14.06.2000

You owe us

Hundreds of comrades will soon be receiving letters inviting them to take part in this year's Summer Offensive, the annual fundraising drive of the Communist Party.

So far, we have tapped just members and close supporters of our organisation for pledges towards our £20,000 target for June and July. The result has been pleasing, with well over £14,000 promised from comrades we know have a record of consistent financial support. Now we are reaching out further. After all, this organisation and its paper deserves backing not simply from committed members and supporters of our group. There are plenty of others out there who 'owe' us ...

Thousands of comrades read the Weekly Worker, both in its paper format and on-line. Given our almost uniquely open approach, we have made this paper required reading across the spectrum of the left. In contrast, most organisations see fit to fill their pages with tired, anecdotal corroboration of whatever happens to be the latest line, reports of how hard life is for ordinary people, of how bourgeois politicians are not the workers' friends and what a good idea 'socialism' would be. Thus, they not only produce publications that are of practically no use to the working class whatsoever: they also churn out incredibly dull reads.

Over the last few years, it has been encouraging that, despite themselves, many in this readership periphery of ours have shifted from outright hostility, through a degree to grudging respect, to a sort of passive sympathy with elements of our project. Some of these comrades have been moved to start intervening directly in the debates in the Weekly Worker, to castigate us for our various theoretical and political sins.

Thus, if you just cast an eye over the letters pages in this and last week's paper, you will see openly featured there comrades who have torn into the views of the majority of our Party's membership on localism and party-building, on revolution versus reform, on the national question in Scotland, Wales and Ireland, on anarchism and our hostility to the world view of the green movement, on our approach to republicanism in the UK, or official anti-racism. Every week, controversy and debate rage in the pages of this press, not simply in its letters page. We provide an important forum for views other than those of our Party majority.

Of course, it is important to note that this is done in the interests of fighting for scientific truth, not as philanthropic largess. People who venture into our pages defending stupid views can expect to be called stupid. But how many other papers on the revolutionary left have anything like the same democratic approach? (Like me, comrades will be gratified that my 'scoop' concerning the reappearance of a letters page in the monthly Workers Power has been borne out, at least partially. The current issue - June 2000 - features more of a small letters box, occupying about a fifth of a page and containing just two letters - one from the polemically prolific Mark Osborn of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty and the other from one decidedly dubious 'Mike Fisher' from Derby.)

The basic lesson, comrades - an open press prompts a lively letters page. A sterile, lifeless paper breeds indifference in a readership. For example, there is 'Delphi', the coy member of the Socialist Labour Party who occasionally pontificates against our supposed theoretical crudities. There are the dissident members of the Socialist Party and the Committee for a Workers International, poised to launch factional forays against the leadership, some of whom have even discovered each other's existence in the first place through the pages of our press. There are the leading Socialist Workers Party members who have admitted that when the real history of the left in this period comes to be written, the "accurate" Weekly Worker will be more important than Socialist Worker.

There is our gaggle of economistic 'left' Trotskyists, relentlessly pursuing the 'Menshevism' of the CPGB and Dave Craig through these pages. There are those comrades in Scotland in and around the Scottish Socialist Party who have been kept informed on real developments in the rest of the country that have an important bearing on their struggle against divisive nationalism. For supporters of the AWL, an organisation we are in exploratory talks with on the question of revolutionary unity, the Weekly Worker is a vital source. We have agreed that the material that flows from these talks - minutes, polemics and statements on some of the key questions facing the left - will feature in these pages.

Within the next week these sort of comrades will get a seductively worded invitation to support this year's Summer Offensive. If pressed, some might describe themselves as sympathetic to our programme: the vast majority would in all probability not go so far. Either way, I think comrades should recognise the important role our organisation - and in particular its press - has played in this fluid period. A word of even qualified praise would be nice; if it arrived along with a cheque it would be even better.

The highest pledge we have had thus far from a comrade is £1,000. The lowest, £25. As ever, our people are raising their cash in a variety of ways:

• One young comrade has come to a civilised agreement with her parents. The better her grades in a current round of exams, the more 'prize money' she will get from them. The more money she gets, the more goes to the Summer Offensive. As one parent put it, "is a good way to channel her commitment to the Party".
• Comrades who have been undertaking street work report an excellent response. Their impressions are that there is now a deep disillusionment with Blair and a growing anger against the government, particularly over the NHS.
• One comrade, a recently qualified osteopath, is offering bone-crunching sessions at reduced rates for stressed up revolutionaries.
• Plans are in hand for various badge sales on forthcoming demonstrations.
• Work in the Party's printshop - although paid at an hourly rate well below the minimum level of subsistence - is plentiful.

On June 25, roughly the mid-way point of the campaign, we will assess strengths and weaknesses and hear comrades' plans for achieving and then going beyond their initial targets. We should make this gathering a real boost to the last month of fundraising. Comrades should attend with cash and cheques, reports of activities and new pledges - both their own and those of newcomers to our fund drive.

Mark Fischer