12.07.2012

Summer Offensive: Relax (do it!)

Mark Fischer reports on the Summer Offensive fundraising and the new CPGB website.

Comrades, I’ll admit it. There were moments when, huddled as I was with four other CPGB comrades, under a one-person, wind-crippled, pound store umbrella outside the SWP’s Marxism event, as seemingly unrelenting blankets of rain beat down, I did feel the need to revisit some of my life priorities.

I was just being old and grumpy, however. Despite the profoundly adverse weather conditions, we raised over £300 on said stall - particular congratulations need to go out to comrade SM for her sterling £33 raised through a series of what looked to me like profoundly undiplomatic interventions of one sort or another, but which clearly didn’t seem to put off punters in the slightest. Comrades SK and PM are also mentioned in despatches for their chunky donations this week, which has kept a good momentum up for the campaign to raise £25k by August 26, the last day of our annual fundraising campaign, the Summer Offensive.

Overall therefore, I am pleased to say that comrades have resuscitated my revolutionary spirit - which was slightly dampened over the weekend - with a magnificent week’s total for our Summer Offensive over the last seven days of £2,691, taking our running total to £4,656.

It is clear - from the comments and messages comrades have sent through - that much of the momentum for this week’s success has come from the buzz around the relaunch of the CPGB’s website. This has been reflected in a sharp rise in the number of visitors - last week we had 12,203, an increase of a couple of thousand, compared to the last couple of weeks before the relaunch. Overwhelmingly, the responses have been positive - indeed, many comrades have possibly been more positive than the core team and party members who have actually been responsible for the work directly.

Comrades more upfront and personal with the whole, long-running project are, naturally, more aware of its failings. There are two things I would say about that, however.

First, relax. What we do have in place, for the first time ever, I would contend, is a site whose architecture facilitates the presentation of the vast, educative body of work of the Weekly Worker - and The Leninist before it - to the movement, in a much more accessible and logical form. This is a fantastic step forward for us.

Secondly, relax again. The website is still a work in progress - we hope the comrades who visit it recognise that it is a modest, unfinished project, but one with a clear mission and, hopefully now, a clearer way of presenting that politics, that political method.

When you donate to the CPGB’s Summer Offensive, you donate to this project; to the campaign for Marxist unity on a principled and solid basis, made accessible, explicit and clear. So, come on, comrades - let’s hear from you!