Thanks to all

I am pleased to report that our December total has shot up over the last week - we now have £283, an increase of £168. But that still leaves us over £100 to raise over the Christmas period - with the postal service at its most unreliable.

I was hoping to announce in this issue of the Weekly Worker that we had not only surpassed our £400 monthly target, but had ended the year in the black. Unfortunately that announcement - if, as I hope, it can be made - will now have to wait for three weeks, when our first 2001 edition comes out.

Special thanks this week to GF, PL and AS for their excellent £20 gifts, together with HG, JV and IT, who all came up with a tenner. I must also express my gratitude to all comrades who have supported their paper throughout the year - selling and distributing, and contributing articles, as well as donating generously. All of that helped make 2000 a year in which the Weekly Worker made something of a breakthrough in terms of influence and readership.

Here's to the same again - and more - in 2001!

Robbie Rix

Ask for a bankers order form, or send cheques, payable to Weekly Worker, BCM Box 928, London WC1N 3XX

Number 365

Thursday December 21 2000

No more Socialist Party brinkmanship   —   Marcus Larsen argues that a fragmented election campaign is against the objective needs of the working class

Bush faces paralysis   —   Ian Donovan sees a working class opportunity

Letters   —   Republican party; Still at it; Tiny bands; IBT cult; If you say so; Hackney update

Vicious state assault resisted   —   Steve Kaczynski calls for support for political prisoners in Turkey on death fast

Karl Marx and religion   —   Michael Malkin, in the first of a series of articles, contends that Marxian materialism is totally irreconcilable with any form of religious belief

Playing the race card   —   Don Preston examines why the Tories are in disarray

Socialist Alliance roundup   —   Hackney; Nottinghamshire; Southwark; Wales

Christianity and the decline of Rome (supplement)   —   Jack Conrad counters the dismissiveness of atheist economism

Shostakovich: Revolutionary life, revolutionary legacy   —   Harry Paterson critiques works representing the pinnacle thus far of symphonic achievement

Witchhunters, censorship, and the holocaust   —   Eddie Ford reviews Norman G Finkelstein's The holocaust industry: reflections on the exploitation of Jewish suffering

Party pushes for unity   —   Mary Godwin reports on the discussions at the recent CPGB aggregate

Workers' Liberty backs federal republic call   —   Dave Craig sees major significance for the British left

For a united Socialist Alliance   —   The Revolutionary Democratic Group argues for a conciliatory attitude towards the Socialist Party