The New York intellectuals: the rise and decline of the anti-Stalinist left from the 1930s to the 1980s. Alan Wald (Chapel Hill and London University North Carolina Press; 1987)
Alan Wald is one of the editors of the North American Marxist periodical Against the Current and the author of several books on revolutionary writers in the United States. His latest book is a remarkable study of the formation of an anti-Stalinist Marxist culture around Partisan Review in the 1930s. It is a hidden chapter of American cultural history which has been saved from oblivion and the 'political amnesia' of those concerned.
The target of his study is a group of writers, literary critics and publicists—known as the 'New York intellectuals'—who became radicalised during the 1930s and played an important role in American cultural life: Sidney Hook, Max Eastman, Mary MacCarthy, Lionel Trilling, Herbert Solow, Edmund Wilson, William Philips, Philip Rahv, Irving Howe, James T Farrell, Felix Morrow, Irving Kristol, etc. After having gravitated around or in the Communist Party for several years, they began their break with Stalinism by a February 1934 demonstration protesting against priority struggle against 'social fascism' (i.e. the Socialist Party). But it was the Moscow Trials of 1936-37 which made them definitely leave the orbit of the Communist Party of the USA and move closer to the Left Opposition. Most of them were fascinated by Trotsky as a literary and political figure and participated actively in the committee to defend him. It is thanks to them (particularly to Herbert Solow) that the Dewey Commission was formed to enquire into the trials.
From this point Partisan Review became the focus of a real Marxist cultural renaissance. Its main editors, William Philips and Philip Rahv kept up an assiduous correspondence with Trotsky. Some members of the group (including one of the editors Dwight MacDonald) were even to join the SWP. The review published writings of Trosky—for example 'Arts and politics in our Epoch' in 1938 and the 'Manifesto for an Independent Revolutionary Art' signed by André Breton and Diego Rivera (but in fact written jointly in Mexico by Trotsky and Breton). In 1939, all the members of the editorial board joined forces with known Troskyist militants (James Burnham, Sherry Mangan, George Novak) to create the League for Cultural Freedom and Socialism, American section of the FIARI (International Federation for Independent Revolutionary Art) founded in Paris by Breton and his friends. The political standpoint of Partisan Review at this point was clearly revolutionary and internationalist.
However, demoralised by the defeat in Spain, the assassination of the 'Old Man' in 1940 and disorientated by the Second World War and the Cold War, most of these 'New York intellectuals' underwent a profound deradicalisation in the 1940s and 1950s. Some worked for Readers' Digest (Max Eastman), others for Fortune (Herbert Solow) and most for the 'liberal' anti-communist Commentary. Animated by the growing Cold War atmosphere, they organised the Cultural Freedom Congress (generously financed by the CIA). Only a minority (Philip Rahv, Edmund Wilson, Irving Howe) refused to go along with MacCarthyism. From the 1960s several of these intellectuals were to be found in the ranks of the neo-conservatives or more recently behind Reagan (Sidney Hook, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz). Very few showed any sympathy for the youth protest movement (Mary MacCarthy, Philip Rahv).
Alan Wald has reconstituted this complicated itinerary in a masterly fashion. He points out the links these different figures had, close or distant, with the Trotskyist movement, both Cannon's SWP and the Workers Party of Schactmann after 1940 and tries to explain the political, social and psychological causes of their capitulation and their absorption by the system. His book is not only a monument of erudition (based on wide archival research and more than a hundred interviews) but also a literary work. Remarkably well-written, it is as easy to read as a novel. Without hiding his revolutionary Marxist standpoint, Alan Wald combines commitment and critical spirit, objectivity and position held. An example to be followed.
(Michael Lowy)