BY DAG TIRSÉN
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - I embarked on a three-day sales
trip April 7-9 to Oslo and Bergen, Norway, where customers
ordered more than 200 Pathfinder books and pamphlets. This
is more literature than we ever sold on any of the trips
organized from Stockholm, and shows some big opportunities.
The top sellers included 13 copies of The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, 10 copies of Woman's Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family by Evelyn Reed, eight copies of Guevara's Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War -1956-58, eight copies of The Origins of Materialism by George Novack, and six issues of the Marxist magazine New International. The hot-selling pamphlets were 10 copies of Marxism and Terrorism by Leon Trotsky and 10 copies of The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Several customers ordered seven copies of the upcoming Pathfinder book Pombo: A Man of Che's guerrilla.
April 7, Oslo
I went to the bookstore near the Oslo University
campus. It has been our largest commercial buyer in
Scandinavia for several years. I had an "agent room" and
representatives from the different departments visited me.
They place their orders on their computer system. A professor from the History and Politics department who was a big buyer from the last trip ordered 26 books and pamphlets, including five copies of Marxism and Terrorism and two copies of Malcolm X Talks to Young People. I sold a total of 53 Pathfinder titles on this first Oslo visit, which also included five copies of Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle by Thomas Sankara.
April 8, Bergen
This was the first time we have visited Bergen and it
was really worthwhile. At one campus bookstore, someone from
the Anthropology and Women's Literature departments ordered
16 Pathfinder titles. Another customer at the bookstore
wanted to order Ny International in Swedish. She had never
heard about Pathfinder and suggested we visit the Nordic
countries more often. She also wanted to copy pages from the
Pathfinder catalog for different teachers, mostly in the
Spanish department, who specialized in Latin American
studies.
April 9, Oslo
I dropped in to visit one bookstore where at first the
owner was negative, but he became more interested and
ordered 33 books - the first in several years from that
bookstore. I also took orders from a group of Chileans who
had formed a defense committee for political prisoners.
BY RON RICHARDS
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Socialists participated in four events over a two-week period here that ended on International Workers Day, May 1. Sales of the socialist literature totaled of 27 single copies of Perspectiva Mundial, five singles of the Militant, one subscription to PM, three copies of New International and 21 Pathfinder titles.
On April 19 a committee of the U.S. Congress held hearings in San Juan on a proposed bill that would result in a plebiscite in 1998 over the future of this colony. The three political parties that appear on the ballot all organized rallies in the same general area as the hearing. The demonstration of the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP) had about 1,000 people. The marches of the pro- statehood and status quo parties had between 5,000 and 10,000 people. Sales at the PIP event included six copies of Perspectiva Mundial, three of the Militant, and six Pathfinder titles.
On April 25 the Socialist Front organized a forum to discuss the proposed law of Gov. Pedro Rosselló that would legalize unions among public sector workers. Currently, government workers have no right to collective bargaining. Participants in the forum bought three copies of Perspectiva Mundial and one issue of the Militant.
On April 27 the National Hostos Congress (CNH) held its assembly in Ponce. The CNH is the second largest pro- independence organization and groups together virtually all the pro-independence forces with the exception of the PIP. About 600 people attended the assembly. There we sold three copies of New International, 15 Pathfinder titles, and one single copy each of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial.
Some 10,000 people participated in the annual celebration of International Worker's Day on May 1. It was the largest march of workers in San Juan since the 1990 general strike that drew 100,000 people and prevented the government from selling the telephone company. The Rosselló administration recently announced plans to sell the telephone company and close government-owned hotels that it claims are losing money. May Day was the first public response of the workers. We sold 17 copies of Perspectiva Mundial at the demonstration. BY DEBORAH LIATOS
NEW YORK - Socialist workers in the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees (UNITE) sold 36 Pathfinder titles to co-workers last month. The hottest sellers at the Lord West garment shop in Queens were books and pamphlets by Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin. Five workers at Lord West bought 12 books. Some had read titles by the Lenin before and others were reading his material for the first time.
The literature sold there included Wage Labor and Capital and Value, Price and Profit by Marx; On Colonialism, by Marx and Engels; two copies of One Step Forward, Two Steps Back; Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, and Who Are The Friends of the People, by Lenin; two copies of Sendero Luminoso, Evolution of a Stalinist Sect by Martín Koppel; An Action Program to Confront the Coming Economic Crisis; Intensify the Struggle to Abolish Apartheid by Nelson Mandela; and Why Is Mark Curtis Still in Prison? by Naomi Craine. All the titles sold were in Spanish.