http://themilitant.com/2017/8146/814603.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 46 December 11, 2017
(front page)
SWP expands reach of party, ‘Militant’ in
working class
BY MARY MARTIN
The Socialist Workers Party has completed a successful fall Militant
subscription, book and party fund drive. Members and supporters took the
party’s newspaper and books by SWP leaders deeper into working-class
neighborhoods in cities large and small across the country.
SWP and Communist League members and supporters in Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and the United Kingdom signed up 1,582 new and renewing
readers to the Militant, going over the goal of 1,500. Although we fell
60 books short of the quota we sold 1,440 titles, most of them with
subscriptions and a smaller number without.
We come out of the drive knowing more people who are interested in
working with us. The economic and political crisis of the capitalist
rulers bearing down on us today means many more people are looking for a
working-class road forward. Some have begun to join in teams to their
neighbors and elsewhere.
Members and supporters who work in retail and other industries were key
to leading the drive forward, taking the paper, the books and the fund
effort to co-workers, relatives, friends and neighbors.
The heart of the circulation drive was discussions with working people
on their doorsteps to introduce the party, its press and books, and its
working-class election campaigns against the Democrats and Republicans,
the twin parties of the capitalist bosses.
Workers are angry at the disgust and disdain the propertied rulers have
for us, and their thirst to learn about the underlying reasons for the
carnage workers face — from joblessness to unending wars to spreading
death and destruction from opioid addiction. We found many people who
were open to revolutionary working-class politics.
Workers want to continue discussion
Many of them want to continue the discussion and help to take it
broader. John Staggs writes from Philadelphia about one of his
co-workers who bought a Militant subscription also got a copy of Malcolm
X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers Power. He wants to organize
to get it into a book discussion club he’s participating in.
Many not only wanted to sign up for subscriptions and dig into the party
books, but were happy to donate to help fund the ongoing work of the
SWP. In total we raised $102,568, exceeding the Fall Fund goal of
$100,000. Every area went over the quota in full and on time. Co-workers
and workers on their doorsteps kicked in hundreds of dollars.
Jacquie Henderson writes from Minneapolis that the fund collection there
included “more than $200 in new contributions, mostly $5 and $10, as we
invited workers to see our party as their party.” The final chart is below.
Worldwide drive
The Communist Leagues in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the U.K.
participated in the circulation effort, meeting scores of new people and
expanding the reach of communist literature.
From London, Jonathan Silberman writes that a team of party members
went door to door in the working-class area of Harlow, Essex. When Hugh
Robertson knocked on Peter Baker’s door, he explained the Communist
League was there to present an independent working-class political outlook.
“Workers need our own party,” Baker agreed, signing up for a
subscription. “It’s good to get a paper that tells workers’ side of the
story. I’ve always been suspicious of what I read in the ‘mainstream’
press.”
“In the final two days of the drive, we visited with several workers who
had asked us to come back after payday to get a subscription and/or a
book,” Edwin Fruit writes from Seattle. “We got one subscription from
getting back together with someone who lives near a Walmart store south
of Seattle, and sold a copy of Are They Rich Because They’re Smart? in
Spanish to another worker we’d met in the same neighborhood.”
Walmart worker Pat Scott signed up a neighbor for a Militant renewal and
also sold a copy of Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers
Power to a family friend.
Jeanne FitzMaurice visited a long-time co-worker originally from Africa
who had expressed interest in several titles. In the end he got the
Workers Power book, The Clintons’ Anti-Working-Class Record and Are They
Rich Because They’re Smart? all by SWP National Secretary Jack Barnes,
and Is Socialist Revolution in the US Possible? by party leader
Mary-Alice Waters. He said he wants to read them all, and wants his sons
to do the same.
These four books were among five offered with a special discount
together with a subscription. The fifth was “It’s the Poor Who Face the
Savagery of the US ‘Justice’ System” written by the Cuban Five, Cuban
revolutionaries who were imprisoned for up to 16 years by Washington and
freed through an international defense campaign.
The central goal of the drive was to strengthen the ability of the party
to keep on doing the same thing 52 weeks a year — meeting more workers,
expanding the reach of the party’s press and books, laying the basis for
the party to grow. We succeeded. And you can join in, just contact the
party at the office nearest you listed on page 4.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home