06.10.2010

Thanks for the flurry

Disagreements are not shameful, private matters, suggests Robbie Rix

After our near miss in September I am glad to say that our £1,250 fighting fund has made a good start. There has been a flurry of donations. In total we received £279 in the first week of October. So things are looking up. Thanks to comrades SL (£15), MG (£5), FD (£20), FK (£20), FD (£20), AM (£40), MG (£20), BP (£4), JS (£5), FJ (£50) and JFBIG (£100). Not that we can afford to be complacent. Costs constantly creep up.

It might be worth flagging up what is going to be in the Weekly Worker over the next month or so. As well as carrying the final article by Lars T Lih on Lenin we have comrades busy transcribing other important talks given to Communist University. They include Mike Macnair on permanent revolution, Chris Knight on science and Hillel Ticktin on capitalism and crisis. And naturally we shall be reporting the CPGB’s forthcoming weekend membership aggregate - where we shall be debating our Draft programme and voting on our attitude on the Labour leadership elections. In relation to our internal disagreements, articles are in preparation on leftwing communism and Trotskyism and the Labour Party. As readers will have come to expect, both will have a certain polemical edge to them.

I just wish others on the left would stop rejoicing at what they see as the next split and begin the serious fight to bring out into the open the differences that exist within their own organisations. As I have said before, disagreements should not be regarded as shameful, private matters. They are natural, healthy … and highly educational.

Finally, our readership. Last week the e-readership was 9,953. Slightly up. Nor should it be forgotten that we have a respectable, though rather smaller, print readership. Though exactly how many is much harder to judge from week to week. We print 500 copies, but I know that not all of them are sold. Nevertheless, as a rough and ready figure the Weekly Worker can be said to have an average readership of 10,000 at the moment.

Almost certainly the vast majority of them will be committed leftwingers who are interested in ideas. That is certainly the target audience this publication aims at.