orphanage).

Readers won’t be too shocked to learn that the extra £2,290 that has been added to the pot this week did not come from these sources, or anything like them. No, our running total has been bumped up to £17,760 by the likes of individual comrades such as LA with his £250, MM who has added £400 to his regular £40 standing order, TB with her £30 regular donation, RL’s £10, RK for his £100 PayPal contribution, EW’s £50 and many other comrades. Another effort like this and we will be there or thereabouts - that is, the £20K mark - at the start of this year’s Communist University on August 15, and thus well placed to hit our £30,000 collective target by August 22, the last day of our school.

And not a penny from sweated labour in Istanbul, sales of Heart of darkness or ‘scrumpy and western’ nostalgia-fests - how do we do it?