Over the weekend Pathfinder made available to conference participants at steeply discounted prices the Collected Works of Marx and Engels, and the Collected Works of Russian revolutionary Lenin. A useful sheet listing which major works of these communist leaders was contained in each volume helped many of those attending the weekend events to pick out selected titles. Others chose to purchase the entire set of writings.

The writings by the three communist leaders cover eight decades of the class struggle and lessons in building a proletarian leadership of working people, including those of the first socialist revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik party.

The books were rescued by a team of socialist workers in the early 1990s who happened to be in Russia. Ending any pretense at representing the continuity of the Russian Revolution after the collapse of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union, the publishing house that owned the volumes had begun selling them off to a pulp mill for the price of scrap paper.

Jeremiah, a young socialist member from the Twin Cites, was enthusiastic about the opportunity to purchase political books he has wanted for a long time. "I'm studying State and Revolution right now with other socialists," he said, referring to Lenin's pamphlet explaining the need for workers and farmers to overthrow the capitalist state and replace it with one of their own. "We will be doing many more classes in the future," he said. "So I thought, why buy just one Lenin pamphlet when I can get all the writings?" Jeremiah also purchased Socialism on Trial by James P. Cannon, as well as all the volumes that were available of the Collected Works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

Dozens of students and workers who participated in the conference took advantage of special sales at the Pathfinder table, which was busy from afternoon registration on Saturday through the closing class and discussion on Cuba and the Coming American Revolution on Sunday afternoon.

By the end of the weekend participants had purchased $2,785 in books, including 672 volumes of the writings of Marx and Engels and 135 volumes of Lenin's writings. Sixteen people purchased multi-volume sets of these Marxist classics.
 
 
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