15.05.2002
£20,000 pledged
This year's Summer Offensive, the CPGB's annual fundraising campaign, has got off to a brilliant start
"Definitely one of our best Summer Offensive launches," said Mark Fischer after the May 11 meeting to kick-start this year's campaign. Comrade Fischer - the Party's national organiser - had just hurriedly totted up the totals pledged by individual comrades during the meeting and arrived at a figure just under £20,000. "That is probably the highest amount we have ever had pledged at the start of an SO," he added. "Judging from previous years, this gives us a great platform to bust through our organisation's target of £25,000." During the two-month SO, comrades in and around the CPGB commit themselves to make individual contributions towards an ambitious collective Party target. Some simply raid their personal bank balances to get the money in. But at their best, the SOs are a period when members and supporters up their all-round political activity - every paper, subscription and book sold, every donation fought for and won, is counted to our comrades' personal totals. In that sense, it is an annual measure of the intensity levels of the organisation's political work and intervention. Comrade Fischer was optimistic about drawing wider layers into the campaign: "One of the most exciting developments over the last few years or so has been the creation of a relatively large layer of supporters and sympathisers around the Party, as well as the growth of our membership. At the moment, we have pledges from our membership alone. The next job is to draw our periphery into the political work of the Offensive. That will ensure we make this a outstanding year." The pledges were taken in a meeting addressed by comrade Aziz Demir from the Communist Party of Turkey (see above) and Jack Conrad of the CPGB. Comrade Conrad's speech touched on the key themes of the need to up the fight for a Socialist Alliance party and the political history of the Summer Offensives. He ended with a call to action: "The stronger the voice of the Weekly Worker becomes, the stronger is the voice for an end to the sectarianism that has bedevilled our movement in the 20th century, the stronger the voice for a united, principled workers' party. That project and the organisation that sustains it - the Communist Party - deserves the support of all partisans of our class. We call on comrades to show that support by donating to this year's Summer Offensive." For information on the SO and how you can help, write to Mark Fischer at BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX; or email office@cpgb.org.uk. John Galt
Worker