Held under the banner, "The place of Pathfinder books in building the international communist movement," the meeting, which drew 90 people, was the second in a series of such events. The first, which featured New International editor Mary-Alice Waters, was held eight days earlier, on December 15. In the course of the week between the two celebrations, work crews had transformed the meeting location from a largely empty area into a freshly painted space ready for the installation of the sheetfed presses on which all Pathfinder books and pamphlets are produced.

Barnes, the Socialist Workers Party national secretary, opened the meeting by pointing to other steps forward by members and supporters of the communist movement. In December, he reported, volunteers in the Pathfinder Reprint Project had prepared nine books from Pathfinder's catalog for reprinting. The figure registered the increasing pace of the international work to convert Pathfinder's 350-plus titles to digital files, which can be easily turned into plates for the printing presses.

Two days earlier, he said, socialist workers in Upper Manhattan held the first Militant Labor Forum at their new Washington Heights hall and bookstore. And SWP and Young Socialists members in Alabama are planning a grand opening at the end of January of their new hall in a workers district in Birmingham.

Building branches of the party and chapters of the Young Socialists; making Pathfinder books and the socialist press available to workers on the job, on street corners and plant gates, and from local Pathfinder bookstores; joining the resistance of working people; and carrying out the weekly effort to turn all of Pathfinder's titles into ready-to-print digital files are part of the same work being done by the volunteer work brigades to reorganize and make more efficient the production of the books at the Pathfinder Building in New York, he said.

Barnes painted a picture for those at the meeting of how the volunteer "Red Weekend" projects are aimed at finding out how to organize the printshop so it can be highly productive in printing Pathfinder as well as commercial jobs. At the same time, the printshop reorganization will strip down the shop to only what is needed to run a three-press operation. Organizing for just-in-time paper inventories and smaller and more frequent press runs of Pathfinder books, and turning paper files into digital records stored on the printshop and publishing houses' computer network data bases, are two examples of work being organized to cut down the amount of space needed by the shop, Pathfinder, and the Militant. So far this approach has made it possible to consolidate the shop onto one floor, where it previously occupied three floors of the building.

Through this work, Barnes said, the movement will know what kind of space is needed for the shop and have the confidence that it can be run efficiently to meet the rigors and competition of commercial printing in New York.

A similar process is still ahead in the Militant and Pathfinder, along with the party's national office, which Barnes described as an even bigger challenge for the movement.  
 
Explosion in Argentina
Barnes noted that in a certain sense, "if you look at economics, there is no difference between Argentina and Brazil." The Brazilian government tried to keep its currency at a value that was not sustainable--it keeps transferring value to the imperialist countries no matter what it does--and it finally, after a great deal of warnings, devalued its currency. The Brazilian rulers did it early enough so that there were no mass actions that spread around the country, and they did it with the blessing of the imperialist powers.

"From an economic point of view there is nothing different today in Argentina--they are going through a massive devaluation of the peso," Barnes said. But it is ending with a social explosion "because of the way it was done, because of the myth that you could hold any currency in a semicolonial country in parity with the American dollar, in a deflationary period.

"The government thought they could continue to kid the Argentine people by telling them, 'just a little bit longer; just a little more denial; just a little more tightening your belt and we will have everything stabilized in the next decade,'" Barnes said. Instead, before there was any preparation--and in a total surprise to the imperialist world--an explosion broke out.

"Politics is the business we're in," the SWP leader said. "Economics is important because it affects politics. But politics is how all the questions of humanity are resolved in one way or another. The super-wealthy rulers cannot anticipate political explosions," he said, "because they have no ultimate feel for what is too much. And so political explosions take place. And the entire world in the coming period will be marked by these kind of political explosions."

Events such as these open up the possibility for building an international leadership against imperialism made up of youth and of toilers. It involves learning the lessons of past struggles of working people and communist workers being with the toilers and with the vanguard when these explosions happen, he noted. Only by going through such experiences can a leadership be built and converge toward the kind of forces where revolutionary organizations can start having a real objective impact, such as they did during the Cuban Revolution.  
 
Bush on 2002: a 'war year'
Barnes pointed to the December 21 statement by U.S. president George Bush, who, in response to a question about what the New Year will bring, responded: "Next year will be a war year." Bush added that "our war on terrorism extends way beyond Afghanistan."

The SWP leader recalled a talk he presented a few months after the inauguration of William Clinton in 1993, where he said that "Clinton is a war president. That includes international economic and financial wars that will end up destabilizing capitalism and threatening real wars, as they always have throughout the history of capitalism. It will include the cold-blooded use of assaults against oppressed and exploited peoples and nations, in order to further advance Washington's dominant position in the imperialist feeding chain."

What we couldn't see then, he said, was the degree to which the preparations for what is happening now were hidden for a period of time because of the crisis in Clinton's administration, and how they set up what is happening today more than we ever guessed at the time.

What has marked Washington's war against Afghanistan is how much the U.S. rulers held off their imperialist "allies" from much of any role--save for a distant second place for London. Now, Washington has allowed a British-German-French-dominated international force to carry out a "housekeeping" security task in Afghanistan.

The U.S. rulers' "thanks" to the regime in Pakistan for its support to Washington's assault has been to back the Indian government's demand that Pakistan crack down on Kashmiri independence forces based on its soil. India and Pakistan, nuclear-armed countries of 1 billion and 145 million people respectively, are "close to the brink of a major war," he said. The U.S. rulers' ability to foster India as an ally is "probably the biggest plus for Washington of the relative weakening of Russian power," he said.

"These events," Barnes said, "and how they happen, give substantially more importance to the end product of everything we are doing here this weekend."

Each celebration like this, he said, will greet somebody returning from, and send off someone else heading out to, important political openings in the world. Of the three speakers who addressed the December 23 meeting, two--Jack Willey and Olympia Newton--had just returned from overseas, and one--Martín Koppel--was preparing to lead a Militant/Perspectiva Mundial reporting team to Argentina.

Koppel, who edits Perspectiva Mundial and is an editor for Pathfinder, described the massive protests that forced the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa on December 21 (see article on page 1.).

Pathfinder books help explain the deep roots of the crisis and the revolutionary answer to capitalist depression, brutality, and war, Koppel said. The last reporting team to Argentina in 1997 took with them the new Spanish edition of The Changing Face of U.S Politics. Titles published in both English and Spanish since include Capitalism's World Disorder; the issue of Nueva Internaciónal containing the article "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War;" Che Guevara Talks to Young People; Cuba and the Coming American Revolution; and Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia.  
 
International youth meeting
SWP leader Jack Willey had just returned with other representatives of the Young Socialists from a meeting of the General Council of the World Federation of Democratic Youth in Athens. Participants in the meeting discussed an evaluation of the World Festival of Youth and Students held in Algeria last August. Meeting participants gave the festival a "positive evaluation," he said. Many agreed that the festival, which attracted 6,500 participants and was held in Africa for the first time, marked a step toward the reconstruction of a "real anti-imperialist youth movement." A delegate from Namibia, for example, explained the need for development because of the exploitative and brutal role of imperialism in Africa in the post-colonial period.

There are several ongoing discussions among WFDY members about how to build an anti-imperialist youth movement that can more quickly and decisively respond to new imperialist assaults around the world. These include holding anti-imperialist youth festivals more frequently.

The meeting decided to hold the next general assembly in Havana in February 2003, Willey reported. The assembly will elect organizations to the general council and officers to serve in WFDY's headquarters in Budapest. It will likely decide when and where the next festival will be held. Many delegates projected holding the next gathering in a semicolonial country, most likely in Asia.  
 
Fusion of communist movement
Young Socialists and SWP leader Olympia Newton joined the platform of the meeting having just returned from Sweden. Newton had taken part in recent meetings in Stockholm, Sweden, in which Young Socialists members joined together with veteran socialist workers in each country to prepare to join their two organizations in a common communist party over the coming months. A fusion congress is planned for mid-January in Sweden, she said. Simultaneously, communists there are organizing to set up a branch in the city of Gothenburg.

The founding convention of the Communist League in Iceland is planned for March, said Newton. It will coincide with the publication in Icelandic of the English-language New International no. 11, with the feature article "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War." "Communists in Sweden and Iceland are studying Pathfinder titles such as Struggle for a Proletarian Party and In Defense of Marxism," she said, emphasizing that "Pathfinder books are central to these advances in Europe."

"Keep your minds open. The political trajectory elsewhere is the same as in Sweden and Iceland--we are heading toward a fusion," said Jack Barnes. "Whatever the forms it takes, we are confronted by a universal opportunity" as resistance by working people deepens and young fighters knock on the door of the communist movement.  
 
Work crews mobilize
Many of the participants in the meeting, Barnes noted, had taken part in the intensive voluntary work efforts of the previous nine days. At the high point of participation, some 80 people, from cities along the northeast coast, and from Miami, San Francisco, Houston, and from Canada, were involved.

Among the crews were those led by Dennis Richter, a textile worker in North Carolina, and Sarah Katz, a San Francisco garment worker, which painted the factory floor and walls; Ilona Gersh, an auto parts worker in Detroit, headed the network wiring crew; Don Mackle, a meat packer from Detroit, supervised the team that moved boxes of books from the third floor of the Pathfinder building, along with their shelving, and restacked them in the first floor factory; and crews led by Stu Singer, a meat packer in Washington, D.C., and Pittsburgh garment worker Chris Remple took on important construction and plumbing tasks.

Eva Braiman, a meat packer in Cleveland, organized the volunteers who cut down Pathfinder's last sheets of photographic film, used by the publisher until its adoption of digital techniques in the late 1990s. The film contained Pathfinder's Russian-language publications, including the Bulletin of the Opposition, and Leon Trotsky's My Life and The History of the Russian Revolution. The film will be used by the Reprint Project volu unteers to prepare new editions of these titles.

In his talk Barnes pointed to the four filing boxes set up on the stage that contained packages of the photographic film of covers for some 80 titles and the text for books including the Russian-language publications described above. Pathfinder's editorial staff had originally proposed to archive this material off-site. "But Pathfinder must have working files based on what is needed to produce books," said Barnes, and will make space for files that are needed. "We're not going to send anything out for temporary storage or to be archived somewhere," he stated. Instead, he said, the crews will help organize what needs to be kept for current and future uses of the movement.  
 
The 'bubble' comes down
In the week and a half following the December 23 meeting, volunteers worked intensively to prepare the transfer of the two sheetfed presses from their location near the web press to the newly prepared factory area. On Sunday, December 30, about 10 people helped to dismantle a frame and clear plastic "bubble" enclosure designed to keep dust away from the high-quality four-color presses. Among the 10 or so volunteers were present-day sheetfed press operators, and workers who had helped to build the original enclosure.

Following the transfer of the sheetfed presses to their new press room, volunteers are organizing another Red Weekend January 5-6. They plan to clean up and paint the opened-up space after the removal of the two presses, then reinforce the floor so it can support rolls of paper used on the web press. A public meeting will be held on Saturday January 5 in the space where the sheetfed presses were located.

To volunteer to join a Red Weekend crew, contact the SWP and Young Socialists at the address nearest you, listed under the directory.
 
 

Barnes said the fund will cover both present and anticipated expenditures, such as those involved in moving the sheetfed presses. The cost of hiring professionals to move the presses will come to close to $20,000, said the socialist leader. At the same time as the communist movement scales back areas of its printing operation and makes it more efficient, he emphasized, it is important to not stint on the necessary improvements to the presses, computers, and other equipment needed to produce revolutionary books and periodicals.

In recent months for example, the productivity of the web press has been boosted substantially by the fitting of automatic tensioners to each web unit. These electronic controllers, which keep paper at an even tension throughout a run, have improved quality and simultaneously made the machines easier to operate. Pathfinder's printshop also added a stacking machine to the web press, replacing the labor-intensive work of stacking the freshly printed publications by hand--a tough job known in the trade as "flying." Press operators have discovered they can now run the press faster, because the stacker can keep up with higher press speeds.

Since the fund was launched December 15, 11 contributors have pledged a total of $269,000. As in the past, said Barnes, the pledges have come "from a variety of people and sources--from a work bonus passed on by a railroad worker, to personal inheritances and other windfalls."

The Capital Fund accepts contributions of $1,000 or more. To find out more or to make a contribution, attend an upcoming Red Weekend event or write to the Capital Fund Committee, 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014.
 

Sat., January 5
Dinner: 6:00 p.m.
Program: 7:00 p.m.
at the Pathfinder Building, 165 Charles St. (one block north of 10th @ West St, Manhattan)  
 
 
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