Pros:
1. Liquidating the newspaper would relieve us of the difficulty of putting out a newspaper which attempts to comment on and analyze spontaneous developments without having a developed strategic outlook or political organization to advance the struggle. It would temporarily solve the problem which has frequently been posed as: “What do we tell workers to do, once we have convinced them that the solutions to their problems cannot be found under capitalism, or even of the necessity of revolution and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” We don’t attempt to convince them of the necessity for socialism until we have figured out ourselves the concrete steps for achieving socialism.
II. It would free the time of collective members to engage more fully in study and debate as part of the Marxist-Leninist movement through their study greoups and future political organizations which may develop, and perhaps hasten the development of some of the organizational and strategic answers we need in order to put out a more effective mass newspaper.
III. It would also free collective members’ time to engage more fully in “mass work” through their trade unions, etc. where they could give more attention to solving the problems of communist intervention in mass struggles and winning advanced workers to communism, through direct experience at the workplace, in the community, etc.
Cons:
1. We would be breaking off all contact with our readership for an indefinite period and hence throwing away for the time being the opportunity of winning sizeable numbers of our readers to Marxism-Leninism. The demise of the newspaper would also be taken by many as a sign of demoralization rather than any kind of political advancement.
2. We would be liquidating the only newspaper of any type which is politically capable of opposing and exposing the machinations of capital, in all its forms, and keeping advanced workers and revolutionary intellectuals in this part of the country informed about the facts and nature of struggles and political developments here and elsewhere (to the best of our ability).
3. We would break up our collective, a collective that, despite errors and differences, has honestly attempted to advance the class struggle through the regular publication of a newspaper over the last three years or more, and in which there is still a good deal of mutual respect and, we believe, the ability to continue to work together on a higher level of unity.
ON THE BALANCE, WE BELIEVE THAT THE NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF LIQUIDATING THE NEWSPAPER OUTWEIGH THE POSITIVE AND THAT WE HAVE RESPONSIBILITY TO OUR READERSHIP WHICH WE MUST FULFILL. THEREFORE, WE REJECT LIQUIDATION OF THE NEWSPAPER AT THIS TIME OR IN THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE.