BY LAURA GARZA
It will be a race to the finish line, but supporters of the socialist press organized to speed up for the last mile of the international campaign to get 1,950 new subscribers to the Militant. A note faxed in from Des Moines, Iowa, November 15 said supporters there made the goals they took for winning 50 new readers to the Militant newspaper and for selling 20 copies of the Marxist magazine New International. More than half the magazines sold were Spanish-language editions bought by workers in meatpacking plants in the area.
In one week, supporters of the socialist press in Des Moines sold 12 introductory subscriptions to the Militant. They were moving ahead to get the remaining Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions they need and to surpass all their goals. At a reportback meeting on the August women's conference in Beijing in Davenport, Iowa, socialist workers from Des Moines and Peoria, Illinois, joined forces and sold eight subscriptions.
This is what it will take to meet all the international goals - keeping up the pace of selling the socialist press through to November 19, the last day of the drive, and exceeding local goals wherever possible. As we go to press, we need to sell 480 more subscriptions to the Militant, 66 to Perspectiva Mundial, and 275 copies of the New International magazine to make the international targets. After seven weeks we have 75 percent of the goal, and we should be at 88 percent. Socialist workers and youth from Brooklyn to Sweden are in the race to close the gap, with plans for persistent sales activity to the end.
Cheers in Brooklyn
Half a dozen teams fanned out in Brooklyn on Sunday,
November 12, to show the Militant door-to-door in working-
class areas. When they returned to the Pathfinder Bookstore
and socialist headquarters, cheers and clapping erupted as
teams reported their success. In all, 16 new Militant
subscribers and 3 readers of Perspectiva Mundial had been
won and Brooklyn was back on target in the drive.
Supporters of the Militant in Brooklyn immediately began
planning a celebration party to start when teams return
from a full day of socialist campaigning on the last day of
the drive. In the meantime, they are working hard to
surpass all their goals.
In Stockholm supporters have gone through student dorms for the last few weekends, netting 5 Militant subscriptions and selling 40 single copies of the Militant. They report that on the last weekend they began to run out of papers, and were happy to find a great interest among Spanish- speaking students in reading Perspectiva Mundial. They have reached the goals they set for selling Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions and New International magazines and are concentrating on the Militant. For the last week of the drive, they organized a team to the south of Sweden where a young Cuban is on a speaking tour.
Supporters in Morgantown, West Virginia, took two days and set up tables at Virginia Tech and Radford University in western Virginia, gaining 12 new Militant readers and selling 2 copies of New International. Members of Amnesty International at both campuses helped the socialists get permission for a literature display. They and other students invited the socialists for discussions over dinner and offered to house them.
The interest among students in socialist ideas was also evident to supporters in Washington, D.C., who fielded their first all-day team to American University on November 8. They sold seven Militant subscriptions there, one New International, and a number of books about Cuba.
Sales to industrial workers
From Salt Lake City we got a note saying that workers at
Magnesium Corporation of America had received leaflets
produced by striking steelworkers in Warren, Ohio. The same
boss owns the Ohio plant and Mag Corp. The coverage of the
workers' victory in gaining a new contract was of great
interest, and eight copies of the Militant were sold at a
recent plant gate sale at Mag Corp.
In Canada, eight introductory subscriptions to the Militant were sold to unionists attending a national policy conference of the United Steelworkers of America in Vancouver October 30-November 1. Delegates were interested in the coverage in support of sovereignty for Quebec, and on support for the Cuban revolution.
The many workers, youth, students, and activists who have decided to try out the Militant in the last seven weeks highlight why socialists organize drives to sell the press. Communist workers and youth have a better idea of what people are interested in discussing and have honed their skills at explaining the working-class point of view on a wide range of topics through selling the paper at events and demonstrations, as well as speaking with workers in their neighborhoods and on campuses.
After the drive, supporters of the socialist press will continue to have opportunities to meet new people interested in reading a working-class paper and other revolutionary literature. The information on what neighborhoods are good and which campuses have students willing to help get permission for tables to be set up can be incorporated in the regular routine of selling the socialist press every week. While the pace may be more modest than in the midst of the all-out effort made during special subscription campaigns, maintaining a weekly organized schedule of sales activity is a key to being an active part of political life in each city.
Supporters in every area that participated in the sales drive have lists of people who want to be invited to weekly forums, to discussion classes organized by the Young Socialists, and to join in political action, from supporting striking workers to marching against the death penalty.
Events organized around the holidays can allow time for discussions with the youth and workers we met who want to talk about how to fight to change society, and are interested in reading books that have lessons of working- class struggles from the past. Many of them will be ready to come to regional educational conferences that are being planned in several areas in the country over the New Year's weekend.
The final results of the international campaign to win new readers will be published in the next issue of the Militant. Because of Thanksgiving, that issue will be printed a day early.
All subscriptions in our office by Monday evening, November 20, will be counted. If you can't get your last subscriptions into our office by mail on time, send us a fax copy of the subscriptions and the checks that you have put in the mail by Monday at 6 p.m. We will count those for the final scoreboard, along with any reports received on the total number of New Internationals each area has sold.