Vol. 79/No. 34      September 28, 2015

Contributions towards the Socialist Workers Party drive to raise $100,000 over the next eight weeks to help cover the party’s political work have begun to come in. Just days after the announcement of the effort, a check for $300 arrived from a long-time supporter of the party in Newark, New Jersey.

Party members across the country are in the process of pulling together ambitious goals and organizing to reach out to those they have been working with to make the drive a success. It runs concurrently with the party’s fall campaign to expand the circulation of the Militant.

A chart listing area quotas and progress to date will be printed in the next issue and weekly throughout the drive.

Explosive world developments — including the continuing internationalist leadership example of revolutionary Cuba; social explosions, crises and wars from Ukraine to Syria; the deepening world capitalist crisis of production and trade and employer assaults on the working class it has unleashed; the coming apart of the imperialist alliances and relations that have marked the capitalist “world order” established after World War II; and more — are fueling the growth of labor battles and social struggles.

These are propitious circumstances for the expansion of the communist movement and its participation in battles of working people. The SWP is getting a greater hearing as members join with Steelworkers fighting the lockout by Allegheny Technologies bosses, opponents of cop brutality coming together in actions like the recent “Days of Grace” in South Carolina, farmworkers organizing in eastern Washington, and protesters rallying in support of Kurds fighting Syrian government troops, Islamic State terrorists and attacks by the Turkish government.

“We’re sending a check for $1,350 toward our $10,000 goal,” Chicago fund director John Hawkins wrote Sept. 13. “That’s the best start to a Party Building Fund we’ve had in years.”

Party supporters reaching out for contributions throughout the Midwest are getting an enthusiastic response, Hawkins said.

“Now the challenge before us is to keep up the pace getting pledges and payments so we not only finish the drive in full and on time, but also keep on schedule each week,” Hawkins said. “And we want to meet our goal of winning at least 10 new contributors to the fund.”

Join us in introducing the work of the party to your co-workers and those you practice politics with. Show them the Militant, which reports on world politics from a working-class viewpoint and on the activities of the Socialist Workers Party. And ask them to join you in making as generous a contribution to the party as they can.

John Studer, a member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee and editor of the Militant, is the 2015 party fund drive director.