BY GREG McCARTAN

A steady stream of books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder will be coming off the presses in October. Several titles out of stock for years will be available again, including Crisis of the French Section (1935-36) by Leon Trotsky; Leon Trotsky on China; and The Chinese Communist Party in Power by P'eng Shu-tse.

Editors of New International have announced that the Spanish-language Nueva Internacional no. 4 and French-language Nouvelle Internationale no. 5, which both contain translations of "Imperialism's march toward fascism and war" by Jack Barnes, also be available again soon.

Top on the list of reprints is The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions. This book was first published in 1981, and put out in a new expanded edition in 1994. Since then some 1,600 copies have been sold by communist workers and young socialists.

"This reprint will be a real celebration," said Maggie Trowe, who organizes the print shop. "We call this a handbook for workers because it shows how through our struggles and resistance, tens of millions of workers revolutionize themselves, their unions and all of society. The book helps working people see why the industrial working class is the target of the capitalist rulers as they try to resolve their unfolding economic and social crisis.

"It also explains why it is possible and necessary for a revolutionary working-class movement to develop. A movement that will take up broad social questions, like the fight against racism and for women's equality, as it battles the assault of the rulers and ultimately wrests power from them. Each book we reprint aids that process and helps in the construction of a working-class vanguard."

Books on Chinese revolution
The two books on China will be an aid for those seeking a deeper understanding of the dynamics of the Chinese revolution and its impact on world politics. They are also a school on Stalinist policies in the midst of gigantic revolutionary struggles.

In 1925-27 a powerful revolutionary upsurge shook the cities and countryside of China, posing the possibility for working people in that country to take political power and follow the road of the October 1917 revolution in Russia.

But the revolution was crushed at the hands of Chiang Kai- shek and his allies. A central cause of the defeat was the disastrous course of Joseph Stalin in subordinating the Chinese Communist Party to an alliance with the capitalist Chinese Nationalist Party, or Kuomintang. In the Soviet Union, Stalin had become the chief spokesperson for a privileged bureaucratic social layer who drove workers and peasants from power. This bureaucracy, utilizing the political prestige and influence won in the workers movement by the Bolshevik party under Lenin, sought to defend its position by subverting revolutionary struggles around the world.

Leon Trotsky on China reprints the articles and letters written by Trotsky, a central leader of the Russian revolution, as part of a fight to reverse this course and to draw the lessons of this defeat. The book also contains Trotsky's comments from the 1930s on the centrality of China's struggle against Japanese and U.S. imperialism, and his observations on the Chinese peasant army under Mao Zedong.

The Chinese Communist Party in Power contains interviews and articles by P'eng Shu-tse, a founding member and leader of China's Communist Party who fought to continue the policies of the Bolshevik party under Lenin and opposed the anti-Marxist course of Mao. P'eng writes on the battle to topple the Chiang Kai-shek regime, the overturning of capitalism in China, and the sweeping changes in social relations that resulted from the revolution. P'eng documents the growing bureaucratic deformations of the revolution under Mao, including on the "People's Communes" initiated in 1958 and the so-called Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

Those interested in reading more can also find a Marxist trove in the Education for Socialists bulletin The Chinese Revolution and Its Development, which reprints resolutions of the Socialist Workers Party and writings by the party's central leaders on China in the 1950s and 1960s.

On the class struggle in France
The tumultuous events continuing in France have given rise to more interest in Pathfinder's titles on the class struggle and party building in that country. Pathfinder recently reprinted Leon Trotsky on France, and is now getting back into print The Crisis of the French Section (1935-36).

The latter book is about the struggle to build a proletarian party in France in the heat of the big battles in the 1930s. In the mid-1930s France became the key battle ground of the class struggle in Europe, and the working class was heading toward explosive struggles with the capitalists, their government, and organized rightist forces emboldened by Hitler's victory in Germany. The struggle reached a peak in May-June 1936, with a massive wave of strikes and factory occupations involving 2 million workers-one-fourth of all wage earners.

The book is made up of articles and letters by Trotsky, who had been driven into exile by Stalin, to young militants expelled in 1935 from the rightward-moving Socialist Party of France, explaining the kind of party that must be built to lead a socialist revolution.

Trotsky discusses a range of political, tactical, and practical questions of party building relevant to today. He emphasizes the irreplaceable role of a political program in forging a communist organization, and how millions of workers can be won to its banner.  
 
 
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