Vol. 77/No. 27      July 15, 2013

The subscription effort centered on talking about working-class politics with workers door to door in their neighborhoods, introducing them to the socialist newsweekly, to books and pamphlets like The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free, and to socialist election campaigns running independent working-class candidates.

In the final stretch, supporters of the paper in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, D.C., and other areas made special efforts to win new readers.

The Militant’s supporters talked with thousands of workers about what we need to do to defend working people in face of today’s deep capitalist crisis, as well as about the worldwide defense campaign to free the Cuban Five (see facts about this frame-up on page 7) and other political questions.

As the last week of the drive began, more than 150 copies of The Cuban Five in three languages had been sold in the U.S. as part of the effort. Readers in Quebec sold 40 copies, including 31 of the new French edition.

Altogether, more than 600 books on working-class politics featured as special offers were sold in the U.S., including well over 100 copies of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by Jack Barnes and of the new Pathfinder Press title, Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own. (See special offers ad on this page.)

John Studer, SWP candidate for New York City comptroller, told the Militant he uses The Cuban Five to explain the kind of workers party we need to build, composed and led by working-class fighters like the five Cuban revolutionaries.

Over the last three days of the drive, Studer said, Militant supporters in New York sold eight copies of The Cuban Five, as well as dozens of subscriptions and other books. “This is part of the worldwide effort to build this defense effort,” Studer said.

Studer reported that on Sunday he and campaign supporter Susan LaMont met with Doreen Richardson, a teacher in the Bronx. “She was interested in the SWP campaign’s demands for a massive public works program to put millions to work building things workers need, like schools, hospitals and child care centers,” Studer said.

“We discussed how a working-class movement fighting for jobs — and for a big increase in the federal minimum wage — would strengthen our unity and combativity in face of intensified competition among us due to high unemployment, the bosses’ superexploitation of immigrant workers and other divisions that drive down wages and conditions of all working people.

“Richardson was also interested in the Cuban Five,” Studer said. “She thought they should be freed and wanted to learn more about the Cuban Revolution. Along with a year’s subscription and book on the Five, she bought Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power.”

Supporters of the paper are holding picnics and other get-togethers to celebrate the successful subscription effort with all those who joined the campaign and look forward to continuing doing so.

Montreal reader Myriam Marceau, a university student working over the summer at a senior home, participated June 25 in her first door-to-door sale. At first nobody was answering their door, she said, but “eventually we found people interested in talking about their experiences as workers, or their political opinions, and ended up selling a subscription and a single copy at the last two doors.”

“The Militant doesn’t just talk about America, it reports on the world,” said Panni Hunt, a port trucker at the Toll Group in the Port of Los Angeles. Working people abroad “have ideas and struggles we can learn from.” Last December Teamsters Local 848 drivers won the first union contract there.

Hunt organized other Militant readers to join him recently to get out the paper to workers at the Green Fleet Systems plant gate, where a Teamsters organizing drive is underway. As part of that effort he bought a copy of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning.

A prisoner in Florida renewed his subscription and wrote, “Thank you for all you do for those of us in prison. Keep up the fight!” Twelve inmates subscribed or renewed during the drive. The Militant Prisoners’ Fund makes it possible for inmates, often with help from friends or relatives, to subscribe at a reduced rate of $6 for six months. Subscriptions are offered free to those with no means to pay.

The effort to win new readers goes on 52 weeks a year. Join us! Call Militant supporters in your area (see directory on page 8) or contact us at (212) 244-4899 or themilitant@mac.com.
 
 
Related articles:
Spring ‘Militant’ subscription campaign May 4 – July 2 (Final Chart)
 
 
 
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