No price rise

As you may have noticed, Socialist Worker now costs 80p. Given its previous cover price of 50p, this represents a hefty 60% increase. Of course, the fact that SW is becoming available in mainstream newsagents and outlets might explain the reason for this price hike. WH Smith and co no doubt want their cut and the SWP still have costs to meet.

The Weekly Worker has no plans to raise our price at present - even though, like all left papers, our revenue from sales does not cover all our costs. However, to maintain our current coverage requires a steady flow of regular donations - so get your cheque books out, comrades. After all, our readers certainly get more communism for their money than the reader of any other currently available left publication.

After the disappointing performance last month (which only netted £380, leaving us £70 short of our £450 monthly target), we really need you to pull out the stops and make sure that we not only achieve this month’s total, but also make up for last month’s shortfall. Unless, that is, you want to wake up one cold morning and discover that the full price of your Weekly Worker more accurately reflects the cost of producing it.

So far, thanks to RL and SG (£20 each); RD, AP and MK (£15 a piece); KM, LP, JS and JD (£10) and DD (£5). This brings our total to £120.

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Weekly Worker 422 is available in pdf format as zipped (1.45MB) or unzipped (1.78MB) files

Number 422

Thursday March 7 2002

The Weekly Worker is available from bookshops across the United Kingdom or can be delivered direct to your door by completing our online subscription form.

Scottish socialists aim for 8 MSPs
James Mallory gives an overview of the weekend's SSP conference in Dundee

Letters
Legal Marxists; Countdown; Slightly; Counting

Hypocritical rat
Danny Thompson of the RDG and Bedfordshire Socialist Alliance takes issue with Marcus Ström

Recognise members' rights
Statement from ‘former’ Bedfordshire Socialist Alliance officers to SA executive

Scottish Socialist Party conference
The fourth annual conference of the Scottish Socialist Party took place in Dundee over the weekend of March 2-3. Our team of journalists provide an in-depth account

• Factional alignments and fights
• Tokenism wins the day
• Internationalist gestures, nationalist reality
• Euro conference

Jacobinism and the Soviet Thermidor
Turning to the past, especially the France of 1789-1815, in order to understand the Russian Revolution and its subsequent degeneration, had terrifying consequences. Martyn Hudson concludes his two-part discussion

Anti-Mugabe struggle enters new phase
An assessment and an appeal from the International Socialist Organisation (Zimbabwe) website

• In the days before the March 9-10 presidential election in Zimbabwe, the International Socialist Organisation has, for security reasons, effectively gone underground. Peter Manson spoke to ISO national treasurer Rosa Zulu

All that is required?
Mark Fischer reviews the Socialist Workers Party's Socialist Worker: fighting to change the world

Revolutionary semantics
Language is important, argues John Pearson, and communists must avoid using certain words and phrases

Fight the war drive
As Blair and Bush step up threats against Iraq we take to the streets, writes Danny Hammill