17.09.2015

Hungry for ideas

The masses are ready, says Robbie Rix

CPGB comrades and Weekly Worker sellers had a highly successful time on the ‘big day’. By which I mean the September 12 demonstration for migrant rights, which kind of merged with the celebration of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory - he, of course, came straight from the Labour special conference to address the jubilant crowds in Parliament Square.

And I have to say that the reception we received was excellent. All sorts of people snapped up Corbyn badges, together with the Weekly Worker - they were a mixture of old hands, rejuvenated by the Corbyn phenomenon, and the much more politically inexperienced, including lots of younger comrades.

The fact is that for the first time in years lots of people are being drawn towards what they see as a new kind of politics - and they are hungry for ideas. So I’m sure that other left papers did well too. It just goes to show that this is a movement that Marxists must engage with.

Anyway, the figures I have suggest that £415 was raised specifically for the Weekly Worker - a fantastic result. To that we must add a below-average £55 in standing orders - thanks to KB and DW (£20 each), LP (£10) and FD (£5), They were almost matched by the PayPal donors last week - £50 in all, from GH (£25), plus five comrades who stumped up £5 each. They were among the 3,230 people who read us online over the last seven days.

Finally, there were two cheques in the post - thank you, HF, for a brilliant £50 and DR for a more modest but still very useful £20. All in all, our balance has gone further into the black by £590 this week. Good news, because we now have £1,264 towards our £1,750 monthly target - and there are exactly two weeks left to raise the remaining £511 we need by September 30.

Let’s aim for a large surplus this month, comrades!

Robbie Rix