‘Militant’ drive to win long-term readers goes over top!

By Brian Williams
August 15, 2022

The Militant ’s summer drive to expand the paper’s long-term readership has gone over the top! The five-week international effort for renewals by members of the Socialist Workers Party in the U.S. and the Communist Leagues in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the U.K. won 372 long-term readers. They also sold 357 books by SWP leaders and other revolutionary fighters to subscribers.

“Many readers pointed to the Militant ’s coverage of labor movement struggles as one reason they find the paper invaluable,” said Militant  editor John Studer. “Combined with articles on the fight for independence of Ukraine, and the paper’s coverage of all today’s key political questions from a working-class point of view, many now look to the Militant  as their paper, essential for understanding and acting in today’s world.

renewal drive final chart“And in a month or so,” Studer added, “the Militant  will launch an ambitious effort to reach more working people in cities, small towns and rural areas. Combined with expanded use of SWP election campaigns this fall, SWP members will be organizing an eight-week drive, Sept. 17-Nov. 15 to sell 1,750 Militant  subscriptions, 1,850 books and raise $145,000 for the SWP Party-Building Fund.”

Meeting the goals during the renewal drive has enabled SWP members to get to know workers who have been reading the paper, hear what they think about its coverage and discuss how we can work together in the months to come.

Likes paper’s world coverage

SWP members Seth Galinsky and Willie Cotton met Precious Fasakin, a research fellow on African economy, for coffee in New York, July 31. She subscribed to the Militant  at a film showing of “Sankara’s Orphans” several months ago and said she liked the paper because it reports on workers struggles all over the world.

Academia “lives in a bubble” and has no understanding of what is happening in the lives of working people, she said. “It’s like two different worlds.” Most university programs claim they want diversity, but “they mean different skin colors, but they don’t really want diversity in points of view.”

“What we’re for is more debate and discussion,” said Galinsky, “not closing down opposing viewpoints. Working people need this. But we’re not neutral. We have a viewpoint that we fight to win fellow workers to — the need to organize in our millions to replace capitalist rule with a workers and farmers government.”

Fasakin renewed her subscription for a year and bought three books: Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? ; The Turn to Industry: Forging a Proletarian Party, both by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes; and Capitalism and the Transformation of Africa.

At the July 22-24 conference of the National Organization for Women in Chicago, SWP members engaged in lively discussion with many participants about why the fight for women’s rights is integral to the struggle to defend workers and our families from attack by the bosses and their governments, including fights for wages that match price hikes, access to child care, health care, family planning and safe and secure abortion.

An SWP literature table set up in the exhibit area attracted a lot of attention. Mary Bennett, a member of the Chicago NOW chapter, renewed her subscription for a year. She was waiting the next morning to talk with SWP campaigners when they arrived at 8 a.m. to open up. “I need to understand what’s going on in Ukraine,” she said. Party campaigners discussed with her the SWP statement, “Defend Ukraine’s independence! For defeat of Moscow’s invasion! US troops, nuclear arms out of Europe, all  of Europe,” which is available on the Militant  website. 

For full coverage of the conference see article.

In Federal Way, Washington, SWP campaigner Vincent Auger spoke with Walmart worker Hadya Ahmade about the Militant ’s coverage on the fight for Ukraine independence and the record of the U.S. imperialist invasion of Afghanistan, the country where her family is from.

“She renewed her subscription,” Augur wrote, “and purchased nine books in Farsi.” These included translations of Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun; Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power; and Cuba and the Coming American Revolution. “I want to expand my knowledge,” she said. “Reading the books in Farsi is easier.”

To help circulate the Militant and campaign for the SWP and its candidates, contact the nearest SWP branch.