Coming as the U.S. government began its war drive against the peoples of Afghanistan, and the capitalist rulers of Sweden began to use the events to bolster their assault on working people at home, the display of revolutionary literature published and distributed by Pathfinder was met with heightened interest this year.

This is the 10th year in a row that supporters of Pathfinder in Sweden organized to have a booth at the book fair. Over the weekend the team of socialist workers and Young Socialists, including one from the United Kingdom who joined the effort, set up literature tables in downtown Gothenburg that became a real hot spot of discussion.

Sales figures reached an all-time high this year, with the newly published pamphlet in Swedish, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, topping the list with 26 sold, plus one each in Spanish and English. Pathfinder supporters prepared large blowups of the cover of the pamphlet along with several quotations from the text and from New International no. 7 with the lead article "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq" by Jack Barnes. The title on the magazine sparked many discussions about the imperialists' war drive today. Nine people decided to purchase a copy of the Swedish edition and one did so in English.

The first day and half were open to trades people, publishers, librarians, book chain representatives, and teachers. The buyer for Stockholm's city library looked up the Pathfinder booth and took a catalogue home. Seeing the range of titles available, librarians from various schools in Sweden stopped at the booth and said students in the schools were demanding books by Che Guevara and Malcolm X. One of the librarians specifically asked for Capitalism's World Disorder by Jack Barnes.

A young woman visited the booth who had recently been involved in a project in the countryside of Burkina Faso. There she met peasants who told her about Thomas Sankara, the leader of the 1983–87 revolution in the West African country. They were eager to tell her about what they had accomplished during the revolution, about their deep respect for Sankara's leadership, and the setback they had suffered when he was assassinated in a counterrevolutionary coup.

Pathfinder publishes several pamphlets and a book of speeches of Sankara that bring to life how the popular revolutionary government began to combat hunger, illiteracy, and economic backwardness imposed on the country by imperialist domination. The young visitor to the Pathfinder booth said she found Sankara's legacy very much alive in the memories of the peasants she worked with. She bought a copy of Thomas Sankara Speaks and expressed interest in contacting the Pathfinder bookstore in Stockholm for more discussion.

A buyer for the International Library in Stockholm purchased all the titles available at the Pathfinder booth in French and told team members that the books will be sent to a library in Mali. She wrote in the visitor's book: "Thomas Sankara in French is demanded in his neighbor country, Mali. Malcolm X is a big name but few have the possibility to get hold of what he said in his own words. That capitalism may not be the solution to all problems is something not widely discussed today in a country like Mali. Jack Barnes can give some counterarguments when capitalism is presented as the 'solution.'"

Many visitors to the booth wanted to discuss the attacks in New York and Washington on September 11 and Washington's response to the events. This led to three fair goers purchasing Capitalism's World Disorder, as well as other titles. Members of the Young Muslims in Sweden had a stand at the fair and two young women staffing it came by to give us their statement defending the rights of Muslim peoples in wake of the attacks. They decided to buy the pamphlet Palestine and the Arabs' Fight for Liberation, a title that caught a lot of interest and discussion given the Israeli government's war against the Palestinian people. In all, eight copies were sold.

A total of 26 titles on the Cuban Revolution and the writings of Ernesto Che Guevara were sold, including 16 of the Swedish edition of Guevara's Socialism and Man in Cuba, which also contains the 1987 speech by Fidel Castro on the 20th anniversary of Che's death.

Three young men asked for a book in Swedish about the Cuban Revolution and decided to buy New International no. 2 in Swedish, which contains the article by Mary-Alice Waters Defending Cuba, Defending Cuba's Socialist Revolution. Another topic sparking discussion and interest was on women, with 13 books and pamphlets sold. Six purchased Is Biology Woman's Destiny? by Evelyn Reed and four bought Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle by Thomas Sankara. Altogether participants in the fair bought 114 books and pamphlets worth more than $800, up from $350 last year.

Birgitta Isacsson is a member of the Metalworkers union in Södertälje, Sweden. Dag Tirsén, Kristoffer Schultz, Johan Nilsson, and Claudio Burgos contributed to this article.
 
 
Related articles:
Join campaign to sell Pathfinder
Pathfinder plans ambitious sales campaign
 
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home