Vol. 75/No. 45      December 12, 2011

This is how the international campaign to win new and renewed Militant subscribers concluded Nov. 23, with a total of 2,410—well over our goal of 2,200.

Max Bontrager and Joe Swanson in Lincoln, Neb., led the way with 37 subscriptions, or 123 per cent of their goal.

This victory is confirmation of the growing interest among workers and youth in a working-class newsweekly that builds solidarity with their struggles, provides a Marxist explanation of the world capitalist crisis, and charts a course toward building a revolutionary movement to bring an end to the dictatorship of capital. Through such a movement working people will transform themselves and become capable of building a new social order based on solidarity and the needs of toiling humanity.

Subscriptions were sold on picket lines to embattled workers and their supporters, door to door in working-class neighborhoods, at factory plant gates and mine portals, on the job, at union meetings, labor demonstrations, social protests, Occupy sites and campuses.

This issue of the Militant will be mailed from New York; Montreal; London; Auckland, New Zealand; and Sydney, Australia to more than 3,700 subscribers in 32 countries.

“We went over our quota of 165 by one tonight,” wrote Alyson Kennedy from Chicago two days before the end of the drive. “We sold nine subscriptions—one for six months together with Teamster Rebellion by Farrell Dobbs—on Monday at two truck stops. This makes 13 subscriptions at truck stops.

“Like all workers,” Kennedy added, “truckers are following what is going on in the world and the economic crisis, and are open to a fighting course by the working class to take power. I can say for everyone in Chicago that this was one of the best subscription drives yet. And more to come!”

“In the last eight days of the subscription drive,” writes Deborah Liatos from New York, “we sold 82 subscriptions and 465 single copies of the socialist newsweekly, making up for the ground lost during the previous two weeks.” New York ended with a total of 262 of their goal of 260. Liatos led the daily effort involving the entire membership of the New York branch of the Socialist Workers Party.

“We sold six subscriptions and 41 single copies at Metropolitan Transit Authority depots in Fresh Pond, Queens, and Coney Island,” Liatos adds. “Transit workers, members of TWU Local 100, face deep concession demands by the city as they head toward the expiration of their contract January 15.” Twenty-three subscriptions and 105 single copies of the paper were sold at the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

“The Militant is regularly passed around on the picket line of locked-out Steelworkers in Marietta, Pa.,” writes Janet Post from Philadelphia, “and recent issues are made available at the United Steelworkers Local 285/441 union hall in Lancaster.” These workers have been fighting a union-busting drive since July.

“During the drive,” adds Post, “one worker renewed his subscription and said he encouraged a student who visited the picket line to subscribe. Another who renewed developed pictures she had taken on the picket line for use by the Militant. A retired subscriber came to the picket line to bring a letter to the Militant editor about support for the workers. USW Local 285/441 also renewed its subscription.”

The Militant now has hundreds of subscribers among locked-out sugar workers and their supporters in the Red River Valley in the Upper Midwest, longshore workers fighting a union-busting drive in Longview, Wash., locked-out Steelworkers in Marietta, Pa., and striking flour mill workers in San Antonio.

During the drive, hundreds of books were sold at a reduced price along with a subscription to workers and youth eager to deepen their understanding and knowledge of past struggles by working people and the lessons drawn from them by working-class revolutionary leaders.

From all accounts, the best selling title has been Teamster Rebellion, the first in a four-volume series by Farrell Dobbs on the massive struggles waged by truck drivers and coal haulers in the Midwest during the 1930s to establish a union and fight for improved conditions in the midst of the Great Depression. (See ad on this page)

It won’t be long before the subs sold at the beginning of the drive will expire. Getting back to these readers about renewing will be a key component of building and expanding the paper’s long-term readership.

A cheer for our collective effort and a warm welcome to our new subscribers!
 
 
Related articles:
Fall 'Militant' subscription campaign FINAL RESULTS, (chart).  
 
 
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