Since September, our student members in Cardiff have been driving the work forwards in the district.
It began with a two-week recruitment offensive at the university in which we held four open meetings, ran two to three recruitment stalls a day and engaged in 20-30 hours of political briefings and debriefs.
The comrades then led a bloc of over 100 people at the national Palestine demonstration in Cardiff, under the banner of ‘block everything for Palestine, down with the war criminals’.
Below is a glimpse into what this period has been like, in the words of the comrades who’ve taken part.
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Training professional revolutionaries
“The open meeting hooked me, but ultimately what sealed my decision to join was the proactive strategy and revolutionary optimism I saw.”
– Cass, new student recruit in Cardiff
At 11am, the RCP students gathered for their regular briefing to start the day. Everyone looked a little tired, as they were deep into a campaign – but as soon as the briefing began, everyone came to life.
The discussion started with the Gen Z revolutions sweeping the world, and ‘block everything’ movement in Italy – before going onto reports from the previous day’s stalls.
The students got into real detail about their interactions, asking for advice on how to get into a conversation, move it forwards, and also when to ask for contact details.
Sol explained the importance of such briefings and debriefs: “the attitude of constant evaluation and consideration was key to the good mood comrades maintained over the campaign”. Others coined the phrase ‘communist bootcamp’ for this intense period:
“Each day turbo-charged comrades’ development. Campaigns like this provide the best opportunity for us to develop ourselves into the professional revolutionaries the working class requires.”
– Valentine
Political briefings were held before and after each of the three daily stalls. Alice, who led one of these briefings, said “although we had many briefs through the campaign they never felt repetitive. Instead, they got sharper as more comrades understood their purpose.”
Party building
If you are a student at Cardiff University, it is impossible to miss the RCP, with our gazebo adorned with flags and banners, surrounded by a dozen students shouting “do you want a revolution against the billionaires?” and “do you want to fight for a free Palestine?”
Even quieter comrades, like Alicia, threw themselves into the work. They’d previously struggled on the stalls, but told me they’d “picked up the confidence and mannerisms that other comrades around had when talking to people… That allowed me to pluck up the courage and actually start conversations with students.”
After the stall, we returned to a space on campus we made our headquarters during the campaign, where comrades ate lunch together, debriefed and also made sure to call up the people they’d met at the stalls for the meetings in the evening.
During the debrief, Roo talked about the impact of recruitment activity on everyone’s confidence:
“When the stall was the busiest, when we were able to talk to loads of people almost constantly, it was energising rather than exhausting! You see so many people looking for radical ideas and ways they can change the world, and we – as a relatively small group of inspired, well-trained communists – were able to reach them!”
– Roo
This was many comrades’ first opportunity to go out in public under the banner of communism, and convince new people of our ideas. This work not only involved speaking at stalls, but making dozens of phonecalls, leaving agitational voicemails and messages, all under the guidance of someone more experienced in the district.
The ability of one of our members in particular to convince newcomers has improved tremendously:
“The campaign was essentially a crash-course in explaining communist ideas – the difference in quality between my one-to-one recruitment meetings before the campaign and after was quite something!
“Although it was challenging to have to adapt so very quickly in a very busy period, it was also quite heartening seeing how much a person can improve with the right guidance.”
– Gabriel
Public meetings
After calling up everyone we met that day and at previous stalls, it was time to make our way to that evening’s meeting entitled ‘the struggle for a revolutionary philosophy’. These meetings had a huge effect upon comrade Jamie:
“Walking into the lecture theatre for the philosophy talk and being hit by the buzzing atmosphere in the room, it was inspiring to see so many new faces, so many in fact that at times we didn’t have enough members to speak to everyone individually, so we had to buddy up two to one. I personally talked to many new people and took great pride whilst doing so, it felt as if I was a spokesperson for the party and so had to display my full political knowledge.”
– Jamie
After meetings, as per tradition, we headed to the Pen & Wig for a well-earned drink. Even here, the comrades were deep in conversation with newcomers or reviewing the day with other members!
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A new generation of recruiters
A major focus has been on getting the middle and newest layers of members to take responsibility for building the party. This has led to a slower rate of recruitment so far, but we believe that by widening the base of recruiters, we’re laying the basis for faster recruitment in the months ahead.
Nonetheless, we have already made three new recruits – a good omen for the months to come. One was recruited by a student who joined last Autumn; the second by a comrade who joined in January; and the latest with a lot of help from a comrade who has just passed their three-month candidate membership period!
In each case, a more experienced member has supported the process, but now the comrades who did the recruitment are also leading the consolidation efforts. Alongside this, we have a number of people who are interested in joining and are participating in reading groups, and coming regularly to open meetings.
Conquer Cardiff University
In our branches, the party’s district leadership has set the tone: to become the reference point for politics on campus.
Part of the strategy to achieve this goal is a consistent presence at the campus all year round. What’s especially clear is how fast our members are developing, how high morale is, and how it’s impossible to be a student in the city and not know about the Cardiff Communists.
In Cardiff we’ve reached a stage where the students can drive the party’s outwards work. This hasn’t happened overnight, but has been a result of months of consistent political education and the gradual handing over of responsibility.
At a certain point, leading members have to create opportunities for new ones to come through, otherwise you’ll end up with a lot of untapped potential and too few leaders.
It requires leading comrades to follow the process of each member’s development: to guide them, advise them, test them, give constructive criticism and embolden them. Mistakes will be made along the way, but as long as the general trajectory is positive and followed closely, a new generation of leading comrades will emerge. This will create the basis for further growth in Cardiff!
