The subscription drive begins April 5 and will continue through June 1. Partisans of the socialist publications around the world are in the process of adopting goals towards winning more than 1,000 new readers. The targets of the international campaign will be announced next week.

A book-sales campaign will accompany the subscription effort. It includes selling hundreds of copies of issues nos. 7, 10, and 11 of the Marxist magazine New International and the book Capitalism’s World Disorder during this eight-week period.

These books describe the dynamics of the sharpening conflict between the U.S. rulers and their imperialist rivals and capitalism’s march toward fascism and world war. They provide a basis for understanding the fraud of "bankruptcies" that large corporations, such as United and American Airlines, are using to press their attacks on wages and benefits, and the onset of a prolonged economic depression. They explain why resistance to the employers’ assaults on the working class and the unions is at the center of the fight against imperialism and its wars. These Pathfinder titles will be available on special offers when purchased along with a subscription to the Militant or Perspectiva Mundial (see ad on page 4).

Socialists are already laying the groundwork for this campaign, reaching out to workers, farmers, and youth as Washington’s slaughter against the Iraqi people unfolds.  
 
Hitting the ground running
At Tyson Foods in Jefferson, Wisconsin, for example, several hundred members of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 538 have been on strike since February 28. Socialist workers and Young Socialists from throughout the Midwest have taken part in this fight to offer their solidarity, find out the facts, and spread the word to others. In the process, they have also sold dozens of copies of the Militant. Several strikers have already signed up for subscriptions to the paper.

"Many workers have voiced appreciation for the truthful coverage the Militant has given their struggle," reported Betsey Stone upon returning from a March 29 rally outside the plant. "Tyson workers have passed the paper from hand to hand, and copies of the articles on the strike are set out on tables at the union hall.

"We have also discussed the war with those we’ve talked to on the picket line," Stone said. "While a number do not agree with what we have to say, we have found an open response to the discussion."

Young Socialist member Nicole Sarmiento reports that supporters of the Militant attended a March 20 lunch-break rally by union garment workers at Point Blank Body Armor in Oakland Park, Florida.

"Students and other workers who had recently heard about the struggle at Point Blank joined the picket line," Sarmiento said. The rally was held to protest the firing of another pro-union worker (see photo box on page 9). "Militant supporters have reached out to these unionists," she added, "reporting on their fight and introducing them to the paper." Several unionists inside this plant have already subscribed to the Militant or Perspectiva Mundial, Sarmiento said.  
 
Stepped up sales on the job
Inside garment and textile plants, packinghouses, and coal mines, as well as at factory gates and portals, socialists have stepped up sales of single copies of the socialist publications in preparation for winning long-term readers. The Militant urges all its readers to send regular progress reports on these and similar efforts by Monday morning each week.

Coal miners snapped up 13 copies of the Militant from two supporters of the socialist press who brought bundles of the socialist publications to miners as they arrived for work March 15 at the McKinley mine located on the Navajo Nation near Gallup, New Mexico. They plan to maintain steady sales like these outside mines and factories in the region throughout the campaign, both to yield new subscriptions and reinforce the efforts of socialist workers inside.

Outside the workplace, in the streets of working-class neighborhoods and shopping districts, socialists are taking advantage of the longer days and warmer weather to set up literature and campaigning tables after work and on the weekends, and draw in passersby with soapbox speeches.

At the peace rallies and other protest actions against the U.S.-led war on Iraq, sales of the socialist press have been brisk. During the March 22 peace march in New York, for example, participants bought 650 copies of the Militant, a dozen subscriptions, and $700 in Pathfinder books.

Socialists are also finding fertile ground for revolutionary propaganda in other social protest actions.

During the April 1 march to defend affirmative action in Washington, D.C., for example, socialists sold nearly 100 copies of the Militant and $160 in Pathfinder books.

In Pittsburgh three Black men have died at the hands of the police since September. Militant supporters have played an active role in building several demonstrations against these police killings, writing articles about the fight to bring the cops responsible to justice, and winning new readers to the socialist press in the process.

"A coalition called People Against Police Violence has been formed in response to these police killings," said Marty Ressler, a socialist worker in Pittsburgh active in this group. "We’ve worked with the families of those who’ve been killed to organize several demonstrations in the last few months" (see article on back page). Many participants in these actions have already bought single copies of the Militant, Ressler said, laying the groundwork for winning new long-term readers.  
 
 
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