That was the reaction of Jerry and Evan, two high school students, when they saw the sign promoting a sale at Pathfinder's booth on the last day of the Miami Book Fair International.

Both grabbed fistfuls of books, especially from the used book table, to add to their libraries of revolutionary literature. They later returned and spent all the money they had left to buy two issues of the Marxist theoretical journal New International--no. 7 with the feature article "Imperialism's March Toward Fascism and War" and no. 10 titled "Opening Guns of World War III: Washington's Assault on Iraq."

Tens of thousands of people attended the book fair, an annual event, which took place here November 11–18. Many visited the Pathfinder booth, as always, but the participation of high school youth was a distinctive feature this year. On November 17 high school students Horacio and Matt came to a class on "Opening Guns of World War III" organized out of the Pathfinder booth. Horacio, who has read What Is To Be Done? by V.I. Lenin, described himself as a communist. Matt said he considered himself an anarchist.  
 
Currents in workers' movement
The next afternoon, Jerry and Evan came to a discussion at the booth about political currents in the workers' movement in the United States. They wanted to know more about the differences between the anarchists, Progressive Labor Party, Communist Party, and Socialist Workers Party. Both first heard about the SWP when they came to a Miami mayoral debate where SWP candidate Michael Italie spoke. After hearing about his firing, each personally telephoned Italie to offer their support. Evan is currently writing a paper for school about the case. Jerry has posted information about the socialist's firing on a youth-oriented web site that other students coming to the booth reported seeing.

The thirst for communist literature on the part of young people was fueled by the U.S. war against Afghanistan and the accelerated assault on workers' rights here. The Pathfinder booth displayed two large signs: "Imperialist roots of the U.S. war on Afghanistan" and "Stop the war on workers' rights."

Other literature booths, if they addressed the issue of the war at all, tended to feature lurid, rushed-to-press "exposés" of Osama bin Laden or the Taliban. Some dozen stalls were staffed by Cuban-American organizations dedicated to the overthrow of Cuba's revolutionary government. For the most part these seemed to attract fewer customers than the large booth of Publications Exchange, which imports music CDs, videos, and books by artists living in Cuba.  
 
Another point of view
Many visitors to the Pathfinder booth, after passing by other stands featuring anticommunist or "antiterrorist" literature, expressed pleasure at seeing Pathfinder's titles. "Oh, good! Here's the other side!" said one man. A young woman approached the stand almost in disbelief as she saw titles by Karl Marx, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, and Nelson Mandela. She said she had left Cuba five years ago. "Do you have La Gaceta de Cuba?" she asked. This is the magazine of the Union of Writers and Artists in Cuba. When shown the latest copy she said, "I'm so glad to see the printing has improved. That means things are getting better there."

A couple from Nicaragua visited the booth. The man mentioned that he had worked in the Nicaraguan government during the Sandinista revolution. "I used to see these books at the university in Managua then," he said. "I'm glad to see them again."

Not everyone was happy to see Pathfinder books. One older Cuban-American woman strode by muttering, "The only good communist is a dead communist!" A man reading a Pathfinder book in Spanish looked up and asked, "What's her problem?"

Several librarians stopped by to carefully review the contents of the books and request catalogues for their acquisitions departments. A Cuban-American librarian from Miami paged through Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium and said books like this, so carefully annotated and indexed, would surely be an asset to the county-wide library system. She urged staffers to contact the acquisitions office right away.

The best-seller for Pathfinder at the fair was The Communist Manifesto, with 11 copies sold in English and Spanish. The other highest sellers were Capitalism's World Disorder, New International no. 7, Che Guevara Talks to Young People, and books by Malcolm X. Eight copies of New International were sold, nine subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and four to the Militant. A total of $1,151 in new Pathfinder books was sold, including a dozen titles on the Middle East, the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, and the Jewish question and several on the fight against police spying in the United States.  
 
 
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