Partisan Review

Based on Wikipedia: Partisan Review

In 1934, New York City was a city of stark contrasts, where the roar of the Great Depression echoed off the gilded facades of Manhattan's financial district. Into this fractured landscape stepped a small, quarterly publication that would eventually define the intellectual conscience of a generation. It was called Partisan Review, and it began not as an independent voice, but as a mouthpiece for the John Reed Club, a mass organization affiliated with the Communist Party USA. The magazine was launched by two young editors, Philip Rahv and William Phillips, who were tasked with bridging the gap between radical politics and radical art. Their initial mandate was clear: to champion a new, proletarian literature that would serve the working class. Yet, from the very first issue, a tension simmered beneath the surface. Rahv and Phillips were deeply dissatisfied with the hackneyed, formulaic nature of the "proletarian literature" being produced by the party's stalwarts. They believed that true radical art required a sophistication and aesthetic rigor that the party's dogma simply could not accommodate.

This internal friction was not merely an academic squabble; it was a struggle over the soul of the American left. The editors clashed openly with figures like Mike Gold and Granville Hicks, who dominated the pages of New Masses, the Communist Party's national literary organ. Gold and his cohort demanded art that was politically useful, often at the expense of artistic merit. Rahv and Phillips argued for a synthesis of form and content, a belief that the most radical political change required the most radical artistic innovation. This stance was dangerous in the climate of the 1930s, where ideological purity was the currency of the realm. The magazine's early years were a precarious dance between maintaining their subscription to the Communist orbit and preserving their intellectual integrity. They walked a tightrope, criticizing the party's cultural output while still relying on its infrastructure and its readership.

The tightrope snapped in 1936. The Communist Party, sensing the rising tide of fascism in Europe, pivoted toward its Popular Front strategy, a massive shift designed to unite all anti-fascist forces, including non-Communist liberals and social democrats. To facilitate this, the Party abandoned the militant John Reed Clubs in favor of the new, more inclusive League of American Writers. For Rahv and Phillips, this was a betrayal. They saw the move not as a strategic necessity, but as a watering down of the revolutionary spirit, a capitulation to the mainstream that would dilute the commitment to a truly radical literature. The editors' disillusionment was profound. As the Party turned its attention to broad political maneuvering, the intellectual ferment that had fueled Partisan Review began to stagnate. The magazine, once a beacon of radical hope, found its readership faltering. In a decisive act of refusal, publication was abruptly suspended in the fall of 1936, effectively silencing the voice of the dissident left within the Party.

Silence, however, was never the end of the story for Partisan Review. The magazine reemerged in December 1937, but it was a different creature entirely. The silence had been broken by the roar of history. News from abroad had shattered the illusions of many on the American left. The Great Purge in the Soviet Union, where Stalin's paranoia decimated the ranks of the old Bolsheviks and innocent citizens alike, sent shockwaves through the intellectual community. Simultaneously, the duplicity of the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, where Stalinist forces prioritized their own political interests over the fight against fascism, revealed a chilling reality. The utopia many had believed in was not just flawed; it was a nightmare of terror and betrayal.

"The news of the Great Purge... pushed the pair of editors to a new outspokenly critical perspective."

Rahv and Phillips returned to the helm with a new cast of editors, including the sharp-witted Dwight Macdonald and the formidable literary critic F. W. F. Dupee. The magazine's political line shifted dramatically, moving away from the Party line and toward a deep, often Trotskyist, sympathy for the victims of Stalinism. This was a dangerous pivot. The Communist Party press reacted with hostility, accusing the editors of stealing a party asset and betraying the cause. But the breach was irreversible. A new generation of left-wing writers, deeply critical of the Soviet Union, flocked to the pages of Partisan Review. Names like James Burnham and Sidney Hook began to appear, their essays dissecting the totalitarian nature of the Soviet regime with a clarity that had been absent before. The magazine had transformed from a tool of the Communist Party into an independent forum for anti-Stalinist thought. It was no longer a mouthpiece; it was a witness.

The trajectory of the magazine continued to shift as the world hurtled toward war. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, a shocking non-aggression treaty between Hitler and Stalin, served as the final nail in the coffin for any remaining ties to the Communist movement. Partisan Review began to divorce itself completely, including from its own dissident Trotskyist wing, which had provided a temporary ideological home. The editorial board was fractured by the question of American preparedness for war. Rahv and Phillips offered qualified support for American rearmament, arguing that the fight against fascism required a strong defense. This stance was vehemently opposed by Macdonald and Clement Greenberg, who held to a pacifist line. The tension nearly tore the magazine apart, a microcosm of the broader ideological civil war raging on the American left. A tentative truce was struck, but the was deep. In 1943, Dwight Macdonald finally departed, unable to reconcile his pacifist convictions with the magazine's growing support for the war effort. He went on to found his own publication, politics, carrying his radical pacifism to a new audience.

As the war ended and the Cold War began, the political center of Partisan Review moved decisively to the right. The post-war years saw the magazine increasingly defined by its anti-Communism. The contributions of writers like Sidney Hook, James Farrell, George Orwell, and Arthur Koestler bolstered a new narrative. Orwell, who served as the magazine's London correspondent, brought his unflinching analysis of totalitarianism to its pages, his voice a clarion call against the tyranny of the Soviet state. The magazine became staunchly supportive of American virtues and values, though it retained a critical eye toward the nation's biases and excesses. It was a period of consolidation, where the magazine's identity was forged in the fires of ideological conflict. The once-radical journal had evolved into a defender of the liberal establishment, a stance that would eventually draw the attention of the American intelligence community.

The relationship between Partisan Review and the Central Intelligence Agency remains one of the most controversial chapters in the history of American intellectual life. For decades, the founding editor William Phillips vehemently denied any connection to the CIA. However, following the fall of the Soviet Union, the veil was lifted. It was revealed that Partisan Review had received covert funding from the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s. This was not a casual donation; it was part of a calculated strategy by the agency to shape intellectual opinion during the Cultural Cold War. The goal was to cultivate a cadre of anti-Communist intellectuals who could counter Soviet propaganda and promote American values abroad.

The financial history of the magazine in the 1950s is a testament to the precarious nature of independent publishing. In 1953, the magazine faced a severe financial crisis when its primary backer, Allan D. Dowling, became embroiled in a costly divorce proceeding that drained his resources. The shortfall was filled by a $2,500 grant from the American Committee for Cultural Freedom (ACCF), a front organization for the CIA. William Phillips sat on the executive board of the ACCF throughout the decade, a position that placed him at the center of the covert funding network. As the ACCF terminated its operations, half of its remaining coffers were transferred to Partisan Review. Additional funds flowed in, including a $10,000 donation from Henry Luce, the publisher of Time magazine. Luce was instrumental in facilitating contacts between Phillips and Walter Bedell Smith, the Director of Central Intelligence. The flow of money continued into the 1960s through the Congress for Cultural Freedom, a successor organization that granted the magazine $3,000 a year for three years, disguised as subscriptions to foreign magazines. The revelation of this funding source forced a re-evaluation of the magazine's independence. Was the anti-Stalinist stance of Partisan Review a genuine intellectual evolution, or was it a product of covert manipulation? The truth likely lies somewhere in the middle, a complex interplay of genuine conviction and external influence.

"The journal moved its offices to the campus of Rutgers University in 1963..."

The physical home of Partisan Review changed twice, reflecting the shifting landscape of American higher education and the magazine's need for stability. In 1963, William Phillips negotiated a move to the campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The deal was mutually beneficial: Rutgers provided free office space, utilities, and the salaries of an editor, an assistant editor, a secretary, and graduate assistants. In return, the university gained the prestige of association with a world-renowned literary journal and the services of its editors as lecturers. This arrangement lasted for fifteen years, a period of relative stability for the magazine. However, in 1978, the partnership faced a crisis. Phillips approached the mandatory retirement age of 70, and the university refused to make an exception. Phillips was forced to find a new home for the magazine he had nurtured for nearly half a century.

The search for a new home led to Boston University. The new agreement seemed promising, with the magazine set to continue under the editorship of Phillips and Steven Marcus, with Edith Kurzweil as Executive Editor. But the transfer was not without its complications. Rutgers, having invested over $1 million in the magazine and housing its extensive archive since 1963, physically blocked the transfer of the files to Boston University. A standoff ensued, with attorneys for both parties hastily negotiating a compromise. Phillips was allowed to remove back issues, financial files, and current documents necessary for publication, but the bulk of the archive remained in New Jersey. This legal battle was a fitting end to a long history of conflict and compromise, a final struggle over the ownership of the past.

The final issue of Partisan Review appeared in April 2003, marking the end of an era that spanned nearly seven decades. The magazine had weathered the Great Depression, the rise of fascism, the horrors of the Soviet Purges, the Cold War, and the cultural upheavals of the 1960s and 70s. It had begun as a voice for the Communist Party and ended as a pillar of the American liberal establishment. Its journey was a reflection of the turbulent history of the 20th century, a story of idealism, disillusionment, and the relentless search for truth in a world of lies. The legacy of Partisan Review is complex. It was a forum for some of the most brilliant minds of the century, a place where the boundaries of literature and politics were constantly tested. But it was also a victim of the very forces it sought to critique, caught in the web of Cold War espionage and the shifting tides of political fashion.

The story of Partisan Review is not just a history of a magazine; it is a history of the American intellectual left. It is a story of how ideas are formed, how they are corrupted, and how they are reclaimed. It is a reminder that the pursuit of truth is never easy, that the path from radicalism to orthodoxy is often paved with good intentions, and that the line between independence and manipulation is often thinner than we would like to believe. The magazine's editors, writers, and readers were not just observers of history; they were participants in it, shaped by the events they covered and shaping the events they covered. Their story is a testament to the power of the written word, a power that can inspire, deceive, and ultimately, endure.

As we look back on the nearly seven decades of Partisan Review, we are left with a profound sense of the fragility of intellectual independence. The magazine's journey from the John Reed Club to the CIA's covert funding network is a cautionary tale, a reminder that even the most principled voices can be co-opted by the forces of power. Yet, it is also a story of resilience. Despite the compromises, the betrayals, and the financial struggles, Partisan Review remained a vital force in American intellectual life for as long as it did. It proved that there is a space for critical thought, even in the most hostile of environments. The magazine may be gone, but the questions it raised about the relationship between art, politics, and power remain as relevant today as they were in 1934. In a world where the lines between truth and propaganda are increasingly blurred, the legacy of Partisan Review serves as a beacon, reminding us of the importance of vigilance, of the need to question authority, and of the enduring power of the independent mind.