WeeklyWorker

02.06.2004

Summer Offensive 2004

The CPGB's annual fundraising drive has got off to a slow start, reports Tina Becker.

Our 20th Summer Offensive has got off to a bit of a slow start. As opposed to previous years, we did not organise an official SO launch - instead, we asked comrades to use the last two weekends before the 'super Thursday' elections to go out and campaign for Respect and the Scottish Socialist Party.

Last Saturday, for example, comrades in north London first covered the Communist Party of Britain's annual conference in Wood Green. They sold half a dozen copies of the Weekly Worker and gave out Respect leaflets to the 50 or so delegates. Afterwards, they set up a party stall near Wood Green tube station, where they sold another 10 copies of the Weekly Worker and made a couple of good new contacts. Our petition, 'Troops out of Iraq', was willingly signed and many badges were sold. Result: £32 raised in just under an hour.

At the next party aggregate on June 19, party members from across Britain will be able to give us not only their pledges, but also report on any problems they have encountered raising money. We have always stressed that the SO is a measure of our collective political impact - we do not expect comrades to shoulder the burden by themselves. Party cells and committees should up their collective political work and help those comrades who find it difficult to meet their personal target. Every paper and party pamphlet sold, every new subscription won and every donation received will count towards comrades' individual totals.

We estimate that by the end of the week, we will have received pledges for around £22,000 from members and close supporters. That still leaves us £8,000 short though. That is where Weekly Worker readers and friends come in. The Summer Offensive is the time where you really can show your appreciation for our paper.

Unlike the typically anodyne and dishonest publications of the old sectarian left, the Weekly Worker speaks fearlessly. Our tried and tested method is open polemic - be it on the question of Respect, the European Social Forum or trade union struggles. As a result, our paper is hated with a passion by those with something to hide. However, it is also widely read and just as widely believed.

All manner of tales have been concocted about the source of our finances. Bizarrely, when we launched our first journal, The Leninist, in 1981, certain influential 'official communists' claimed we were bankrolled by the German Democratic Republic. Later Arthur Scargill alleged that we were in the pay of the Communist Party of Turkey - untrue, but at least not characteristically irrational. In more recent times we have been confidently informed that we are financed by the owner of a dry-cleaning chain (where we presumably launder our money …).

Such stories - and stories they are - say everything about the mindset of those who invent or circulate them. Clearly they have no conception whatsoever of raising substantial finances and maintaining a well produced weekly paper without first selling oneself.

There is in fact no secret about it. We get nothing from the CIA, nor Arab reactionaries, nor rich laundry owners. We rely entirely on partisans of the working class - CPGB members and supporters, Weekly Worker print and e-readers.

What you can do: