Featured in the new issue is "USA-imperialismen har förlorat kalla kriget" (U.S. imperialism has lost the Cold War) by Jack Barnes; "Socialism: A Viable Option," by Cuban Communist Party leader José Ramón Balaguer; and the "Young Socialists Manifesto." It substantially increases the material available in Swedish for workers and young people to gain an understanding of the social devastation, economic crises, and military assaults bred by the lawful workings of capitalism today—and how working people can forge the kind of parties needed to lead the struggle to transform this world.

This 328-page book will now be sold at workplaces and plant gates, schools, universities, and demonstrations, as well as to bookstores and libraries in Sweden.

In contrast to earlier issues of Ny International, this entire issue has been printed in Pathfinder's printshop in New York thanks to new technology. All of the editing, proofreading, and formatting was done in Sweden by Swedish-speaking volunteers. The entire magazine was burnt onto a CD and sent to New York where the computer-to-plate technology in the printshop has made it possible to print the pages exactly as they had been formatted, reducing the chance of introducing errors.

The cover—featuring the Pathfinder Mural depicting revolutionary fighters from around the world—was designed by Eva Braiman, a worker in Cleveland who volunteered weekends to work on it in New York. Matching the colors on the press to design specifications proved to be a challenge for the printshop—one the shop volunteers decided to use to take a step forward in using digital equipment.

Over several weeks shop volunteers worked with AGFA, the company that produces the state-of-the-art computer-to-plate machine used in the shop, as well as companies that produce ink and maintain color standards. They worked to establish procedures whereby the digital process is calibrated to match numerical codes that allow the color chosen by the designer to be duplicated on the printed page without a lot of tests, saving time and allowing the cover to be reproduced exactly in later printings. The workers in the shop were successful in using industry color coding systems with the digital process, achieving results on the cutting edge of the printing industry.

When the Ny International cover came off the press, the clearness of all the faces on the mural adorning the cover, as well as the blue-green background, were of beautiful quality—what the designer and editor intended. This advance will improve the production of all Pathfinder book covers printed in the printshop; they can be printed exactly as they were designed on the computers, without trial and error on the press.

After finishing the job on Ny International no. 3, three of the volunteers who prepared it, all supporters of the Communist League in Sweden, joined the international reprint project to help put all 350 Pathfinder titles into electronic format so they can be kept in print. This work will also help these supporters learn skills that can be put to use when the next book in Swedish is published.

Catharina Tirsén is the editor of Ny International and a member of the Metal Workers Union in Stockholm.  
 
 
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