It has taken three years to get to this point. In the first six months of 1998 when the project was just beginning, two books were made digital, and that work only included the text. Later the project took on the challenging task of digitally reproducing all the graphics, which includes photos, maps, and covers. In the last six months volunteers turned 33 books from cover to cover into digital format.

By mid-January of 2001, volunteers completed Leon Trotsky on Black Nationalism and Haciendo historia (Making History). Five more are projected to be completed in the month. One of those is the new book titled Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia.

The Pathfinder edition of Haciendo historia and the new book Fertile Ground are a politically valuable addition to Pathfinder's titles, which contain the history and lessons of the revolutionary struggles of working people for power. Haciendo historia contains interviews with four generals of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces about what made them come to revolutionary ideas and act upon them in their youth during the struggle in the late 1950s against the U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship. All of them went on to serve in internationalist missions in such countries as Angola and Nicaragua.

Fertile Ground is an interview with Rodolfo Saldaña, who joined with Ernesto Che Guevara in the 1966–67 revolutionary front that Guevara led in Bolivia. Both books are products of editorial collaboration between Pathfinder Press and Editoria Política in Cuba. The Spanish edition of Haciendo historia that was produced in Cuba is now out of print. Pathfinder's new edition will be available for the Havana International Book Fair, February 2–10.

Producing Fertile Ground has taken close collaboration between the editorial staff of Pathfinder and the volunteers of the reprint project. Careful planning and a collaborative spirit are necessary in organizing the give and take of new book production between reprint volunteers, who live in many different cities and countries, and Pathfinder in New York. For instance, in order to rapidly format the text of the book, a volunteer in Seattle did some formatting before he went to work in the morning and e-mailed the part he had partially completed to another volunteer in Pittsburgh, who worked on it after his day job and then e-mailed it to a third person in San Francisco who completed the work.

Four volunteers living in four different cities then simultaneously proofread it in one day. And of course, as with all new books, there are constant changes being made right up to press time. These were incorporated into the book and checked by proofreaders, formatters, and the editors.

Since the last book fair in Havana, the project has made available for reprint 10 books in Spanish: Socialismo y el hombre en Cuba; En defensa del marxismo; La revolución traicionada; Che Guevara, Cuba y el camino al socialismo (Nueva Internacional no. 2); Segunda declaración de La Habana; El ascenso y el ocaso de la revolución nicaragüense (Nueva Internacional no. 3); Wall Street enjuicia al socialismo; Pathfinder nació con la Revolución de Octubre; Che Guevara: Economía y política en la transición al socialismo; and 50 años de guerra encubierta. This is one of the most important political contributions the volunteers in the reprint project made for the communist movement worldwide.

The volunteers are also becoming adept at producing titles in French and have nearly completed formatting the Icelandic translation of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning: The Fraud of Education Reform under Capitalism. They will soon begin work on the Swedish edition of the same title.

Reprint volunteers spend many hours at their computers working on formatting text, creating graphics, or proofreading. What motivates every participant to put in this many hours before or after work and on weekends is the knowledge that the ideas contained in the books are decisive in order for a successful revolution by working people to overturn social relations engendered by class society and put us on the road to creating a society fit for human beings.

It has also inspired many of the volunteers to participate in the new international effort to win orders for Pathfinder titles from bookstores, libraries, bodegas, and other outlets where working people buy books. While this effort is just underway, thousands of dollars worth of books have been sold already. To cite just one example, last week in San Francisco Pathfinder supporters visited a bookstore that specializes in books related to the African-American struggle for equality. The buyer ordered 70 books worth more than $700.

If you would like to volunteer for the Pathfinder Reprint Project, please contact Ruth Cheney at ruthchen@pacbell.net.  
 
 
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