Propaganda Notes (1949)

Party News from the August 1949 issue of the Socialist Standard

When God had divided Night from Day, and Laurel from Hardy, and the rest, and saw it was good, he had another idea. He said, “Let there be Dirt,” and he put some of the cosmic matter in the Wrong Place. And when a rather junior angel asked why do you call it “ dirt,” please God, he said because it is in the wrong place stupid, which was not logic but the right answer.

And if that story is corn, there is another one which you may have read in the newspaper, and which may be as true. It was about some bombed German towns, where the inhabitants shifted so many acres of rubble in so many months by each taking a brick or a stick on his way to work and dropping it in the right place for further sorting and cleaning for rehousing. How about you? Would you take half a brick half a mile if you knew where to put it for someone to sort for someone to trim for someone to build something for you to use? Would you carry a piece of paper to the Branch?

Most comrades have at some time marked passages in papers or periodicals which would make telling propaganda points, and sometimes these have lain around until the points got blunt or the cuttings got lost or became a hopeless jumble. Not always. We know of a member who has an organised collection on Russia, and another who has all the C.P. dope from the beginning, We knew one who wore more cuttings than clothes, and could always fish out the right one at the right time, and Party propagandists commonly have their bits and pieces or more substantial collections. The Party collectively in the course of 45 years must have piled up acres of propaganda rubble, and the members between them must read most of the established periodicals and leave good material unhonoured and unsung. They have got tired or got wise, because there is no Party machinery for using it.

So now a Propaganda Research Committee has been set up to start a scheme for collecting material, editing it, and providing propagandists with a monthly bulletin. The Committee is asking Branches to appoint a member to collect the material you take to the Branch, and send it to Head Office for processing. They cannot give you much guidance on what material is most useful until they see what they get, though propagandists themselves will know what they find useful. Use your common, but don’t forget that an isolated item may meet its relations at H.O. Provided Branches take that one initial step, here is a means for giving propagandists more and better material to speak or write round, by making the researches of each the common property of all. Party members can all do this simple thing, and can learn to become more skilled and more observant in their reading. Our sympathisers cut off from membership, Parties abroad, and comrades in all parts of the world, can do the same, to our mutual benefit.

The committee have a number of ideas—about covering specified journals, building up files on particular subjects, delving into 45 years’ “S.S.” for new “lines” which are often old ones forgotten, and so on. These will remain ideas for a time. Whether they remain ideas for all time is up to you. They will report progress later, and tell you what you have done. If nothing, they will ask the Ed. Comm. to insert under this same heading a blank space. No harm in asking. And if they insist that at least the Declaration of Principles must fill the empty space maybe they are right at that.

Frank Evans