Mary-Alice Waters, the editor of the English edition of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces and Che Guevara Speaks to Young People--two of the titles that were launched at the book fair in Havana--gave the main presentation.

This meeting, said Barnes, celebrates the achievements of the Pathfinder team that represented the publishing house at the international book fair in Havana, Cuba. The annual fair ran from February 9 to 15. Among several new books launched at the book fair were the two titles produced by joint efforts of Pathfinder and Cuban publishing houses. "Enormous resources went into this effort," Barnes said, "producing enormous results."

The meeting also celebrated the progress worker-bolsheviks in the SWP are making in organizing and structuring the party to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by the class struggle today and to build a revolutionary proletarian organization out of that activity.

Book fair team members Samantha Kern of the Young Socialists and Linda Jenness, a volunteer in Pathfinder's reprint project, both described the keen interest among Cuban working people and students to the hundreds of titles displayed in Pathfinder's booth.

Other team members were seated on the stage, along with Luis Madrid, the editor of the just-released Spanish-language edition of Capitalism's World Disorder (soon to be joined by a French-language edition); Ma'mud Shirvani, who is Pathfinder's Farsi editor; Dave Prince, the director of Pathfinder's print shop; and James Harris, an SWP leader who was part of a recent farmers tour to Cuba.

The stage was framed by displays of the covers of the above titles, and other party-building manuals that are coming back into their own today in the context of increased class polarization and resistance by working people, like The Changing Face of U.S. Politics.

Among those who turned out at the Cooper Union auditorium in lower Manhattan were workers and young fighters from Canada, Seattle, San Francisco, the Midwest, and a number of states on the eastern seaboard. Representation from the Young Socialists was a strong feature of the turnout.

Leaders of the Young Socialists, fresh from a meeting of the organization's National Committee, attended, as well as leaders of the party's trade union fractions in the auto, steel, rail, and airline and aerospace industries.

The bulk of the audience comprised workers and youth from the New York and New Jersey area. An auto worker, an electrical worker, a construction worker, a student of South African origin, and a young meat-packer were among those attending their first socialist meeting of such a scale.

The organized supporters of the SWP also turned out in numbers for the meeting. Many of them are involved in the Pathfinder reprint project. They, in growing numbers, form part of an international book production machine. Doug Nelson welcomed people to the meeting on behalf of the four newly organized SWP branches in New Jersey and New York--one in Brooklyn, two in Manhattan, and one in Newark--that hosted the meeting. Nelson works in Pathfinder's print shop, which he said was "born with the October Revolution."

Many took advantage of a special sale of a number of Marxist classics, going for prices as low as a dollar or 50 cents. Young Socialist members were seen walking away with stacks of books. "I've been waiting for this," said Lou Newton, a high school student in Kent, Ohio, "I bought In Defense of Marxism." Michael Martinez from Miami listed 10 or more titles he had purchased. A Dominican-born worker at the Ford Motor plant in Metuchen, New Jersey, bought Socialism on Trial by James Cannon of the sale table, and Making History at the regular Pathfinder table.

Participants in the meeting donated or pledged $7,500 to a special Pathfinder "fighting fund" to finance the continued work of the publishing house. Jack Barnes announced to loud applause that contributions to the Capital Fund, out of which larger-scale improvements and renovations to the print shop and other facilities are financed, had reached $150,000 just before the meeting. Another $11,000 in capital fund contributions were raised that day.

Next week the Militant will carry a full report of the meeting, and one to be held in San Francisco March 12.  
 
 
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