Gagliano adds, “According to Diez Acosta, ‘Operation Mongoose,’ which included plotted assassination of Cuban leaders, increased apprehensions of an imminent US invasion in 1962, making Soviet deterrent assistance urgent. Intensely critical of both Khrushchev and John Kennedy in negotiating the withdrawal of Soviet weaponry, Diez Acosta contends that the settlement denied Cuba any role in resolving the crisis and ignored Castro’s plan for guaranteeing Cuban sovereignty and future security.”
 

Pathfinder bookstores in the United States sold nearly $33,000 worth of literature over the first quarter of 2003—an increase of $6,000 over sales for the same period in 2002. The two top sellers are Marianas in Combat: Teté Puebla and the Mariana Grajales Women’s Platoon in Cuba’s Revolutionary War, 1956-58, with 314 copies sold, and the new edition of Malcolm X Talks to Young People, with 143 sold. Rounding out the top five are: New International no. 7 with the lead article “Washington’s Assault on Iraq: Opening Guns of World War III,” published in 1991; The Working-Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes; and Che Guevara Talks to Young People.
 

Sales of Pathfinder books have been expanding in Belgium and the Netherlands, more than doubling over the past two years. In 2002, more than 450 books and pamphlets were ordered by bookstores in these two countries. Among the most popular titles were From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution by Víctor Dreke, with 20 copies sold; and October 1962: The ‘Missile’ Crisis as Seen from Cuba, with 35 sold.

The new edition of The History of American Trotskyism, 1928-1938: Report of a Participant by James P. Cannon, with an attractive selection of photos from the 1920s and 30s illustrating the contents of the book, has now been ordered by five large bookshops in Belgium and one in the Netherlands for the first time ever. One shop in each country also ordered a copy of Their Trotsky and Ours by Jack Barnes, and two shops in Belgium purchased copies of the new edition of The Changing Face of U.S. Politics: Working-Class Politics and the Trade Unions, also by Barnes.

Several buyers in art-book sections of major stores decided to order Art and Revolution by Leon Trotsky to display alongside books on Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, on the occasion of the release early this year of the movie Frida. At a Brussels bookstore, which has ordered more than 100 Pathfinder books over the past two years, the buyer told of one customer who had purchased a copy of Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces. The man also showed interest in Secretos de generales (Secrets of the Generals) by Luis Báez. Published in Cuba and distributed by Pathfinder, Secretos also features interviews with Cuban military leaders. Although the store normally doesn’t sell Spanish-language books, the buyer called the Pathfinder’s New York office to fill the order.

Bookstores in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, and Utrecht regularly order and sell Pathfinder books. Bookstores in several smaller cities have also begun to do so. Impressed by the sample covers of Leon Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution and the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels shown to him by a Pathfinder representative, a young buyer for a store in Tilburg commented, “Every self-respecting bookstore should have those titles on its shelves.”

In the French-speaking part of Belgium, 18 copies of the newly released French-language edition of History of American Trotskyism are now available for sale in 11 bookshops in four cities. The best-selling Pathfinder title in French remains Che Guevara: Economics and Politics in the Transition to Socialism by Carlos Tablada, with more than 30 copies sold in Belgium since the beginning of 2001.
 

The recently retranslated Greek edition of Problems of Women’s Liberation by Evelyn Reed, published by Diethnes Vima, rolled off the press in Athens, Greece, in early April. To celebrate this event a fund-raiser goat roast was held April 13 at the home of one of the translators in the Greek capital. More than 20 people attended the event, purchasing 34 copies of the new book and 10 other Pathfinder titles. One participant, an airline worker, said that she planned to organize a house meeting with co-workers to discuss the book. A high school student said that she wants to organize discussions with two of her classmates on the Communist Manifesto and the Second Declaration of Havana, which she had picked up at the event. Volunteers are discussing plans to distribute the new title to bookstores throughout Athens, as well as in Thessaloniki—Greece’s second-largest city--in various cities in the province of Thessaly, and parts of Cyprus.
 

Six titles are featured on www.pathfinderpress.com as Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for May. Throughout the month they will be available at a 25 percent discount for orders on Pathfinder’s website or at any Pathfinder bookstore around the world. Featured this month are: Challenge of the Left Opposition, 1928-29 by Leon Trotsky; Woman’s Evolution: From Matriarchal Clan to Patriarchal Family by Evelyn Reed; Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and Political Economy of Jazz by Frank Kofsky; Che Guevara Talks to Young People; Communist Continuity and the Fight for Women’s Liberation, vol. 1: Documents of the Socialist Workers Party 1971-86; and Founding of the Communist International: Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress, March 1919.

Erik Wils in Antwerp, Belgium, and Georges Mehrabian in Athens, Greece, contributed to this column  
 
 
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