Foreward
To the World Socialist Movement the important function of revolutionary socialist organization is the propagation of socialist knowledge. We insist that the socialist revolution must be the political act of a consciously socialist working class. We reject the concept of violence, vanguardism and reformism.
Now, because the membership of the World Socialist Party, as with its companion parties, consists almost entirely of men and women who must earn a living and whose time for propagating socialism is necessarily limited, our efforts cannot take advantage of every arena or they would be spread too thin with our relatively small numbers. Fortunately, one of the more important of the media for mass propaganda is to a certain extent available on both a free and charged-for basis. This media is, of course, the air waves . . . the radio of commercial, public service and sustained programs. Over a period of fifteen years we have made frequent use of this medium one way or another and, recently, have experimented with the extra dimension afforded by television.
We have arranged for broadcast interviews without dilution of our principles, particularly with visiting comrades from home and abroad. We have participated as guests on a number of live telephone-style talk shows and at least two debates. Comrades, especially in Canada, have made copious use of call-in programs to present our perspective on the issue under discussion.
But our most frequent and consistent efforts over radio have been carried on for some 10 years In various series of WSP-sponsored programs over Greater Boston radio stations, chiefly over WCRB, AM & FM. We have had several formats but the most enduring has been the weekly four- to five-minute script, a selection of which we have published in issues of The Western Socialist for many years. We have enjoyed a cordial relationship with the station management despite some pressures directed against it from commercial and political groups.
The scripts, sampled herein, run the gamut of socialist propaganda. They are, in effect, a continuing soap-box program and are designed to cast light on the socialist attitude toward the very many questions and problems that confront society in general and the working class in particular. We have had, we think, more responses from these spoken and written messages than from any other single type article. The responses have been mainly favorable but not altogether so. Some of our polemics have infuriated defenders of the Faith and the status quo.
Because the consensus of our membership believes that these radio messages incorporate the kernel of socialist thought, as understood by the Companion Parties, the National Administrative Committee was instructed at our Conference in September, 1973, to produce a special Issue of The Western Socialist, made up chiefly of a selection of the talks, in commemoration of the 300th consecutive issue of The Western Socialist since its founding in Winnipeg, Canada, in October of 1933.
The selection of these scripts from the hundreds available has not made for an easy choice; every one hits the mark in some area of interest. There were also included scripts that had never been printed and existed only as the spoken word on tape. Eliminating local, highly topical and personality elements lightened the task somewhat, and sigh by sigh the job got done. We have avoided redundancy of subject matter and argument as much as possible, but it is the nature of the socialist perspective to see the interrelations of society and to express It.
A word on credits. These brief polemics are the work of Harry Morrison (Harmo), who readers of The Western Socialist will recognise as being a frequent contributor to this journal over the past third of a century. Many of them contain ideas which socialists have presented throughout the years. But the manner of presentation of these ideas, reasoned and dramatic, is distinctively Harmo's, although, as he too has stated, styles of writing are not developed in a vacuum, and his style has been influenced undoubtedly by socialist propaganda past and present.
N.A.C.
W.S.P. (U.S.)
August. 1974
PRINTED IN BOSTON, MASS. U.S.A.
This Special 300th Issue of The Western Socialist will also be available to the Companion Parties of Socialism (and any other interested parties) as a pamphlet that will make possible a cover of their own choice. Incorporating everything but the specialized Party detail contained in each issue of our Journal.
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