That meeting was a springboard to launch the international campaign to sell these two working-class political weapons and put them in the hands of workers, farmers, and young people over the next five months—from now through the end of the August 7-15 World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas, Venezuela.

New International no. 12 features the article “Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun,” by Jack Barnes, and “Their Transformation and Ours,” a draft resolution of the Socialist Workers Party. Issue no. 13 features “Our Politics Start with the World,” by Barnes.

Swanson reported that the Socialist Workers Party branch in Des Moines, Iowa, of which he is the organizer, is hosting a multicity team in the Midwest to help give a strong early push to this campaign.

The New International effort coincides with a seven-week campaign, from April 2 to May 22, to win subscribers to the Militant.

“During the April 9-10 weekend, supporters of New International and the Militant in Des Moines will be joined by workers and revolutionary youth from Chicago, Omaha, and Twin Cities,” Swanson said.

“The campaign teams from the region will meet on the morning of April 9 at the Des Moines workers hall, located at 3707 Douglas Avenue. Bagels, fruit, and coffee will be served.

“The teams will then be dispatched to towns and cities in the 50-60 mile radius of Des Moines, where we will meet packinghouse, garment, and other workers, as well as working farmers and students, who will want to discuss working-class politics.”

Swanson noted, “You all look very well-dressed today at this meeting. That is how we want you all to look when we campaign with New International, so that working people take these working-class educational political tools as seriously as we are serious about the politics printed on the pages of these publications.”

In a letter to campaigners in the Midwest, which was copied for those attending the March 26 meeting, Swanson reported, “The teams will return to the hall by 6:00 p.m. for a brief meeting on the day’s campaign experiences. Dinner will be served at 6:30 p.m. and will include an entrée of turkey mole, beans, and rice.

“At 7:30 p.m., the Des Moines Militant Labor Forum will present a talk on world politics in today’s sharpening interimperialist conflicts and the need to chart a revolutionary course to confront it. The keynote speaker will be Jacob Perasso, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party and delegate to the Second International Preparatory Meeting” for the world youth festival, which took place at the end of February in Hanoi, Vietnam. “The forum will also hear brief presentations on the Militant Fund drive to raise $90,000.” Overnight housing will be provided—“bring your sleeping bags,” Swanson said.

The letter concluded, “The campaign teams will meet again Sunday morning, April 10, at the Des Moines workers hall for another full day of campaigning on the way back to your cities.”

Swanson explained that over the next several months the campaigners would be taking New International “to plant gates and mine portals, and we will knock on a lot of doors in workers districts. In the Midwest and other parts of the country, knocking on doors means a lot of trailer courts—part of the housing conditions of the deepening capitalist crisis.

“We will be setting up a lot of tables on college campuses. The youth we will reach will want to talk politics with revolutionary workers as we help build the world youth festival.”

He emphasized, “This campaign is not just about numbers or quotas, but about the politics that working people need to read and study. We need to begin studying together these issues of New International as we go out to sell them.

“Yes, you can be a good fighter, but to advance with our class against the bosses’ class—the enemy of the vast majority of humanity—you have to be politically armed with the facts and the lessons of the class struggle. And these new magazines will do just that. Workers, farmers, and youth need them.”

Swanson urged campaigners to send “articles to the Militant on the experiences of selling New International and discussing the politics in the Marxist magazine—brief reports that can give new ideas that might not have been thought of where you live and work.”

“You can feel in this room the proletarian eagerness to do this campaign,” the socialist leader said. “So let’s go for it, out of this meeting, as we match our words with the necessary deeds. Then, after the five-month campaign, we will have another reason to celebrate.”
 
 
Related articles:
Campaign begins to sell Marxist magazine
New issues of ‘New International’ launched at public meeting in New York
‘Militant’ launches $90,000 fund  
 
 
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