BY MAGGIE PUCCI
Pathfinder, located in New York with distributors in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, publishes books and pamphlets by revolutionary and working-class leaders. Pathfinder bookstores are listed in the directory on page 12.
BY MAGGIE PUCCI
In cooperation with the Swedish PEN-club, the Salman Rushdie Committee, Reporters Without Borders, and the organization Article 19 in London, the theme of the 11th Gothenburg bookfair was freedom of expression. About 100,000 people - more than any previous year - visited the fair, which is a big cultural event in Sweden every year. Organizers of the fair estimate that 70 percent of the visitors were women.
For the fourth year in a row, a team of Pathfinder supporters from Sweden and the United Kingdom set up a booth from October 26-29. "The social crisis in Sweden and international events like Cuban leader Fidel Castro's visit to New York were on people's minds," reported Brigitta Isaccson from Stockholm. "That explains the impact the big displays had on people passing by."
The booth featured displays on Ny International no. 2, containing the article "Imperialism's March toward Fascism and War," and To Speak the Truth: Why Washington's `Cold War' against Cuba Doesn't End. Ny International, a Swedish- language magazine of Marxist politics and theory, carries many articles also published in New International.
Among the 12 people who purchased Ny International no. 2, published this past spring, were two teachers from Svalov, a small community in southern Sweden. "This is exactly what we need to get some discussions going about the world we are living in today," said one teacher.
Interest was high in titles on the origins of women's oppression and the road to liberation. Five books and one pamphlet by Evelyn Reed were sold. "A young man saw the display of Sexism and Science," Isaccson wrote, "but since it was already sold out he bought Problems of Women's Liberation instead so as to, as he said, `get more knowledge about women's liberation.' "
Many young people wanted to discuss the differences in political perspectives of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, resulting in sales of 12 items by Malcolm X, including three copies of the book Malcolm X Talks to Young People.
The growing number of immigrant workers in Sweden was reflected in sales of titles in Farsi. Opening Guns of World War III in Farsi sold out in the first hours of the fair. This book contains the lead article in issue no. 7 of New International, published after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 1991. One woman bought this book for her husband as well as Ny International no. 2 in Swedish.
A young woman who had organized an antiracist group in Hjo, a small village in the south of Sweden, was interested in arranging a time when volunteers from the Pathfinder bookshop in Stockholm could bring a selection of the books to her village. She picked up a copy of Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky. A young Kurd from the north of Iraq bought the pamphlet Too Many Babies? The Myth of the Population Explosion by Joseph Hansen and Socialism and Man in Cuba by Che Guevara in Swedish.
Thirty-nine books and 23 pamphlets were sold, totaling
$760.
Tony Hunt from London recently visited three university
towns in Denmark, placing 71 books and pamphlets in
bookshops, academic departments, and with book distributors
in Aarhus, Odense, and Roskilde. "You haven't changed your
publishing policy; that's good," commented a bookseller in
Aarhus who ordered 25 books from Hunt.
The buyer at the university bookshop in Aarhus ordered 16 books, including The Origins of Materialism by George Novack, Woman's Evolution by Reed, and Problems of Everyday Life by Trotsky. He placed this order after explaining he thought there was a reluctance to read the writings and speeches of working-class leaders since Marxists had once dominated Denmark's university departments.
"A book distributor in Aarhus who supplies the Political Science department at the university placed an order for 18 books and pamphlets, which will be exhibited at the department for students and faculty to order," wrote Hunt. Among the titles were The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes, The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, and The History of American Trotskyism by James P. Cannon. The manager of the bookshop at Roskilde University placed a small order, including To See the Dawn, and asked for some catalogs to show to teachers at the university.
A review by Jurgen Tampke of To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920 - First Congress of the Peoples of the East appeared in an issue of International Scientific Correspondence of the History of the German Workers Movement earlier this year.
To See the Dawn is the fifth volume in the series The Communist International in Lenin's Time. This series presents documents and proceedings of the congresses of the Communist International held under the leadership of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The volumes published to date cover the preparatory years from 1907 to 1918, and the first and second congresses in 1919 and 1920. The historic meeting in Baku was the first congress of the peoples of the East.
"The congress opened on August 31 [1920] and closed September 7. The mood was buoyant and most speakers called for the end of imperialism and for the consolidation or establishment of soviet power," Tampke said in the review. "As history was to show the optimism of the congress was unwarranted. Stalin and Stalinism...killed the spirit of Baku. It is only now, according to [editors] John Riddell and Ma'mud Shirvani - with the Soviet Empire gone, that the struggle of the exploited people of the earth will recommence, as current events show."