 Hello comrades and welcome back to another episode of Marxist Voice, the podcast of The Communist. I'm your host, Jack Ty Wilson, and this is episode four of Towards the Revolutionary Communist Party, our series on party building and launching the Revolutionary Communist Party this May. So for this episode, we're going to be discussing the question of revolutionary finance, how to finance the party. And we're joined by Joe Russell, who is the national treasurer of the soon to be Revolutionary Communist Party, as well as a member of the Executive Committee. Hi Joe, how's it going? Yeah, very good. I see that you've just had your breakfast there before we've recorded the podcast. What did you have anything nice? Well, I cycle a long way. So I always have to eat something when I get in just a couple of almonds, sandwich, protein, get some gains. Nice one. And how's your week been going so far? Well, it's only Tuesday. But yesterday was busy. Got my local branch meeting tonight. So long cycle again down there. But that's the highlight of the week. So yeah, branch is always the highlight of the week. I have my branch last night as well. It was fantastic. I managed to recruit a young worker from Brazil. So yeah, what's been going on in the past week then, Joe? So I think you've been reading in the newspaper on the website or anything like that. Yeah, well, there's a lot been going on. Obviously events moving fast. There's stuff that's caught my eye on the national news, but also locally, like I said, down in Croydon. The council Croydon Council is bankrupt has been for a few years. That's been in the headlines about Birmingham, but Croydon's old news. So it's not getting talked about, but got a charming letter through the post from the touring mayor yesterday. Council tax is going up another 5%. And it literally used the words we're in a dire financial situation, which is true. They're in over a billion pounds of debt, just the Croydon Council. And very dodgy backstory to how that happened as well. A lot of corruption. It was actually a Labour council. Just like Birmingham as well. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They've they've got a lot to answer for too. So you can't you can't be surprised that Labour aren't too popular, local level. Went to a local community meeting on on the youth and what we're going to do about their future, which was really interesting. And a few of the RCP comrades went down and intervened. And the conversation ended up being very political, very political. There's a lot of a lot of anger out there. And people even started saying we need we need new parties. So I whipped some leaflets out. Yeah, that's what it's all about, you know, being there on the ground in those conversations. And I think, you know, what's unfolding in Croydon, what's unfolding in Birmingham is going to be a lot of that in the next period. I read somewhere as a survey, I think of council leaders that said one in five of them believe that their council is going to go bankrupt within the next 18 months. So all of these, you know, these flashpoints where people are getting radicalized, you know, very quickly over things that really matter to them, you know, things like youth services, social care, you know, even just having things like, you know, culture and leisure centers and so on. Yeah, it's all sort of, you know, feels like it's crumbling apart, basically. Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing, right, you can blame the local council. And then they do have a lot to answer for. But at the bottom line, you can't stop the tide of 15 years of cuts from the central national government, right? And we're very big picture here at RCP, right, we don't want to tinker with this or that council, we want to change the whole system on a national, international level. So that's what we tried to draw the conversation towards, right? Yeah, and it feels like there's just so many different overlapping crises taking place right now, you mentioned the crisis in local government, but you know, young people right now, workers, they're facing a housing crisis, and particularly the climate crisis as well. I know you wanted to maybe mention a bit about the climate crisis before we get into finances. Yeah. Yeah, well, that's another thing that struck me in the news, right, is that earlier in the year, it was announced that this 1.5 degree threshold, that global temperatures average global temperatures shouldn't exceed 1.5 degrees more than before the industrial revolution. And if they do, it'll be very, very hard to reverse the consequences or adapt to the consequences or whatever. That's, that's what the official sort of scientific consensus is. And for the last year, the average has been now above that. Now, this doesn't this, that's not actually breaking the specific Paris Accord. Yet, what they're taking is just an average for a year. Doesn't mean that is the new global average. I'm not exactly sure how they would determine that. But the thing is that's beside the point, right? The point is, it's not over for humanity. Yeah, we're still living. And we still will be living in the future. The problem is climate change will just make it harder and harder for people in all different corners of the world. Of course, we need to go need to go carbon zero. And you can imagine what it must feel like to be a young person right now, looking at this, right? In fact, I'm just looking at the issue four of the communist right here. And there's a letter here from Zach in Oxford communists. And it mentions how every year, there's a thing called the Children's Word of the Year, and six to 14 year old to survey to sort of, you know, find out what word has been on their minds the most that year. And apparently, 10 years ago, when despicable me was in the cinema, the word of the year was minion, but you know, fast forward 10 years. And now the word is climate change. This is at the forefront of young people's minds. And this anxiety, I think that people feel around the climate crisis. It really hits, you know, hits close to the bone, basically. And yeah, it's another thing that I'm looking at right here in the in the communist paper as well, is a letter about the consequences of this climate crisis and the consequences having on, you know, the ecosystem. For example, there's recently been a UN kind of conference some sort of, you know, summit or something like that about species migration and so on. And they found that, you know, we're basically threatened with mass extinction of, you know, of marine life, of bird life and so on. You know, it says here that there could be a staggering 97% of fish going extinct within the next period because of manmade climate change. Yeah, yeah, but of course, you know, as you say, that doesn't mean that it's, you know, that we should just resign ourselves to kind of, you know, apocalypse and doomerism, I think is a word that's often used on social media. There is hope, isn't there? There is, of course there is. It's a bleak picture. We have to start from that reality. But that that minions example is perfect, right? Like how the future in front of young people is destroying their sense of childhood, right? Kids are so political now. It's a good thing in a way, but it's because, yeah, they have to, they have to look at their future in a much more sober, serious way than I had to when I was that age, for example. I know a guy whose kids has to cover his and close their eyes every time climate change comes on the news, because it just fills her with this existential dread. But the real, the real tragedy there is that no one is offering a positive solution to this. Of course, people feel that way. Whereas when you're a revolutionary and a communist, you realize, look, this species extinction is, is heart wrenching, really, it's tragic, if you're someone who loves nature. But it's also going to have a huge effect on the ecosystem as a whole, which affects humans and our ability to live on the planet. But it doesn't wipe out our ability to live on the planet, right? There's this huge technological potential. Some recent research is saying, actually, the ability of the earth to restore its previous balance in some ways is better than we anticipated. At the end of the day, when you're looking at it from a, from a human point of view, climate change is not just about the rock we live on. It's a human problem, you know, and from a work and class point of view, it's a work and class problem. And all of the problems that climate change will cause, making parts of the world uninhabitable, you know, will cause huge migration. The main problem is, and how do we treat migrants? Well, look at how we treat migrants today in a capitalist society, right? If we can create a socialist society where goods are distributed, where there's unevenness, where people are allowed to move from an unsafe space to a safe space, and we can guarantee there's enough to go around, enough jobs, enough housing, we can still produce abundance of food. Of course, we can still adapt to a changing world. Of course, we still have to be responsible and try and get ourselves back on a sustainable footing, but it's not the end of human civilization. The point is human civilization is crumbling as a result of the crisis of capitalism anyway, in a way, these conditions humans are forced to live in. Climate change is just an exacerbation of that process. All it does is raise the urgency of the task the work and class already has, which is liberating itself from this kind of barbaric competition we're forced to live under. So you mentioned there that there's, you know, there's no real political outlet for any of this. There's no one putting forward any real sort of solutions to deal with the climate crisis in a way that is, yeah, that is compatible, that is suitable with the interests of the working class and the majority of people. But how do we make it so that there is a political answer to all of this, you know? Well, I think you know the answer to that. That's what we are leading personally. Of course, we're not we're not going to be a mass party of the working class in the next year, or or anything like that. That's our long term aim, whether it will be this RCP or something else. We want to we want to work with the broadest layers of the working class in the long one. But right now we're aiming at that layer we were just talking about these kids who are desperate for an answer to all of these crises staring them right in the face, staring down the barrel of, you know, six barrel shotgun or however many crises are going on at once. And that's who we're aiming at. And we can build something quite powerful among among young workers and students that can then become a point of reference for a much broader layer of radical workers in general. And that is why this may, as we've already mentioned many times on this podcast, but this may we're going to be founding the Revolutionary Communist Party. There's going to be hundreds of delegates from across Britain, you know, meeting to discuss perspectives for the British Revolution, ideas on how to how to organize and how to build the party, and various other questions as well, international questions. And that's going to be a big, you know, a big moment for communism in Britain, I think it's going to be a real turning point for the forces of Marxism. But the question that I want to ask you is, what can we do between now and then? I think there's only six weeks, six or seven weeks to go until the founding Congress. What can we do immediately? What can the listeners at home do immediately to build for that founding Congress and make it a success? Yeah, well, I mean, as has been discussed in the early episodes, the best thing you can do from our point of view is join us, become a official member, an active member and help us build the party. There's a lot involved in that. There's there's attending your branch meetings. Primarily it's to learn about Marxism, learn about the logic and dynamics and history of class struggle and a revolution. And then to see if you can find others, right, bring others along, take a load of papers, see if you can sell them, put posts in the stickers up, educate yourself so you can find other people and convince them to, right? That's the main thing we need. But if someone's in a position where they support us, they want to help. And for whatever reason, they can't do that or they don't want to do that. I don't understand that. I if I really believe something, the it's another thing with climate change. If you're really worried about climate change and it makes you feel anxious, the best thing you can do is feel like you're doing something about it. It's like when you're overwhelmed with how much you've got to do, just writing a list, you feel way better, right? Then you take the first thing off, right? Yeah, it's the same with the state of the world. First of all, join the party, get active. You will feel a lot better about all these crises when you start to realize there is something we can do as a clear strategy. So that's the main thing. But if you are not at that stage for whatever reason, we can subscribe to our paper. That helps a lot. You can order books from our website and start educating yourself. That's well read books. I could at UK website. Yeah, that's right. And then obviously if you read something, and you have questions right in, someone will want to talk to you about it. We can we can almost guarantee that. And then, of course, I'm the treasurer and we've got the Congress coming up, we'll have a big collection. I'm starting to get a bit shaky because I never know exactly how it's going to go. And we need, we need all the funds we can get where we're trying to launch a fighting campaigning organization. We're already beginning with that work and that costs money. Everything under capitalism costs money including building an organization to overthrow capitalism. So please donate as well. You can make one-off donations for that collection or you can make a regular monthly donation. But you can even set yourself a little target. How much am I going to raise to help the RCP launch itself? And you can ask your mates, we can talk about that a little bit more because I can't really do fundraising. So just to be clear then, how much are we hoping to raise for the special party launch fund and how much of that have we raised so far? Well, that's the thing that's why I'm shaking. I'm very in the dark, right? We explain to the branch the way we work with everything is we, we discuss the ideas, we discuss the tasks in front of us. We try to inspire people as to why it's important. And then we let them go out and find the means, right? Find, find a way of, of achieving that end. So I know there is fundraising happening all up and down the country. Just some great reports. Had a good one in yesterday. Edinburgh put on an open mic gig, openly in the name of the party and comedy, there was music selling merchandise and so on. Yeah, I don't know if it was all revolutionary performance. It's like revolutionary music. It might have been, might not be that it doesn't really matter. You can, you can get creative. And they raised quite a lot of money. Yeah, a few hundred quid just in a night. There's a guy who did a cycle ride. I had sponsored cycle ride again with a political pitch about why it was doing it, raised money from friends and family, even wrote to some old academic who he used to follow, Mark just academic who's he said was a very interesting but slightly pessimistic. So he sent me a lot of academics. Well, yeah, maybe. But well, intention because he wrote to him said, I'm not pessimistic anymore. I just do in this party. They've got great ideas, great perspectives, great strategy for what we can actually do to change the world. And the guy donated a thousand pounds to his to his sponsored cycle ride. So I don't know how much money has been raised so far. It's all floating around there in the in the ether in the branches. We've got an online target of 20 ground from the public. We're somewhere between six and seven thousand pounds on there at the moment. The target you asked for. We're hoping to raise about 120 grand by the Congress by the Congress for that to be kind of pledged by all the various branches and individuals that have been raising that money. We're trying to pay it in shortly afterwards. But there is absolutely no shortage of things we could do with that money. The bottom line is what we achieve between now and the founding Congress in May in terms of recruiting in terms of raising money will determine what we can do for six months of the life of the RCP. And can you just go into some detail then? What is that money going to go towards? How is that going to provide a strong material foundation with which the party can can fight on the on the ground? Yeah, so I always explain it when I'm talking to the branches. We have we have finance officers in all the branches branch treasurers. I explain it in the sense that there's two main pillars of finance that the branches have to think about. There is a third which is selling our literature, right? Our papers, our books, our magazines. We turn a profit on all of that. There's a huge thirst for ideas out there. And our full time as you run the bookshop can hardly keep up with the demand. Yeah, I can see all the boxes piling up every single day. Yeah. And just like the amount of deliveries they have to pack up and take the post office is hard for them to find to do the time to do much else. But that I say to the branch. Look, that's that does raise money. That's important. But that's in it. That's a political educational thing. You don't even need to think about that in terms of money. You inspire people to want to learn one like in this kind of thing. That will turn itself over that will that stuff will happen. The two pillars you have to really focus on are the membership subs, membership fees on the one hand. And that goes to covering the cost of full time revolutionaries full time wages that can run the bookshop, produce the paper, maintain the website help develop the branches coordinate the work nationally. There's I could go on there's there's a huge amount of centralized tasks required to make all of the branches around the country more than the sum of their parts, right, make them into one big fighting organization with a clear purpose and clear ideas and clear strategy. So that's the membership subs regular monthly income allows us to budget for regular monthly outcomes on those wages. We can look at that in a bit more detail later. Every other cost involved with running the party has to come from somewhere, right? Yeah. And if that money has to be raised, the vast majority that is going to have to be raised by the branches because they are what make up the party, they will make up the organization. Like I said, we've got this 20 ground target to try and raise from the public outside the branches, they can donate on the website. But like I said, we want 120 grand. That's 100 grand. We are hoping to get from the branches. We've got 1000 members, you know, yeah, 100 quid each, it's doable. Got 100 branches, you could think of it as 1000 quid per branch that they have to raise. And that goes to any other cost you can imagine, whether it's buying pens and paper for new computers, or paying rent for our office, or allowing full timers to travel around the country actually visit the branch. The last thing we want is far removed bureaucrats who sit in an office and tell the branches what works and what doesn't. When the branches are the ones out there actually trying it, right? We have to knit all of the collective experience together. That requires getting out on the ground, knowing who you're working with, what their strengths and weaknesses are, learning from the branches and educating the branches and this kind of thing. We also pay international donations to our international organization. So we come up with a figure every year, I think we're going to try and give them 100 grand this year. I think the list goes on. We're putting on big public events. We're launching the party, have to rebrand everything, right? And run as much online campaigning as we can as well. Producing posters, stickers, that could go on and on and on. As everyone who is alive today in capitalism knows everything costs money and it very quickly adds up, right? So that's the point of the fighting fund. And yeah, how successful the first six months of the party can be. A lot of it will hinge on how much we have in the coffers to launch our initial campaigns, develop new branches. Yeah, definitely. I think we are going to see a period of potentially quite explosive growth this year on the basis of the excitement, the inspiration, the determination. I think the branches are feeling right now to get out there and plant the flag of communism. But not just that, also the objective situation as well. You know, what have you got? You've got, you know, a political regime that is in crisis in Britain. You've got a Labour Party which is rubbing its hands waiting to get into power to carry out an austerity program to carry out attacks on the working class. As we've already discussed, we've got young people who are completely desperate for a way out of this dead end system. I think on that basis, all it will take is, you know, maybe one or two, you know, accidents and sort of shock events that will just sort of push loads of people towards not just revolutionary ideas, but actually getting organized in a revolutionary organization. And if we're going to be setting up new branches and new cells in various different parts of the country, perhaps even places where we haven't even got members right now, you know, we've that's already happened, I think, in the past period. How else are we going to grow unless we have a strong material foundation? As you said, you know, things like going on trips, you know, discussing with these people, sitting down, showing them how to organize a branch meeting, showing them how to sell the paper, how to write for the paper, how to speak to people, how to convince them to join as well. These are, you know, thousand and one things that are absolutely indispensable for organizing a Bolshevik party like our own. And as you mentioned, with the international donations as well, I think the exact same thing plays out on an international level as well. We're now getting, I believe people writing in from from countries where we've gotten no one whatsoever. We want to organize with us who are inspired by the launching of the Revolutionary Communist International. How are we going to be able to develop an international that has its reaches in every single continent in the world unless we have a strong international center that can also make trips, be there on the ground, go along to these meetings and so on. Yeah. So yeah, it's really good that you mentioned that. And also, you know, there are sections in our international, which yeah, are in countries that are a lot more materially deprived than we are here in Britain. Of course, you know, Britain is still, you know, a very impoverished country, or at least, you know, sections of the population are very impoverished. But you know, you're looking at places like like Venezuela or across Latin America, across Asia and so on places like Pakistan, where you've got like inflation, which is, you know, 80% or something like that, we need an international to be able to, you know, to be able to support a development fund, you know, to be able to pay for, you know, key resources, perhaps even, you know, staff and so on to be able to give them a strong foundation. Yeah, exactly. That's right. I mean, in the long one, even in even in very difficult countries, obviously, if you want to build a revolutionary by it has to be sustainable. It can't rely entirely on subsidies, but we need that backstop, right? We need that reserve to be able to support and subsidize sections when they hit difficult times during the the unbelievable hyperinflation in Venezuela. That's when the international stepped in to stop the whole thing crumbling, right? Another thing is, you know, they produce, they produce merchandise and we buy it at a kind of a British market price. And you know, you buy a jumper for a tenner. Yeah, funds are full-time for a month or something in Venezuela. Anyway, yeah, you're absolutely right. Having the international is extremely important. And it's just the same as having the national center right applied to an international level to be able to share the lessons of the class struggle between different sections, right? And that's so important with the with the national center in Britain to be able to share the lessons of the and the experiences of the different branches. And yeah, with this launch, we want people all of these other episodes that you've been producing. I've been listening back to them. A constant theme is if you are out there and you're a communist on your own, please write in. You can join us. Don't feel like being isolated is a problem. We will send you papers, stickers, a Lenin handbook, how to build a branch thing. And we will send someone to come and meet you, right? And that's that's why we need full-time is the most dedicated worker Bolshevik, right? Who has a full-time job? It doesn't matter how committed they are, they can't go and spend a week showing a group of three people how to set the branch and how to run a paper sale, you know, having long conversations with them about strategy, history, showing them in practice how to talk to a contact, how to recruit contact, all this kind of thing. There is no substitute for that. So with the organization we're trying to build. Yeah, we need centralization. We need full-timers. Yep. And just before we move on to the next question I want to ask, you just mentioned there a lot of the resources that we can provide to people who want to try and build a cell where they are, any listeners at home who are feeling inspired by what the RCP has been doing recently. If you want to get yourself a communist cell starter pack, we do have those on offer. You'll have a handful of papers, our theoretical magazine in defensive Marxism, the Leninist Handbook that Joe mentioned as well, as well as posters and stickers and all those sorts of things. So if you had to the link in the show notes of this podcast, you can get your hands on one of those. Yeah, just check it out. So this actually brings me then. So we've discussed the fighting fund and so on, but this now brings me to a question that we've had from a listener of the podcast who has a question about the amount that we charge in terms of membership, membership subs, membership fees. Sure. So I'm just going to play that right now and I want to hear your thoughts on what they have to say. Hi, so we're talking about partial finances the next week. I was wondering, do you not think that the current ask of 50 pound a month is just too much and unrealistic for most working people right now? Yes, you say that you need to, you know, get to the cause and what not, but realistically, of so many people having to pick between heating and food and they're just not going to be able to afford it. And if the goal is to build as much mass membership as possible, do you not think it's a bit shooting overboard kind of thing? So that's a question from Luke and Joe, what do you what do you make of that? Would your response be to that? Well, it's a valid question. It's a good question, because first thing to say is we do not demand or command things of anyone without explaining it. So, you know, you got welcome that question because I wouldn't ask anyone to give 50 pound a month. We actually asked workers to give 60 pound a month. We're aiming for an average of 50 pound a month. We ask students to give 30 pounds a month as a starting minimum and workers 60. It's not an iron rule. I'll get to that in a second as well. But we don't ask this stuff without explaining it. That'll be mad, right? The whole point of our organization is to politically explain, politically inspire and then make an appeal. This is what we need. Can you can you do it? Right. So these targets are not plucked from the sky. They are they actually start from a political end. The financial contributions are just a financial means to a political end. And that political end is a certain amount of centralization that we need. So the bottom line is, yeah, we need an average sub of 50 pounds. Where does that come from? Well, we've explained why we need full timers, right? In general, the kind of things that they have to do is produce the paper, maintain the website, run the bookshop, maintain the accounts, you know, keep track of the membership lists. But most importantly, we are the purpose of our organization. The only reason we exist is our ideas, right? The point of the Marxist Party is to be a vehicle for the necessary ideas into the mass of the workers movement, right? The Marxist Party can almost be summarized as the memory of the working class. There is 150 years of or more of industrial working class struggle. There's many, many more centuries of history and revolution to study, right? And our ideas are not plucked from the sky, they're plucked from the development of history and the real experience of the working class struggle and this kind of thing. So the working class every generation where it's forced to throw itself into struggle again, it often has to learn the same lessons over and over again and waste precious time within the time that is allowed by allowed by a revolutionary crisis. The point of the Marxist Party is to throw itself into that struggle, into the working class struggle with its own lessons from the past already digested, allowing it to skip steps, right? And draw the necessary conclusions within the time afforded by that revolutionary crisis, right? So that's the only justification for us existing as a separate organization to the mass working class organizations is to provide those ideas. And so if if our full timers do not have the time to actually develop themselves politically, theoretically to develop the branches politically and theoretically, well, then we cease to be the organization we even are aiming to be at all, right? So this is we've explained why we need full timers, but this is why we need a certain concentration of full timers. To give you an example, if we had a average sub of 20 pounds, I should have written this down, I did this calculation a while ago, if we had a sub of an average sub of 20 pounds after our international dues, because for every subs paying member, we pay the international a small portion of that. I think when we hit 1000 members, if our average sub was 20 pounds, we'd have eight full timers on minimum wage, right? We all get paid minimum wages as full time. We're revolutionary. We don't do this for the money. So again, it's not been going to say piss, it's not been pissed up the wall. So what was it saying? 20 pounds a month. Yeah, we'd have eight full timers trying to run an organization of 1000. We would not be the organization we are. If that was the case, how can eight people produce a fortnightly paper? We need to go weekly because events are moving so fast. Again, everything we do flows from what is required. And then can we find the means, right? We need a weekly paper. Not a fortnightly. We have to maintain the website. We have to have an editorial board that commissions articles around the country have to distribute the paper to the branches. We have to run the bookshop. We have to run the accounts. And then like I said before, most importantly, we need time to think strategically time to read a lot, right? Time to take practical part. No good after all time is not taking part in the branches not taking part in demonstrations, political work in general. The last thing we want is far removed bureaucrats. We need people who are politically developed and in conversation with the branches and actually know the people in the branches, right? If we had eight full timers to a membership of a thousand, none of us would know who any of our members were, right? Again, you'd just be giving abstract, far removed commands rather than knowing the actual people you're dealing with, what are their strengths, what are their weaknesses, what help they need. And most importantly, raising the theoretical and political level of the party as a whole. And so we aim to have every 30 to 35 members funding one full timer on the minimum wage. That's where the number emerges. That would mean on average, they would have to pay 50 pounds a month. After international dues, that allows us to pay 30, 35 people allow to pay one full timer, the minimum wage. So that's where it flows from now. Of course, we are aware that that's a lot to ask. Of course, we know that trade union, you'd probably pay about 15 pounds a month or something like that. But our ambitions are much greater than that of the trade unions, right? We want to overthrow capitalism. And look, if someone wants to dedicate themselves to the building of our party, they want to be an active member, they want to recruit and they literally can't afford to pay 30 pounds as a student, 60 pounds as a worker. Well, we wouldn't bar them from membership. What we would do is say this is what we asked for. We're asking you to seriously consider. Can you afford that? What would you have to give up to afford it, right? And would that be worth it? Because the way we see it is there is nothing. Once you've fed and watered and you've got a roof over your head, you've had a bit of fun, right? What is more important than the future of humanity? Let's think about what we're just talking about with the climate. What is more important than overthrowing this six six system? And the opportunities will present themselves. Whether there is a party of the right type with the right ideas at the right time is the most important question of all. And that's I think 50 pounds a month is a very, very low price to pay for that. Again, if someone absolutely can't, you know, we'll have a conversation with them about it. We won't bar them from entry. We're actually thinking about changing our the way we phrase it to one day, pay a month, one day's wages, one day's wages a month, which actually on minimum wage amounts to about 60 quid a month. So we're not we're not far off from where we where we should be and what we're asking now. And the last thing to say on it is we don't ask we have no means of coercion, right? Like we can't make people do anything. We we try and explain inspire and then say, will you do that? Right? And the point is that this this average, we're about just over 40 pound average and we need to be at 50. But the majority of our active members are paying 30 pounds of students, 60 pounders workers or more sometimes much more. So this is a position that we've conquered, you know, and we don't ask people to do anything. We wouldn't we don't do ourselves anyway. So we're saying this is a position with conquered and we don't want our new members to force us to retreat on that, right? This is what we do. Will you do it with us? And if someone absolutely can't have an open conversation about it, it's fine. Right. So don't let that be a reason not to get get in touch. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully that puts in its context a little bit. Yeah. And one thing that was mentioned in the question is that, you know, people now in Britain are choosing between heating and eating. And of course, we have just been through, you know, a big cost of living crisis. I mean, I think we're still going through that now, even though it's not in the news anymore. But I remember a couple of years back, we launched, I think it was last year, actually, we launched a campaign to buy the office that we're currently in right now, the international headquarters of the of the revolutionary communist international. And as in the British section, we had an ambitious target of raising 200 grand that year, you know, largely through asking for donations from our members and supporters. And I remember the reaction to that when we successfully raised that money from some people on the left even who said, you know, this is this is disgusting, you know, how can you, how can you raise this money for an office to buy property at a time when, you know, the British working class are suffering, you know, shouldn't you be giving that money to food banks, for example, or giving it to a trade union strike fund or something like that. That's going to make a real material difference to people's lives. Yeah, how would you respond to that? Do you think I think it's a very good question? It's a question that I've heard quite a few times from from from people who want to join as well. Yeah, it's an understandable instinct, right? Like most people are on the left or communist because they see the poverty, they see the vulnerability, they see the unnecessary hardship or outright suffering. And they want to do something about that, right? And the most immediate thing that jumps to mind is if you've got a load of money, you can help feed people who can't feed themselves, right? You can help provide services and support for people who need it, which is true. But we want to abolish poverty, right? The way I just explained it is it's unnecessary suffering, right? There's more than enough food produced in the world. There's more than enough housing. We haven't forgot how to build hospitals or train teachers, right? And yet schools are overcrowed and you can't get a doctor's appointment for a year or something ridiculous, right? So like the potential to solve these problems for good does exist. And the only barrier is a political one, right? So there are lots of people out there to their credit who put time and money into alleviating the suffering of people, right? Food banks, charities, mutual aid groups. Great. That's a very honorable thing to do. And in fact, I would say it is testament to them and it's testament to human potential, what we're willing to do for others. And it's a little it's a little glimmer, a little glimpse of what human nature is capable of and then what socialism could unleash. Imagine if all of those projects were properly funded. Now, the amount of money that we raise and are able to raise at this stage is negligible compared to the amount already going into those charities and support groups. However, the amount we can raise this 120 grand or aiming for, for example, the Congress will make a huge difference to our ability to build that political tool, that political weapon that can play the decisive part in solving those problems for all. So we're just playing a much longer game, right? And fewer people are doing that. So yeah, I think I think actually that that's that's the real Bolshevik attitude when times got harder and the cost of living crisis began to be really felt by everyone. And that was the word of the day really cost because he lives or whatever everyone was saying. We could the easy thing to do would say, oh, yeah, times are hard. We get it. Let's just ease off, right? Let's lower the subs. Let's ease off the fundraising. But that's that's basically what we would call liquidationism. Obviously, when times get harder, the revolutionary party is needed more. And times are going to keep getting harder. And we're going to have to keep building a strong discipline fighting organization. Again, we start with what's required, right? And then through political inspiration, we decide what's possible, not based on what's possible, what's easily possible, right? But what's possible on the basis of hard work and political inspiration? And another thing is, you know, again, this is instinct, you want to help the most vulnerable in society. And we do too. But the most vulnerable people in society are not necessarily the best equipped to fight for revolution, right? Marxism understands that the work in class are the most powerful social force. It's not because we just romanticize the work in class. It's because of their role in the economy, you know, their social role in production, their methods of struggle as a method of struggle through the collective organization in the workplaces and this kind of thing. And yeah, the the homeless and people who are really struggling and on benefits and this kind of thing, they might have the most to win from socialism, but they're not necessarily the best equipped to dedicate time and money to that struggle. So if you know, if it means at this point, we're dedicating people who can afford the time and money to build a revolutionary party great. In the future, we'll throw the doors wide open to people who might be slightly less active and contribute slightly less. When we are a mass party, we're aware that we're not a mass party. We're building we're building a unit of soldiers basically, right? And that requires sacrifice, hard work. And yeah, if someone has more time, less money, they can still join them all. They'll prove that they'll prove that they're worth that way. If someone has less time and more money, we might say, right, okay, you've only got three hours a week to contribute. But can you up your subs, right? Like, everyone's got got what they have to give. So yeah, that's the way that's the way we look at it. So yeah, in the face of crisis and hard times, we can't afford to back off, right? And that's why the struggle goes in ebbs and flows. We're looking for the hardest class fighters, basically. I think you're totally right that the amounts that we're talking about right here are absolutely negligible, not just compared to the money that goes through bourgeois charities. I mean, for example, you know, it's not uncommon for a CEO or a director for a charity to be on a six figure salary, for example, I mean, look at the what's that guy during the pandemic? Was it? What was his name? The guy, the old guy who did the laps around his? Oh, yeah, was it John? Yeah, something like that. You know, the, you know, he's family started a charity at the end of that. And then what did they do? They embezzled the money and put it towards a bloody spa, a private spa, for example. But there's many examples like that of the corruption of bourgeois charities and so on. But if you turn to the political front as well, I mean, what do you see? Christ, you know, this year, there's going to be elections in the UK, there's going to be elections in the US as well. The piles of money that are plowed into these elections so that the ruling class can have the representation that they feel that they need is absolutely enormous. I mean, I just read, for example, the other day, that Jeremy Hunt, our esteemed chancellor in Britain, while carrying out an austerity budget, he's actually just plowed 100 grand of his own money, his own personal wealth, which again just shows you, you know, which side his bread is better done, that that's just fair change for him. He's plowed 100 grand into his own constituencies Tory party, because he's facing the potential of not being elected in the next general election, right. That's just what one individual is giving to one local Tory party to in order to get reelected this year. And that's what we're asking for, you know, 100, 100 grand. That's more or less what we're asking for for half a year to fund the entirety of the revolutionary organization that will lead the British Revolution in the future, I would say. Yeah. Is there anything else you'd like to say on that before we wrap up? No, well, that's an important point. It's one I make a lot. It's like, who else is going to do it? But you, if you're a revolutionary communist, no one's going to fund the revolutionary communist party, apart from people like you, right? Like you say, the the capitalist are willing to, I mean, I say sacrifices, not really a sacrifice is it, but they're willing to give up a lot of their large slice of their profits to make sure they have political representatives. That will allow them to make more profits, right, in the future. Well, we have to think like, if we are determined to overthrow this system, to end all this suffering for good, yeah, we have to sacrifice a portion of what we have now for what we need in the future. No one is going to fund the revolutionary Marxist party, apart from revolutionary Marxists. And the bigger we get, we're at the stage now where we're trying to draw more and more from a wider periphery. But the backbone is always going to be and should always be the active membership itself. And that's what the membership subs are all about. So yeah, I think that is a really good analogy. And it leads me on to this Trotsky quote, right, like what was saying before people have different things to give. And yeah, what is it that makes a revolutionary, you can't do what we need to do without sacrifice, right? If it was easy, capitalism would have been thrown over throwing a long, long time ago, building a revolutionary bodies that I would say it's the most fulfilling thing you can do. It's fun. It's exciting. It develops you as a person. It gives you an amazing perspective on the past and the future. But yeah, it's not easy. It's hard. Otherwise it would have been done a long, long time ago, right? And Trotsky said you can have revolutionaries old and young, wise or coming with the way it is ignorant. There you go. But you can't have a revolutionary who is unwilling to sacrifice and unwilling to smash all obstacles in front of them. And so that's the type of person we're looking for. And the more involved you are, the more you become willing to give because you realise that, if I do say something myself, this is the real deal. We're building something really, really serious here. And every challenge in front of us, we've managed to overcome it, including the cost of living crisis, buying a permanent premises so we're not pissing money away to a private landlord anymore. And this kind of thing. So yeah, there's an amazing tradition of sacrifice within our organisation. Although I would say within the British section, again, it's not really sacrifice. We're an international organisation. And you look at the conditions people are forced to live in, you look at the situation in Gaza right now. You look at our comrades in places like Venezuela, like Pakistan, like Indonesia, that they are really sacrificing, you know, a lot for maybe not even their own future, you know, just for the future of humanity, the future of their children, the future of people they don't even know. All we're asking is that you make a committed contribution, right? Perhaps there'll be bigger sacrifices in the future. But but it's not demon gloom. It's the most positive thing you can do. And I would encourage anyone who is dissatisfied about the state of the world to contribute their time and money to build in this party because nothing will make you feel feel better and more fulfilled. And this can be done. That's the thing. This can be done. There will be revolutionary movements. There will be huge class struggles. And a revolutionary party has a very important role to play in that. Alright, well, thanks very much for that, Joe. I think we'll wrap it up there. But before you head off, I just want to make a few quick announcements. So yeah, as we've already said, plenty of times on this podcast series, if you're feeling inspired by the ideas that we've discussed on this podcast, if you've been reading our website and you agree with what we have to say, then you need to get organised in the revolutionary Communist Party. It's no good just sitting there at home feeling bad about the world. You need to be with other like-minded people fighting to change the world. So if you want to apply to join the revolutionary Communist Party, please head to communist.red forward slash join to fill in our application form. And as Joe mentioned earlier, we will send you resources. We will send you a full time revolutionary to help you organise a cell on the grounds. And yeah, as we've already mentioned as well, if you want to give a strong material foundation to this party, then you can take out a subscription to our newspaper, our magazine, you can buy books from our book shop, well-readbooks.co.uk, and you can also donate to the organisation as well. You can make a one-off donation to our special party launch fund, or why not set up a regular donation as well? Whatever suits what you can give. And lastly, we want to make this podcast series as interactive as possible. So if you have any questions whatsoever about what the RCP is about and how to build a branch or sell up the RCP on the ground, then please do let us know. We want to hear your questions, your reports, your advice and so on. So head to communist.red forward slash right and select the category that says podcast and we will play your question or your report on the show. So thanks very much to our listeners for tuning in and make sure you stay tuned to Marxist Voice for future episodes covering Marxist theory, revolutionary history, current events and party building, brought to you by The Communist. See you next week.