BY PAUL MAILHOT AND ARGIRIS MALAPANIS
SEATTLE - Volunteers from around the world will soon be making a major new contribution to keeping in print the entire backlist of titles produced by Pathfinder Press - key pieces of the political arsenal of communism. Working with the editorial and business staff of Pathfinder - and in tandem with steps by those in its print shop to employ direct-to-printing-plate technology - supporters of the communist movement are organizing to not only scan and proofread the text of some 250 books and pamphlets, but to also use desktop publishing to put the manuscripts in final form.

Participants in the regional socialist conference held here in Seattle January 24 - 25 are among the first to respond to the challenge posed by Socialist Workers Party national secretary Jack Barnes during his talk to the meeting to help revolutionize the way Pathfinder books are produced.

The big majority of Pathfinder's book list was produced before the computer era, and only about one quarter of the publisher's 350 titles are in some kind of digital form. Many of those are not yet formatted to go directly to printing press plates. Enlisting the help of supporters of the communist movement worldwide to scan and proof Pathfinder books, and then turn those digital files into final page layouts, will make it possible to do the type of quick-turnaround, short-run printing that can bring the books and pamphlets out rapidly, efficiently, and at lower cost, by saving labor time.

Havana book fair, Cairo meeting
The importance of keeping the pipeline of revolutionary literature flowing was central to the political perspectives advanced through the main presentations and discussions at the Seattle conference.

Mary-Alice Waters, editor of the Marxist magazine New International, gave the opening talk on "100 Years of Struggle against Yankee Imperialism: The Weight of the Cuban Revolution in a World of Growing Capitalist Disorder."

Waters is leading a Militant reporting team over the next few weeks to cover political developments in Cuba, including the Havana book fair, which opened February 4. Pathfinder supporters from Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, and the United Kingdom who are organizing the booth at the fair took part in the Seattle gathering, in addition to Militant reporters from the United States.

The conference served as a send-off rally for the socialists participating in the Havana event. At the opening of his presentation on "The Siren Call of Economic Nationalism: Washington's March Toward Fascism and War," Jack Barnes introduced the reporters and book fair team to all those in the audience.

He also introduced the Young Socialists leadership delegation that will take part in a meeting in Cairo, Egypt, in early March and report for the Militant on the response in the Middle East and North Africa to Washington's war moves against Iraq. The Cairo meeting will assess the World Festival of Youth and Students that took place in Cuba last summer and will discuss the next steps in building an anti-imperialist youth movement.

Campaign against imperialist war
The world that working-class fighters seek to change, Barnes said, is marked by intensifying economic rivalry and sharpening conflicts among international capital's most powerful, armed states and between them and the workers states of Russia and China. It is marked by the growing internal vulnerability of the capitalist system - from Asia and Latin America to imperialist Europe. In a summary report to the meeting, the SWP leader pointed out that the U.S. rulers' course toward war against the Iraqi people had become unambiguous during the weekend the socialist conference was taking place.

News reports on Sunday morning, January 25, confirmed that consensus was building in Washington that U.S. and British forces in the Arab-Persian Gulf were only a few weeks away from launching a bombing campaign against Iraq - one they intended to be more devastating than the bombardment during "Desert Storm," the U.S.-led slaughter of Iraqi people in 1991. Over the days that followed, the debate among capitalist politicians leapfrogged to what the U.S. government will do next - including possible deployment of ground troops - to weaken or even topple the Iraqi regime.

Under these conditions, Barnes said, a party of worker- bolsheviks extends and deepens its orientation to the working class, the only class that can eventually lead the toilers to take power out of the hands of the war makers, transforming both the world and themselves in the process. Barnes cited the statement by founding SWP leader James P. Cannon - in 1940, on the eve of Washington's entry into World War II -that: "Preparation for war means, for us, not some esoteric special task. It means turning the face of the party to the workers, penetrating deeper into the trade unions, [and proletarianizing] the composition of the party membership."

The bloody bombing assault planned against Iraq is a good reason why revolutionary minded workers and other fighters should join the Young Socialists and the SWP.

Coming out of the communist movement's working-class campaign against imperialism and war during Washington's first assault on Iraq in 1990 -91, the SWP national convention in June 1991 adopted a report by party leader Mary-Alice Waters on "Extending the arsenal of communist propaganda and reconquering the apparatus through revolutionary centralism." That report reaffirmed the political centrality of maintaining a print shop capable of producing and improving the growing arsenal of communist books and pamphlets that were needed to carry out that campaign

"How would the party respond to the political test of war?" - that was the question confronting the communist movement when Washington unleashed its murderous firepower against the Iraqi people, Waters said in that 1991 report. "In very large measure the party passed that test, with the [industrial union] fractions helping to lead the way."

The movement's printing and publishing apparatus "responded, too," Waters said, "and led in the way it is organized to do. When the party needed weapons to carry out the campaign, the apparatus produced.. [I]f ever there was a time when the importance of our apparatus confirmed itself in action, it was the six months during Washington's first moves toward war against Iraq."

As Washington counts down to another attempted slaughter against the Iraqi people, the effort to draw in reinforcements to take command of several steps in the production process of Pathfinder books will help the print shop keep on the footing necessary to meet the growing need and demand for revolutionary literature.

Among the immediate challenges Pathfinder faced was going back to press with U.S. Hands Off the Mideast! Cuba Speaks Out at the United Nations, a title produced in the heat of Washington's war preparations in the fall of 1990. Issue no. 7 of the Marxist magazine New International - on "Washington's Assault on Iraq: The Opening Guns of World War III" - must also be reprinted to meet a sudden increase in orders.

Organizing the quick and quality printing of such titles, as political events dictate a rapid response, will be greatly facilitated by having all of Pathfinder's books in digital form - just a few computer keystrokes away from plates that can be put on the presses.

Bottoming out of working-class retreat
Advancing along this course is necessitated by broader and longer-term political considerations than Washington's current war moves, however. It flows from the perspectives the Socialist Workers Party adopted at its June 1997 convention.

The conclusions of the SWP convention, Barnes said in Seattle, underlined that the retreat of the working class has bottomed out, including in the United States, Europe, and most other imperialist countries. Today, there are more than enough workers and youth involved in struggles for the communist movement to grow. From France to Brazil and the United States, workers, farmers and young people are resisting the capitalist rulers' demands for sacrifice, and scoring some victories.

Having the type of political weapons that will arm fighters with the lessons of working-class struggles and help recruit them to communism is indispensable. The youth who have already joined the Young Socialists, and those who continue to be attracted to communist politics, are a testament to the correctness of the decision to upgrade the way revolutionary literature is produced and kept in print.

The efforts of supporters of the communist movement to produce digital manuscripts of Pathfinder's backlist will be mirrored by steps the Pathfinder staff will take to prepare and electronically format the new books and pamphlets it releases each year. The Pathfinder staff will also take responsibility to work with volunteers on quality control of the reprints, in order to maintain the high standards of the books it produces for the working-class movement.

The Seattle meeting followed similar conferences organized in Chicago; Birmingham, Alabama; and Toronto. These gatherings helped draw supporters of the communist movement toward greater involvement in advancing its work.

Supporters respond
"We are in a position right now, because of the conferences that have just been held, to do it right - for the first time," said Ruth Cheney in a letter responding to the political opportunities - and consequent challenges - that Barnes had explained in his talk and summary at the Seattle gathering. Cheney is one of the volunteers in San Francisco who has been organizing the scanning and proofreading of Pathfinder books there.

Like Cheney, many supporters of the communist movement attended the Seattle conference and took part in the discussion during the sessions and informally. Twenty-two signed up at the meeting to help digitize Pathfinder books.

Taking a qualitative new step to produce Pathfinder books can only be accomplished with the active involvement of supporters of the communist movement around the world - from New Zealand to the United States, from Canada to the United Kingdom and beyond.

Volunteers in the San Francisco Bay Area have enthusiastically agreed to be the organizing center for this worldwide effort. These Bay Area volunteers themselves have already scanned and proofread nine manuscripts for Pathfinder over the past year or so, and they are working on several more.

Socialist Workers Party leader Norton Sandler, a member of the International Association of Machinists in San Francisco, has taken on the responsibility to work directly with the volunteer organizers there. A committee in New York organized by Militant staff writer Argiris Malapanis will work with the San Francisco volunteers and the Pathfinder and print shop staffs on this worldwide effort.

Build on success of `Militant' digitizing
The decision to revolutionize the production of Pathfinder books follows successful efforts over the past several years to digitize the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial (PM) and reorganize political correspondence to and from the Socialist Workers Party national leadership through E-mail.

Beginning in the fall of 1994, the staffs of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial took over page layout of the these periodicals through desktop publishing. Working with electronic files, Militant and PM staff writers began editing and entering all corrections on screen and designing page layouts through computerized desktop publishing. Since then, another step has been taken with the scanning of photos and placing them electronically directly onto the page layouts.

These advances have increased the political control the editors and staff members have over the appearance and visual impact of these publications, but without extending the work day. In fact, these steps have resulted in a significant decrease in labor time spent in the print shop to put out the paper week in and week out. Today, instead of the 80-plus hours of labor in the print shop that was once devoted to getting the paper to press, only about four hours of labor is needed.

In order to digitize production, the editors of the Militant had to start by appealing to all those who wrote for the paper to begin sending in articles by E-mail. At the time, most articles and source material came in by fax, which had to be typeset by hand and double checked against the original text. But worker correspondents for the paper responded in a big way. Soon, nearly all the articles and announcements were being sent in by E-mail. The paper's staff was then able to edit the text and prepare it for layout on the computer screen.

Today, even some photos are coming in digitally. And more are needed! All it takes is a simple scanner. This equipment is now inexpensive and easy to use.

Successfully organizing to digitize all Pathfinder books will build up momentum to take the next step in reducing the labor time to produce the Militant. In addition to getting more and more photos sent into the paper in electronic form, the Militant will begin drawing on its supporters worldwide to digitize its substantial photo archive of working-class struggles built up over decades by the communist movement internationally. In this way, not only will significant labor time be saved, but the quality of the paper's presentation will be improved.

Likewise, the efforts of the national leadership of the Socialist Workers Party to communicate by E-mail, rather than paper mailings, was made possible because of the two-way street that has been institutionalized for correspondence to and from the party center.

In order to begin getting political correspondence in a more timely way and at less cost, the party's trade union fractions, branch leaderships, members of the National Committee, and others took the necessary steps to begin receiving files digitally, and at the same time began sending all of their correspondence in the same way. Through the use of E-mail, it was no longer necessary to mobilize 20 - 30 print shop volunteers once or twice a week for several hours to print and collate paper mailings and stuff envelopes. A significant savings in the cost of mailings resulted.

A photo display depicting the progress the communist movement has made by digitizing production of the Militant and SWP mailings became a center of discussion throughout the weekend. Volunteers with firsthand knowledge of this experience, including several who currently work in the shop that prints Pathfinder books, were available to explain how the lessons from that success can be applied to book production.

Going direct to plate
The work of volunteers around the world to produce ready-for- printing manuscripts will reach farther down the production chain. Pathfinder's print shop will be acquiring and beginning to use new machinery making it possible to go direct from digital files of the communist arsenal to the plates on the printing presses.

The goal is to bypass not only the scanning, proofreading, and formatting now being done almost exclusively in Pathfinder's print shop, but also to eliminate much of the highly skilled and labor-intensive document handling, film processing, and stripping, as well. Without that step, electronic files of new manuscripts will simply build up on computer disks as they are sent into the print shop because of bottlenecks caused by outdated and inefficient production methods.

Taking this next step will reduce both labor time and needed skill levels in the print shop.

Making such a step forward possible, however, also requires a substantial financial outlay. Supporters of the communist movement - both those directly taking part in the effort to digitize the communist arsenal, as well as many others - are being asked to help raise the capital needed to purchase modern equipment.

Keeping the pipeline flowing
This effort to revolutionize the way the communist arsenal is produced is essential to continue carrying out the course presented in the 1991 SWP convention report by Mary-Alice Waters cited earlier.

Prior to that report, Pathfinder and its print shop had retreated over a period of time into the practice of running "more books than we could sell in a couple of years because bigger runs mean fewer reprints," Waters said. "And every reprint means work. That's the truth of the matter.

"Forget about the fact that they were going to sit in boxes for years, stick together, and deteriorate; that you'd have to resticker them with new prices five times; that they would be in unsalable condition by the time you sent them out to be sold"; and that huge warehousing costs depleted financial resources that could otherwise be used to publish and promote books and pamphlets central to the communist arsenal.

"The worst result of all this was a disservice to the party and the comrades assigned to the print shop," Waters said. If conscious decisions had been made to print what we could use, "then comrades would have started thinking years ago about what kind of machinery we need to efficiently do these kinds of short runs.. They would have brought all their experience, knowledge, skill, and imagination into finding the right solutions..

"This is what we are reversing," Waters said. "We're now going to decide politically how many copies we can use of whatever it may be. We will run that number, and that number only. We will figure out what our real costs are on that basis. And these policies will lead us to whatever adjustments we need to make in the kinds of equipment necessary to meet the party's needs."

Over the past year, another step was taken to cut Pathfinder's costs and to reverse slippage over the past half decade in implementing the decisions in the 1991 report. At the end of 1996, Pathfinder ended its costly contract with a large outside company to fill and ship orders of books and pamphlets, transferring these fulfillment and shipping tasks to its print shop in New York City. In taking on this responsibility, the shop rejected the use of any of its factory space for the warehousing of overstock books - or the expenditure of any of its resources on outside warehousing.

Applauding this decision in a May 1997 report adopted by the SWP National Committee and later by the June party convention, Jack Barnes noted: "So long as we maintain any element of a warehouse in the apparatus, then we're never going to give the shop the chance to reorganize its priorities and production methods along the lines we've decided many times.

"We're never going to know whether or not we can organize to use the sheetfed presses" - purchased and installed in the shop a half decade ago, following the 1991 report - "to print small runs that keep our arsenal in print and enable us to meet orders from both our bookstores and retail and other commercial outlets."

A member of the print shop staff, Barnes pointed out, had remarked that the previous outside warehouse had been used by the leadership of Pathfinder and the print shop as "a safety net," preventing the shop from organizing production efficiently to produce short runs and keep books and pamphlets in print. Paraphrasing this print shop volunteer, Barnes said: "To the degree we're successful in transforming the apparatus into a real pipeline for getting revolutionary books and pamphlets into the hands of fighters,. `the safety net' is gone."

The combined efforts by supporters of the communist movement and by Pathfinder and its print shop can take another step in making it possible to keep our revolutionary political arsenal in print, while producing these books and pamphlets in short runs, at less cost and with less labor.

Volunteers to help scan, proofread, and format Pathfinder books will be organized by experienced hands of the digitizing project in San Francisco. For more information on how to help, see the article on their meeting elsewhere in this issue.  
 
 
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