The Socialist Workers Party’s Marxism event starts on July 2. Communist Party comrades will be joining supporters of Hands Off the People of Iran at this important event on the left to build for a Hopi-hosted meeting on the Saturday, July 4 (see ‘Action’ column for details).
The willingness of masses of people to confront the regime on the streets - whatever our estimation of the political leaders who had hegemony over the rebellion - is inspiring. It underlines the essential truth of the message Hopi has consistently propagated. The raw material for fundamental, progressive social change exists in Iranian society itself. Imperialist intervention in the form of direct military attack - like ‘soft war’ sanctions - would be a disaster which would disorganise and scatter the social forces capable of challenging the Islamic regime: crucially the working class itself.
In last week’s paper, James Turley noted that most of the left in this country had more or less measured up to the events in Iran, had offered critical support to the protesters and taken a decent line. But the sad truth is that the solidarity we have all been confined to has been overwhelmingly of a journalistic variety - a reflection of the scattered and ineffectual state the left has imposed on itself.
The CPGB has been central to the work of Hopi and fully supports its initiative in calling this meeting and its attempt to pull bringing the left together to discuss the implications of events in Iran for the region and the world. Perhaps, with some luck and hard work, it might also lay the basis for united solidarity initiatives with a little more meat on them. With principled unity we could perhaps start to get some really serious work done.
The CPGB consistently fights for this sort of unity, not simply at the level of campaigns like Hopi - important as it is - but, crucially, at the highest level: that of a working class party. That is the message this paper pumps out in one form or another every week and that is the message that is actually starting to convince a wider periphery in the movement. Injecting real momentum into our project requires lots of things, not least cash - and that’s why the annual Summer Offensive is so important.
This week has been very pleasing indeed. In my last column, I made the call for the pace of the campaign to be picked up - and readers certainly responded! Our running total this week has shot up to £8,589.50 - some £4,925 came in from comrades. Fantastic work, everyone!
Two hefty donations account for a large chunk of that total. One from comrade SK, who becomes the first to actually fulfil his individual SO target (and now has the time to forge on to higher levels, of course …?). Second, DR donated £2,000 on behalf of our comrade, Cameron Richards, who was taken from us by cancer last year.
Numerous smaller donations also came in and are much appreciated. MM - a first-time SO donor, I think - gave £100; SM, a long-time comrade now in Glasgow, donated £40; NR has taken a large chunk out of his target (£300); WD, a new associate member, produced another tenner for the fund; veteran supporter FK gave £25; JD needlessly apologises for ‘only’ donating £50, as he is “a pensioner with commitments” - including to the party, obviously, comrade; PB slipped £10 on top of his resub, despite his membership of another left group; GS’s £20 nestled in the same envelope as his application to become an associate member of the party; and finally £25 came in from RF just as I was writing this paragraph!
All greatly appreciated, comrades. An excellent week for the campaign. And, as many readers will have noticed, progress is being made in repairing our website - we had 12,086 visitors last week.
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