The Militant (logo) 
   Vol.65/No.20            May 21, 2001 
 
 
Build the communist movement
(editorial)
 
At street book tables, sales at factory and mine gates, protests and picket lines, and Militant Labor Forums, Socialist workers and Young Socialists report similar experiences. As a result of the offensive by the government and the employers, and the resistance to it by working people around the world, there are more young people, workers, and farmers who want to read and study revolutionary literature and consider becoming part of the communist movement.

These experiences bode well for the campaign undertaken by the Socialist Workers Party and the Young Socialists to double the size of the revolutionary youth organization. That effort has already begun with the international circulation drive to expand readership of the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial and to sell Pathfinder pamphlets and other activities. It will be a feature of the meeting in New York on May 20 entitled "In Defense of Leninism: Expanding Opportunities for Communists Today."

The Pathfinder title Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, which will be available next week, provides a new tool in this effort. Socialist workers and Young Socialists across the country can begin to map out plans to sell and distribute this new book widely, as well as to organize classes and discussions on it. Excerpts of the book printed in this week's International Socialist Review will give readers a taste of the political questions and perspectives presented in the new book.

Those who stop by the tables to discuss politics and to buy the books sense their value not only in providing a scientific explanation of the workings of the capitalist system, but also in providing a perspective of why a revolutionary struggle by working people for power is both necessary and possible. By reading Pathfinder books, attending Militant Labor Forums, and joining in strikes and protest actions, the need for joining and building revolutionary organizations capable of leading that struggle becomes clearer as well.

The questions taken up in Pathfinder books and the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial are not the product of cloistered study. Essential works such as the Communist Manifesto are the product of struggles waged by the modern working-class movement. Distributing these books and publishing new titles such as Cuba and the Coming American Revolution are the tasks of a living movement today--a movement comprising parties of worker-bolsheviks, youth organizations, and their supporters. For students and young workers this movement offers, as no other even pretends to do, an opportunity to work at political ideas, and also to act on them.
 
 
Related articles:
Communist movement organizes to win members to Young Socialists
 YS in Tucson sets pace for subscription drive
 Pathfinder supporters broaden reach of revolutionary books
  
 
 
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