BY GREG McCARTAN
With six days to go in the international Militant subscription drive, socialists are turning every effort to reach out to win new readers to the paper and to the revolutionary books published by Pathfinder Press. Heading into the final week of drive, supporters in eight cities have met their goals or are on target. Since the drive is a collective effort of socialists around the world, those leading the campaign are planning to work as hard in the remaining days of the drive as are supporters in cities who have a substantial way to go to meet their goals.

We now have in hand 961 Militant subscriptions of a goal of 1,400 and 288 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial toward a goal of 450. In addition to the 317 New Internationals sold at the Young Socialists convention, local supporters have sold 423 copies of the magazine of Marxist politics and theory toward the goal of 600. Every subscription received at the Militant by the end of the day Tuesday, April 29 will be in the final scoreboard next week.

Over the past several weeks socialists have begun to hit their stride in the getting out with revolutionary literature to conferences, protest actions, and strikes; with literature tables on street corners and college campuses; and door-to-door in working-class communities. Over 200 subscriptions to the Militant were sold in each of the last two weeks. From reports received, sales of Pathfinder literature have also grown dramatically.

Socialists can discuss how to build on these recent experiences to deepen their use of socialist propaganda as they participate in a growing number of political openings in the class struggle today.

Each week the Militant and Pathfinder books become more relevant to fighting youth and workers. The Militant, for example, has firsthand reports from Cuba that help get out the truth about the socialist revolution; articles to use to campaign against the imperialist military intervention against the workers state in Albania; news and analysis to combat brutal assaults by the capitalists and imperialists such as that in Peru; and information on the many developments in the class struggle from Europe to Africa, and from the Americas to Asia.

One new challenge to supporters of this effort is organizing to pack and ship the thousands of books and pamphlets ordered by Pathfinder bookstores as part of the big "super-saver" sale being offered by the publisher. Starting this week, a team of ten or so volunteers will be organizing the stock of books, filling orders, and shipping them out around the world.

More stories than we have space for have come into the Militant this week. Here is a sample from the E-mail and faxes sent in:

From Des Moines Ardy Blandford writes: Socialists from Des Moines and Twin Cities went to the Pedagogy of the Oppressed conference April 17-19, which was attended by about 400 professors and graduate and undergraduate students from around the country, along with community activists to discuss strategies and theories on how to solve conditions of oppression and exploitation. The team sold 19 Militant subscriptions, six New Internationals, $500 worth of Pathfinder books for a total of 67 titles, two memberships to the Pathfinder Readers Club, and 15 Militant singles. People contributed $50 to the Militant Fund as well.

There was a lot of interest in the eyewitness reports from teams to Albania and Yugoslavia. Many students were interested in learning more about Marxism, the Young Socialists, and the world youth festival in Cuba this summer. One person said after buying a Militant subscription and The Truth about Yugoslavia: Why Working People Should Oppose Intervention: "This is what I came for. Something that addresses real politics!"

A thick envelope of subscriptions arrived from Los Angeles this week, pushing them into the "on time" section of the chart. Barry Fatland sent the following note: We've mapped out plans to go over all our goals this week as part of the international effort. This week we sold 12 introductory subscriptions at the Los Angeles Times Bookfair at UCLA, as well as 1 subscription to Perspectiva Mundial and four copies of New International.

In less than six hours two socialists sold 11 subscriptions and three New Inter- nationals at the University of California at San Diego. We participated in a protest for voting rights at the congressional hearings in Santa Ana where we sold three subscriptions to PM and one to the Militant.

Mike Italie sent the following letter on Pathfinder sales at the 15th Annual Conference of the Center for Iranian Research and Analysis: The event was attended by academics across the United States, as well as Australia, Canada, India, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Conferences organizers said speakers from Iran were denied visas by the U.S. State Department.

Over 20 Pathfinder books were purchased at the conference, for a total of $270. Six participants took advantage of a special offer on $15 for To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920 -First Congress of the Peoples of the East. A sociology professor who had purchased Pathfinder's Lenin's Final Fight: Speeches and Writings, 1922-23 at a store in Kansas City said he "looks to Pathfinder for accurate historical writing" and went on to buy the entire six-volume set of "The Communist International in Lenin's Time" containing the documents of the early congresses of the Communist International and related gatherings and events.

Communists in Sweden increased their Militant subscriptions by three this week. Catharina Tirsén writes: Two subscriptions this week were sold door-to-door in a dormitory where students were particularly interested in the article from Yugoslavia by Argiris Malapanis. Another subscription was sold by a team that went to Uppsala, a city 80 kilometers north of Stock- holm. Youth attending a weekend school organized by the Youth Left on the European Monetary Union came out during a break and bought a subscription as well as several pamphlets. All three copies of Socialism and Man in Cuba by Ernesto Che Guevara were sold out.

Janet Roth sent the following from Auckland, New Zealand: A regional trip to Massey University in Palmerston North provided a boost for the circulation campaign. Four socialists from Auckland and Wellington teamed up for an all- day sales table and sold seven subscriptions to the Militant, 30 single copies of the paper, and two copies of New International. A fighter in the struggle in New Caledonia to win independence from France is among the new subscribers.  
 
 
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