Heretics and renegades

This is the first issue of “American Socialist” I have the pleasure of perusing. It was published by a Trotskyist group, the Socialist Union, at the height of the Cold War. Sometimes called the Cochranites after their central leader Bert Cochran, the Socialist Union was the result of a split in the Socialist Workers Party.

From what I read about this group in SWP material, I had expected “American Socialist” to be a minimalist union-oriented magazine with a slightly Stalinoid tendency (think “Michel Pablo” and “entryism sui generis”). In fact, it looks more like a respectable literary & cultural supplement to some vaguely liberal daily paper!

The magazine doesn't say much about “socialism”, despite its masthead, but it does take a strong stand against the Cold War witch-hunts, arguing that they threaten all dissenting voices, including radical unions and anti-racists challenging Jim Crow laws. Indeed, most of the articles are about McCarthyism. The Soviet Union and Stalinism are criticized, but with some hope that the post-Stalin thaw can lead to positive developments.

This issue also contains a review of Isaac Deutscher's “Heretics and Renegades”, a collection of essays by the Polish-born Marxist. “The Ex-Communist's Conscience” is the most well known, and the reviewer quotes and references it profusely, including its attacks on Wordsworth and Coleridge. Finally, we learn that the Socialist Union likes Shelley, Thaddeus Stevens and Thomas Jefferson.

Thank you for the pleasure of reading this magazine of the Cochranite heretics and renegades!