The volunteers are making a special push to get five titles in Spanish out so they will be ready for international book fairs in Guadalajara, Mexico, at the end of November and in Havana early next year. Pathfinder will have booths at both events, which attract thousands of working people and students. Two of the titles completed in October are in Spanish. Nueva Internacional no. 2 was finished in September; Wall Street enjuicia al socialismo (Socialism on Trial), by James P. Cannon in November. In a few days a new pamphlet, Pathfinder nació con la revolución de octubre (Pathfinder was Born with the October Revolution), will also be ready for the presses.
The six titles made ready in October were Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism, Nueva Internacio-nal no. 3, Segunda declaración de La Habana, To See the Dawn, Fidel Castro’s Political Strategy, and Introduction to the Logic of Marxism. The one book completed so far in November brings to 20 the number of titles turned out by the volunteers since July, towards a goal of 30 by Jan. 1, 2001, the 42nd anniversary of the Cuban revolution.
About two and a half years ago, the Pathfinder reprint project volunteers set out to transform all of Pathfinder’s titles to digital form. Since then, 108 titles have been completed, which, together with a few titles already in digital form, represents almost 40 percent of all Pathfinder titles. In the past month the Reprint Project steering committee, which organizes the work of about 150 volunteers in many countries, accepted a series of proposals by the Pathfinder editorial staff made possible by the increased competence and self-confidence of the volunteers.
While continuing to digitize the 214 remaining titles, volunteers will also take responsibility for formatting the text of new titles being produced by the publishing house. They will also relieve the Pathfinder staff of many of the quality checks they had been performing on book format and graphics, allowing the staff to concentrate on editorial work and book promotion.
The first new pamphlet is Pathfinder nació con la revolución de octubre. This is a speech by Mary-Alice Waters, the president of Pathfinder Press, that explains the revolutionary publishing house is part and parcel of the historical struggle of the workers and farmers worldwide to defend their rights, to take political power from the capitalists and landlords, and begin the construction of socialism (see excerpt, pages 8-9).
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