Millions of working people face economic uncertainty, social crises and growing threats of new wars today. Members of the Socialist Workers Party are campaigning to explain these are the result of the workings of the capitalist system and its dog-eat-dog drive to compete for markets and profit. They’re using the party’s election campaigns, the Militant and books by SWP leaders and other revolutionary fighters to explain what is happening, why, and to point a road forward.
We’re finding fellow working people are interested in discussing the SWP’s experience in building solidarity with strike battles and other resistance against deteriorating conditions of life and work. Some are interested in joining in the work of the party to advance the interests of the working class.
Many see that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans, the twin parties of the U.S. rulers, have any solutions for working people. They are interested in the possibility of the working class taking political power into our own hands.
The goal of this fall campaign, which runs Sept. 20 to Nov. 18, is to sell 1,300 subscriptions to the Militant and an equal number of books, which address these questions in more depth.
SWP campaigners explain the party is financed solely by working people. This fall’s Party-Building Fund aims to raise $140,000. We ask people who like what they hear about the party to make as generous a contribution as they can.
The Militant and book campaign is conducted jointly with members of the Communist Leagues in Canada, the U.K. and Australia.
In cities and towns across the country, members of the international communist movement knock on doors in working-class neighborhoods, and join union picket lines and social protests, like actions against Jew-hatred and in defense of Ukraine’s national sovereignty. We explain that all political questions are class questions.
When Tony Lane and Sergio Zambrana campaigned in McKees Rocks in western Pennsylvania Oct. 4, Nina Pierre came to the door wearing a T-shirt from a group that fundraises for activities by toilers in Haiti. “I know the group, I attended one of their activities,” Lane said. He introduced himself as the SWP candidate for mayor of Pittsburgh.
Pierre raised the importance of the protests taking place against deportations and other attacks on immigrant workers by the U.S. rulers. Lane explained that the party’s call for amnesty for undocumented immigrants is aimed at building the unity of the working class. She agreed that such a fight is needed to overcome “divisions that only help those in power.”
As well as introducing her to the Militant newspaper, the SWP campaigners showed her some of the books they had brought. Pierre subscribed, saying she wished her husband was there to join the discussion. She was especially interested in Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes.
Another woman on the same street also subscribed and got The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch: Stakes for the International Working Class.
Rallies protest Manchester killings
A rally in Manchester, England, had been called to mark the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, pogrom by Hamas that slaughtered 1,200 Jews and others and took some 250 hostages in Israel. After two Jews, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, were killed Oct. 2 at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue, the rally swelled to over a 1,000, both Jews and non-Jews. Many noted the Manchester killings were part of a worldwide rise of Jew-hatred.
Several people came by a Communist League table noting the signs saying, “Defend Israel’s battle to prevent a second Holocaust” and “US/UK troops, warships, bases out of the Middle East!”
Bar worker Robert Howarth told Andrés Mendoza, CL candidate for Manchester City Council, that he and Samuel Ashworth “traveled from Blackburn to the rally to show solidarity.” Ashworth said he “didn’t know anything about Jewish people and what they faced until Oct. 7.” He decided he had to “look into why they are targeted.”
Mendoza said Jew-hatred is “growing in the face of today’s global imperialist crisis.” It is used to divert working people “away from seeing the capitalist system as the source of our problems.”
Howarth and Ashworth were among eight rally participants who bought introductory subscriptions to the Militant along with a copy of The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch. Five of those people weren’t Jewish, but each told CL member Caroline Bellamy they came to show their solidarity. Hugo Wils, another CL candidate for Manchester City Council, described how on seeing the signs at the CL table, one person donated 20 pounds ($27) to the CL’s party-building fund.
Ögmundur Jónsson wrote that CL campaigners were well received at a similar event in London’s Trafalgar Square. Thousands turned out, as numbers swelled in response to the murderous attack on Jews in Manchester.
Six interested participants got copies of The Fight Against Jew-hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch, two got Militant subscriptions, and eight others picked up a copy of the paper. Dozens left carrying the statement by the CL’s candidates in Manchester denouncing the attack.
To help circulate the Militant and books on revolutionary working-class politics, and make a contribution, contact a distributor near you from the list in the directory.
Pete Clifford contributed to this article.