Mounting a big push in the final stretch of the international circulation campaign, they sold some 280 subscriptions to the Militant in seven days. By the June 3 deadline they had clocked up a total of 1,001 subs in the eight-week drive—just over the goal of 1,000.

Local goals were reached in almost all 36 cities where the campaign was organized in Australia, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Campaigners also surpassed the goal of 375 subscriptions to Perspectiva Mundial, winning 406 new or repeat subscribers to the Spanish-language monthly.

They also sold 384 copies of New International magazine and Capitalism’s World Disorder: Working-Class Politics at the Millennium by Jack Barnes, falling short of the goal of 600.

As they approached the finish line, participants in the drive got onto a more consistent campaign footing, working for every last possible subscription and book. Socialist workers in the meatpacking, coal mining, and garment and textile unions played a leading part in this effort. To co-workers and fellow unionists they explained that the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books are essential weapons for working people confronting both the drive to war abroad by Washington and other imperialist powers, and the bosses’ relentless push to impose speedup and cut labor costs.

Through initiatives such as on the-job sales, plant-gate literature tables, and special teams to coalfields and meatpacking plants, members of all three trade union fractions of the Socialist Workers Party made their goals for the socialist periodicals.

The success of subscription-getters at coal mines in Alabama, Colorado, and Pennsylvania registered the high regard in which the Militant is held by many miners, especially those who are veterans of union battles and organizing drives. The sales of Perspectiva Mundial showed the changing face of the coal industry and the increasing role played in it by workers from Latin America.  
 
Subscription sales to miners
“Across the country, we sold many subscriptions to co-workers in the mines,” wrote Jason Alessio, a coal miner who is a member of United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) Local 1984 in Colorado. Socialist miners made an all-out push in the last week.

“Two teams headed out to coal-mining areas in the Navajo Nation. They sold more than 25 papers at one mine portal, along with one subscription,” he said.

“They also visited miners who have subscribed in the past,” Alessio wrote. “One miner immediately asked about Róger Calero and his fight to stay in the United States. ‘What happened to that guy who was fighting against his deportation?’ he asked. ‘I was following his story every week and then the paper stopped coming’ (see article in this issue, “‘Not deportable’: Róger Calero wins fight”).

“This union veteran showed the team a beautiful scrapbook of the UMWA local’s last three strikes, dating back to 1987,” reported Alessio. “Included were photos, articles, chant sheets, and more. Every article from the Militant covering their struggles was there.”

A team to the Navajo Nation visited Kayenta, Arizona, home to two strip mines owned by Peabody Coal Corp. and organized by the UMWA. Elizabeth Kirwin reported sales of 17 copies of the Militant and three subscriptions.

Among those who have found the Militant useful are a number of young people in cities around the country who are preparing to visit revolutionary Cuba at the end of July as part of the Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange, which is being hosted by the main Cuban youth organizations (see article in this issue, “New Jersey students build Cuba-U.S. Youth Exchange). In the course of trying to learn more about the Cuban Revolution in preparation for the trip, several have become acquainted with the Militant, Perspectiva Mundial, and Pathfinder books.

Angel Lariscy from Newark, New Jersey, reports that one of the members active in the Youth Exchange group based at the Rutgers campus in that city decided to take out a one-year subscription to the socialist newspaper last week, appreciating the coverage in the paper both on the Cuban Revolution and on broader topics of world politics.  
 
 
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