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From Fourth International, Vol.16 No.2, Spring 1955, p.38.
Transcription & mark-up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
Glancing over our cumulative index for the past year or so, we noted that Fourth International has eight new names listed among its authors. Most of them have been in the revolutionary socialist movement for years but either did not feel at home as writers or felt that something on “theory” required perhaps more in the way of study than they had yet achieved. How well they did in their first contributions to Fourth International can be judged by our readers:
Milton Alvin wrote Does “Co-Existence” Mean Peace? (Fall 1954); Trent Hutter, The American Motion Picture Today (Winter 1955); Frank Lovell, Lessons of the Square D Strike (Winter 1955); Lynn Marcus, Automation – The New Industrial Unionism (Winter 1954); David Miller, The Role of Statism in the Colonial World (Fall 1954) and The Character of the State in China (Winter 1955); Art Sharon, The Opposition to McCarthyism (Spring 1954); Myra Tanner, Sternberg vs. Karl Marx (Winter 1954); and Murry Weiss, McCarthyism: Key Issue in the 1954 Elections.
In this issue two more new name appear in FI’s list of authors: Joyce Cowley and Harold Robins. Both name are undoubtedly familiar to most of our readers – Joyce Cowley is one of the most popular writers of the Militant and Harold Robins has carried the banner for the Socialist Workers Parity as a candidate for various offices in the New York City municipal elections.
Having broken the ice, Joyce Cowley is now preparing another study to follow the one on the suffragist movement. Dealing with the problems faced today by youth in a delinquent society, it is scheduled for early publication.
In the next issue we plan to commemorate the memory of Leon Trotsky, who was assassinated 14 years ago by an agent of Stalin’s secret police. This will include a review by Murry Weiss, editor of the Militant, of the second volume of Trotsky’s First Five Years of the Communist International.
A highlight in the Summer issue will be The Year 1923, three absorbing letters in the series by James P. Cannon which began last year under the title Letters to a Historian. Comrade Cannon’s observations on the events and figures of the early years of the American communist movement have proved papular with our readers. As one of the founders of the movement, Cannon s peaks with unusual authority as an eyewitness and participant in the struggles that shaped the Marxist movement of today in the United States. For young socialists striving for an insight into the problems of leadership, the entire series is must reading, and we particularly recommend the next installment.
Also ready for publication is a study of the African peoples’ struggle for independence. By George Lavan, staff writer of the Militant, it is based on material contained in such books as The Gold Coast Revolution, Africa: Britain’s Third Empire, and How Britain Rules Africa by George Padmore.
Which reminds us that our book review section got caught in the squeeze this issue and we had to hold over some excellent items, including one by Trent Hutter on William Faulkner’s latest novel A Fable. We hope to do better next time despite the limitations of 32 pages. (If you would like to help overcome the dollar shortage that ropes us in so severely at present, you can win a friend and influence our Business Manager by sending in a contribution.)
Besides this, the next issue will continue the next installment of Plekhanov’s essay on Belinsky, which appears for the first time in an English translation. It gets even better as it goes along.
In addition, articles dealing with key issues of today will give the Summer number the timeliness as well as the theoretical interest that makes Fourth International the kind of magazine you like to pass on to your friends.
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Last updated on: 5 April 2009