BY NAOMI CRAINE

On the first weekend of October socialist workers, Young Socialists, and other distributors and readers of the Militant begin a six-week subscription drive. Their aim is to win 1,200 new readers to the socialist newsweekly, 425 subscribers to its sister publication in Spanish Perspectiva Mundial, and sell 550 copies of the Marxist magazine New International.

The drive begins October 5 and ends November 17, which coincides with the last weeks of the U.S. presidential election campaign and the final two months of the Young Socialists recruitment drive to double their membership from 80 to 160. The subscription effort can reinforce socialist election campaigning and sales of Pathfinder books and pamphlets, and thus recruitment to the YS.

Discussion of political questions arising out of the U.S. presidential elections makes the Militant an invaluable resource for thinking workers and rebel-minded youth. Each week the socialist paper analyzes the concrete developments in bourgeois politics and in the bipartisan drive by the White House and Congress against workers' rights -from the passage of the anti-labor "Defense of Marriage Act" to the reasons for the demise of the so-called Republican revolution.

The Militant also covers the resistance to capitalist austerity by workers and oppressed peoples around the world. It champions the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, takes the side of workers resisting cuts in social programs in France and Germany, and supports fights for affirmative action and equal rights for immigrants. Workers and young people who decide to read the Militant every week - or Perspectiva Mundial every month in Spanish - get a better understanding of the world today and how they can be part of the struggle to change it.

In addition to selling introductory subscriptions to the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, an important side of the sales drive is sales of hundreds of copies of New International. The issues of this Marxist magazine, available in English, French, Spanish, and Swedish, are invaluable for understanding the class issues in politics today. What's behind the explosive struggles in the Mideast? What are the dynamics of the bipartisan campaign against entitlements? Why does Washington despise the Cuban revolution? What is the meaning of the latest revelations about CIA involvement in drug dealing and the counterrevolutionary war against the Nicaraguan revolution in the 1980s? These and other big questions in politics today can best be understood by reading and studying New International.

Each copy of New International sold counts toward the monthly goals socialists have adopted for selling books and pamphlets published and distributed by Pathfinder. A central aim of the sales drive is to achieve the subscription targets while also meeting these monthly book goals.

Next week's Militant will run a chart of the goals adopted by supporters in each city, as well as those of socialist workers in the industrial unions for sales to fellow workers on the job. Along with coverage of efforts to sell Pathfinder books, we will be reporting weekly on the progress of the subscription drive. Readers are encouraged to send short articles on what they are doing.

The article from Los Angeles below gives a good example of the possibilities to sell Militant subscriptions along with dozens of Pathfinder books and single copies of the socialist periodicals. BY CRAIG HONTS

LOS ANGELES - The Pathfinder literature table at the debate between ultrarightist David Duke and Los Angeles civil rights figure Joe Hicks became a center of political discussion for many participants. People crowded around before, during, and after the September 25 forum. Candidates and supporters of the Southern California Socialist Workers campaign sold 22 copies of the Militant, 17 Pathfinder titles, and a subscription to the Militant. In the days prior to the debate, campaign activists and Young Socialists sold 24 copies of the Militant, 2 subscriptions, and 7 Pathfinder titles.

On September 28, literature tables at two different protests against anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 bustled with political discussion. Supporters of the socialist press sold 17 Pathfinder titles and 20 copies of the Militant. Nearly $400 worth of revolutionary literature has been sold at recent affirmative action protests.

Also on September 28, at a Town Meeting in the Black community on CIA, contra, cocaine connections, a socialist campaign team sold 55 copies of the Militant and 3 Pathfinder titles. Campaigners also distributed 1,000 copies of a statement demanding the U.S. government release all files linked to the charges, and the arrest and prosecution of U.S. officials complicit in the contra drug trade. "People were snapping up those leaflets," said Ollie Bivins, a McDonnell Douglas worker who sold the Militant to waiting lines of hundreds of community residents. "They were hungry for ideas."

Supporters of the Militant sold 136 copies and five subscriptions to the participants attending the National Political Convention in St. Louis September 27-29.  
 
 
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