BY BRIAN TAYLOR
A team of socialist workers and young socialists is on the
road right now in the Illinois coalfields. They are selling
the Militant, Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-Class
Politics at the Millennium, and the just-reprinted pamphlet
Coal Miners on Strike at mine portals and in communities
where miners and other workers live. Among their aims is to
link up with the class-struggle militants who will be
interested in attending the active workers conference to be
held in Oberlin, Ohio, August 5-8.
This is the kind of activity the $75,000 Socialist Workers Party-Building Fund, which runs through June 15, will help make possible over the coming months.
In order to do this we need money, and we need it fast! What can partisans of the communist movement do to get it? First, we need to plan fund meetings and banquets for early May. Second, let's start collecting right away. That will help local fund supporters get in the right groove.
Team member Sarah Katz phoned in a report from southern Illinois April 21. They had just sold 14 copies of the Militant at a mine portal there. Seventeen miners bought paper at four other portals earlier in the week. "People seemed to like a workers' newspaper," said Katz. "When we showed them the lead headlines, the next thing miners would say is, `How much?' " Five workers also gave small donations.
Later that day they went to another mine and sold 11 Militants, three copies of Coal Miners on Strike and one copy of Capitalism's World Disorder. "We're on our way right now to meet with a miner who wants to renew his subscription to the Militant and buy a coal pamphlet," Katz reported. She said they would show him Capitalism's World Disorder and ask him if he was interested in taking several Coal Miners on Strike pamphlets to show his co-workers.
Socialist workers in Illinois are making a special effort to sell the pamphlet, which features Militant coverage on the United Mine Workers strikes in 1977 and 1978, at the same time they meet their quota for Capitalism's World Disorder.
Between visits to the portals, the socialists put up literature tables at a number of Walmart stores in the area. "We sold six papers in a half an hour at Walmart before the managers asked us to leave, three in 20 minutes at a second, and 13 in an hour" at yet another Walmart, Katz explained. And "we met a number of young, newly hired miners interested in the paper." A total of 68 papers were sold on community sales alone. "And we'll be here several more days," said Katz.
In central Illinois, a coal miner who had participated in the 111-day strike in 1978 bought Coal Miners on Strike. The spouse of a miner who has been on strike against the Freeman Coal Co. last year also snapped up a copy. Four people bought Coal Miners on Strike in the course of two sales on April 10 and April 17. One woman was so impressed with the pamphlet it wasn't clear if she was buying a copy for herself or her father, who is a miner.
Contributions to the Party Building Fund help pay for increased travel, phone, and other expenses incurred as the communist movement extends its reach to and deepens its collaboration with vanguard workers, fighting farmers, and revolutionary-minded youth opening up the possibility of recruiting some of them to the Socialist Workers Party and Young Socialists.
A broad range of people, including those just mentioned, will want to contribute to this fund. Asking for pledges and collecting on them right away will maximize the possibility to meet and surpass the $75,000 goal.
Organizing special political forums in the first several weeks of the fund campaign can help give it a boost. In New York, Argiris Malapanis, who is currently heading up the Militant's reporting team in the Balkans, will be speaking May 8.
A chart, with the goals of SWP branches across the country will be published in the Militant printed May 6. Please send in photos and notes on your experiences related about the campaign.
Contributions can be sent to 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014. Please make checks and money orders out to Socialist Workers Party.