Vol. 74/No. 45      November 29, 2010

The purpose of the fund is to aid the Socialist Workers Party in reaching out to workers, farmers, and young people.

The ruling rich have launched a frontal assault on basic living conditions of workers, from jobs and wages to pensions, health care, housing, and essential public services. Workers are confronting the consequences of the dictatorship of capital and its drive to defend the interests of the wealthy bondholders, bankers, and industrialists.

The SWP explains that working people need to respond by building a mass revolutionary movement to take political power out of the hands of the capitalist class and use that power to begin organizing a socialist society that functions in the interests of the vast majority.

More workers are looking for answers that explain the roots of the economic depression they are living through. This was reflected in the support for the fund this year.

“One of my coworkers from the John Deere factory gave a $50 contribution,” said Rebecca Williamson from Des Moines, Iowa. “He first bought a subscription to the Militant. He likes our party and our political perspective. After he bought a copy of Teamster Rebellion, he read the whole book in four days.”

Ten people who bought copies of the book Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Jack Barnes contributed an extra $5 to the party-building fund in Des Moines.

“Our meeting to support the party-building fund on October 16 was the biggest meeting of its kind in Seattle for quite some time,” reported Mary Martin. “Forty-three people attended, including five who we had met recently during street and campus campaign activity.”

Every branch of the Socialist Workers Party made its quota. Four branches raised their quotas during the drive.

“By the third week of the eight-week drive it was clear the initial response we were receiving indicated the Twin Cities branch would go over its original $7,000 quota,” said Diana Newberry, an organizer of the fund effort in Minneapolis. “So we raised our target to $7,500 and exceeded that by $200.”

Newberry said “the success of the fund drive shows that working people are attracted to the party because it joins in struggles to defend the working class from the effects of the capitalist crisis. They also see the party as essential in the fight of working people to take political power.”
 
 
Related articles:
Party-building fund (chart)  
 
 
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