BY GREG ROSENBERG
OBERLIN, Ohio - Surrounding the Socialist Workers Party's 38th Constitutional Convention was an International Conference of Socialist Workers and Youth, jointly sponsored by the SWP and Young Socialists. The conference featured a literature and display center, workshops, and classes, along with social and entertainment events.
The literature and display area was a popular attraction. Built around the Pathfinder Press exhibit, the center included booths from the Young Socialists, the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, and the Mark Curtis Defense Committee.
"Mining our communist continuity" was the title of an exhibit highlighting the successful completion of the first stage of a project to index all of the SWP's internal bulletins and theoretical magazines. The exhibit drew a steady stream of conference participants.
A bound index incorporating six decades of communist writings from the party's theoretical magazines was on display at the booth. Visitors to the exhibit were also able to find out about the newly begun effort to scan all the materials from the magazines New International, Fourth International, and International Socialist Review and make these available to the public on CD-ROM.
Two new titles - a Spanish-language edition of In Defense of Marxism by Russian Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky and The Second Declaration of Havana in French - were unveiled at the Pathfinder display. In all, some 720 books were purchased during the four-day event, totaling more than $6,800.
Seventy-three conference participants picked up copies of Marxism and Terrorism by Trotsky, making it the top seller. This is a new edition of articles previously published under the title Against Individual Terrorism.
Conference participants also purchased 128 Education for Socialists bulletins. The top seller was Class, Party, and State, and the Eastern European Revolution - 23 copies were sold. Others at the top of the list also dealt with the workers states in Eastern Europe and China, and the history of workers and farmers governments in the modern epoch.
Selling the books workers need
Taking advantage of widespread opportunities to increase
the sales of Pathfinder books to workers and young people
was a theme that ran throughout the conference. Pathfinder
distributors in Los Angeles set an example of what is
possible over the previous three months, coinciding with an
international effort to boost sales of the Militant and
Perspectiva Mundial.
Over the course of April, May, and June they sold 91 copies of New International, a magazine of Marxist politics and theory distributed by Pathfinder, accounting for more than $1,000 in gross sales. Sales from the Los Angeles Pathfinder bookstore totaled $5,648 - an increase of 125 percent over the January-March figure of $2,507. The key, said Pathfinder distributor Craig Honts, was "fanning out across the city and region with our ideas."
Conference workshops centered on increasing the practical political activity and striking power of the communist movement, such as the experiences registered during the sales campaign in Los Angeles.
A workshop entitled "Communist Workers Talking Socialism on the Job" focused on the daily political activity of party members and supporters, from promoting books and the workingclass press to fellow workers in factories and mines, to providing timely coverage of political discussions as they unfold on the job, and combining political education along with activity in recruitment to the communist movement.
George Williams, an aerospace worker in Birmingham, Alabama, took the floor to explain how he and other socialist workers had sold 14 subscriptions to the Militant along with 6 copies of New International on the job during the spring. "We're 24-hour-a-day communists," Williams said, pointing out that he took the opportunity to discuss politics with all of his co-workers, not just those he thought might agree with him.
At another workshop participants discussed the success of the campaign to increase monthly financial contributions from supporters and friends as well as how to strengthen rooting the party in the industrial unions.
A third workshop focused on utilizing Pathfinder bookstores and work by Pathfinder sales reps in local areas to strengthen the communist movement, along with weekly Militant Labor Forums.
Participants in the "Reaching out politically" workshop discussed using the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial effectively, conducting socialist election campaigns, and working to defend Mark Curtis.
A series of well-attended classes included "Labor's Fight for a Sliding Scale of Hours and Wages," "Marxism and Terrorism," "Dynamics of the Cuban Revolution," "Women's Liberation and the Line of March of the Working Class," "Marx and Engels on Ireland: The Irish Freedom Struggle and the Building of the International Workingmen's Association," "The Socialist Workers Party in World War II," and "Immigrant Workers and the Seamen's Unions: from the California Gold Rush to the Korean War."
Members of the Young Socialists conducted a raffle during the conference that raised more than $1,800 to help finance building the socialist youth organization.