This was the first such project for Pat Coomey, 33, from Ravenna, Ohio. After reading the Militant for about a year, he got in touch with the Pathfinder bookstore in Cleveland and then attended a couple of Militant Labor Forums. "You don't know things like this exist until you meet other people and learn from them what Pathfinder is all about," he said.

Paul Mailhot, organizer of the steering committee of the project, said the red weekend "was organized concurrently with an international team of Pathfinder supporters participating in the Havana International Book Fair, four new titles by Pathfinder coming off the presses, and an increased production of out-of-print titles by Pathfinder's printshop.

"Pathfinder supporters are also scoring some initial successes in their work to expand the distribution of Pathfinder books in stores and other outlets in several countries," he said, "and members of the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists are getting these books into the hands of working people on the job and through street tables in workers districts."

Mailhot said there will be public presentations at the book fair in Havana for two Pathfinder titles, Haciendo historia, the Spanish language edition of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, and the newly printed Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia. The Pathfinder staff is also organizing to complete the editorial work on Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas, to be available in March. Over the course of the weekend, workers in the printshop completed binding Fidel Castro's Political Strategy and collated What is Surrealism?

A dinner and social February 3, featuring an ample spread of food and refreshments, dancing, and a short program, raised more than $1,200 for the Books for Cuba Fund. The fund makes possible donations of Pathfinder books to schools, libraries, revolutionary organizations, and factory and farmer cooperative libraries in Cuba, Mailhot said.

"Overall, this is at the center of our response to the resistance of workers and farmers to the assaults and brutalities of the employers and their governments, both here and abroad. We are doing everything possible to make sure the communist program contained in the books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder are available and accessible to workers and farmers who need them to advance their struggles."

Participants came from Tucson, Arizona, and Santa Cruz, California, as well as from Montreal, Toronto, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, Tampa, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Washington, New York, Newark, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The bulk of the work was focused on maintenance and repair projects throughout the Pathfinder Building, which houses the publisher and its printshop, as well as the editorial offices of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. This included painting, electrical work, plumbing, floor repairs, phone and computer network wiring work, cleaning, and organization of maintenance supplies. Teams of volunteers working on these various projects included young people working together with skilled electricians and carpenters, picking up some important skills and knowledge in the process.

In addition, a team of supporters researched the Militant and other publications that covered Washington's invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and organized an extensive set of clippings from what they found as an aid to Pathfinder staff's editorial work on Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas.

The volunteer work project was hosted by the four branches of the SWP in the area, which organized to house the numerous volunteers coming from out of town. The weekend activities included Militant Labor Forums in Brooklyn, Upper Manhattan, New York's Garment District, and Newark, New Jersey, on Friday night--three of them on the energy crisis and another on the Irish freedom struggle.

The project built upon a previous volunteer effort December 14–24, in which 120 people worked on transferring Pathfinder's inventory and customer and financial information onto an Internet-based program.

"Our work this weekend will ensure that the building where Pathfinder books are produced, as well as the Militant, and Perspectiva Mundial," Mailhot told nearly 100 people crowded into the lunchroom the morning of February 3, "is functioning in tip-top working order so that those who carry out work here can have a good, working environment to help them be as productive and efficient as possible."  
 
'What communist movement is about'
Marlén Ortega, 19, a student in Chicago and a member of the Young Socialists there, said that participating in this project was "a great way to meet others and get a sense of what the communist movement is all about." She added, "When you come here you see the hard work that goes into producing and printing Pathfinder books. Each time I sell one of these books off a literature table I get excited because one more person now has a book to interest him or her in revolutionary politics."

Other young people participating in the project--all of whom were interested in learning more about the Young Socialists--included three who came from Santa Cruz, California, and two from Pittsburgh.

Among the projects taken on and completed through the course of this weekend was making sure every light fixture was in proper working order in the building--about 20 ballasts were replaced and work done on at least 20 others; reorganizing the various tools and other supplies kept in the basement so that those doing ongoing maintenance work can more easily find what they need; stripping and waxing Pathfinder's printshop office; repairing and repainting the bindery's shipping and receiving office; replacing some 100 supports for the heavy shelving used to warehouse boxes of books prior to being shipped out to customers; fixing up the women's locker room, mapping of the entire phone and computer network wiring in the building, which will greatly aid maintenance of this system in the future. Innumerable door handles, latches, hinges, and other small hardware items were tightened, repaired, or replaced. Exhaust fans were cleaned, repaired, or replaced. Every air vent in the building was cleaned.

Some two dozen people, most of whom were first-time participants in a red weekend project, took part in a Sunday morning tour of the Pathfinder Building. "I'm very impressed," said Markeith Avpry, 39, a meat packer and member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union in Newark, New Jersey, after seeing the full scope of activities that takes place in the building. He recently subscribed to the Militant, joined the Pathfinder Readers Club, and has been reading through the titles Malcolm X Talks to Young People and The 1985–86 Hormel Meat Packers Strike in Austin, Minnesota.

As project participants were wrapping up their final day of work on Sunday, about a dozen volunteers joined sales teams that afternoon, setting up three literature tables with Pathfinder books, the Militant, and Perspectiva Mundial, in the Garment District area of Manhattan, Washington Heights, and Newark, New Jersey.

Dimitris, 19, and Lena, 24, both of whom recently joined the Young Socialists, made the trip from Montreal and Toronto respectively. Dmitris said that he first got involved in politics after reading about the Cuban revolution and "admiring people who sacrifice their lives for others." Lena, who worked on the networking team, said the project was "really quite special. People are working toward goals and are motivated." She added, "It's exciting to discover problems on the networking system and solve them as a contribution to the smooth running of this operation."

Emphasizing the YS's internationalist perspective, Lena pointed out that while she was in New York for the red weekend, another YS member from Montreal was part of the team in Havana helping to staff the Pathfinder literature table at the book fair there.  
 
Pathfinder Reprint Project
At a brief program during the Saturday evening social, Michele Smith, a supporter of the SWP from San Francisco, pointed to the progress made by the Pathfinder Reprint Project towards reaching its goal of having 50 percent of all Pathfinder titles in digital form on CDs by May 1. "As of today, we're 44.7 percent done. We've completed 33 books in the past six months," Smith reported.

Pathfinder supporters in the Bay Area have also taken the lead on organizing to sell Pathfinder to stores, libraries, and other outlets in the Bay Area. "The Reprint Project puts us on a sound footing for taking the next steps in expanding Pathfinder 'repping' work worldwide," she said. In January, Pathfinder processed orders for 34,600 books--significantly higher than the previous two years.

Dean Cook, from Houston and one of the organizers of the project, said, "When you participate in one of these red weekends, you learn that working people are a lot different than the bosses would have us think. They keep telling us that we're 'lazy,' that we won't do any work without a supervisor standing over us. But we organized to do the work this weekend and we collectively did it. This helps us understand how society can be different, that working people are capable of running society."

Cook held up the beautiful new cover of the soon-to-be printed Pathfinder book on the defeat of Washington's forces at the Bay of Pigs by working people in Cuba. "With these books we strengthen our movement as we prepare for the working class to take power," he said.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home