Socialist Party and Young Socialists members and supporters demonstrating against Tory party conference, 1.10.17, photo by Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge)

Ken Douglas, Socialist Party national treasurer

We are calling on all members and supporters of the Socialist Party to donate to the Socialism 2017 appeal. We have set an ambitious target to raise £30,000 at the Saturday night rally on 11 November because that is what we need to ensure that we can go into 2018 with our finances strengthened.

This year, and in this particular issue of the Socialist, we are celebrating the anniversary of the Russian revolution and drawing out the lessons for the workers' movement today.

The programme and the methods of the Bolsheviks were crucial to that victory, and underpinning this was the finance that enabled them to produce their paper, Pravda, their leaflets and other material. This was hard won and desperately needed - as soldiers at the front wrote saying "we are living only on the rumour of your papers".

The world is not the same as in 1917 but one hundred years later the gap between rich and poor is greater than ever and capitalism still can't guarantee a decent life for the majority. Even in the richest countries young people today will be 43% worse off than their parents.

Theresa May claims that capitalism is the best way to raise living standards - that may be true for the richest thousand people in Britain who have seen their wealth double in the last ten years but it won't convince young people that there is a future for them under this failing system.

Socialist ideas

Just as in 1917, socialist ideas are the key to building an alternative. In the 1980s Militant, the forerunner to the Socialist Party, showed how the ruling class could be defeated - by building mass campaigns to resist the Thatcher government's cuts in Liverpool and for mass non-payment of the poll tax. At the same time we linked those struggles to the need to change the system.

Like the Bolsheviks, we have no rich backers. That's why we need your support to help raise the finance to enable us to get our ideas out to as wide an audience as possible. A proportion of the money we raise at Socialism 2017 will also go to assist our sister parties in the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI - the socialist international to which the Socialist Party is affiliated).

You can help the work of the Socialist Party and the CWI. Can you give £5, £50 or £500? Can you ask other members and supporters to donate? Every donation, no matter how small, will make a difference and all of it will go to building support for socialist ideas.

Donate to the Socialist Party

Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.

Inevitably, during the crisis we have not been able to sell the Socialist and raise funds in the ways we normally would.

We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.