BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Many Pathfinder supporters have written in to describe the great response they received in January to the special sale of books and pamphlets by Karl Marx, Frederick Engels and V.I. Lenin. The Collected Works of all three revolutionary leaders, and a broad list of other titles, were available at 50 to 60 percent off the regular price to members of the Pathfinder Readers Club through January 31.

Distributors in Pittsburgh sold four sets of the Collected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels and one set of the Collected Works of V.I. Lenin. In Montreal, two sets of Lenin's Collected Works were sold. As they began more consciously promoting these works, distributors in Montreal sold 20 single titles by the aforementioned authors, as well as books by Leon Trotsky, a central leader of the 1917 Russian revolution. Supporters of Pathfinder books in other cities had similar experiences. Alabama supporters set up a table at Auburn University and sold a full set of works by Marx and Engels to a student there. Another student bought three volumes of that set. In all, 27 of the 53 titles supporters there sold were by Marx, Engels or Lenin. Books carrying speeches by Malcolm X were the next most popular.

The Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists in New York have sponsored weekly classes on readings by Marx, Engels, and Lenin and, for the first time in at least half a year, sent out a mailing informing all 150 readers club members in the city. This turned out to be fruitful as a worker who lives near the Pathfinder bookstore came to one of the classes and put a down payment on the collected writings of Marx and Engels; and Lenin.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, communist airline workers sold The Wages System by Engels, Genesis of Capital by Marx, and Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin to their co-workers. Socialist distributors in Washington, D.C., sold a set of Marx's and Engels' collected works to a 28-year-old supporter of the Irish freedom struggle. Six new members were signed on to the readers club in that city. Some 37 books, or more than half the monthly goal there, were sold by volunteers staffing the local Pathfinder bookstore.

The largest events that brought in gusts of book sales in January were showings of a movie about the guerrilla campaign led by Ernesto Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967. In at least two cities, socialists were permitted to set up tables inside the theatre. In San Francisco 116 books were sold. In New York, $500 worth of titles were sold at the movie when it played in Huntington, Long Island - about an hour's drive from New York City. After the movie there was an open discussion in the theatre that socialist workers were able to join. While there they met a young worker at the concession stand who bought Ernesto Che Guevara's Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War, and Socialism and Man in Cuba.

Cindy Jaquith in Detroit, wrote, "The Detroit Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists held an open house to get together with Militant and Perspectiva Mundial subscribers, as well as readers club members. They sold 10 books, including The Changing Face of U.S. Politics."

Ron Richards, in a recent trip to Vieques, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico, wrote, "Most of the Vieques residents have never seen Perspectiva Mundial before and many thought that the $2.50 price was very high." He cited the high unemployment and wages lower than Puerto Ricós. Nonetheless, at a protest there 13 people bought copies of the Spanish-language monthly. One woman at the protest, visiting from Allentown, Pennsylvania, recognized the Militant. "I have never been to a protest where they weren't selling the Militant," she told Richards as she bought one for herself.  
 
 
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