BY NAOMI CRAINE
As this issue of the Militant goes to press, the pages of
the pamphlet Socialism: Scientific and Utopian by Frederick
Engels are being printed in Pathfinder's printshop. Orders for
more than 800 copies for college classrooms had virtually wiped
out Pathfinder's stock by December 22. Anticipating further
classroom orders, Pathfinder asked the volunteers who are
working to scan, proofread, and format, every Pathfinder book
if they could move up the pamphlet on their list of priorities
and complete it in two weeks. On January 6, the final version
of the entire pamphlet - reformatted in larger, more readable
type - was turned in to Pathfinder on CD-ROM, ready to produce
with the printshop's computer-to-plate system.
Workers in the printshop are using the newly installed Agfa Galileo system, which produces plates for the presses directly from computer files, to cut labor time, in the process transforming their methods of working together to produce the books and pamphlets vital to the political work of the communist movement and other vanguard workers and farmers.
Since October, socialist workers and their supporters have made an outstanding effort to raise the $350,000 needed to purchase and install the Galileo. Contributions to the fund so far total $310,408. It is now urgent to raise the remaining $39,600 and collect $100,000 in outstanding pledges, to make the final payments coming due on the machinery in January and February.
With completion of the $350,000 within sight, the Capital Fund Committee, made up of workers across the country who are organizing to raise these funds, is turning its attention to raising the additional $200,000 needed to maintain the printshop's capacity to keep putting out books and pamphlets and redeem the work of the more than 100 volunteers who are digitizing Pathfinder titles.
December registered a turning point in the production by these volunteers. Over the previous six months they had averaged one title per month completed and turned over to Pathfinder with cover, text, and graphics in digital form. In December they completed five books and pamphlets - Leon Trotsky Speaks, the French- and Spanish-language editions of Che Guevara and the Fight for Socialism Today, On the Jewish Question by Leon Trotsky, and By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X. A sixth book that was turned in on CD-ROM, Women and the Cuban Revolution, needed a small correction, which the volunteers did and returned to Pathfinder January 12. The goal for January is to complete seven titles.
To find out how you can make a capital contribution, write to the Capital Fund Committee, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.