WSM – Time For Change?
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Comrades, please forgive me if this has been discussed before or I am speaking out of turn, however the more I think about certain aspects of our organisation, the more I see the need for change to adapt to the changing world and make us effective in our endeavours.
Looking practically at what we can do and what we actually do, the number of active comrades, the number of publications etc., it seems to me to make sense to perhaps pool and globalise our resources and harmonise into a more effective, co-herent and recognisable public image.
Therefore I suggest for discussion the following possible changes:
1. For all the companion parties to merge into one global party. We already have the name and logo and in practice it is almost there. We all adhere to the same D&Ps and we all structure along the same lines, so it seems to be a logical step. We are working towards a world free of national borders, so why not simply have one global party, The World Socialist Party? National based office can still be denpted after the title if easier for administration purposes, so the UK would be World Socialist Party (UK), the State would be World Socialist Party (US), etc.
2. For the publication of the Standard to be globalised introducing uniformity, a sense of being part of a world wide movement and bringing theory and news from al parts of the world we are active into one, professional journal – perhaps even changing to a quarterly publication but of higher content. Either keep the Standard title for historical continuity reasons or refresh with a new title such as World Socialist or World Socialism or similar. Incorporate the WSM logo in the masthead and contributions can be sourced globally.
3. Homogenise the forum and the websites into one WSM site without national specific sites, although perhaps regional pages could be useful?
4. Review and overhaul our literature into a basic set of pamphlets that cover the key aspects of our message from defining and introducing socialism/capitalism, our D&Ps, the way the Party organises and operates, through to deifnitions of our Marxist theory. Once a basic set has been produced, they can be distributed world wide. Individual nations can still produce reaction pamphlets to target specific issues in their countries, but a core work in standardised formats and styles seems a sensible way to promote a global party.
5. For the internet to be harnessed and used to it’s fullest. Truly globalised work is now possible, many companies already work this way and we need to catch up. Intorduce a members area with some sort of password protected voting system whereby ALL members around the globe can meet regularly to discuss party business and to vote on action as a global community – put our ideas for operating socialism into some sort of practice now! Expand our organisation with branches, national branch (old EC) and a new global EC. Think bigger!
6. For the various internet Blogs to be organised into one global one with contributions from all member parties.
These are just ideas, but I think even though we are globally a tiny Party we have the brains and input to be able be much more of a noise and to encourage and develope into something more than a quiet voice on the periphery, but we need to tidy it up. Looking at the Party from outside we seem archaic, a little disjointed and amatuerish. However, our message and our understanding of the global system is far better than anything else I have seen – we have the best product, poorly packaged and poorly sold in capitalist terms. We need to move from local shops for local people to a more polished mutli-national corporation if we are to get our message across.
I’d be interested in your thoughts comrades……is the above possible? Is it the way forward? Do we want to be more than a fringe Party? Do we have a global future?
Item for discussion at ADM?
That’s a nice sentiment but decentralising power is better than centralising power, someone could just as plausibly call for all power to individual branches. Overhauling the literature is a good idea, but a globally enforced style is as fallible as a non-global style but at least a non-global style minimises the impact of any unattractive literature.By the way, the World Socialist Movement did produce a international English journal from 1984 called World Socialist with input from companion parties. It wasn’t necessary to stop printing the Standard, which continued in parallel. If you want the World Socialist Movement to do something, which could be a good idea, propose it to them but I see no reason to stop publishing the Standard when many public issues seem to the general public to be particular to nation-states.Some of the cultural problems of the SPGB, would just be amplified on a global scale in a global organisation. Let’s address those first, and ADM is as good a place as any.
I think you may have misread my post or I have worded it badly….I am not suggesting changes to structure, just operation. Power remains as it does and should with the members….Literature per se can be whatever each Party decides, but I was suggesting a standardised base set of clearly printed and produced pamphlets for the basics of capitlaism, socialism and the Party D&P which are the same throughout the world anyway, so no changes just better image for the content. Locally produced stuff for local issues would still run alongside.The World Socialist was an excellent idea and something similar could again be published and promoted. My idea regards the Standard was base don the fact that globally we are all slaves to the same system, so the locality of the article and the conlcusions do not heed national borders, so why remain bound to them ourselves?We have good ideas that are failing to find growth in fertile ground because we simply aren’t farming them correctly and are, in my opinion, to reliant on the internet. Its safe and easy and cheap here, but the revolution won’t be won online, it will be won on the streets which is where we need to start getting our messages to. I still say at the moment we wait for people to find us and when they do see a fairly disjointed affair for an alleged ‘world’ movement. A bit more polish and pro-activism might go a long way and that can at least start with a overhaul of our writings and ideas and a bit more global co-operation and harmony within our own ranks. Coke, McDonalds, ICI, et all don’t really change their styles or content for national borders, why do we?
Good stuff SS. As I said, item on the ADM agenda………
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