Pathfinder supporter Celia Pugh said in a telephone interview that the buyer ordered 10 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder by Jack Barnes, noting that it "looks like an attractive book" after reviewing the political questions addressed in it, as well as its cover. A total of 81 titles were ordered, something that "will make some of our sections more meaty," the buyer said. "These are the sorts of books we can put on feature tables for displays," she added.

The order included five copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Barnes, and equal numbers of Socialism and Man in Cuba by Ernesto Che Guevara. Orders for 508 books and pamphlets have been placed through 14 visits Pathfinder supporters have made to stores in the country over the past two weeks.

Pugh said that because of a number of political debates raging in Britain today, Pathfinder titles received serious consideration by the book buyers at the store, many of whom are young. "'Education reform' is one of the big issues being pushed by the Labour government" of Anthony Blair, Pugh said. "Many working people know the education system is a disaster and are looking for political answers. That is the reason for the interest in The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning.

Titles by and about Cuban revolutionary leader Ernesto Che Guevara are also carried by many bookshops," Pugh said. "There is a general interest in his life and work. I described the character of the books by Pathfinder, such as Che's Bolivian Diary, and the importance of the footnotes, glossary of names, index, and introductory material," she said. "A young salesperson overheard our conversation, came over, and said, 'I'll buy that book. You need to figure out the issues in books, and if they don't help you do that it's a problem.'" Pugh said the buyer ordered 10 copies of the The Bolivian Diary of Ernesto Che Guevara and 10 of Che Guevara Speaks.

The purchase included one each of the series on the Communist International in Lenin's time, a five-book series of documents and proceedings of the workers international in the years following the Russian Revolution.

With another buyer Pugh discussed the debate around Darwinism and the reactionary notion being advanced that men and women are fundamentally different in their capacities. As a result, the buyer ordered six copies of Cosmetics, Fashion, and the Exploitation of Women; six of Woman's Evolution; and three of Sexism and Science. "These books have a real historical and political edge to them," the buyer said.

Pugh added that the Pathfinder Bookshop in London also had one of its best Saturdays in some time, selling $350 worth of books. A number of titles by Malcolm X were purchased by a woman from Spain doing a research paper on the revolutionary leader.

Pathfinder supporters in London are organizing a "second wave" of appointments with bookshops in the city, said Tony Hunt. Sales are also being organized out of Manchester to Liverpool, Leeds, and Lancaster.  
 
International book sales campaign
The sales in the United Kingdom are the first fruits of an international campaign to step up sales of Pathfinder books and pamphlets. The campaign aims to meet "the political openings before the party and Young Socialists to expand sales of our literature as we extend our integration into a fighting vanguard of workers and farmers across the country," wrote Mary-Alice Waters in a recent letter to branches of the Socialist Workers Party. Waters is a leader of the SWP, author and editor of numerous Pathfinder titles, and editor of New International.

"Just today we've received orders for 250 copies," said Mike Taber from the offices of Pathfinder Press August 23. He was referring to The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform under Capitalism by Jack Barnes, the newest Pathfinder pamphlet. "Several are large orders in preparation for the August 26 march on Washington against police brutality."

Pathfinder supporters, socialist workers, and members of the Young Socialists have kicked off a campaign to sell this pamphlet. This effort is one of the ways they are taking steps to systematically increase sales of the entire array of Pathfinder books.

The new pamphlet offers "every branch and industrial union fraction of the Socialist Workers Party--and every unit of the Young Socialists," Waters wrote, "the opportunity to learn and relearn the joys and skills of proletarian pamphleteering. It is a basic piece of communist propaganda, touching on the most fundamental question of class society and how a world organized to meet the needs and hopes of working people would be a qualitatively different place to live."

Sales of the books have unnecessarily fallen this year, Waters pointed out. The party can "take advantage of the broadening opportunities to get out with our book tables onto the streets, to factory gates, to farm gatherings, and onto campuses," which takes political leadership to carry out on a consistent basis in every city.

Waters also urged every party unit to build on the success of last year's campaign to sell Capitalism's World Disorder by Jack Barnes. In the range of 100 new accounts were opened, many of them in "smaller stores and other locations recommended to us by vanguard workers and farmers who we asked for suggestions. Thousands of dollars of books were sold," Waters said. She encouraged the party's trade union fractions, as well as SWP branches, to organize to return to each of them by the end of the year to seek additional orders, inviting the Young Socialists to join the effort through its local chapters.

Waters pointed out the sales opportunities offered by the substantially upgraded new printings of Pathfinder books as they are digitized and printed with improved type and formatting, and with new prefaces or introductions when possible. To increase sales of these new reprints, Pathfinder is making a standing offer to members of the Pathfinder Readers Club of a 30 percent discount on all newly digitized titles during the first two months after they come off the presses. "This means bookstore directors will have to pay special attention to each new reprint after it comes in," Waters said, "organizing special displays and making announcements at branch meetings, as well as at forums, and other appropriate events."

To aid this effort Pathfinder produced an attracted leaflet in English and Spanish that can be used by supporters of the Socialist Workers 2000 election campaign promoting a package of five books and pamphlets. This includes the new pamphlet, Capitalism's World Disorder, The Changing Face of U.S. Politics, and New International nos. 10 and 11. The titles are available at 25 percent off on presentation of the leaflet at any book table or Pathfinder bookstore.  
 
Interest in Spanish-language titles
Four Pathfinder supporters set up a booth at the La Reforma conference, held in Tucson, Arizona, August 3-6. La Reforma is the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. Many of the 500 people in attendance were librarians. "We got the Pathfinder catalog and brochure featuring our Spanish titles into the hands of many librarians there," said Nan Bailey, "and made a number of contacts who we can follow up on with visits in local areas. We sold about $170 in literature off the table, including 33 of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning in Spanish and English, which we sold at a special $1 promotional rate."

Pathfinder has a wide range of titles in Spanish that are reaching workers in increasing numbers in the United States. More libraries are expanding their Spanish-language sections as are bookstores and other outlets across the country. As more and more workers whose first language is Spanish enter into strikes and other struggles, there is interest in and need for the books published by Pathfinder on the lessons of 150 years of working-class battles and a Marxist analysis of developments today.

Several young people from the University of Arizona stopped by the table, including activists in Los Derechos, an immigrant rights organization. A bee farmer purchased New International no. 4 on the alliance of workers and farmers, The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning, and a copy of La Gaceta de Cuba, a cultural magazine from Cuba. The owner of a Latino bookstore in Santa Ana, California, invited a Pathfinder representative to visit his store to update the stock of Pathfinder titles and encouraged the team to participate in an upcoming Latino book fair in Bakersfield.

In Minneapolis-St. Paul, socialist workers and Young Socialists kicked off the campaign to sell the pamphlet in combination with a Militant Labor Forum featuring Rebecca Ellis, Socialist Workers candidate for U.S. Senate, to discuss some of the many political questions addressed in its pages. Afterwards, one participant, who is a production worker at the 3M corporation, started talking it up on the job and got a co-worker interested in organizing a class on the pamphlet.

"Together with the effort to upgrade attention to ads for Pathfinder books and the Pathfinder Readers Club in the pages of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial this fall," Waters said, "these special measures--if consciously led by the branches, fractions, and Young Socialists chapters--can begin to change the direction of Pathfinder sales over the next six months. We can start to bring our sales in line with the growing political opportunities that exist to introduce vanguard fighters to communist politics, as their conditions of life, work, and common struggle make them increasingly open to looking at every aspect of the world with new eyes."  
 
 
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