Already this year, there have been huge political shocks and seismic shifts on the world stage, such as the brazen acts of imperialist aggression by the US in Venezuela, Cuba, Somalia, and Iran.
In the UK, Starmer and the Epstein class have slavishly supported these horrors that have unleashed death, destruction, and instability.
The world economy is convulsing from the war in Iran, threatening to provoke a slump. Amidst this crisis, the traditional establishment parties are collapsing, and opinion is polarising to both the left and right – demonstrated by the rise of Polanski’s Greens and Farage’s Reform UK.
Consciousness is being shaken and transformed by such events. On the streets, the mood is one of mass discontent and a longing for a real alternative.
Our duty as internationalists is to wage an implacable struggle against the source of this living hell – against the imperialist establishment and the capitalist system as a whole.
Road to Congress
In this turbulent context – one that is full of opportunities to build the forces of communism – the Revolutionary Communist Party is gearing up for its third annual Congress, where we will discuss our perspectives and tasks.
Our pre-Congress period is also a time when we pay close attention to the task of financially strengthening the party, so that we can continue developing a professional organisation, with a national profile, a daily website, weekly podcasts, a newspaper, and a publishing wing.
Up and down the country, RCP members have been hosting Marxist schools – some of them attracting hundreds of attendees – and have been busy raising funds through donations, sales, and subs increases.
In Cardiff in January, one branch held a subs drive that resulted in five membership sub increases, raising the average sub to £70.
Comrades in Newcastle, meanwhile, have made a brilliant ‘Grow Marx’s beard’ chart to track fundraising efforts towards their district target of £8,000 for 2026.
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In Leeds, at their meeting on Venezuela, the district was able to raise £90 as a result of the chair explaining why financing the party was important and by directly asking for donations.
Oxford had a two-day school where they raised £2,110 in pledges to the Fighting Fund and £85 from increased subs.
Birmingham district met after a successful Marxist school, in which they raised £1,100 in donations, and increased subs by £55. In February, Derby Marxist Society ran their first official campus meeting, where they raised £28!
The inaugural London Marxist School raised over £2,000 from literature and over £1,500 in donations after an appeal to help meet our target of £1,000 for campaigning fees to clear Jamie’s name, which has been raised.
In Bristol, the Wales & West region raised an impressive amount at their third successful Lenin School. Comrades increased their subs by £371 and raised £2,890 in donations to the Fighting Fund. In addition, they raised £863 from literature and almost £2,500 from sales of merch, food, and drink!
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Theory and practice
What all of these fundraising efforts have in common is a burning desire to fundamentally change the world and build the revolutionary party to help bring that world into being.
To build it, Marxist theory is essential, as well as a serious approach to revolutionary finance. Even the best and most correct ideas count for little if they are not given an organisation to wield them.
The question of revolutionary finance has always posed challenges to the revolutionary movement. In the late 1930s, Trotsky provided invaluable advice to the US Socialist Workers’ Party on how to overcome these challenges, which were being held back by petty-bourgeois conceptions of how to build the party.
His advice provides communists with the correct attitude to building a real and genuine revolutionary alternative today:
“… I have the impression that our practical methods of action are not in accordance with our revolutionary program, that we are too passive in our practical activity. It is not only a question concerning the fascist danger or the question of activity in the trade unions, but also in such matters as the publishing of our paper and our whole activity. I cannot understand how this very revolutionary YPSL organisation is not capable of publishing the Challenge once a month. It is due to financial difficulties. I absolutely cannot understand why.
“In Paris during the war we published a daily paper beginning with a capital of thirty francs ($8.00) and we published it for almost three years. How? We had three devoted comrades in a printing shop, and they worked it. When we had money, we paid them. When we had no money, they waited for better times. I believe that at least our young comrades should make the same effort, not only to have a central printing shop in New York, but one in every important region, such as we had in czarist Russia in every important town. We must have such printing shops if we have nothing else. For example, our English comrades now have their own printing shop, but to have such a printing shop with two or three devoted comrades, we can put out not only the Socialist Appeal at least twice a week, but also pamphlets, leaflets, etc. The trouble is that the party work is too much based on petty-bourgeois conceptions.
“We must educate our youth for more of a spirit of sacrifice. We already have so many young bureaucrats in our movement. For example, the Challenge needs $300. If they lack it, good, they wait. That is not the revolutionary way. It is a very opportunistic policy, far more opportunistic than advocating a labour party. You know that the reason we don’t have the revolution is because the workers are held back by bourgeois prejudices – democratic prejudices. We don’t have these prejudices, but in the matter of approaching practical things we have the bourgeois manner. It is very useful for the bourgeois class.
“The American workers consider it a degradation not to have a Ford, fine clothes, for they think they must do the same as the bourgeois. It is disgraceful to imitate the upper class. We Marxists understand this very well. Absolutely bad, in a revolutionary situation particularly. But in practical methods we act the same way. We don’t have the revolutionary courage to break this tradition, to break the bourgeois norms of conduct and set up our own rules of moral duty, etc. This is especially true for youth, and it is extremely important not only to educate themselves theoretically, but to educate themselves as militants, as men and women.”
‘Financing the revolutionary movement’ (23 July, 1938), from Writings of Leon Trotsky 1937-1938, New York (1976), p. 394
We call on party members to continue sending us your reports of fundraising initiatives.
And we appeal to our readers and supporters to materially back the struggle for communism – by becoming official RCP members, and donating to the party’s Fighting Fund today!
