GUADALAJARA, Mexico — “This is different than the other publishers,” said Juan Alexis Capistrano, as he looked over the books in the Pathfinder Press stand at the large International Book Fair here. He decided to get a copy of The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. “The media talks a lot about Trump and what he’s doing,” but deportations and other attacks on the working class “were already happening under Obama and Clinton,” he said.
Capistrano was one of hundreds of students, workers and others who spoke with volunteers at Pathfinder’s booth. Many were surprised and interested to find books on revolutionary working-class politics coming from a publisher in the U.S. A number came back more than once and brought friends.
The book fair, which ran Nov. 29-Dec. 7, is one of the largest in the world. Organizers said more than 950,000 people came to buy books and enjoy hundreds of book presentations, literary and academic forums, activities for children and much more. Publishers from 64 countries were represented. Barcelona was the place of honor for this year’s fair, and there were nightly free concerts featuring musicians from there.
Three days were set aside for publishers, authors, distributors, bookstores and others in the book trade to meet and conduct business.
The Pathfinder booth became a center for discussion on why capitalism inevitably is producing growing economic and social crises today. And why the working class organizing on a road to taking political power is the only way to stop imperialism’s march toward another world war.
Many are following with concern Washington’s growing threats against Venezuela. Among the 464 books sold, titles on Cuba’s socialist revolution were popular. Other bestsellers included the speeches of revolutionary leaders like Thomas Sankara in Burkina Faso and Malcolm X. Several people picked up issues of New International, featuring articles such as “Imperialism’s March Toward Fascism and War” and “US Imperialism Has Lost the Cold War.”
Dozens bought copies of the Militant, and a few subscribed. This reflected the interest in the U.S. class struggle, and its connections to the struggles of workers in Mexico and elsewhere.
One young man said he recently moved back here from Albuquerque, New Mexico, because of Washington’s immigration crackdown. He had worked for two years in a paper mill there, and described long hours and bad working conditions, like he had seen in factories in Mexico. He got Is Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? by Mary-Alice Waters, in part to learn about the big demonstrations for immigrant workers’ rights in 2006 and how they had strengthened the working class. He picked up a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? Class, Privilege, and Learning under Capitalism by Barnes, the top seller at the Pathfinder booth, with 27 copies sold.
Fight against Jew-hatred
“Do you have any books on Israel?” Bernardo Cruz Rocha, who works in care for the disabled, asked Eric Simpson, one of the Pathfinder volunteers. Simpson showed him The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class. “This book explains how the scapegoating of Jews is used to whip up reactionary violence, as was done in the czarist empire in Russia, by Hitler’s Nazis and today by Hamas,” Simpson said. “It explains why Israel became necessary as the only refuge for Jews in the world, and why only the working class taking political power can open the door to resolving this and all other unsettled national questions.”
Cruz agreed Hamas is reactionary, and “they use the Palestinians as shields.” He bought the book, one of the top sellers at the booth, at 19 copies.
Some people who picked up that book said they took note of growing Jew-hatred, including antisemitic graffiti here directed at Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum.
Some of the most popular titles were on the fight for women’s emancipation, including Women’s Liberation and the African Freedom Struggle by Sankara; Women in Cuba: The Making of a Revolution Within the Revolution by Vilma Espín, Asela de los Santos and Yolanda Ferrer, leaders of the Federation of Cuban Women; and Cosmetics, Fashion, and the Exploitation of Women by SWP leaders Evelyn Reed, Joe Hansen and Waters.
Women’s emancipation
Yared Gurrola, a history student at the University of Guadalajara, got the Cosmetics book and came back the next day to get Woman’s Evolution by Reed. “I don’t really know much about this, but I need to,” he said. “It’s not only understanding women’s history, but men’s as well. We need to unite to fight against the same problems.”
Alfonso Piña, from San Luis Potosí, said he had been a mechanic and union member for many years and now works in sales. He said one of the issues workers in Mexico have been fighting for is to shorten the legal workweek from 48 hours to 40.
We discussed the need for workers to rely on themselves and the unions, not look to bosses or capitalist governments to protect us. He bought Tribunes of the People and the Trade Unions.
Elias Ivan García Rios got a copy of the same book, along with Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs and several other titles. He was eager to learn more about the struggles of workers in the U.S. and elsewhere. García told Pathfinder volunteer Laura Garza he’s the director of the Centro de Reflexión y Acción Laboral, a group that helps workers defend their rights.
Several people told Pathfinder volunteers they sympathized with the widespread protests and road blockades by corn farmers now taking place across Mexico, demanding higher prices for their crops to meet the cost of production. They won a higher price from the government, although not as much as they wanted.
There have also been some protests by truck drivers. “Those are over security,” Victor Flores, a transport worker, told this correspondent at the booth. He said he’s interested in the history of workers’ struggles and bought 50 Years of Covert Operations in the US: Washington’s Political Police and the American Working Class.
Many people took flyers announcing the upcoming publication of Cuba and the Independence War in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde: The Fall of the Last Colonial Empire in Africa by Víctor Dreke Cruz.
Dozens of people asked Pathfinder volunteers to contact them before the fair next year. And many took information about the international campaign to pressure Washington to stop denying visas to Cuban athletes to participate in qualifying competitions necessary to advance to the Olympics.