Brian Gardner wrote: I do

March 2024 Forums World Socialist Movement Organisation update   Brian Gardner wrote: I do

#130606
robbo203
Participant

  

Brian Gardner wrote:
 I do fear – and the responses here do not encourage me to think other – that our sentimental attachment to the comfort blanket of Clapham High Street will only be severed when the Party tips below any sort of sustainable critical mass (arguably there already): lashed grimly to the wheel we'll all go down with the ship.  We still have the chance to reconfigure ourselves and to harness the networked collaborative efforts of many unused comrades around the country in order to strengthen both our online presence, and our internal democracy. I hope that the national membership questionnaire can be the start of a process over the next few years of really addressing our function and organisation, and not so much as a belated reaction to our dwindling numbers, but as a positive response to increasingly overt working class frustration with capitalism.

 Brian, I think you’ve hit on something here which might very well show the way forward – the reconfiguration of the SPGB in a more networked collaborative form.   I wouldn’t go along with the idea of downsizing and relocating HO, however.  Quite apart from the negative symbolic implications of a party in decline,  I think that would cause massive dislocations and disruptions at a time when the Party is in relatively fragile state. I would focus instead on the positive content of your suggestion – of a more networked approach to party organisation and activity – and to explore ways in which HO could assist this development through an expanded remit There needs I think to be a much stronger emphasis on local initiative and horizontal linkages and maybe part of the problem is that the Party appears to be too centralised which is potentially debilitating or off-putting for many members who live a long way from London.   Stronger regionalisation of party activity may be one way to counter this  Maybe, also, there is some mileage in the idea of the Party renting (or even buying) cheap premises  in the North  England/Scotland area (or even in the Midlands) as well as retaining its London HO.  Possibly you could even have the EC meet in one or the other office in alternate years.  I dunno.  I haven't really thought much about it.  It’s just an idea so feel free to shoot it down in flames if you must. As you might know, I recently re-joined the SPGB and in response to the questionnaire being sent around to members, I put forward a number of suggestions of my own as to how to stimulate greater involvement by members – (and also sympathisers incidentally, since the importance of sympathisers should not be overlooked and a greater role should be made available to them and their active support solicited in my view).   These suggestions spring from a conviction that a major reason for low level of activity and the decline in membership has to do with what can be summed up in a single word: ISOLATION.  It is because of the brute fact of physical isolation that members feel powerless and disheartened about making any kind of impact.  Some of them then lose interest, become disillusioned and drift way So key to a strategy of revitalising the Party has to focus on how to break down this pervasive sense of isolation and to foster a much richer, denser network of horizontal relationships or connections between individuals. That in turned depends, I believe, on broadening the range of activities of function undertaken by the party and devolving  them – not just in the Party but throughout the WSM as a whole since the same arguments apply to the movement as a whole Here are some of the suggestions that have been put forward: 1.     A buddy system.  To see how it functions check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_system.  This would be particularly useful for new members2.     Video-conferencing and other forms of enhanced communication to overcome the problem of physical isolation.   Wider computerisation to be encouraged within the Party.  Weekend courses to develop communication skills could be held3.     A world socialist penpal club could be set  up enabling individuals with similar interests to contact each other with a few to closer collaboration e.g jointly written articles in the SS etc4.     A socialist research department be established to build up a central data base that could be used to provide data , tailored specifically to suit the socialist case, and organised under appropriate headings for speakers, writers or anyone else to make use.  My late brother, Andy, had already begun to set up such a database with this in mind, (see here  http://andycox1953.webs.com/database.htm). The beauty of this idea is that anyone and everyone could become involved in the research itself to whatever extent it suited them by simply submitting any useful information to the research coordinator.  Occasional bulletins could be issued along the lines of the Labour Bulletin produced by the Labour Research Department as part of its “fact service” (http://www.lrdpublications.org.uk/all_issues.php?pub=FS&year=2017).  This could draw attention to the SPGB as a source of valuable information5.     Greater emphasis on social activities.  In the early days of the SPGB this seemed to have played quite an important role e g Sunday jaunts by bicycle etc.  My impression (which may be quite wrong since Ive been out of th Party for quite a while) is that there does not seems to be much in the way of socialising going on apart from the odd HO social or branch social.  That is a pity because socialising is way of strengthening personal bonds and breaking down the aforementioned sense of isolation.  The range of social activities that the Party or its branches could engage is wide: film nights, discos, musical events, pub crawls, weekend trips, longer organised trips abroad (to Spain for example – nudge nudge wink wink), camping holidays and so on and so forth.   You could even have organised “propaganda tours” of the UK combining pleasure with business.  I recall having gone on such a tour myself in the 8os, visting, if I remember correctly, S Wales and Bolton6.     Reinstate the World Socialist as a theoretical half yearly journal of the WSM.  I have never really understood why it was discontinued in the first place.  Not only is there a need for a theoretical journal in its own right, with a somewhat different remit to the Socialist Standard but, again, this is another example of how to address this problem of isolation at the international level.  There seems to be precious little interaction going on between the different companion parties.  A journal of the entire WSM would go some way to addressing this problem There are other concrete suggestions I could offer but I will leave it at that.    I think the underlying rationale is clear from the suggestions I’ve already made – increasing the interactions between members by expanding the range and diversity of activities available to them. Of course, I appreciate the argument that it is all very well making these suggestions but it is a different matter encouraging people to come forward to put them into effect.  That’s a valid criticism and I don’t pretend to have any convincing riposte I can offer.   All I can say is let’s “suck it and see”.  If we don’t try it we will never know.  All I have is a vague hunch that the wider the variety of activities on offer the more likely you are to elicit a positive response.  And once people start responding it becomes a self-reinforcing tendency that draws in others and stimulates their greater involvement One final thought – whatever the outcome of this exercise I think it would be worth contacting people who have recently left the Party, even if only on a selective basis, to see if they might be interesting in re-joining in the light of all these “exciting new developments”.  It’s unlikely to work in most cases but who knows? It might just persuade a few to re-join and the Party can ill afford to pass up on the opportunity of bringing in a few more members [rc1]