Monthly Review

The Monthly Review is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Founded in 1949, it is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the U.S. From its beginning, Monthly Review was characterized as having "a nondoctrinaire approach to socialism" that became increasingly critical of the Soviet Union. The magazine was most closely linked to Third World socialism and national liberation struggles, and consequently saw its popularity grow among the New Left during the Vietnam War.

History

Establishment

Following the failure of Progressive Party candidate Henry A. Wallace in the 1948 presidential election, two former Wallace supporters, and ex-Harvard colleagues, met on a New Hampshire farm where one of them was living. The two men were literary scholar and Christian socialist F. O. "Matty" Matthiessen and Marxist economist Paul Sweezy. Matthiessen, who came into an inheritance after his father died in a car accident in California, had no pressing need for the inheritance money. He offered Sweezy to underwrite "that magazine [Sweezy] and Leo Huberman were always talking about" by committing the sum of $5,000 per year for three years.

While Matthiessen was the angel investor of the new publication, the editorial responsibilities were handled by Sweezy and his friend Leo Huberman. The latter was a New York University-educated author of left-wing books and pamphlets during the 1930s and '40s. He worked full-time on the Monthly Review from its establishment until his death of a heart attack in 1968.