The New York Intellectuals, Thirtieth Anniversary Edition: The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s [Paperback ed.] 1469635941, 9781469635941

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The New York Intellectuals

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The Rise and Decline of the Anti-Stalinist Left from the 1930s to the 1980s

A L A N M. W A L D THIRTIETH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

The University of North Carolina Press Chapel Hill

The

© ioiy The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. ISBN 978-1-4696-3594-1 (pbk: alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4696-3595-8 (ebook) The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition as follows: Copyright © 1987 The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing, May 1987 Second printing, September 1987 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wald, Alan M. 1946The New York intellectuals. Bibliography: p. Includes index. i. Socialists^New York (N.Y.)^History^2oth century. 2. Intellectuals^New York (N.Y.)^History^2o century I. Title. HX92.N5W35 1987 32O.5/32/O9747i 86-24922 ISBN 0-8078-1716-3

ISBN 0-8078-4169-2 (pbk.) Some portions of this book have appeared in somewhat different form in Jewish Social Studies 38 (1976); Antioch Review 35 (1977); Prospects 3 (1977); Literature at the Barricades (University of Alabama Press, 1982), pp. 187-203;

Centennial Review 29 (1985).

h-1

hH

< rt O

O H

Contents

to the Thirtieth / ix

The for the

/

A

on the /

and the

In

O R I G I N S OF THE ANTI-STALINIST LEFT

Chapter i. Jewish

/ 27

The Non-Jewish

/ 27

Portrait: Elliot Cohen / 31 Portrait: Lionel Trilling / 33 Solow / 37 / 42 / 46

Group / 46

New Allies: Rorty,

/ 75

of Literature / 75

The

of Trotskyism / 91

Part II REVOLUTIONARY INTELLECTUALS

Chapter 4. / IOI

2.

The

/ 64

Other Dissident Writers Critics on the Left: T. Farrell, F. W. Dupee, Wilson / 82

Parti

Cultural to Revolutionary

The Intellectual Chapter 3.

Introduction. Political /3

Portrait:

Committee of Political (NCDPP) and the of / 56

Hook, / 50

The Non-Partisan Labor (NPLD) the Party / 101 Party /; French Tum;/ / 106 The

the / 112

/ 118

Chapter 5. The Moscow Trials / 128 The for the Trotsky / 128 The

The Politics of Literary Criticism / 217

of Leon in

/ 132

8. The New York Fiction / 226

in /

Cultural / 139 The of Anti-Stalinism / 147

Twilight of the Thirties / 157 6.

Politics

the Novel / 239

A Revolutionary Novelist in Crisis / 249 Part III

/ 164

Party Politics / 164

Party

THE GREAT RETREAT

Chapter 9. / 267

Portrait: P. Cannon / 167 Portrait:

to / 231

True

"Red Fascism'7 / 267 The Psychology of / 280

/ 172

From NeoThomism to Trotskyism / 175 / 182

The

Cage of / 295

Chapter 10. The Cul~de~Sac of Democracy / 311

Chapter 7. The War / 193

Portrait:

The of War II / 193

The "Socialist / 321

Dwight Trotskyism to / 199

Portrait:

Meyer

Socialist / 2IO

The

/ 311 of the / 334 Legacy / 338

Chapter n. The

War 11/; 3^

Portrait:

Epilogue. Intellectuals in the United / 366

of / 344

XT

/ 350

Portraits: and Midee Decter / 3^4 The of / 358

// 375

' * • of/• photographs 7 7 A section follows 192.

Preface to the Thirtieth Edition

I. THE P R E S E N T OF

PAST

After thirty the history of the New York has to visit in a Our has a for of politicocultural The of the as if forward, off up in by intellectuals of the as to our the of terror, tweets, Trump has a for /; the as committed writers/7 the Great to the New Left, blew the the 19605, an in which What is the for our to of con™ in the we are

by

IVew Tori: .Review

of the

the political, cultural, The IVew the of the infor the

as the pages, Louis a of as Lionel Trilling, Dwight Macdonald, Alfred Wilson. of collections of in with Yet the is the of or of the of are of the 19608 Left, as Cohen. They of political history,

In

Ed-

vet-

ix

x : Preface to the Thirtieth Anniversary Edition as

as

recovery activists^some

as

of of the not the Hits/7 These are the

for

a

In

as Corey of the

allusions, reconsidor fully are ex™ of the New York intellectuals7 ''Greatest widely in the the dying a lot of way. of the are the for Orwell's anti-Soviet yet politics; the of Arendt7s views on the validity of the "New Liberalism77 "Vital Center77 of a for of an Yet are on today;s far are of the comof the in the of the 19808. The of are to be the inwho as N + i Jacobin. very to the of the Review, two in to the Verso of IVew Le/t .Review, a by Deutscher7s neo-Trotskyism.2 Jacobin, in fact, is in the

of the

C. L. R.

Tie

Not in the very is critical to is

Jacobins: Toussaint UOuveituie

(1938), by the revolu™ do political life of 19308 in the legacy, to the is by who York the of

but tial of This the of the New Cold War How do we of the Why do of the political cultural activity underby the New York so to so different people^as if now? As far as 1986, B. Gilbert, the of a the Review, the of a of to the as "the burnt-over

Preface to the Thirtieth Anniversary Edition history/73 to be critiqued,

of

: xi

the falsified, It in Woody Allen's Alvy in the 1975 H