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Vol. 73/No. 46      November 30, 2009

 
Iran: Pathfinder book
explains class society
 
A reader in New York City has sent us the following letter he received this month from a friend in Iran. The friend reports the response of a worker he knows there who has recently read the Farsi translation of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes, one of some 35 Pathfinder Press books and pamphlets now available in Farsi in Iran from a number of publishers. More than 1,200 copies of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning in Farsi have been sold in Iran since its publication in 2003.

Since the rise of demonstrations and other protests against the fraudulent June 12 elections in Iran earlier this year, 3,800 Pathfinder books produced by one of the Farsi-language publishers have been bought by working people, youth, and others there. The top three sellers are Capitalism’s Long Hot Winter Has Begun by Jack Barnes; The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels; and Feminism and the Marxist Movement by Mary-Alice Waters.
 

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November 14, 2009

Dear Farhad,

I recently talked with Javid about the content of Pathfinder books available in Farsi. Javid doesn't read English. He told me one of his favorites is the Farsi translation of The Working Class and the Transformation of Learning by Jack Barnes.

He said reading that booklet clarified for him, for the first time, how capitalism uses university diplomas as a basis to build the structure of class society—how this is used as a tool to convince workers to accept our low living standards and submit to the false idea that we ourselves are to blame for those conditions. To try to get us to accept that workers are responsible for our low standard of life.

Javid also emphasized that through reading the booklet, he recognized the source of the big difference—something he had always felt but could not understand where it came from—between the intellectuals who admire Pathfinder literature and agree with its content and other intellectuals; how they have a very humble and equal relationship with workers. Because of his job, Javid said, he knows many authors and translators, but they never treat him as an equal in their personal and intellectual relations with him. He said how outstanding it has been for him to experience the unwavering relationship of equals he has had with those who work with Pathfinder literature.

The important part for him is that those who work with Pathfinder not only identify with its literature but act on it as well.

Best wishes,

Soheil Farrokhi  
 
 
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