Among insolent chariots and socialists

“The American Socialist” was the organ of the Socialist Union, a splinter group from the Trotskyist SWP (Socialist Workers Party). Headed by Bert Cochran, the union didn't sound particularly Trotskyist, unless you know where to look for the hidden references. (Clue: There are some in the last paragraph of the article on Latin America.) Their socialism was somewhat more explicit, in the form of calls for “public ownership” and “genuine planning”. Of course, the reason for this reticence might be a form of esoteric speech, since the Socialist Union was formed at the height of the Cold War. The SWP regarded the Cochranites as renegades who simply adapted to the conservative political climate of the time. Cochran himself said that he wanted to integrate the small revolutionary forces with the broader Left.

This issue of “The American Socialist” contains two relatively positive articles on Edward Bellamy. UAW president Walter Reuther is quoted appreciatively without comment, which is intriguing, since he was an anti-Communist. A book by Cochran is said to be directed at a “liberal-labor” audience. The article on Cuba is surprisingly negative, stating that the Cuban revolution isn't very important in and of itself, although it's certainly a symptom of a more general trend of change in Latin America. Castro is accused of being too soft on American interests! Here, I believe crypto-Trotskyist dogma rears its head… One article, “New Tastes in Waste”, attacks the sumptuous consumption of absurd gadgets by the neo-rich.

The most curious piece is an attack on automobiles, in a magazine which otherwise doesn't sound particularly Green. (This was before Rachel Carson's “Silent Spring”.) The short article is a book review titled “Folly on Wheels”, the book itself being titled “The Insolent Chariots”. Here's a sample of the review: “The story…of the car and its effect on Americans is a macabre romance. The passionate love affair between the village rube and his four-wheeled sexpot has become a frightful and blighted marriage”. Unsafe at any speed?

Finally, I noted that an old acquaintance of ours, David Herreshoff, is listed as a contributing editor to “The American Socialist”. Yes, the same Herreshoff who wrote a book I reviewed just the other day, “The Origins of American Marxism”. Ironically, that book was published by the Socialist Workers Party!

Of course, I'm writing this from my 2015 perspective. Perhaps this publication actually captures the left-liberal part of the 1959 Zeitgeist, and wouldn't have looked nearly as strange to a contemporary reader…