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   Vol.65/No.13            April 2, 2001 
 
 
San Francisco Pathfinder sales set brisk pace
 
BY PETER BUCH
SAN FRANCISCO--Socialist workers and Young Socialists here have sold $850 worth of Pathfinder books and pamphlets over the first six weeks of the year--87 books and pamphlets, as well as 26 copies of the Pathfinder catalog--from street tables, at political events, and through the local Pathfinder Bookstore.

Sales have been spurred by Pathfinder's publication of Fertile Ground: Che Guevara and Bolivia by Rodolfo Saldaņa, of which 20 copies have already been sold. Five copies of the new title were sold following a talk at the February 9 Militant Labor Forum on revolutionary Cuba.

The presentation included an explanation of the importance of the account by Saldaņa of the attempt in the 1960s to forge a revolutionary leadership out of struggles underway in Bolivia capable of leading working people to extend the socialist revolution begun in Cuba.

The presentation also reported on the meeting at the Havana International Book Fair celebrating the Spanish-language edition of Pathfinder's Making History: Interviews With Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces. People attending the forum bought $63 worth of books. Attending his first forum, a student from San Francisco State University purchased Making History, Fertile Ground, and several other Pathfinder titles.

Socialist workers participated in a march and rally on Martin Luther King Day, an immigrant rights demonstration January 27, and a week-long series of meetings on campuses and community centers in the San Francisco Bay Area and nearby Santa Cruz, to hear Puerto Rican independence fighters Rafael Cancel Miranda and Luis Rosa. People who joined these activities purchased a total of $350 worth of Pathfinder titles from tables set up by socialists at each event.

The encouraging pace of sales is also due to people from the neighborhood around the Pathfinder Bookstore dropping in to look over the titles, a reflection of the fact that over the past year the bookstore has become better known at its new location. In addition, socialist workers have taken the books, pamphlets, and periodicals to sell to co-workers and at plant gates, supermarkets, and college campuses.

Also sold during this period were collections of speeches by Malcolm X, books on labor struggles in the United States, titles on the Puerto Rican independence fight, the Jewish Question, and The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. A number of sales were to members of the Pathfinder Readers Club who were able to purchase their books at special discount prices provided to club members. Eleven readers of Pathfinder signed up to join the Pathfinder Readers Club as a result of these efforts.  
 
 
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