Circulation of the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason, found in 1897, by 1902 was 150,000, by 1913 ciculation was 760,000.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAappealR.htm (cover of edition from 1914, see the cartoon of the singing bourgeoisie )
Those great Haldeman-Julius pamphlets in the same era, on radical, socialist and freethought topics, circulated in the millions.
Circulation figures for the PWW of the CPUSA in last week's issue, Oct. 11th-17th, 24,269 total printed. I buy it every week in front of the Y in the TL but, these #ers of printed s/b compared to actual subs and sold by vendors, in newsracks, bookstores, etc. In the rack are a good hundred copies from the last 6 weeks or so. Whoever from the N. Ca. CPUSA stuffs the rack has to be a different person than in the past since until a yr. ago or so the copies in the rack more closely approximated the # of copies actually sold. The price on the cover is now a $1.00 but a quarter in the slot still works. Given that the Moscow Gold was cut off by Gorby (something in the range of at least $26 million in CPSU subsidies to the CPUSA in the final decades), the current goal of the 2003 PWW drive to get $200K is far short still, at $58,579.