BY TED LEONARD

NEWARK, New Jersey - "Thank you for your efforts to print and circulate revolutionary literature worldwide. Enclosed is a check for $125 for your fund drive," wrote Juan Martínez from San Francisco.

The 10-week $125,000 Pathfinder Fund drive is aimed at raising the resources necessary to keep the nearly 300 titles published by Pathfinder Press in stock and in the hands of fighters around the world.

Supporters of the international fund in Seattle decided to raise their goal from $8,000 to $9,000. This effort, along with goals set in other areas, pushes the reprint fund total - from cities across the U.S. and around the world - to over $125,000.

Pathfinder supporters have sent in about $10,000 for the fund so far - 8 percent of the $125,000 goal. The figure should be 20 percent to be on target. "Careful weekly attention to collecting pledges and winning new contributors is the key to getting back on track," said Maggie Trowe, director of the fund. "We have a list of books we need to reprint in the next months, including some of our key titles, like The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes and The Bolivian Diary of Che Guevara. The money coming in is going directly to these efforts."

Supporters in Seattle are planning a fund-raising event October 26 to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian revolution. The program will highlight Pathfinder Press' recent reprinting of Leon Trotsky's The History of the Russian Revolution. The book, written by one of the Bolsheviks' central leaders, tells the story of the social, economic and political dynamics of the first socialist revolution.

Doug Jenness will be the featured speaker in Seattle. Jenness is the author of the Pathfinder booklet Farmers Face the Crisis of the 1990s. He also edited the booklet An Action Program to Confront the Coming Economic Crisis, which explains how a program to fight for jobs and affirmative action, and to combat imperialist pillage of the Third World is crucial to uniting working people internationally.

The Action Program is now being reprinted by Pathfinder. This will ensure that enough copies are in stock while a new edition, modeled after the new French-language edition, is designed and produced.

Mámud Shirvani, who co-authored the introduction to To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East, also published by Pathfinder, has been asked to speak at fund- raising events in Detroit and Miami. The Baku Congress - the complete record of Congress proceedings are contained in the book - was convened by the Communist International. 1920 was period of mass revolutionary struggles in surrounding Central Asia and in much of Europe -inspired by the 1917 workers and peasants victory in Russia - and gave hope of a new dawn for the world's toilers.

Shirvani will also speak at the grand opening of the Pathfinder bookstore in Newark, New Jersey, in its new storefront location.  
 
 
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