The story captures the main points of the reports and discussion--and course of action charted--at the Socialist Workers Party’s 41st Convention, held July 25–27 in Oberlin, Ohio. Nearly 400 people attended the gathering, including 116 party supporters and workers and youth who are building the communist movement in eight countries (see the August 19 issue of the Militant for further coverage).

The team was part of the communist movement’s response to the sharpening assault by the employers and the government against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the West Coast. In less than a week, in addition to more than 200 copies of the Militant, socialist workers and young socialists sold dozens of revolutionary books and pamphlets to dockworkers, including The Working-Class and the Transformation of Learning, Che Guevara Talks to Young People, Cuba and the Coming American Revolution, Che Guevara y la lucha por el socialismo hoy, and Coal Miners on Strike.  
 
Boldness and simplification
SWP leader Mary-Alice Waters presented a report to the convention on the ongoing efforts to "transform and simplify" the publishing and leadership apparatus of the communist movement; the expanding work of the supporters of the party in the production, sales, and distribution of Pathfinder books; and the central place of the Pathfinder arsenal in building the international communist movement from within the resistance of working people today.

The communist movement has always sought to have an apparatus and its own printing presses in order to produce revolutionary literature needed to educate and organize working people as class battles unfold and a contest for political power is posed, Waters pointed out.

With the growth of sales of the Militant and revolutionary books among youth and working people involved in massive struggles in the 1960s and 1970s--and resulting recruitment to the Young Socialist Alliance and Socialist Workers Party--the communist movement was able to purchase a web press. The new press could meet the growing run sizes of the Militant, which more than tripled, reaching 30,000 a week. Later, the movement purchased high-quality sheetfed presses, capable of turning out attractive four-color covers and book text pages in short runs.

Today, with a Militant press run around 4,000 a week, a web press is no longer needed to produce the socialist newsweekly. It is now being printed on the same presses that produce Pathfinder books, making the operation more efficient and cost-effective.

Over the last four years, Waters explained, the movement has been organizing in stages to find what equipment it needs to continue to keep in print more than 350 Pathfinder books and pamphlets, while maintaining the high quality of the books. The excess capacity of the equipment is being used to publish the Militant and Perspectiva Mundial, as well as commercial jobs.

"Our aim is to a build a publishing operation around the party needs today, and in the image of our branch organizing committees. And to do so without sacrificing the quality of the books," said Waters. Through this, she noted, the party can help to strengthen the branches in New York, where the apparatus is located.

A "red weekend" of volunteer labor is being organized at the Pathfinder Building in New York August 24–25, one in a series that is transforming the apparatus of the communist movement (see ad on page 1).

Waters reported that Pathfinder has already published 11 new titles this year, with 13 more scheduled for 2002. These coming titles include October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba, by Tomás Diez; Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the Marianas Grajales Women’s Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War; Malcolm X Talks to Young People, for the first time in Spanish; and a new French edition of Their Trotsky and Ours, by Jack Barnes.

"This ambitious publishing program would not be possible without the transformation of the supporters movement that began in 1998," she said. From the project kicked off that year to turn all Pathfinder books into ready-to-print digital files, the supporters now format all new Pathfinder titles and run the web page for the publishing house. One conquest of this effort, she noted, was that for the first time this year the books used in the socialist summer school were all available in English, French, and Spanish.

Building on these accomplishments of an international army, acting with discipline and concentrated striking power, the supporters have begun to organize a nationwide sales effort to commercial bookstores and other outlets, and will establish a Pathfinder distribution center in Atlanta. Holly Harkness reported during a panel presentation on the work of supporters in Atlanta, which builds on consistent efforts to sell Pathfinder to bookstores in the area.

Waters concluded her report by quoting from the introduction to Pathfinder’s new edition of Their Trotsky and Ours, by Jack Barnes: "History shows that small revolutionary organizations will face not only the stern test of wars and repression, but also the potentially shattering opportunities that emerge unexpectedly when strikes and social struggles erupt."  
 
New responsibilities of supporters
During a panel discussion held one evening during the convention, Tom Tomasko, a member of the Steering Committee of the Pathfinder Reprint Project, noted that at the beginning of August the project will have been under way for four and a half years. "Some 75 percent of Pathfinder’s titles, the patrimony of our movement, have been turned into digital files," he said.

"More recently we have taken on new responsibilities," Tomasko said. "We have helped to prepare 45 new titles or new editions, including six so far this year. We have also helped to get the pathfinderpress.com website up and running."

Tomasko outlined new goals set by the project steering committee in collaboration with the SWP leadership. "We aim to digitize 100 books over the coming year in addition to the new titles that are planned. We’re also taking responsibility for Pathfinder sales to bookstores, libraries, and educational institutions," an effort that will involve close collaboration by the SWP branches and organizing committees. "We’ll learn by doing," he said.

"Supporters in Atlanta are taking charge of the fulfillment of orders by the publisher’s customers," Tomasko said. Presently organized in New York by Pathfinder staff members, this "pick and pack operation" will be moved to Atlanta during two Red Weekends.

In a presentation at a rally following the close of the convention, Sara Gates from Seattle described another victory of the supporters movement: raising more than $300,000 a year in monthly contributions for the operating expenses of the Socialist Workers Party.

On the last day of the socialist gathering, Reprint Project volunteers packed a workshop on the Pathfinder sales effort before breaking into smaller workshops on the formatting, indexing, graphics, and other aspects of their digitizing work.
 
 
Related articles:
Classes are among convention highlights
Socialist Workers Party convention turns party outward to new opportunities  
 
 
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