How best to spend £80k to promote Socialism?

pay people £20 each to endorse socialism

strike funds
creche at housing group events and union meetings
print thousands of migrants guides
esol and literacy classes in under resourced unions and housing groups
make run down social centre into really nice social centre
training for direct action workplace problems and housing problems
equipment for a really good travelling kitchen

I can definitely think of more

Give it to the SPGB and see what they can do with £160k.

Being serious for a minute, I'm surprised at the £80k figure. How big is the SPGB membership?

How big is the SPGB membership?

342 members

But perhaps a more accurate number is the returns on our last ballot:

Total of ballot papers sent out - 331, Total of completed ballot papers returned - 115

The money isn't from member's dues or lit sales or public meeting collections but mainly from legacies left to the Party by deceased members. We have been going for 112 years so it is little wonder that many members are on the elderly side. Some members also found themselves jobs where they could "escape" the worse ravages of wage-slavery which sometimes proved fairly lucrative over their life-times.

We have a now well-furnished and equipped yet under-used HO which costs much to upkeep in utility bills and local council rates and also, just as importantly, members time.
A very presentable monthly journal which does not pay for itself through its sales and suffers a declining circulation
A Resident Weekend School in Birmingham which is heavily subsidised
And to ensure fuller democratic participation, we have the usual travel expenses for a number of out-of-London members.

Our accounts are not hidden and freely available on the Electoral Commission Register and full details are provided by the treasurer twice-yearly to our members.

Despite the creation of an investments committee, the long-term forecast for the Party finances is not a promising rosy one. As Micawber said "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six pence, result misery."

Although, i am sure many other organisations would sorely wish to have our problems.

this is pretty creepy.

fnbrilll

this is pretty creepy.

????????????????

Aye, not sure what fnbrill means either. By the way, if that's a postal ballot, then 115 out of 331 (35% ish) isn't too bad a return in such non revolutionary, not very militant times as these.

All our main party officers and all our conference decisions require a postal poll of individual members for them to be ratified.(An e-mail vote is permitted on request for those with mailing difficulties.)

115 out of 331 isn't a bad return in such non revolutionary, not very militant times as these.

I have to disagree with you. For a political party when people actually go out of their way to voluntarily join but especially in an organisation such as the SPGB that places much weight on self-activity and democratic control, filling in a ballot (which comes with an SAE, iirc), is the least to expect a member to undertake. But a more important requirement is taking an interest in the issues being voted upon, and knowing the background and arguments.

I also add my puzzlement at FNBrill's cryptic remark...

We're not completely disagreeing either. I didn't say it's good. Just that it's not so bad in times as disillusion-filled as these. But yes, the SPGB being the type of organisation it is would no doubt have higher expectations of member engagement.

Yeah 80 grand is a lot of money. Especially on an annual basis. I could think of loads of things to do with it. I mean if we at libcom had 80 grand a year, we could massively improve and overhaul the website, start paying people to write regular, current content to massively increase traffic and start rivalling mainstream sources of news and analysis, develop an app to connect militants in the workplace and with shared features in the community (like users of similar services at risk etc), fund the translation of key texts into lots of foreign languages, and use the money to promote all of the above.

That could still only be a fraction of that money. So the rest you could be free to do things like give grants to new direct action based campaign groups/organising efforts in particular workplace campaigns etc

anyway just a few thoughts off the top of my head…

That last bit's the point innit. It's not so much spending the money, but spending it on elections. I'm not entirely sure what such money should be spent on and am not entirely sure whether I agree with the other suggestions of what to do with it either... but what I do know is elections are a dead end so there will undoubtedly be better alternatives. Still, it's the SPGB and it's what they do so fair fucks.

I'd put the majority of it aside for matching strike fund donations. Find worthwhile struggles and agree to match up to whatever amount in donations that come in. It'll go to a worthwhile cause, it'll make the participants in that struggle more aware of/more open to the ideas of socialists and it'll raise the profile of the organization among those whose donations are matched.

Since this is a common argument against electoral participation, but small socialist groups don't seem to publish the figure openly:

How much does participating in elections cost minimally (say, just putting up candidates)?

Chilli Sauce

I'd put the majority of it aside for matching strike fund donations. Find worthwhile struggles and agree to match up to whatever amount in donations that come in. It'll go to a worthwhile cause, it'll make the participants in that struggle more aware of/more open to the ideas of socialists and it'll raise the profile of the organization among those whose donations are matched.

On this, a couple of things. In terms of actual amounts of money, if you're talking about strike funds £80,000 is basically nothing, unless you're talking about things in tiny workplaces. I work for a medium-sized employer, and making up lost earnings to workers for even just a day of strike action would cost about £600k. And we normally take action as part of a bargaining group which has about 2 million people in it.

And in terms of making participants in the struggle more aware, at least in my experience other than the person who handles the money side of things (who would normally be a union official, and quite probably a socialist anyway) most people probably wouldn't be aware of where bits of money came from.

Anyway this is a silly theoretical question so not that it really matters. Basically though I think we can all agree you could do better things with it than what is currently being done…

Yeah, fair enough, I guess I had in mind some of the smaller IWW organizing campaigns I'd been involved in over the years. So, the Stardust Workers in NYC, a five grand matching donation would be huge and they'd definitely notice where it came from. Same for, I imagine, recent cinema worker strikes in London and the Pop Up Union from a while back.

I reckon strike pay in my workplace if 100% of union members went on strike would be 8500 a day except that you only get strike pay if you would have been working that day and loads of ppl are part time, so it would be less. Also strike pay is usually a lot less than your lost earnings, so SPGB could bankroll us for ten days, though I wouldn't expect them to spend the whole lot on one strike.

Deliveroo raised I think 10,000 pounds in total? Not sure if that's right but yeah for smaller strikes a substantial donation would make a huge difference.
If people notice strike pay: depends how it's done. Best ones are when striking workers come in to speak at your workplace and then you pass the hat round and it comes back to them with 200 quid in it.

Since this is a common argument against electoral participation, but small socialist groups don't seem to publish the figure openly

A political party that stand candidates is obliged legally to publish its spending on elections

The cost of parliamentary elections £500 each seat , free mail for election leaflet, but printing them has to be paid for

The cost of standing in euro-election was £5000. There was free postal distribution of election manifestos, but printing them has to be paid for. In 2014 the SPGB spent about £15,000 in the campaign in the SE Region (£10,000 for 984,000 leaflets + £5000 deposit) and about £11,600 in Wales (£2750 for an election video aired locally on BBC and ITV on different days in Wales, £3850 for 342,000 leaflets + £5000 deposit)
EU 2014 - 6,838 votes 0.04%

Local elections cost nothing but you have to do your own door-to-door delivery of leaflets

May 2016
Lambeth 729 (0.74%)
Southwark 604 (0.69)
Hounslow 504 (0.65)
Waltham Forest 496 (0.64)
Hackney 464 (0.60)
Kingston 293 (0.50)
Islington 333 (0.45)
Richmond 268 (0.35)

Steven -

Basically though I think we can all agree you could do better things with it than what is currently being done…

This is the perennial argument inside the SPGB, endless debated and discussed with countless proposals over the years.

I fear Libcom or any other organisation would face the same conundrum on expenditure choices and a similar division of opinion with only a difference of direction (no election activity) and the various contesting opportunity costs will still feature on how best to to put money to use.

I recall when i was in the IWW a long time ago, someone inherited a dosh of money and was issuing grants to worthy political causes...was there a permanent benefit?..i'm not sure there was any but folk can correct me.

I, for one, with 80 grand, would like on the short-term, a full-time paid worker, preferably me :) , at HO running it as a drop-in reading-room/cafe/resource centre (we have an incredible library and archive, a kitchen, and computers and printers). But longer term, perhaps in an ideal world, a bar and music/events venue in the evenings and weekends.

One of the downsides of being property-owners and trustees of substantial funds, is you are more liable to be sued for some sort of damages or copyright infringement. The SPGB is increasingly becoming true to its old nickname "Small Party of Good Boys" because of its exercise of legalistic caution in protecting their assets. So maybe spend it if you have it, is the best course of action for a relatively wealthy organisation.

I was in Mayday Rooms doing some union training at the same time as IWGB had their workplace advice drop in. There was a massive queue of people for the drop in and they were all waiting in the kitchen area upstairs which is a lovely space. I was thinking how important it was to have a venue like this for these kind of activities. If you have a nice building, and I'm sure you have some retired trade unionists who know their onions, it would be really great if you could run a workplace advice drop in. There's loads of other good activities that really need space now there's such a shortage of venues.

i Googled Mayday Rooms and it looks good. Very much something i envisage the SPGB HO could be turned into. Imagine a network of such centres.

http://maydayrooms.org/

ajjohnstone

The cost of parliamentary elections £500 each seat , free mail for election leaflet, but printing them has to be paid for

So to participate in the UK national election (stand a candidate in 650 seats) costs £325,000, without fancy stuff like printing leaflets.

If the election is held every 4 years, your budget (£80000 a year) would still be just short.

If the party membership is 331 people it's also 319 people short of contesting a 650-seat election.

In other words even if every (paper) member of the SPGB stood in the election they'd need £165,500 in deposits for the 50.9% of seats they could actually contest, but would still need leaflets.

Elections in the UK are now legally every 5 years I think. In that time the SPGB could amass £400,000, or £165,500 for the deposits and £234,500 for printing and what-not.

Not saying I think it's a good idea, but it's certainly do-able from their point of view.

You probably also have to have your candidate living in those constituencies across the country.

As the situation is now, the SPGB can't seriously participate to win.

So why even participate at all?

Maybe the point is to get just one candidate elected into parliament, but given the non-representative electoral system, that would require winning first place somewhere.

Is the HO the shopfront in Clapham High Road? I haven't been there for maybe 5 or 6 years but was always struck by the anachronistic appearance of the place. Has it been bought up to date lately?

Anyways, I've got to say that despite the fact that I think the electoral thing is bonkers(could someone explain that? I'm genuinely interested), I really like the SGBP. I've only been to one meeting but that meeting was great and the comrades there were intelligent, knowledgable and friendly. The SGBP guys on Libcom are always very considered in what they post and never seem to get snarky which is a feat quite beyond me although I'm trying real hard at the moment. So despite disagreements in policy I think a lot of us could do well by following the example of the SPGB.

Noa Rodman

You probably also have to have your candidate living in those constituencies across the country...

That doesn't seem to be the case. Unless the party is full of bankrupts and ex-offenders, there doesn't seem to be any reason why they couldn't contest 331 constituencies.

Pretty sure if they did they'd have a good chance of getting a bunch more members (maybe enough to contest the full 650 next time round...).

But this is foolishness of course. Contesting the whole country is much more expensive than contesting a small number of constituencies (paying for national advertising etc).

I've got to say that despite the fact that I think the electoral thing is bonkers(could someone explain that? I'm genuinely interested),

In these times, the reason we contest elections is simply for exposure and publicity.
For less than £30,000 we had a mail-shot of a million and quarter people in the 2014 Euros and an election broadcast in Wales.

In General Elections we normally only concentrate on contesting just the one constituency - where HO is located and in the case in council elections it is again mostly London wards where we have the membership to do the foot-slogging.

Noah's question is much broader though and the SPGB answer much deeper than simply using elections for propaganda stunts. For a few on this list, it is all an old argument since we have been saying the same thing since 1904, firstly against the case made by syndicalists/industrial unionists and later the first wave of post-1917 Bolsheviks proponents and then the more recent Trotskyists off-shoots who have presented the case that capturing the state machine is just unnecessary but even counter-productive. Our view is that Parliament, despite what is said. is still a centre of political power and if it wasn't, the bourgeoisie would not be so intent on retaining control of it, dropping all their intra-capitalist faction fights whenever it seems as if the working class are about to act independently in their own interests via the electoral parliamentary process.
Go to the website and use the search engine and best read the pamphlet
http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/whats-wrong-using-parliament

Is the HO the shopfront in Clapham High Road? I haven't been there for maybe 5 or 6 years but was always struck by the anachronistic appearance of the place. Has it been bought up to date lately?

http://l7.alamy.com/zooms/ab592690e4f548248b377bd41a868af4/the-socialist-part-of-great-britain-clapham-high-street-gfeh5j.jpg

the world needs libcommies in the newly industrialised countries to do tranlsations of important texts and report what is currently happening over there; considering how much more valuable western money is over there and the much higher level of class war and mutual aid there ...

ajjohnstone

In these times, the reason we contest elections is simply for exposure and publicity.
For less than £30,000 we had a mail-shot of a million and quarter people in the 2014 Euros and an election broadcast in Wales.

Serious question here: with all that publicity how many new members to that translate to, and short of new members how many additional visits to your website did you get?

(Not trying to be snarky, genuinely interested, and if I'm honest also I would be doubtful if the answer is for either question are that high, as I don't really think that is as good value as you seem to think)

I want to go back to strikes just for a minute ;)

In my experience (every workplace is different so other people may have a very different experience) donations are often the base of hardship pay rather than strike pay. Strike pay is for everyone who is on strike. In my union you only get that after three days of continuous strike action and it's a fixed amount, not based on loss of income (so lower paid workers don't get less) and that's from the union central funds, with the major disadvantage that the union central can decide that you are not getting it any more.
Hardship pay is raised entirely through donations and a levy on union members and is organised entirely by the local branch. Money is given to people who are considered to be in hardship and can be given for a one day strike. This will typically be given in my workplace to people on zero hours contracts. For this we put a lot of effort into fundraising and it's hard work just to raise a few hundred quid, so here a donation would make a big difference.

Steven, i can search out the exact answers but it means looking through conference reports ...We try to track where replies come from by having special codes on return address for leaflets etc so we can do a rough estimation on what is the most fruitful method of campaigning but also where replies came from. We have a membership committee just for that. I've seen stats about how much it costs for every reply. And it is a helluva lot more than that 20 quid suggestion to endorse socialism.

Our success in elections has been pretty disappointing. One new visitor to this month's North London Branch, for instance, responded to a 2015 Islington local election and took up the 3-copy of the Standard offer, and then turned up at a meeting well over a year after hearing of us. An example of how some people do take their time to appraise the SPGB case and as you know we never try to rush into signing up members.

Using ad-speak, i think we can weigh up what is more important...new members or increased brand recognition for the SPGB interpretation of socialism. I once suggested we actually do an opinion poll on the latter. Have you heard of the SPGB? If you have, what sort of socialism do they stand for?

I have, again using advertising lingo, been pushing for us to identify our Unique Selling Point so we can focus our campaigns on our strengths and know which of our messages resonate the most with people.

Are token participation in elections worth it?

I think it has been demonstrated that such events despite those who point to the abstention rates and apathy, does arouse an increased awareness and discussion of political affairs. If people are more receptive to political messages i think we would be foolish in not presenting our case and analysis. As they say about the lottery, you have to be in to win.

I was in Scotland for the independence referendum and was very pleasantly surprised by the engagement of people in the process from simply announcing their affiliation and intentions with a sticker on their lapel to all the stalls in the high streets, in big cities and small villages, and the posters in the windows and on the walls and lamp-posts. If people consider the issues important enough, they are active. Same as i found in my trade union. Only when there was an industrial dispute (and one with the prospect of victory) the people turned up for meetings and turned out for the picket lines. Otherwise and other times, you would think the union dead and buried.

One other thing i think we also lack, and that is a Democracy Now - type radio and tv news channel in the UK. I wonder how far 80,000 would go doing perhaps a budget version of The Young Turks internet tv channel.

Are token participation in elections worth it?
I think it has been demonstrated that such events despite those who point to the abstention rates and apathy, does arouse an increased awareness and discussion of political affairs. If people are more receptive to political messages i think we would be foolish in not presenting our case and analysis. As they say about the lottery, you have to be in to win.
I was in Scotland for the independence referendum and was very pleasantly surprised by the engagement of people in the process from simply announcing their affiliation and intentions with a sticker on their lapel to all the stalls in the high streets, in big cities and small villages, and the posters in the windows and on the walls and lamp-posts. If people consider the issues important enough, they are active. Same as i found in my trade union. Only when there was an industrial dispute (and one with the prospect of victory) the people turned up for meetings and turned out for the picket lines. Otherwise and other times, you would think the union dead and buried.

So if more people are drawn into accepting the reduction of their options for change to a vote then that’s an improvement? Even when it means increasing support for nationalism (SNP etc) and anti-immigration (UKIP etc)?! But what seems to be important for SPGB is that – regardless of content and intention – more people are being drawn into the electoral process and so – theoretically, at least – one of their possible choices may eventually be SPGB. Despite the fact that greater enthusiasm for the electoral process is actually driving popular views ever-rightwards... Ah, but it’s only been 112 years of rigidly sticking to this programme – which seems pretty much, by any objective measure, like burning money to keep warm.

While I'm opposed to electoralism (never mind feeding the monster of bourgeois democracy) I'm not convinced of the usefulness of giving grants to worthy yet transient causes either as it would only be a black hole with little or no long term gain in terms of advancing revolutionary politics in the class. I think more permanent things like a radio station, TV channel or social centre - with the express proviso that they should be used for the promotion of revolutionary socialist/communist/anarchist ideas first and foremost - might be the way to go. Not that many of us has 80 grand to chuck about.

Red,
I am of the age and brought up in a council scheme where i can remember that elections were carnival affairs (not the circus they are now!!). There was bunting and rosettes and posters in every window, with loudspeaker vans up and down the roads. It was this genuine mass participation in elections i recalled when i saw what was going on in the Scottish Referendum. I was not in the UK to comment whether the same emotional commitment was being expressed in the EU Referendum, but from the coverage i saw, it didn't seem like it. (Those who witnessed first-hand both can correct me if i am wrong and explain why there was a difference if there was one)

2014 wasn't just all about voting for respective nationalisms but people realising that their individual vote really counted and the issue was important enough for them to express their opinion openly and publicly and not keep these views private.

The highest voting registration and the highest turn-out. People were determining their future and knew it. They recognised it was very different from the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer Westminister or Holyrood choice.

A vibrant SPGB seeks such an atmosphere for the future time when socialism is the choice on the ballot paper and people understand that they are making genuine decisions on their lives and that these are being taken in a far wider context than just at the voting booth marking a ballot paper in secret.

But even the SPGB debates whether elections are a useful outlet for our cash. It is invariably on our conference agenda in one form or another.

It took over 40 years before the SPGB contested their first parliamentary seat so another way of expressing it, Red, is the SPGB is very patient and knows how to wait...And that is because we will not act without our fellow-workers alongside, nor shall we substitute out party for our class....If the working class are not ready to educate, organise and emancipate themselves, the SPGB will be prepared to wait another 112 years saying much the same things as we do until the day workers do begin to engage in self-liberation in their own class interests...And maybe that is why right now people don't join despite agreeing ...they understand they will be ashes and dust before workers come around to wanting socialism...damn it ...see how depressed and pessimistic i have now gotten because of a question of spending money...

Correct me if I’m wrong in your case, but most Scots post-war council estates of your era would be in very safe Labour seats, no? So the popular election fever would mainly just be going through the motions while little changed and the local political establishment stayed the same.

The SPGB fetishise the electoral form and process regardless of its content or of its specific historical context. The arguments for participation remind me of 19c arguments for universal suffrage; the majority of society is working class, so if workers have the vote then they’ll have power, right? You just have to get enough of them to vote, and then eventually for the ‘right’ Party. Subsequent history tells us that’s nonsense. No transformation of society can hinge on it or any other relatively passive event that reinforces bourgeois ideology of loyal citizenship and leaves other social relations still unchanged. In fetishising the electoral form, you seem to ignore the function of such politics; nationalist politics are effective for capitalism in diverting people away from class struggle. Yet - in a climate of such low class struggle where many search desperately for new identities - there is enthusiasm from ‘socialists’ expressed here for greater participation in nationalist politics. That contradiction seems to stem from the fetish of the electoral form as sacred.

Sorry but I can't let this go...

The highest voting registration and the highest turn-out. People were determining their future and knew it. They recognised it was very different from the Tweedledum and Tweedledummer Westminister or Holyrood choice.

How exactly were people determining their future? Ok, they didn't get Tweedledum or Tweedledummer but instead they got TweedlefuckingKranky. And more importantly they got capitalism. That's it, a big fuckng con trick, which we all know is exactly what any vote within capitalism is. This is what confuses me about the SPGB, they seem so sensible and patient and measured in their approach, yet they fall for and perpetuate this ace trick up the sleeve of capital. It just doesn't add up.

Red, Edinburgh was not a Labour stronghold and the wards and constituencies boundaries were so structured that it was not easy to return a Labour candidate. Whether it was done deliberate, i'm not sure. It was only as late as in the 1980s that Edinburgh first got a majority Labour control council.

It is not very often people can choose which nationality they can opt for, Noah. When you live outside the UK, you begin to realise the importance of your passport status and the legal position it brings.

The SPGB called for a spoiled ballot paper, knowing that it was just a constitutional issue and not a class question.

Out of over 3 and half million or so votes, just only 3000-odd, a pitiful figure, were spoiled and we can be sure most of those were not inspired by the SPGB. Anarchists, too, should be asking why their message did not resonate with fellow-workers.

My point isn't whether people voted right or wrong on independence but that they felt strongly enough about it that it reflected in the poll numbers. I recall in 1979 home-rule referendum when i was not in the SPGB but in a local anarchist group and we put out a leaflet that more or less said in the text that the third of people were anarchist at heart because of the abstention rate and back then there was just a 60% turnout compared with the 80%-plus in 2014.

It was not just a matter of turning up on polling day to mark X but they also voted with their feet, so to speak, in the months, weeks and days leading up to it by being exceptionally active, a break from the custom of passivity. It is a partial peep-hole into the potential of the power of the vote if it is wielded by a conscious working class is what i am trying to say. The extra-parliamentary activity in the on-set of socialism will be more extensive and even more indispensible and that is fully appreciated by the SPGB, but unlike others on the Thin Red Line, we consider engagement in elections to acquire political control of the State machine as vital but a very much parallel process.

Rather than look at this thread as what would you do with 80,000 quid...what would we (or the Libcom groups) do with 80,000 members!!...It places the question on an entirely different level

.

It is not very often people can choose which nationality they can opt for, Noah. When you live outside the UK, you begin to realise the importance of your passport status and the legal position it brings.

Possibly I'm being dense(?) but I don't see the relevance of your response to my criticism.

jondwhite

On this, there was a member who left around 2010 after proposing the SPGB wind up and put all our resources into the occupy movement. Can't remember if they jumped or were pushed out but it might be interesting to dig out if anyone wants me to look for more detail.

That's not as bad as some "anarchists" urging everyone to get involved with Momentum or the repeated appeals to throw in our lot with the "Rojava revolution".

I was merely reiterating my earlier observation that

the issue was important enough

Noah you commented

How exactly were people determining their future?

Regardless of our political position that we are for a worldwide society with no nations, in today's world, people do deem nationality as important and hence their involvement in the debate. They viewed as crucial, whether their opinion was Yes or No, and the importance of making that known politically effectively in a referendum vote.

We are for a state-less world but tell it to those Rohingya and other peoples who are stateless that they are on the way forward to it. We are for a moneyless society but no way endorsing people being moneyless within capitalism.

Tell me when i have to repeatedly re-new my passport visa stamp so i can remain with my family that such things do not determine futures.

I am sure you, yourself, come across family, friends and co-workers who do not consider politics, politics of any sort, important enough to even express an opinion. Saturday's game is of more relevance to their lives.

I'm surprised that the main failing of my view is that strong political activism can be either negative or positive.

When nationalism is mixed with racism and xenophobia, it is indeed dangerous and populist feelings are to be feared. But one of the most striking thing about the Scottish referendum, in contrast with the EU referendum, was the absence of anti-foreigner sentiment and the large support for independence given to it by immigrants and migrants.

Jon, the member in question, when his proposal to his branch was rejected, left of his own free will. He wasn't pushed. People were disappointed that he resigned. He went on to join Left Unity and to advocate the Citizen's Wage and then later resigned from that organisation which didn't pan out as he had expected it to. He sometimes posts on Libcom, so i will leave any more comment to him, if he spots this.

Jon and i are members of the SPGB and as you can detect, his view is not exactly the same as my own, and mine is not similar to another member, nor his to yet another. We are not SPGB clones as some critics seem to think and we engage daily in sometimes passionate comradely disagreement. Only rarely does it lead to a resignation and when it does, there is normally no acrimonious back-lash and members and ex-members remain in contact and on friendly terms. Often there is later a re-concilation, as there was in my own case when i found after being out of the party for a number of years, the exit of those in Socialist Studies, made the SPGB more open for members to be critical, even as far as suggesting dissolving itself and giving everything to Occupy...But as Serge explained in message #36...would that have been a worthwhile act?

One AF member in Edinburgh once remarked to me he was surprised by how many re-join the SPGB...almost like as a deathbed recantation.

On the other hand, using our cash assets and selling our premises and raising a couple of million, to create a really prominent online presence with internet tv...well i might be persuaded ...but i need more than a wish list and instead a serious proposition, studied and costed, with a proper business plan to make sure it is sustainable long-term and doesn't disappear like a will o' the wisp venture. Freedom's Angel Alley premise must be worth a fair penny on the property market so they could also do the same and add to the pot and demonstrate a similar commitment and sacrifice.

Dream on, alan..dream on... :)

I can confirm that 'ex-members of the spgb' generally do, eventually at least, get a non-confrontational response from those who remain, unlike some other small socialist/communist sects I could mention, but that can also sometimes be because there seems to be an assumption by many of the spgb remainers that their organisation is the 'one and only true socialist organisation' which everyone leaving on even principled grounds must eventually recognise and return to. Well some individuals, other than those simply returning after a break to concentrate on family or professional concerns (and what does that suggest?), do exactly that, but I put it down to a sense of isolation and maybe with age a tiredness of seeming to fight alone on so many fronts. We all need a sense of community and collective support to keep us going but the risk is that political organisations providing this support degenerate into simply social clubs reinforcing acceptance of the system in practice rather than contesting it. I'd add also that whilst the referenced 'thin red line' does represent something of worth note than many individuals end up moving around, and back and forth, between the different groups in that 'line', either as members or sympathisers, if they remain active at all. I don't accept that longevity of itself proves the worth of one group in the 'line' over any other past or present. The problems with all our tiny political groups today go much deeper it seems.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberland

A left leaning version of this, probably in the north of england near redcar, so I dont have to travel very far for my holidays.

and buy cider and low grade hashish with the 68k thats left. There will also be cigarette trees according to the brochure.

Spikeymike

I don't accept that longevity of itself proves the worth of one group in the 'line' over any other past or present. The problems with all our tiny political groups today go much deeper it seems.

Mike, i think is well aware that the SPGB has produced member-dynasties...One reason it has persisted...it's been passed down through families and down the generations. But we still have to explain why it has consistently brought in new blood, either people with little prior political experience and people who have been serial joiners of various groups. It is why i mentioned trying to identify the core ideas that resonate and attract people.

This is something which partly relates to Mike's second point. Despite the strengths and evidence of our ideas (an arrogant assumption, i realise) the Thin Red Line still cannot muster more than a few thousand adherents and organise a fairly weak network (and we disavow just as many who claim to share our ideas). It is not just that we are "sectarian" in the sense of constantly attacking one another like the many-splintered Trotskyist movement. When push comes to shove, we do recognise our affinity and our commonality, more than our (granted, deep) differences.

It is how we can maintain this comradely relationship and while able to criticise and rebut one another, rarely have i seen it reduced to ad hominem attacks. A powerful case against the idea of leaders. The SPGB might be accused of being a parliamentarianist party but not very often as being counter-revolutionary. Members of the SPGB distinguish the difference in the "Leninism/Bolshevikism" of the Left Coms and that of today's vanguardists and similarly. And we have been around anarchist ideas to understand the nuanced variants of that nebulous movement not to tar all with the same brush. What i'm poorly trying to say, is we hold a political respect for eachother.

But despite gallant efforts (the MDF seems very much an example and i wish my own party was more involved) we do fail to cooperate and coordinate. Again referring back to the Scottish Referendum, our mutual voices were simply not heard so people were given only two options ..yes or no. I think the same can be said of the EU. We collectively fail to take advantage when, as i said, at times when fellow workers are genuinely susceptible to new ideas. Occupy was an example but from a distance looking in i saw the preponderance of simplistic "conspiracist" ideas prevailing, even as far as David Eike leaping on the band-wagon, not to mention the bank cabals and money-cranks. Once more, i stand to be corrected, but where was the Thin Red Line?

Couldn't we have presented a united line which joined the dots? Just 5 agreed points which we could argue that could have pushed Occupy to question things from wider perspective and showed by example that we could do so in a structured and inclusive manner of organisation without all the tokenism and rituals that Occupy mimicked from Wall St Occupy.

We could have produced a joint manifesto...a daily broadsheet...shared meetings...conducted collaborative education lectures. The SPGB should have offered its premises as a meeting hall for South London supporters of Occupy and made available its computers and printers so to widened Occupy's participation from one focal point at St Pauls.

Immediately, i have to raise the SPGB hostility clause as an obstacle. But as some in the SPGB view it, applying it is restricted to openly pro-bourgeois parties or supposed "labour/left" parties. Not a blanket ban on all non-SPGB organisations. 1904 had a different political reality and many currents have disappeared or amended their historic positions...1917's understanding and interpretation has evolved over the decades. We can also fully act as individuals without carrying a Party label and following a Party line. If the social revolution isn't about innovation and adaptation it will never get even get out of Neutral and into 1st-gear.

Anyways for a long time i have been thinking along the wave-length of Spikeymike that our problems go deeper than i think any one individual can capture. It is all about group-think, collective consciousness, to discuss and debate and come to some sort of resolution and that is a reason why i have no answers to give other than shallow hunches and guesses.

There is no left to spend it on.

do tranlsations of important texts

If the Toledo fund is a good indication, it really is expensive to do just one volume (see the little donations raised so far for the Bordiga volume).

To the SPGB's interest, there's still untranslated Julius Martov's history of Russian Social-Democracy (link thanks to D.G.):

Julius Martow, Geschichte der russischen Sozialdemokratie. Mit einem Nachtrag von Theodor Dan: Die Sozialdemokratie Russlands nach dem Jahre 1908. Autorisierte Übersetzung von Alexander Stein, Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1926. 340 pp.

Some Martov works in Russian online here. Documents and letters 1917-22 here.

etc.

ie, you could do a Martov Collected Works. It doesn't look there's even a full bibliography yet. (btw, for Dave B, Victor Chernov bibliography is here)

It would be interesting to also have the index online of the menshevik journal Socialističeskij vestnik (1921-63), which exists in French, but it's not accessible online: https://search.socialhistory.org/Record/1098374 https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002648253

There is a lot stuff online in English, but which just is not easy to get to (eg for people outside the US, the texts available on the hathi site: requiring reliance on a proxy), for instance the Social Democrat (index). This is maybe not so much a question of money, but drudgery (tbh, the same holds for translation, which now can be roughly done by e-translation, the human translator really just proofreading).

There are Marx manuscripts that still need to be deciphered, though I don't know exactly what the MEGA-project's present funding status is.

Someone who you might contact for translations of Martov:

I undertake contract translation work on a commercial basis

http://www.korolevperevody.co.uk/korolev/welcome.htm

The translator (F. King) that I linked has already done a translation of Martov and put the text on MIA. Martov's book on the history of Russian SD dates from 1908, the German translation (with added text by Dan) from 1926, so no copyright issue I think. Perhaps it's better (and easier) to start with some shorter texts of Martov though (eg his letters). You could probably even let King suggest what is most interesting.

Here's an article on the crisis of syndicalism in France: in "Sovr. Mir" (much of this journal is online, but if outside the US you have to use a proxy), September 1909.

By the way, also Plekhanov wrote on this (still much can be translated from him as well).

Martov's memoir (Записки социал-демократа, volume 1) also has an appendix (at least in the 2004 reprint) that contains some early articles (1896-1899 гг.).

The MEGA seems funded by the EU. I just mentioned it as an existing project that potentially was in need of funding.

Here's an example of a Martov article that should be translated by SPGB: https://libcom.org/library/l%C3%BCbeck-party-congress-german-social-democracy-julius-martov

I simply found it online (on the Hathi site) and copy-pasted the pages into one text.

There is another Martov article, in the same issue of Zaria (pp. 180–203), that should also be translated, titled: 'Always in a Minority. On the Present-day Tasks of the Russian Socialist Intelligentsia''. [Всегда въ меньшинствѣ. О современныхъ задачахъ русской соціалистической интеллигенціи.

Recently a couple of translations of Martov already appeared in 'The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, 1899‒1904' (Richard Mullin, 2015).

Here's the text of that other Martov article: https://libcom.org/library/always-minority-julius-martov

Any more positive response to translate Martov with SPGB funding?

The 1901 articles are prior to his split with Lenin (those I'm mostly interested in), and later he still can get appreciation for his internationalist position. I assumed the SPGB's appreciation for him as a critic of Bolshevism after 1917 (I posted a link to his letters and documents after that date), could also extend backwards in time (though there are plenty of Russian marxists that you could translate – I mentioned Plekhanov, but there's Axelrod, Zasulich and so on).

Another Martov work online:
Кризис демократии во Франции. (The crisis of democracy in France) – 1917. – 61 pp.
http://books.e-heritage.ru/book/10090378

Comrade John Crump's resignation letter quoted above also available in the library here with my comments: http://libcom.org/library/resignation-letter-1973-john-crump Arguments over Martov being a small matter by comparison.