With this issue the international campaign begins to expand the reach of the Militant and books by Socialist Workers Party and other revolutionary leaders and to raise $165,000 for the paper.
Members of the SWP and Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, and U.K. will be discussing their program and activities with workers and farmers at labor actions, social protests and door to door in cities, towns and rural areas.
Goals for the campaign are to increase Militant subscriptions by 1,350, get out 1,350 books and go over the top on the Militant Fighting Fund.
An integral part of the campaign will be building the June 8-11 SWP International Educational Conference at Oberlin College in Ohio. At the gathering SWP and CL members, supporters and other workers, unionists and young people they’ve been working with will have the opportunity to discuss the explosive ramification of the unfolding shifts in U.S. and world politics, the party’s working-class course and its Marxist continuity. These are explained in the book The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us: The Socialist Workers Party Looks Forward by SWP leaders Jack Barnes, Mary-Alice Waters and Steve Clark.
Getting this book into the hands of as many working people as possible is at the center of the spring campaign. Ten other titles are also on special with subscriptions to the Militant. All Pathfinder titles are at 20% discount during the campaign.
In Eagan, Minnesota, SWP members Gabrielle Prosser and Edwin Fruit met with Rod Coleman at his home March 2. Coleman first subscribed to the Militant in 2020. When he learned about Prosser’s campaign for governor last year he renewed his subscription. “I’m so glad I had someone to vote for,” he said.
Coleman worked on his family’s dairy farm until 2002, when the price of milk went below the cost of production, forcing him and many other small farmers off the land. He’s currently unemployed.
Prosser pointed to how a fighting alliance of workers and farmers was built during the Cuban Revolution. “In Cuba, the new government carried out a far-reaching agrarian reform,” she said, “giving deeds to the peasants who worked the land. In this country the SWP calls for nationalization of the land, so those who work it don’t fear losing it.”
“That way they can’t foreclose on it,” added Fruit.
“Socialist revolution is what’s needed,” Coleman said. He bought The Low Point of Labor Resistance Is Behind Us, The Jewish Question and Teamster Rebellion.
Reaching out to workers and farmers
SWP members are discussing a road forward for workers as they extend the party’s reach far and wide.
“We’re going to Pajaro in the Salinas Valley this weekend to talk with farmworkers,” Betsey Stone, organizer of the SWP branch in Oakland, California, told the Militant. “The town is flooded after the levee broke. Officials pay little attention to the maintenance of infrastructure.” Some 1,000 people have had to leave their homes. The levee has failed several times over decades, wrecking havoc in nearby communities.
“We also want to discuss with workers in rural areas who have been hard hit by hospital closures and have to travel much further to get the care they need,” Stone added.
Members of the SWP branch in Ft. Worth, Texas, are planning a trip to east Texas soon, Dennis Richter, the branch organizer, reported. “We want to organize plant gate teams to get the Militant into the hands of oil workers there, get back to United Steelworkers members who fought the oil bosses’ lockout at ExxonMobil, and get to know toilers on the land in an area with a high number of Black farmers.”
To join in campaigning, contact distributors near you.