First Published: In Struggle! No. 278, January 24, 1982
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above.
There will not be an issue of IN STRUGGLE! next week. From now, until our next congress, the newspaper will only be published every two weeks, in accordance with the decision made by IN STRUGGLE!’s members. In an internal referendum, 78% of the members expressed their agreement with the proposal made by the newspaper committee, 7% were opposed and 15% abstained.
The main reason for this decision is the necessity to enable all our members to prepare correctly for the next congress, in the context of the difficult conditions created by the political crisis we are experiencing at the present time.
The issues at stake in the debate are very serious indeed. Dealing with them seriously can only mean major changes in the priorities we accord to different parts of our political work. For instance, the distribution of the newspaper has dropped considerably in recent months. Only about half as many articles on current events are being sent in by the cells and regions. The cumulative results of all this has been an increasingly intolerable pressure on the newspaper committee, which found itself obliged to carry more and more of the burden of producing the paper with fewer and fewer hours and people available to do it. This last factor was the immediate reason for the referendum on the frequency with which the paper should be published. It had become almost impossible to continue putting out a weekly and at the same time allow all our members to be equally involved in preparing for the congress. This is why we think a newspaper published every two weeks o corresponds more to our actual ability to produce and use it from now until the congress.
It is important to point out, however, that this decision does not prejudge any decisions the congress may make as to the more long-term orientation of the newspaper in terms of its contents and frequency of publication. We will come back to these questions in a future issue so as to encourage broader discussion of them among our members and readers. The limited nature of this decision also accounts for why the referendum was an internal one: it did not involve the orientation of the newspaper, but merely the organization of our work and our division of labour from flow until the congress.
Many readers will be surprised and perhaps disappointed to see the newspaper coming out only every two weeks. This is especially true for all those who contributed to the success of our fund-raising campaign last year, aimed at supporting our publications in particular. We would like to reassure them that we will do our best to maintain the quality of the newspaper from now until the congress – and coming out less frequently will help us to do this. In conclusion, we would like to take advantage of this opportunity to invite you to contribute even more to the newspaper by sending letters and articles on any topic you think it would be interesting or useful for the paper to cover.
The editorial board of the newspaper