Just about every last title in French, including many copies of the magazine Nouvelle Internationale, had been sold to Haitian students and other French-speaking visitors to the fair.

Over the course of 10 days more than 225 different Pathfinder titles were sold at the fair. In addition, visitors to the booth bought dozens of copies of the Militant and hundreds of copies of Perspectiva Mundial. This response is one indication of the interest in revolutionary literature among working people and youth in Cuba.

The final day of sales in pesos has become a tradition of Pathfinder's participation in the fair. Many people who have visited the booth over the years eagerly await the opportunity to expand their access to books on the international class struggle, U.S. politics, the history of the communist movement, the fight for women's liberation, and many other questions.

Pathfinder supporters organized successful sales and donations, not only at the annual Havana International Book Fair and the three book launchings held as part of it, but also at nine other events in Havana and throughout Villa Clara at which the new book, was presented.

Three Pathfinder titles were the subject of special presentations during the Havana Book Fair itself. They were the Spanish-language editions of From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution by Víctor Dreke; Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas by Fidel Castro and José Ramón Fernández; and Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, by revolutionary leader of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara, which was featured at a joint presentation with the Social Participation of Mozambican Women, recently published by Cuba's Tricontinental Editions.  
 
Sales at the book fair
The three Pathfinder titles above were among the best sellers at the publisher's booth during the10-day book fair in Havana. Other popular titles included the Spanish-language editions of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces; Cuba and the Coming American Revolution by Jack Barnes; Malcolm X Speaks; the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; Lenin's Final Fight; The Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky; and The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes.

Nueva Internacional no. 5, including "U.S. Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War," and the English-language New International no. 6, featuring "The Second Assassination of Maurice Bishop," were also among the best-sellers.  
 
New book presented at meetings
During the week following the Havana Book Fair, From the Escambray to the Congo was presented at events in a half-dozen cities in central Cuba, the area where the book's author, Víctor Dreke, was born, fought in the 1956–59 Revolutionary War to overthrow the Batista dictatorship, and later helped lead the battle against the counterrevolutionary bandits in the Escambray Mountains. Six members of the international Pathfinder team, bringing with them 20 cartons of books and pamphlets, traveled with their Cuban hosts in two vans throughout the region.

Speaking at the events were Víctor Dreke; Pathfinder president Mary-Alice Waters, one of Dreke's interviewers and editor of the book; and Iraida Aguirrechu, who organized editorial assistance on the book in Cuba. Some 240 copies of the title were purchased on the spot at these meetings or were left to be sold later, including 54 in Dreke's hometown, Sagua la Grande. Another 54 were sold in Trinidad, the proceeds from which were donated to the museum of the Lucha Contra Bandidos (Struggle against the Bandits--the name by which the campaign against the counterrevolutionary forces in the Escambray mountains of the early 1960s is known in Cuba). Thirty were left for the museum to sell in its store.

Other meetings were held in Santa Clara, Placetas, Sancti Spíritus, and Manicaragua.

The book was also presented at two well-attended events in Havana, parallel to the book fair itself. Participants in a workers assembly of some 70 people at the National Union of Caribbean Construction Enterprises (UNECA) bought more than 50 copies. UNECA is a Cuban construction enterprise that works on development projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere--including hospitals, roads, airports, and schools. Dreke is currently director of UNECA's work in Africa.

Among those participating in that meeting was Magali Llort, a UNECA employee and the mother of Fernando González, one of the five Cubans framed up in U.S. federal court on charges of conspiracy to commit espionage. González was sentenced to 19 years in prison. Two defendants were jailed for life, and the others received sentences of 10 and 15 years. Dreke presented Llort with five copies of From the Escambray to the Congo, dedicated to each of the five compañeros, which she promised would be rapidly forwarded to them.

Another 75 copies of the book were sold at a meeting sponsored by the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution in Nautico, the Havana neighborhood where Dreke lives. Among the many prominent guests in the audience of more than 100 at that gathering were Manuel Cardero, general secretary of the Sugar Workers Union, and Teofilo Stevenson, the former world heavyweight boxing champion.

Some 50 copies of From the Escambray to the Congo were donated to the Combatants Association to distribute to their leadership across Cuba, and more than 200 were presented as complimentary copies to those who helped bring the book to fruition and other collaborators in Cuba, as well as to the Communist Party, People's Power, and Combatants Association hosts in the cities visited on the tour.

Added to the 160 sold at the launching during the Havana Book Fair, and the 75 sold from the booth, a total of some 1,010 copies of the Spanish edition of From the Escambray to the Congo were distributed during the February events in Cuba.  
 
Other titles distributed and sold
Hundreds of copies of Playa Girón/Bay of Pigs: Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas, and Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle, the other titles presented at the Havana Book Fair, were also distributed through these efforts.

The 135 copies of Playa Girón sold during the fair--60 at the book launch and 75 from the booth--were supplemented by 35 during the trip to Villa Clara and Sancti Spíritus. In addition, Pathfinder supporters used the occasion of the launching to present Cuban vice president José Ramón Fernández with 50 hardback copies that had been set aside by volunteer workers during a Red Weekend at the Pathfinder Building in January--part of a major reorganization of the publisher's printing and distribution operation.

Fernández said he will present these books to the battalions that fought at Playa Girón when they hold their annual meetings between now and April 19. At the end of the trip, another 40 copies of Playa Girón were donated to the Combatants Association.

More than 100 copies of Sankara's Women's Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle were sold at the Pathfinder booth, the meeting, and other events. In addition, 100 copies were presented to the Federation of Cuban Women, 80 to Tricontinental Editions, 20 to the Combati–entes Association, and 100 to other institutions and individuals in Cuba.

Making History and Cuba and the Coming American Revolution also featured prominently in the sales and distribution organized by Pathfinder supporters during and after the fair. More than 65 copies of Making History were sold, and 40 copies were donated to the Combatants Association and others interviewed in the book.

Cubans bought some 85 copies of Cuba and the Coming American Revolution by Jack Barnes and another 50 were distributed as complimentary copies.

All told, when the Cuban pesos were converted to dollars at the rate of 27:1, more than $950 had been raised in sales of Pathfinder literature during the month-long trip.

The communist literature sold to individuals and presented to various organizations in Cuba will pass through many hands and be put to good political use for years to come by workers, farmers, and youth, including many whose paths will cross with communists from North America, Europe, and Asia and the Pacific.
 

"The results at the Havana International Book fair and other events in Cuba are a good reason to contribute to the Books for Cuba Fund," said Jack Willey, business manager of the Militant. Special collections for that fund will be organized at the upcoming regional socialist conferences, he said, and "we encourage anyone who can't attend those meetings to send their contribution directly to the paper."

The Militant sponsors the Books for Cuba Fund, which makes it possible for books and pamphlets published by Pathfinder Press to be sent to organizations and institutions in revolutionary Cuba, and to be sold at affordable prices at book fairs and other book-related events.

Please make out checks to the Militant and mail them to 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014.  
 
 
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