Published: The Militant, Vol. V No. 22, 31 May 1941, p. 1.
Source: PDF supplied by the Riazanov Library Project.
Transcription/Mark-up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: This work is in the 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 Marxists’ Internet Archive/Encyclopedia of Trotskyism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors, translators, proofreaders etc. above.
By unanimous decision of the National Committee, the Socialist Workers Party hereby opens a campaign for a $10,000 War Chest.
This may seem like a very large sum for a small workers’ party to raise in the face of war, when rival parties and groups are crying hard times, languishing or folding up altogether.
Some may regard the talk of a $10,000 War Chest as a bluff – a fantastic sum of which we expect to collect only a small part.
All such assumptions are completely erroneous. They can be entertained only by people who do not know our party.
We are calling for a $10,000 War Chest, and our party members will subscribe it 100% – to the last penny!
Our Trotskyist party is not like other parties. It believes in the coming victory of the workers. Its members aim at a great goal. They are in dead earnest, confident of victory, disciplined and capable of sacrifice.
In every case the party strives to understand and single out the most important task of the hour. Then it concentrates all efforts and energies on the accomplishment of that task.
The task of the present hour is to prepare the party for war – to provide it with a War Chest.
All party branches have been consulted on the project. They have enthusiastically endorsed it, and assumed their respective quotas to be completed by August 1st.
The branch quotas are listed below. Each week until the end of the campaign the score board, showing the contributions, the percentages and the balance to go, will be printed in The Militant.
Every party member and sympathizer will watch the War Chest score board with confidence that the $10,000 goal will be reached. Let skeptics also watch it to see how a Trotskyist party tackles and accomplishes a hard but necessary task.
Last updated on 21 October 2015