Key Words: NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, JOURNALS
American Socialist 1956-1959, When the Cochran-Braverman group split from the Socialist Workers Party in 1953, it did not attempt to set up another ‘vanguard’ formation. Instead the organization they formed, called The Socialist Union, was a conscious attempt to pursue a different model. In combination with their monthly magazine, The American Socialist, they attempted to start a new Marxist current that would dispense with the sectarian habits of the past. Although the magazine was published for only six years, from 1954 through 1959, it is still very relevant for today's activists who are trying to construct new revolutionary organizations that are free of dogmatism and sectarianism.
This ETOL section is devoted to publicizing the magazine and the efforts of the Socialist Union. The American Socialist articles were scanned by Louis Proyect, who is the moderator of the Marxism mailing list at www.marxmail.org. A. Lehrer also played an important role in transferring the files from the late Sol Dollinger’s Socialist Union website to this location.
Alarm. Minneapolis: Scandinavian Propaganda League of the IWW, 1915-18. Monthly and semimonthly. In Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
Editors included Carl Ahlteen, Walfrid Engdahl and Carl Skogland. Suceeded Solidaritet, a short-lived Swedish IWW publication from Seattle. Paper covered events involving the IWW and the Scandinavian Socialist Federation in Minnesota and reported regularly on the unionization of workers in various industries. The paper opposed US entry into WWI, and in 1917, Ahlteen and two others were arrested and charged with impeding the conduct of the war. The paper lost its second-class mailing permit and ceased in 1918. It was succeeded by Facklan.
Anvil was launched by the New York Student Federation Against War, an amalgamation of several socialist and radical campus clubs in New York City. For the first two issues, the publisher was listed as the Federation alone; thereafter and up through the 12th issue, to the name of the Federation was added a number of radical and socialist clubs in other parts of the country, the list varying from time to time. The New York Student Federation had never really developed as a going concern apart from the constituent clubs, and it ceased to be listed beginning with the 13th issue. In fact, no student groups as such were thenceforth listed as publishers, the sponsorship being represented only by the editorial board
At its founding the editor was Julius Jacobson. He was eventually succeeded by Bob Bone (10th issue), Margaret Levi (11th-13th), Don Harris (14th), George Rawick (15th-18th), and Michael Harrington (19th-20th).
Fourth International This journal represented the continuation of Trotskyist politics in the United States after the tendency in the Socialist Worker Party that formed around Max Schactman split and took the SWP theoretical journal with them, New International [see entry on NI below]. The index is in two parts: 1940-1945 and 1946-1956. In 1956 the magazine was renamed International Socialist Review. The index for ISR goes up to March 1970 at the moment.
Industrial Organizer. Minneapolis: Motor Transport and Allied Workers Industrial Union, Local 544 (CIO), 1941-42. Weekly.
Edited by Miles Dunne. Formed when Local 544 split into CIO 544 and the more moderate AFL 544. Paper vowed “to carry on the militant labor traditions of its honorable predecessor.” It covered national CIO news and regularly criticized the AFL. Most of its pages were devoted to certification elections among furniture transport drivers and the trial of 29 leaders of Local 544-CIO and the Socialist Workers Party indicted under the Smith Act. As the trial progressed, the paper provided day-by-day coverage and reflected on different theories about the principles and the reasons behind the indictments. The publication ceased in 1942 due to lack of funds.
International Socialism. This journal was originally published in 1958 as a duplicated theoretical magazine by the Socialist Review Group then working in the Labour Party. After one issue in that format the following two numbers were produced in 1959 as a joint issue in the form of a book length study of Rosa Luxemburg by Tony Cliff. In 1960 the journal resumed publication, this time in printed form, with an editorial board drawn from a variety of tendencies but retaining its link with the SRG, which became the International Socialists in 1962. The International Socialists were renamed the Socialist Workers Party 1977 and the magazine ceased publication in this format at the beginning of 1978 (No.104) and was replaced by a book-format journal, which retained the name International Socialism but restarted the numbering, and a monthly magazine called Socialist Review.
This index is divided into three parts: 1958-1968, 1969-1974 and 1975-1978.
Labour Review. This journal was published in London from 1952 until 1963 by the tendency associated with Gerry Healy. Originally it appeared very sporadically but from 1957 it appeared more regularly. From 1957 until 1959 it was one of the finest non-sectarian theoretical journals on the left internationally. With the foundation of the Socialist Labour League it became increasingly inward looking and was replaced by a journal called Fourth International in 1964.
Militant. New York: Communist League of America, 1928-34.
Militant. Socialist Workers Party, 1937-present.
The paper is on-line and available at www.themilitant.com. From that:
A 12-week introductory subscription to the Militant is available for $10 in the United States. Longer term subscriptions are six months for $27, and one year for $45. To subscribe send a check or money order to: The Militant, 410 West St., New York, NY 10014.
The Militant is also shipped around the world. If you would like information on international rates please contact us at the address above, or at CompuServe: 73311,2720, or by email at: themilitant@igc.apc.org
Minnesota Appeal. Minneapolis SWP, Minnesota Section, 1939-(?) frequency unknown.
Paper vehemently opposed President Franklin Roosevelt, the New Deal, and the Communist Party, considering the Communist Party to be a tool of the war-mongering Roosevelt. Also critical of the F-LP. No editor named.
New International. The magazine was founded as the organ of the Trotskyist group, named the Communist League of America, which formed out of a split from the Communist Party. The CLA merged with the American Workers Party (a left-socialist group led by A.J. Muste, James Burnham et al.), to form the Workers Party of the US (Jan. 1935 issue). The magazine was suspended (last issue: June 1936) when the Trotskyists joined the Socialist Party and was reissued (Jan. 1938) when they split with the Socialist Party, forming the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP in turn split in the spring of 1940, and the magazine went (Apr. 1940) with the then minority, which organized itself under the name of Workers Party. This organization changed its name to Independent Socialist League after April 1949. Throughout these political changes, the formal publisher of the magazine was the “New International Publishing Company” (except for the first year, 1934, when it was the “New International Publishing Association”). At present the index by issue is more or less complete. It is divided into three sections: 1934-1940 (until the split), 1940-1946 and 1947-1958 (when the magazine ceased publication).
Northwest Organizer Minneapolis: Northwest Labor Unity Conference, 1935-36; Minneapolis Teamsters’ Joint Council,1936-41 Weekly.
Editors included Pat Corcoran, Farrell Dobbs, Jack Smith, and Miles Dunne. Succeeded the Organizer The paper served the militant labor movement of the Upper Midwest and was not strictly connected to one particular party. Most of its space was devoted to the activities of Teamsters Local 574 (later 544) and its various sections. The paper both chronicled and aided Local 574/544’s successful efforts to unionize workers and support strikes. Its pages also carried the heated debates and conflicts surrounding tactics and philosophies of different organizations, such as the AFL, the Communist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the F-LP, and the CIO. The paper ceased publication in 1941 following Local 544’s split into CIO 544 and AFL 544 and was replaced by the Industrial Organizer (CIO 544) and Minnesota Teamster (AFL 544).
Organizer. Minneapolis: Teamsters’ Local 574 (General Drivers and Helpers Union), 1934. Weekly and daily.
Strike bulletin of the General Drivers and Helpers Union during the Minneapolis truck drivers’ strike of 1934· Edited by Farrell Dobbs. The bulletin chronicled the events and grievances leading up to the strike, provided daily coverage of the strike when it began in July, and continued with weekly coverage of the union after the strike was settled. The bulletin also featured two regular columns: The National Picket Line, devoted to labor developments around the country, and Labor Looks at the Press, reprints of stories and editorials from the mainstream press, with commentary. Herbert Solow contributed often to the bulletin. Succeeded by the Northwest Organizer in 1935.
Socialist Appeal [Chicago, Ill.] This magazine was started by Albert Goldman, a supporter the Trotskyist movement in the United States who formally left the Workers Party of the United States, the US Section of the International Left Opposition, to enter into the Socialist Party of America and work and develop this party’s left-wing, which had been growing under the impact of the Depression. The paper was started in 1935 and was shortly joined by the official membership of the Trotskyist movement in the U.S. lead by James P. Cannon. The Trotskyists stopped publishing their organ, The Militant and joined in publishing Socialist Appeal. Socialist Appeal remained the Trotskyist faction’s paper until their expulsion from the Socialist Party in January of 1938, when The Militant resumed publication under the new Socialist Workers Party.
Arbeiter Und Soldat/Worker and Soldier, produced in occupied France during WWII this journal was produced by French Trotskyists in conjuction with German Trotskyists drafted into the German Army and serving in the occupation forces. A descritpion in Yvan Craipeau’s book Contre vents et marées (Against winds and tides) quotes Roland Filiâtre, one of the comrades responsible for this work: “The French comrades started discussions with German soldiers and got them talking and giving hints of their past politics. Once they had shown themselves trustworthy, after screening they were put in touch with the German soldiers who produced Der Arbeiter and then taken care of by their organisation. The Paris region was organised as two branches. But the heart of the organisation was in Brittany, both around Nantes and in particular around Brest where the soldiers provided the party with Ausweis [identity cards] and weapons. In Brest the organisation had about fifty soldiers on average despite some people being posted elsewhere. Contacts were established in Toulon, Valence, La Rochelle and at Conches aerodrome. Links were established with the German Trotskyist organisation, most importantly in the port of Hamburg, in Lübeck and in Rostock. Victor [a German Trotskyist, whose real name was Widelin] was responsible for these contacts. Arbeiter und Soldat was also distributed in garrisons in Italy. On 7 October 18 Fourth International Committees activists in Brittany were arrested, along with much of the Paris organisation. In total around fifty French activists were rounded up, and many of them were tortured, executed or sent to concentration camps. Similarly, as many as fifty Der Arbeiter soldier comrades were put to death, and their paper never reappeared.”
Student Partisan This magazine was launched by the Politics Club of the University of Chicago at a time when radical student activities were making a new beginning in the postwar period but no student movement had yet appeared on a national scale. In many ways the University of Chicago campus was to the late ’40s and ’50s was what CCNY had been in the ’30s and Berkeley was going to be in the ’60s: the campus with the most activity of a “student movement” type. The focus of this activity was the Politics Club. Its relatively large membership was more heterogeneous than radical clubs had tended to be. It included socialists of various tendencies and even some liberals; but the largest single political current in the club was that of the youth group of the Independent Socialist League, called the Socialist Youth League. It was their views which gave the main political tone to Student Partisan.
A similar student magazine was launched in New York City in the fall of 1949: see the introductory note to the Anvil index in this volume. The two magazines were merged the following year, and the independent existence of Student Partisan came to an end after nine issues. In effect, the merged magazine continued Anvil (and continued Anvil’s issue numbering), though the title became formally Anvil and Student Partisan.
Unionist. Austin: Independent Union of All Workers, 1935-37; Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, 1937-40; Local 9 (United Packinghouse Workers of America), 1940-79; Local P-9 of the United Food and Commercial Workers, 1979-present. Weekly. Editors included Carl Nilson and Svend Godfredsen. Paper began as organ of the IUAW and maintained its militant tone into the early 1940s, containing within its pages the diverse voices of Communists, Trotskyists, Socialists, and trade unionists. Paper covered CIO national news and activities and meetings of locals, as well as some general news. Paper carried many regular columns of political commentary, hunting and fishing tips, movie reviews, and cartoons.
Workers’ International News. London: Workers’ International League, 1938-1944; Revolutionary Communist Party, 1944-1949. Monthly, later irregular. Theroretical organ of the WIL and then the RCP until the dissolution of the party in 1949.
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Last updated 26.12.2007