A total of 1,750 copies have been sold since the campaign was launched March 26. This two-month period was combined with the just-concluded drive to sell Militant subscriptions, which won nearly 1,400 new readers to the socialist paper.

Drawing on that initial experience, the focus of the campaign can now be directed to getting New International and the Spanish-language Nueva Internacional into the hands of as many workers, farmers, and youth as possible between now and August 15. The campaign ends at the conclusion of the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students that will take place August 7-15 in Caracas, Venezuela.

By then, the two new issues of the French translation of the magazine, Nouvelle Internationale, will be off the presses as part of the effort.

From Houston, Jacquie Henderson says campaigners there have stepped up New International sales as they study the new issues and gain experience in explaining the political questions in them. A number of copies of New International, she says, have been sold to Militant subscribers. The hundreds of new or just-renewed subscribers are an important group of potential readers of New International.

“César, a construction worker, bought issues 6 and 7 of Nueva Internacional, when he renewed the Perspectiva Mundial subscription he had first bought at the Socialist Workers campaign table set up at a flea market,” Henderson writes. “He had been thinking about getting the Marxist journals before the socialist workers came to his house. ‘I read about them in Perspectiva Mundial,’ he said.

“A student from Austin, Texas, who bought NI 12 two months ago purchased no. 13 last week to be able to participate in the classes in Houston on that issue. He has been reading in the Militant about the coal miners fighting for a union in Huntington, Utah, and the C.W. Mining lawsuit against the unionists, the Militant, and the Socialist Workers Party.” This got him interested in studying the New International.

Jorge Ortiz, a young socialist in Chicago who is working with others there to organize a delegation to the world youth festival in Caracas, wrote that some of these youth recently drove up to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a film showing on Venezuela. He spoke with a student who also plans to attend the festival. “After the film, we discussed the defense of the Cuban Revolution, organic farming in Cuba, the transformation of the U.S. armed forces, and the growing capitalist crisis,” he said. The student decided he needed both new issues of New International and bought them along with a Militant subscription.

In Newark, New Jersey, Angela Lariscy reports that over the last couple of weeks socialist workers and young socialists concentrated on door-to-door sales as part of the Militant subscription drive. “We always took with us copies of the two new NIs in both languages,” said Lariscy, who is the SWP’s candidate for governor of New Jersey. “We sold four copies to people who decided to purchase Militant subscriptions.” In addition, a construction worker they met at a street table purchased Nueva Internacional no. 7 and decided to participate in the weekly classes in Newark on the two issues. In many cities, the class series has not yet completed the two New International issues, so these will provide good material for classes through June.

At the same time, supporters of the communist movement have been on a complementary campaign to sell New International, as well as Pathfinder books, to libraries and bookstores. They set a goal of visiting 185 book centers by June 9.

Several have remarked that the graphs and charts in New International no. 12, which illustrate the evolution of the capitalist economic crisis and the transformation of the U.S. military, have helped convince buyers and librarians to place orders.

Going into the next phase of the campaign between now and August 15, “We are looking at our initial goal in light of the possibilities we have now,” reported Steve Warshell from Houston. Campaigners in every city will also be reviewing local quotas and mapping out plans to meet them.

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