The paper in your hands is the second issue of the Militant with on-the-scene reports from our international reporting team in Yugoslavia. The facts presented by dozens of working people of various nationalities through the pages of the Militant refute the lies cranked out daily by the pro- war, big-business media about the U.S.-led assault on Yugoslavia and the ongoing struggle for national self- determination by the Albanian nationality in Kosova.
A working-class voice presenting international news is a rare opportunity for militants. The team of worker- correspondents in Yugoslavia has also become part of the class struggle there, as seen by the response of vanguard unionists and students who are taking Militant reporters to factories, working-class neighborhoods, and elsewhere to interview workers and other people - from Belgrade to cities in Montenegro and Macedonia. As a result, the team has extended its stay in Yugoslavia and Albania for at least another week.
The response the Militant and its reporters are getting inside Yugoslavia is mirrored by the reaction and hunger for this material by politically minded workers, farmers, and young people here who sense cataclysmic changes in the world affecting them and, even more importantly, the fact that they might have a say in what will occur in the future. Consider the following facts:
More than 160 coal miners and other workers bought the Militant from a brigade of socialist workers and young socialists who spent a week in southern Illinois, southern Indiana, and western Kentucky. Miners were particularly drawn to the headlines, "Working class is target of U.S.-NATO assault on Yugoslavia" and "Union strongholds are target of bombing."
Nearly 500 demonstrators purchased the Militant at demonstrations in Philadelphia and San Francisco demanding the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black man fighting a police frame-up and death sentence. In San Francisco a dozen people bought Capitalism's World Disorder - the best book on Yugoslavia available today. Teams of Young Socialists campaigners were especially effective.
Thirty-two workers bought the Militant and five subscribed to it at a rally of 600 to support Steelworkers on strike at Continental General Tire in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Visitors at a Los Angeles bookfair acquired $2,300 in Pathfinder literature, including 12 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder and 11 of New International, as well as 82 copies of the Militant and 11 subscriptions.
Special, rapid steps are called for to take advantage of the political moment illustrated by these examples: propaganda teams to factories with a history of struggle, to meetings of working farmers, and to campuses - especially where public meetings on Washington's role in Yugoslavia are being held. A brigade of socialist campaigners based out of Birmingham has begun to canvass the southern Appalachian region.
Today, spreading out to wherever working-class and farm struggles are taking place is key to linking up with other vanguard fighters. In addition to the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, Capitalism's World Disorder, and other Pathfinder literature, campaigners should use printed material presenting the Young Socialists for interested youth.
A systematic, weekly campaign is needed, both to get out these weapons and to use them to organize political discussion on developments erupting daily in the class struggle. This steady axis is especially important to avoid getting disoriented by the gyrations among different sections of capitalist politicians, who will continue to debate and express tactical hesitations as they progressively seek to march us deeper into a war against our fellow working people in the Balkans.