BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
The last days of the campaign to win 1,200 new readers to the Militant, 425 subscribers to its sister publication in Spanish, Perspectiva Mundial, and sell 550 copies of the Marxist magazine New International ended in a flurry of sales activities.

Activists reached out to workers and youth to build the regional socialist educational conferences at the end of November in four cities in the United States. Supporters of the socialist press wrapped up the campaign selling 499 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, going over the goal by 17 percent. Participants in the drive also sold 620 copies of New International, going 12 percent over that goal in the campaign. The Militant subscription sales, however, came up 58 shy of its goal, at 95 percent.

During the final target week, supporters in Seattle sold 20 Militant subscriptions, campaigners in San Francisco sold 21, and activists in St. Paul, Minnesota sold a whopping 28 subscriptions to the socialist newsweekly.

Socialist workers and youth in Chicago launched a concentrated effort in the target week, selling 24 Militant subscriptions and 23 copies of New International. "We were able to set up literature tables inside college campuses coming on the heels of the work we did building the tour of Cuban writer Norberto Codina," said Militant supporter Ray Parsons. "Regional teams got out to Champaign and Carbondale, Illinois where one youth joined the Young Socialists."

Parsons said they organized teams to sell at showings of the film The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, about the guerrilla campaign of Cuban revolutionary leader. "We sold two Militant subscriptions, three subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, eight copies of New International - six of which were the Spanish Nueva Internacional, and 12 copies of Che's Bolivian Diary published by Pathfinder Press."

Movie-goers also bought three copies of Guevara's Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and three copies of the Cuban magazine La Gaceta de Cuba. Parsons said the co-owner of a local bookstore who bought a Militant subscription and one copy of Nueva Internacional wants to discuss selling the socialist literature in her store.

Ron Poulsen from Australia and Eugen Lepou from New Zealand set up a sales table at the Solidarity of Labor Against APEC conference held in Manila November 22-23. The meeting was one of three conferences held in the Philippine capital to protest the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held November 25 in Subic Bay, a former U.S. naval base in the Philippines.

Lepou reported that a conference participant from Singapore who bought a subscription to the Militant remarked, "You guys have a lot of great stuff." She bought a copy of Che Guevara Speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings. By the end of the gathering, socialists sold 10 copies of New International, one subscription to the Militant and some 62 Pathfinder titles.

Sales were also great at the Miami Bookfair, held November 22-24, reports airline worker Janet Post. "The Pathfinder booth was a tremendous success, with volunteers selling 120 titles, including 16 copies of New International," she wrote. "We also sold four Militant subscriptions and five Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions.

"Interest was high in the Cuban revolution and literature on Cuba. One subscription to La Gaceta de Cuba, 13 copies of the Cuban publication, 8 copies of the Cuban weekly Granma International, and 24 books about Cuba were sold.

"Of the 120 books purchased, 80 were in English, 29 in Spanish, and 11 in French. We also distributed 500 business cards and 35 fair-goers signed up for more information. A few people came to the Pathfinder bookstore during the fair to see a showing of Land and Freedom, a film on the Spanish Revolution, at a program sponsored by the Militant Labor Forum.

"The biggest sellers at the fair were Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It by Leon Trotsky, The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, and Genocide against the Indians by George Novack. Sales totaled $1,300," Post concluded.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home