BY TED LEONARD

NEWARK, New Jersey - The $125,000 Pathfinder Fund is over the top. By the final deadline at noon, Tuesday, November 19, Pathfinder had collected $138,048.

The success of the drive was a result of the commitment of supporters in cities around the world to reach their quotas. Nearly every area that participated hit 100 percent, and many went substantially over.

In the Boston area, supporters went over their $6,000 goal by 24 percent, topping the list of U.S. cities. "There is an enormous appeal in the idea of contributing money to publish Pathfinder books," reported Andrea Morrell, who helped organize supporters of the International Pathfinder Reprint Fund drive in the Boston area.

Morrell explained that the key to their success was sending out a letter signed by a range of supporters in the area to a broad list of individuals. This was followed up with phone calls. Fifty-five individuals made contributions to the Pathfinder reprint fund from the area, and contributions continue to trickle in. "Pathfinder's reason for being," explains the Boston letter, "is to make available to those who are fighting for social justice today the political legacy of the modern international working-class movement."

The letter explains the stakes in the fund drive: "Achieving this fund in full will determine whether or not Pathfinder can move its currently slated reprints through the pipeline and into the streets, bookstores, lunchrooms and breakrooms, and onto campus and community tables - where they can be discovered by workers and youth looking for political orientation and inspiration."

One United Auto Workers member who got the letter approached a Pathfinder supporter at work, reached into his pocket, and gave a donation on the spot. In another case, a contributor sent a note in response to the letter along with some money that said, "Glad to help."

Contributions were also received from activists involved in the defense of the Cuban revolution.

Birgitta Isacsson reported from Sweden, where supporters led the international fund drive by going over their quota by 24 percent.

They launched the fund with an open house at the Pathfinder Bookstore in Stockholm on October 19. "We showed the Pathfinder Mural video and slides from different events in the world where we have participated with Pathfinder books, at different bookfairs in Tehran, Iran, Cuba, and Gothenburg, Sweden, as well as sales and reporting trips to Germany and Norway.

"Johan Nilsson, a member of the Young Socialists, told the meeting how he first found Pathfinder books at a booktable in the center of Stockholm and later came to the bookstore," Isacsson continued. Nilsson said, `I was first mostly interested in Malcolm X, but after also reading Fidel Castro I realize they are not so far away from each other. They both are for revolutionary change of the old society.'"

Isacsson went on to explain, "Several supporters had donated food for the buffet afterwards and together with contributions from members of the Pathfinder Readers Club who all got a letter which explained the need for money to the fund, we now have now raised $496."

Supporters of Pathfinder in London," according to Paul Davies, "raised $697 for the Pathfinder Reprint Fund at an event to celebrate the anniversary of the Russian revolution."

Pathfinder publishes Leon Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution, a vivid description of the course of the 1917 revolution told by one of its central leaders.

New Zealand supporters raised the most - $4,719 - of any area outside the U.S. They started their campaign off with a spirited meeting in September, and kept a steady pace of outreach that paid off in taking them over their $4,550 goal.

Fund director Maggie Trowe said, "The efforts of supporters in cities around the world to reach their quotas successfully is already paying off.

Since the beginning of the fund drive September 1, Pathfinder has reprinted nine books and three pamphlets, and has an equal number in production to deliver by the end of the year."

This week Pathfinder's printshop is planning to deliver the reprint The Founding of the Socialist Workers Party, Minutes and Resolutions 1938-39.

This book covers two conventions and surrounding leadership meetings in 1938-39 where revolutionists in the United States codified some 20 years of experience in building a communist party. Taking the name Socialist Workers Party, they reaffirmed the Marxist approach in the fight against the coming imperialist war, the spread of fascism across Europe, and attacks by the bosses at home.  
 
 
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