19.12.1996

Web of propaganda

The Revolutionary Platform of the Socialist Labour Party has a web site. It can be read at any time of the day or night by an estimated three million people across the world. Instantaneous mass communication is the medium of propaganda and the internet, for better or worse, provides just that with an explosive growth rate. For comrades who are already wired this will be welcome news, but no surprise - since increasingly workers’ organisations are gaining a presence on the internet. Other comrades, however, may appreciate an explanation.

The World Wide Web (WWW) is a publishing medium with some of the characteristics of print, since it is largely text- and image-based. It also has several characteristics of radio, since its ‘broadcast’ can be received worldwide by ‘tuning in’ and its content can be constantly updated. All you need to receive it is access to the hardware and to know the address at which to point your browser. That being said, the web site publication can deliver information to who you want, when you want, and it also allows your readers to instantly write back.

Not surprisingly workers’ organisations’ use of the WWW is most widespread in the USA, where parties and trade unions state their policies, promote their disputes and recruit widely among a broad layer of the working class, which is likely to include much of the organised workers’ section. Less so in Europe, where workers’ access to information technology is not so widespread. Nevertheless, organisations such as Militant Labour, the Revolutionary Communist Party and Sinn Fein all have substantial web sites, as does the TUC, TGWU and GMPU, and the Marx/Engels Internet Archive. But the most striking use of the WWW has been made by the Liverpool dockers.

The dockers in Liverpool - with the slogan, ‘The world is our picket line’ - have mobilised the most tremendous level of international support. The next stage in this solidarity campaign is an international blockade of ports on January 20. There is little doubt that without the internet the level of international mobilisation this dispute has seen would not have happened.

The Revolutionary Platform web site cannot yet claim the influence that the dockers’ site has gained, but it is visited frequently and has gained interest from SLP members and other political activists in Britain and around the world. The site follows a magazine-like format, carrying information, discussion articles, resolutions and reports from the Revolutionary Platform, letters and excerpts from Socialist News. Readers’ responses can be mailed back to the RP.

Of course, revolutionaries use all propaganda methods to educate, agitate and organise. The WWW is one such medium, a new one with growing influence. There is so far no reliable means to police or censor the internet, yet there are methods of encryption that cannot be broken by the CIA. We can do it on the net and they cannot stop us.

Steve Riley