In week six of the subscription and book sales drive, supporters of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial remain just a hairbreadth behind their international targets.

Socialist campaigners in New York wrapped up the October 12-20 target week with a bang, selling 17 subscriptions to the Militant, two subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, and more than $500 worth of Pathfinder books October 19-20 outside the film showing of Fidel by Estela Bravo.

"We barely had enough time to pull the books and papers out of the box after the film was over," said Brian Williams, who staffed a campaign table outside the Quad Theatre in Manhattan. "When I explained that this newspaper defends the Cuban Revolution two young women who had just seen the movie signed up for Militant subscriptions."

Socialist Workers congressional candidate Margaret Trowe was at the table shaking hands and talking to young people, several of whom signed up for more information on the upcoming Latin American and Caribbean students congress in Guadalajara.

Over the same weekend Martín Koppel, the candidate for governor of New York, headed to Willimantic, Connecticut for an interview with Ramón Morel on WECS radio, the station of Eastern Connecticut State University. The Spanish-language show, originally slated for one hour, was extended another half hour for the socialist candidate. On their way to the interview Koppel and two campaign supporters set up a campaign table in downtown Hartford, selling three Perspectiva Mundial subscriptions in half an hour.

The previous evening Koppel was invited to the home of a garment worker who recently subscribed to the Spanish-language monthly. Four other workers joined in to discuss a wide range of issues, from the resistance by working people today to imperialist war and economic depression, to the example of the Cuban Revolution.  
 
Campaign goes to Fresno
Socialist campaigners in California traveled to Fresno October 11–12 to talk to small farmers facing a deepening economic crisis and rising threats of foreclosure. William Kalman, the Socialist Workers candidate for lieutenant governor of California, visited the vineyards to talk to farmers about the impact of the "glut" of this year’s grape harvest.

Small farmers who grow grapes for the wine, concentrate, and raisin markets are being driven under as they are forced to accept a pittance for their crop. Many raisin farmers are tearing vines out or letting grapes rot on the vine in an attempt to boost their returns.

Kalman met one such farmer, Greg Patterson, on his 40-acre vineyard in Kerman. "We have no option," said the farmer. "It is not that we don’t want to produce, but we can’t keep on taking money out of our pockets." Many small farmers are selling their land or going bankrupt this year, he and others said.

Kalman explained that the socialist campaign defends the interests of working farmers against the crushing squeeze they are put under by the banks, the capitalist farmers, and middlemen, who keep the prices as low as possible and drive small farmers deeper into debt.

"It has never been this bad," said Elias Zaragoza, a farm worker who has worked in the vineyards in Fresno since 1979. September and October are usually the busiest time of the year, he said, but this year there is little work.

The socialist campaigners also set up a campaign table outside a small convenience store at which workers from Harris Ranch cash their checks on Fridays, selling six copies of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial.

They also sold a copy of Capitalism’s World Disorder, a copy of New International no. 4 with the article, "The Fight for a Workers and Farmers Government in the United States," and three copies of October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as seen from Cuba to other workers and farmers over the weekend.  
 
 
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