Dear friend,

Every day more and more people become members of the Radical Party. Less than two months into the 1992 campaign we have reached 50% of last year's total. In some countries, for the most part in Central and Eastern Europe, and above all in Russia and Croatia, we are on the verge of exceeding, or we have already exceeded, the figures reached at the end of 1991.

At the same time there are more countries and more parties taking part in our Federal Council. Other parliamentarians, from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Argentina, Armenia, Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Croatia and Italy have joined those from more than 21 countries who are already members of the transnational transparty.

While the positive signals increase, in Italy the Radicals, divided amongst ten or so different lists, are facing the forthcoming elections without the least guarantee of democracy in the radio and television mass media. The fight is completely uneven, and its outcome - there is no hiding it from ourselves or from you - will condition the near future of our project, our chances of strengthening this embryonic transnational, transdivisional and nonviolent party.

The immediate future sees other elections looming, in Croatia and Romania, and also our Congress. Whilst not a fully-fledged Congress of foundation-refoundation, it will be one which starts off a process which, within the space of a few months, should provide us with new rules and new "programmes" of action.

A number of comrades, working in the committee groupings familiar to you, are preparing this event. Amongst the many delicate matters to be resolved is that of the shape of the Transnational Party. For example, will we be able to continue to hold an annual Congress open to all members? And if so, under what conditions? And where will the money come from? If the answer is no, what kind of alternatives are open? A further question, one of importance, is what should be done between Congresses to maintain the "unitary nature" of our undertaking, bearing in the mind the diversity of our commitments in the "national" contexts and on single issues?

u2e. You have been able to follow these reflections and this preparation, though perhaps in a limited way, through the latest "special" issues of "New Party" and the Radical Newsletter. Now, however, we urgently need your ideas, your proposals and your thoughts on how to shape our tool, this transnational, transdivisional and nonviolent party, and on how we should develop the campaigns on which we are united.

This overview would not be complete if we did not mention that the preparation for the Congress is suffering from our current precarious financial situation. This precarious situation will prevail, it is worth saying once again, until hundreds and hundreds of people from rich countries, from Italy and the European Community, become members of the Radical Party, as is happening at this very moment in the ex-Soviet empire.

The essential nature of the financial condition of our undertaking must be brought to the fore, particularly in the light of all those people who write to us from Hungary, Romania, Russia, the "East" or from Africa: while we are seeking millions of dollars to proceed with our project, their daily problem is the struggle to pay the rent and to eat - in other words to survive.

Never so much as today, except perhaps in 1982 and 1983, in the toughest year of our campaign against famine, has it seemed so pressing and necessary to emphasize that our problem cannot be that of tackling emergency after emergency, it must be a commitment to providing each emergency with political dignity and, from this angle, to fight so that they are treated and tackled as political priorities by the various institutions responsible.

There are several matters that we have to face at this moment: we must find the financial backing to allow us to go beyond these particularly troubled times; involve new human resources, conceive new goals, establish new deadlines for our campaigns; and last but not least, envisage and plan a model of a party which enables us structurally to tackle these many political challenges. We hope to deal more extensively with the last of these matters from the next issue of Radical Newsletter, with the first comments and concrete proposals.

There are those who might view all of this as very matter-of-fact, even boring. Especially after the news - weeks late, partly because of our remaining organizational shortcomings - of the death of our comrade and friend, Momcilo Vukasinovich, in Bjeclovar, on the front of justice u2e. and freedom which he too chose. But that is not how it is for us. For what he did and what he was, we cannot and do not wish to offer Momo anything other than our stubborn continuity in his and our undertaking. In the hope that through being organized together in nonviolence we can prevent others, in the near future, from being forced like him to kill and be killed. Will you give us a hand?.