BY MAURICE WILLIAMS
"Eight people participating in the Federation of Pro- Independence University Students (FUPI) Congress bought subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial," said Rollande Girard. The organization was celebrating its 24th Congress March 27-29 in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico. She said participants at the gathering also purchased two copies of The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara, two copies of Puerto Rico: U.S. Colony in the Caribbean, and eight other Pathfinder titles.

"Several of the youth who stopped by our literature table had been in Cuba for the 14th World Festival of Youth and Students and others were planning to go there in May as part of an exchange between the FUPI and the Union of Young Communist of Cuba," Girard stated. "Many of the 100 people at the event said they never met people from the United States who supported independence for Puerto Rico, and they expressed interest in what communist workers and youth do in the United States."

These are the kind of anti-imperialist fighters Militant supporters aim to reach through the international drive to sell subscriptions to the socialist weekly and its sister magazine Perspectiva Mundial in Spanish. Supporters of the socialist press are preparing a two-week special sales effort starting April 4 and ending April 19 to put the international subscription campaign back on track, which has slipped 7 percent behind schedule. Participating in events like the FUPI congress and organizing consistent sales activities among workers and young people in struggle highlight how supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial can take advantage of political opportunities open right now to reverse this trend and win new readers to the socialist press.

Socialist workers in Miami, who organized the sales and reporting team to Puerto Rico, "strive to have consistent teams going door-to-door in the Black and working-class communities," wrote Angel Lariscy in a note to the Militant. "A regional sales team went to Tampa last weekend to sell door-to-door near the Air Force base and at the University of South Florida, where they sold one Militant subscription and 21 copies of the paper, including four issues sold to active- duty GIs."

"We went to visit the Maple Leaf meat-packers who recently ended their strike in Burlington, Ontario, and sold two subscriptions," said Rosemary Ray from Toronto. "One of the new subscribers also bought the Pathfinder book The Truth About Yugoslavia - Why Working People Should Oppose Intervention."

Many Militant supporters have reported that some of their co-workers are from Yugoslavia, Albania, and elsewhere in that region. The Militant's coverage from the recent reporting trip to the Balkans can be a special attraction, and anyone who subscribers can buy the book The Truth About Yugoslavia for a special price of $5. New subscribers can also take advantage of a special offer to buy The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions - in English, Spanish, or French - for $15 when the sign up.

Ray said the two meat-packers have been invited to attend the April 10-12 convention of the Communist League in Canada and the concurrent socialist conference (see ad on page 6). "We invited some Tamils to the convention who are involved in fighting the deportation of a Tamil refugee," she added. Tamils, an oppressed nationality in Sri Lanka, are fighting for self-determination on the southeast Asian island. The Young Socialists are also building the convention by setting up a class on the Cuban revolution at York University.

Janice Lynn in Washington, D.C. reports activists there participated in several events last week where they sold 10 Militant subscriptions and 10 copies of various issues of the Marxist magazine New International (in French, English, and Spanish) and some 60 Pathfinder titles worth $650.

"On March 25 several thousand Albanians demonstrated calling for independence for Kosovo," Lynn wrote. "One Militant supporter sold 22 single copies of the paper and two subscriptions. While one of the official demands of the demonstration was for NATO intervention, participants were glad to see a paper that supported their independence struggle. Two people from the demonstration came to a Militant Labor Forum later in the week for further discussions on the fight of Albanians for an independent Kosovo."

Lynn said a Militant supporter from Boston joined the D.C. sales team at the March 27 "Jericho 1998"demonstration. More than 3,000 people, overwhelmingly young, rallied at the White House demanding amnesty and the release of political prisoners in the United States. The team sold 10 subscriptions and 29 Pathfinder titles there, mostly to high school and college students.

"We sold 26 copies of the Militant to workers at the plant gate of Case Corp. in Burlington, Iowa," reports Ray Parsons, a member of United Steelworkers of America in Des Moines, Iowa. "We found that at least 15 of these workers knew the paper from getting it before, or from seeing it around the plant, and so they got their money out as soon as they saw we were there. One worker said he had bought a subscription on his own recently. In four plant gate sales we have sold nearly 100 copies of the paper and two subscriptions."

Militant supporters in Des Moines are organizing a regional sales team to packinghouses, working-class communities, and campuses in the Midwest April 18-25. Anyone interested in joining can contact them through the listing on page 12.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home