Many of the 50 people who attended the gathering stayed for more than two hours after the meeting ended to enjoy champagne and a spread of food, and to continue political discussion. “There were 55 people—members and supporters of the communist movement, Young Socialists, and others, many from around the world—who participated in the volunteer construction effort over the past three weeks to create something that is needed in today’s world,” said Hunt. “If we had worked as hard for a boss as we have here, we’d be furious,” said Naomi Craine, from the Los Angeles branch of the Socialist Workers Party, who had joined the effort. “But instead we have a feeling of pride and accomplishment.”

“Revolutionary literature is distributed from this center to bookshops across Europe, to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia,” added Catarina Tirsén, a construction volunteer from the Communist League in Sweden.

Joel Britton, a member of the Socialist Workers Party National Committee, urged everyone to study the cover of New International no. 13 featuring the article “Our Politics Start with the World,” by Jack Barnes. The back cover carries a composite picture of the earth at night, whose light and dark areas demonstrate the unequal access to electricity “produced and accentuated by capitalism,” said Britton. “Our activity must be guided by closing the gap that this image reveals.”

“The work done from this center helps break the wall of silence that surrounds the Cuban people,” explained Zelmys Dominguez Cortina, the Political Counsellor at the Cuban Embassy in London. “José Martí once explained that ‘the ignorant can be dominated.’ That is why knowledge is so important—a book is a treasure and we’re sure that the light of truth in Pathfinder books will continue fighting against the darkness of ignorance.”

In his presentation Britton described the fight by miners at the Co-Op mine in Utah for a trade union. “The Kingstons, the mine owners, are spearheading the rulers’ efforts to blunt the resistance of working people,” he said. Their lawsuit against the miners, the United Mine Workers of America, the Militant, and others “is a desperate attempt to break solidarity with this fight, to divide miners from one another and from their union,” he explained.

Speakers from Canada, Iceland, and Sweden described efforts by volunteers to translate Pathfinder titles into other languages. “Workers need to have these books available in their first language,” said Tirsén. “We need these books in Swedish if we are to build a leadership that can fight for power.” Volunteers aim to have a Swedish-language edition of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics by Jack Barnes available in 2006.

Xerardo Arias, of the Young Socialists S and CL from Edinburgh, Scotland, reported on efforts to build a delegation of young people to the World Festival of Youth and Students in Venezuela in August. He described land occupations by rural toilers in that country and a recent march by tens of thousands of people through the streets of Caracas to condemn the government of neighboring Colombia for organizing, with backing from the Washington, the kidnapping of a Colombian guerrilla leader on Venezuelan soil. “At this time of deepening class struggle, it is important that an anti-imperialist youth festival is being held,” Arias added.

“The labor to build this new center was given freely,” said Pat Starkey, a supporter of the CL, “but the materials were not and donations are needed to complete the £5,000 fund drive.” By the end of the evening the donations topped that goal.

The final speaker at the meeting was Jonathan Silberman, a member of the Central Committee of the CL in the United Kingdom, who was heading off the following day for the Havana book fair. He described proposals by the British government to permit the house arrest of those it labels “terrorist,” even where there has been no charge brought against them. “The target of these attacks is the resistance by working people, that will sharpen as the depression conditions come down,” he said.

“The recent ‘crusade’ to Africa by the Blair government is not about eliminating poverty, as they claim,” Silberman said, “but about participating in the division of the world among the imperialists.” In Havana, Pathfinder will be presenting a Spanish-language edition of We Are Heirs of the World Revolution by Thomas Sankara, the central leader of the Burkina Faso revolution. “This pamphlet does offer a course to eliminate poverty, because it presents a revolutionary perspective,” said Silberman. “That is why we distribute these books around the world.”  
 
 
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