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From Fourth International, vol.6 No.7, July 1945, p.194.
Transcribed, marked up & formatted by Ted Crawford & David Walters in 2008 for ETOL.
Philadelphia has appointed a new agent, Alma Seton, to handle the sale of Fourth International. She reports that on June 16th, a social was held. Fifty percent of the profits were sent to Fourth International and 50 percent to Pioneer Publications. Agent Seton writes:
“We are trying to push the FI and all of our literature more than we have in the past, and in order to do that, we are going to sell it at meetings of liberal groups, forums, Quaker discussions, public debates, college lectures, and other meetings where there are people who would be interested in the Marxist ideas presented in the magazine.
“We sold six copies at the Norman Thomas meeting on Peace-time Conscription.”
Selling the magazine at meetings and forums is also meeting with success in other cities. S. Stein, New York, reports:
“At our last Forum on June 6th, we sold seven copies of Fourth International. We featured it not by announcing it in the usual way – as the theoretical magazine of the Socialist Workers Party – but by a reference to the article of Comrade Leon Trotsky on Disarmament and the United States of Europe. The chairlady of the Forum pointed out that this article written in connection with a different ‘disarmament conference’ is a real key to the understanding of the San Francisco (popularly known as the San Fiasco) conference. On another occasion we did the same thing with old issues of the magazine which we had in stock and always sold some copies. Yours for the Fourth.”
At the Grace Carlson meeting in New York on June 22, all available copies of the June FI (10) were sold out. The literature agent reports that probably many more could have been sold, that disappointed customers had to be turned away.
We are constantly receiving requests for back copies. San Francisco sent us an SOS for extra copies of the March issue. Bernard Forrest, our Chicago agent, wrote:
“Please send us as quickly as possible the following: 25 copies May Fourth International. Our newsstand sales of the FI have been so good that we are completely out of the May issue.”
A reader in Welcome, Minn., requested the June 1944 issue. Another reader enclosed 25c for a copy of the June 1942 magazine, containing the article America’s Sixty Families and the Nazis.
Fourth International has a constantly increasing number of foreign readers who eagerly await its arrival. Our latest request for a subscription from a reader was for a friend in Palestine. An English subscriber writes:
“Many thanks for the publications I am receiving regularly from you.
““I really look forward to the FI with its forthright Marxist interpretation of world events, which are reeling by every day at a terrific speed.
““If ever the worker of the world needed a Marxist lead in face of the vile stench of Stalinist and capitalist propaganda, it is today. The FI is giving that lead and is doing a grand job, preparing the youthful cadres for the coming struggles that be ahead.”
Some of the letters which we receive contain criticism. We are always glad to receive such letters, for we feel that they help us to improve the magazine. A reader believes that we should have carried something on the San Francisco conference. A young merchant seaman says that the best articles we have had lately are the three by Lily Roy, Socialism Reaffirmed.
“They were fine. Very clear and easy to understand. You should have more articles on this order.”
The following is a letter which we feel merits special attention, because it touches on a matter which many readers have pointed out. S.B., New York, writes:
“Just finished reading the June issue of your magazine. There was one noticeable omission. But before I state my criticism, let me make clear Fourth International is better and more enlightening than any other magazine, even though we have in this country an accumulation of ‘intellectual’ refugees and some native ones too, I am sure. The magazine is packed with facts and information. The article by Li Fu-jen Imperialist Program for the Orient for example, is a wonderful check against the programmatic documents of the Trotskyist movement issued before the war.
“My criticism: there was nothing specific on the United States. All the contradictions of capitalism will be found here together with the role of a first rate imperialist nation. The eyes of the world will be more and more on this country. The Trotskyist movement – no other, can explain the real significance of the United States position.”
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An increasing number of public libraries subscribe to Fourth International. A. Thomas, Keeper of Printed Books, British Museum, London, acknowledges with thanks the receipt of copies of the NI for 1939 and the FI for 1942, 1943 and 1945. Several libraries have requested indexes for their bound volumes. Among these are the Detroit Public Library, the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul and the Indiana University Library in Bloomington,Indiana. Also, the John R. Commons Labor Research Library, in the University of Wisconsin has requested copies to fill out the gaps in their files. This material is collected by the Commons Labor Research Library for the Wisconsin Historical Society, where it is permanently available to students and scholars of the labor movement.
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Requests for our 1944 bound volumes, which are now available, are coming in well. The price is $4.50. They are bound in red cloth, with gold lettering and include a comprehensive index by author and by subject.
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Last updated on 9.9.2008