Signing up new readers to the socialist weekly has complemented the five-month campaign to sell copies of two new issues of the New International (see front-page ad). Sales of these issues of the Marxist magazine have topped 1,400 since March 26. This campaign extends through the August 7-15 World Festival of Youth and Students in Caracas, Venezuela.

Many NIs have been sold at a special $10 discount rate for those who purchase a copy along with an introductory subscription to the Militant. Others have taken advantage of the “two-pack”—both new issues for the combined price of $25. More than half of the total of all local quotas has been sold just five weeks into the 20-week campaign.

Last week supporters of the Militant in the coalfields in Colorado and Utah led the effort, with door-to-door sales in the Price, Utah, area and visits to miners and others who’ve been reading the socialist press. Building on their success, socialists in Price have announced a national Militant sales team to the mines and coalfield towns in southeastern Utah May 13-22.

Six people, four of them coal miners, signed up to subscribe to the socialist weekly during door-to-door campaigning May 1. One of the subscribers also purchased a copy of NI no. 12.

“The response was very good,” said Deborah Liatos, a union coal miner from Craig, Colorado, who joined the sales effort that weekend. “There are 10 mines around Price, many of them nonunion, and workers are discussing how they can fight for better conditions.” Many see the Militant as an aid in such struggles, she said.

“You know, we really do need a union because we’d have more rights,” said a miner at the Westridge Mine near Price, as he signed up to subscribe. The team had stopped by his house as he was getting ready to go to work. Workers at his mine have been working excessive overtime, he said. He had already worked 78 hours that week and still had one more shift to go.

“Another miner who subscribed was recovering from an injury,” Liatos said. “With a boom in the demand for coal that is pushed by the high price of oil, the coal bosses are driving to produce as much as possible without regard for the safety of the miners.”

Two of the subscriptions were renewals. One was to a retired electrical worker who commented that he had gained a lot from the historical articles in the Militant.

“I really enjoyed the articles that analyzed Stalinism,” he told team members. “It helped me understand how in the early years of the Russian Revolution the Stalin regime disassembled the things that had been accomplished.”

On the same weekend, Patrick Brown, a supporter of the socialist newsweekly in Auckand, New Zealand, sent a note to the Militant reporting that 11 people there had subscribed to the paper during week four of the campaign, prompting campaigners in Auckland to up their quota to 30 subscriptions.

“We have been phoning readers to remind them to renew and tell them about the magazine,” said Brown, referring to the new issues of New International. “Partly as a result of this work, six readers decided to renew their subscriptions and several bought copies of New International and other Pathfinder books.”

Click here to see the subscription drive scoreboard
See link for New International sales offer.
Click here to see the New International sales campaign scoreboard