Many areas reported that central to the success of the drive was the political interest in coverage of developments in Yugoslavia and the Middle East, and strikes and struggles in the United States and elsewhere. How the struggle of working people in the United States is part of the resistance of workers and farmers worldwide--such as the downfall of the Slobodan Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia and the continued resistance by Palestinian people to the Israeli occupation of their land--has been the central theme of fund drive meetings over the past weeks.

These events highlighted the invaluable role of working-class publications that honestly and accurately report on struggles taking place today. As well, we received a tremendous response to the special appeal for donations to the fund to help pay for the international reporting team that went to Yugoslavia. A total of $113,628 has been contributed to the fund. BY BILL KALMAN  
SAN FRANCISCO--Close to 50 people turned out here at a November 11 meeting to hear Argiris Malapanis, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party, discuss the unfolding class struggle in Yugoslavia and the Balkans. The meeting was a big boost to the fund-raising efforts of local supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, who through the event reached a total of $10,850 raised for the socialist publications since the international fund campaign began September 4. Fund organizers here have twice raised their local quota, from $10,000 to $11,000, then to $12,500.

Malapanis headed a team of worker-correspondents for the Militant who traveled to Yugoslavia to meet workers, students, and others who helped lead the revolt that brought down the regime of Slobodan Milosevic.  
 
Workers seek to expand political space
"Six weeks ago a political strike and popular revolt toppled the bureaucratic Milosevic regime, with workers playing the decisive role. This is something to celebrate," Malapanis said. He described how working people are now seeking to protect and extend their newly won political space, while the new petty-bourgeois regime tries to demobilize them as it orients toward trying to integrate Yugoslavia further into the world capitalist market.

Malapanis explained that U.S. imperialism is the main enemy of Yugoslav working people, as demonstrated by the savage U.S.-led bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999.

U.S. military intervention in the Balkans--including the ongoing presence of U.S. occupation troops--is aimed at reinforcing Washington’s predominance in the region over its European rivals, and to strengthen the eastward expansion of NATO toward the Russian workers state.

The U.S. rulers’ anti-working-class foreign policy, from Yugoslavia to the Mideast to Cuba, is "an extension of their assault on working people in this country," Malapanis noted. "Regardless of who the next U.S. president is, the new administration’s starting point will be what the Clinton-Gore administration and Congress have carried out, which was a bipartisan shift to the right in bourgeois politics." The target of this bipartisan offensive is workers’ hard-won social conquests together with efforts to further narrow democratic rights.

"Our team met a number of individual workers and students who are open to a genuinely communist, revolutionary working-class perspective," one they were exposed to for the first time in meeting communist workers from capitalist countries, Malapanis explained. There are fewer barriers than ever to militant workers and revolutionists linking up with each other around the world, he pointed out.

The Militant and Perspectiva Mundial play an irreplaceable role in this process, Malapanis emphasized. Those present responded enthusiastically to the fund appeal for the socialist periodicals. They contributed a total of $1,520 at the meeting.

BY RAMONA BLACK

ST. PAUL, Minnesota--More than $1,400 dollars was raised at a meeting for the Militant/Perspectiva Mundial Fund here. The public event brought together meat packers, other industrial workers, college students, and others to discuss politics in the world today and the importance of these two socialist publications for workers and farmers.

One of the speakers at the meeting, Hilario Pérez, 24, a worker at a local pallet factory, spoke about why he relies on reading the Spanish-language socialist magazine Perspectiva Mundial every month. "I think that as workers we must invite other workers to read this magazine," Pérez said. He added that Perspectiva Mundial, like the Militant, is financed by contributions from workers. "Workers need to contribute to make it possible to produce this magazine." He added that some day "it may even be possible for the magazine to come out every week!"

Pérez suggested that those in the audience who were not fluent in Spanish should consider subscribing to Perspectiva Mundial to help them improve their Spanish, and explained that he plans to subscribe to the Militant to improve his English.

The main speaker at the event, Karen Ray, focused on two key developments in the class struggle today--the role of working people in toppling the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia and the political space that they are seeking to use today, and the fight for a democratic, secular Palestine.

One person attending the meeting, a meat packer at Dakota Premium Foods, asked about the difference between the popular Mexican newsweekly Proceso and Perspectiva Mundial. Pérez replied that Proceso’s reporters "go to the politicians to hear what their opinions are" instead of telling the truth about the struggles of working people. "It is not a voice for working people," he concluded.  
 
 
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