Vol. 78/No. 1      January 6, 2014

We welcome those of you, the vast majority of new subscribers, in cities, towns and rural areas across Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States who signed up when Militant supporters knocked on your door to introduce the paper. We thank you for taking the time to discuss how working people can organize to defend ourselves, reach out in solidarity with others and how, over time and through struggle, build a revolutionary party capable of leading workers and their allies in taking political power.

We welcome those of you on the picket lines who decided to take out a subscription — from Kellogg in Memphis, Tenn., to l’Hotel des Seigneurs in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec; from Sakuma Brothers Farms in Burlington, Wash., to Belshaw Adamatic in Auburn, Wash. — those we met at rallies by school bus workers in Boston; cab drivers and grocery store workers in Washington, D.C.; and members of the Machinists union at Boeing in Seattle.

We welcome those who decided to subscribe at rallies in defense of a woman’s right to choose abortion, against cop killings, against deportations of immigrant workers, at events to win support and demand freedom for the Cuban Five and Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera; at book fairs in Montreal and Miami; at the World Festival of Youth and Students in Quito, Ecuador; and at the Malaysian Socialist Party conference in Kuala Lumpur.

We welcome those of you who met a Socialist Workers Party or Communist League candidate and were convinced to try out a working-class paper.

During the drive the Militant fought against attempts by prison officials to stop the paper from getting to inmates in U.S. jails. We are proud of our expanding subscription base among fellow workers behind bars, from Florida to Australia. We welcome the 25 new and renewing prisoner subscribers, the highest number in any drive in years.

We especially welcome those who have joined in the effort to win new readers for the first time. The Militant promotes the perspective of workers finding a class course to take on the attacks of the propertied rulers, not an individual one. It points to fights where we have successfully mobilized to defend and advance the political space needed to discuss, organize and expand the workers’ movement.

“Real politics … originates in what goes on every day in the clash of class forces in the factories, in the fields, in the streets and on the battlefields of war. That is where the basic relationship of class forces is decided. …

“Taking political power out of the hands of the exploiters is the only way to halt once and for all the escalating attacks against the unions and against every struggle by working people and the oppressed. It is the only way to end the use of government power to advance the class interests of the exploiters at the expense of working people. It is the only way to end imperialist war, racial oppression, and discrimination against women.”

The above is quoted from The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions, one of nine books on special offer with a subscription (see ad below). In the course of the drive some 750 copies of these titles were sold. These books contain lessons drawn from decades of working class battles — from the U.S. class struggle to Africa and revolutionary Cuba. The special offers are still valid and we urge you to take advantage of them.

“During the last week of the drive, we met two workers who invited us to come back when they would have money,” reported Chuck Guerra from Des Moines, Iowa, Dec. 22. “We went back the week after the drive ended. Both signed up to get the Militant. One worker from Sierra Leone bought We Are Heirs of the World’s Revolutions. The other works in a tractor factory here and is from Guinea-Conakry. He got Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power and Cuba and Angola: Fighting for Africa’s Freedom and Our Own.”

Over the past few years the Militant has steadily expanded its long-term readership. The effort to reach new readers continues and we welcome anybody who wishes to join in. Introduce the paper to friends, relatives and fellow workers. To help, call distributors in your area listed on page 8, contact us at (212) 244-4899 or at themilitant@mac.com.

And be sure to renew your subscription before it runs out!  
 
 
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