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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Defining the Monster: The Social Science and Rhetoric of Neo-Marxist Theories of Imperialism in the United States and Latin America, 1945-1973 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Christopher Cody Stephens Committee in charge: Professor Nelson Lichtenstein, Chair Professor Alice O’Connor Professor Salim Yaqub June 2018 The dissertation of Christopher Cody Stephens is approved. ____________________________________________ Salim Yaqub ____________________________________________ Alice O’Connor ____________________________________________ Nelson Lichtenstein, Committee Chair April 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I had the benefit of working with many knowledgeable and generous faculty members at UCSB. As my advisor and the chair of my dissertation committee, Nelson Lichtenstein has ushered the project through every stage of its development, from conceptualization to defense. I pitched the idea of writing a seminar paper on Andre Gunder Frank in his office roughly four years ago, and since then he has enthusiastically supported my efforts, encouraged me to stay focused on the end goal, and provided detailed feedback on multiple drafts. That is not to say that I have always incorporated all his comments/criticisms, but when I have failed to do so it is mostly out of lack of time, resources, or self-discipline. I will continue to draw from a store of Nelson’s comments as a blueprint as I revise the manuscript for eventual publication as a monograph. Alice O’Connor, Mary Furner, and Salim Yaqub also read and commented on the manuscript, and more broadly influenced my intellectual trajectory. Salim helped me present my work at numerous conferences, which in turn helped me think through how the project fit in the frame of Cold War historiography. Alice and Mary pushed me to broaden the scope of my narrative, which may otherwise have been narrowly focused on a particular episode in the history of Marxist thought. I benefited immeasurably from their vast knowledge of the history of economic thought and public policy. As with Nelson, when I have fallen short of incorporating their advice I have done so to my own detriment, and to the detriment of the project. I owe a special debt to Emanuele Saccarelli, who chaired my MA thesis at San Diego State University. Emanuele introduced me to Marxism, opening up a world of ideas that has iii consumed my mental energy without interruption for a decade. Though Emanuele has not read this dissertation, and likely would not agree with every word, he heavily influenced the interpretation of Marxism at the core of the narrative. Angus Bergin, Leo Ribuffo, and Tanya Harmer provided very valuables comments on papers presented at conferences. Jeffrey Sklansky graciously read and provided extensive comments on a draft of a chapter. Thanks also to the anonymous reviewers who read two drafts of the article published by Modern Intellectual History, much of which appears in the fourth chapter of the dissertation. As the editor I worked with at MIH, Charles Capper patiently helped steward me through my first publication. Thanks to MIH for permission to reprint the article. My fellow graduate students at UCSB provided a constant source of emotional comradery, general intellectual stimulation, and direct feedback on the project. Kit Smemo, Samir Sonti, Tim Paulson, Jesse Halvorsen, Caitlin Rathe, Brian Tyrrell, Andrew Elrod, and Sasha Coles all contributed substantively to the development of the manuscript at one point or another. In many cases they read drafts of chapters, in others they discussed the ideas either in seminars or off campus in social settings. Kurt Newman convinced me to stick it out at a crucial moment, and suggested I write about Paul Sweezy. I have often been amazed to hear other historians describe graduate school as a time of isolation and loneliness. That wasn’t my experience at all. On the contrary, as a graduate student at UCSB I found myself in the most robust and personally rewarding social network of my entire life. In addition to the names already mentioned, this social network included Jackson Warkentin, Heather Berg, David Baillergeon, Dusty Hoesly, Michael Kinsella, Will Murphy, Morag Murphy, iv Sarah Jonson, Chris Kegerreis, Sarah Hanson, Eric Massey, Laura Moore, Anna Rudolph, all members of Dad Strength, and Ryan and Brittney Minor. My family has offered unfaltering support in my years as a graduate student. They have fielded my abundant anxieties with patience, expressed their admiration at my accomplishments, and picked up more than a few tabs. Thanks especially to my parents, Les Stephens and Debbie Jansson. Thanks also to their spouses, Claes Jansson and Tracey Stephens; my siblings Jake Stephens, Sarah Stephens, Carlie Steele and family, and Chad King; and to my wife, Sasha, and her family, Jeri Coles, Jeff Coles, and Lauren Coles. I never would have made it through without everything you have all done for me. Thank you. v VITA OF CODY STEPHENS JUNE 2017 EDUCATION Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, San Diego State University, May 2008 Master of Arts in Political Science, San Diego State University, May 2010 Doctor of Philosophy in History, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2018 (expected) PUBLICATIONS “The Accidental Marxist: Andre Gunder Frank and the ‘Neo-Marxist’ Theory of Underdevelopment, 1958-1967,” Modern Intellectual History, First View (27 April 2016), 1-32. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: U.S. Intellectual History Second Field: General U.S. History Third Field: Twentieth Century International History Fourth Field: Latin American History vi ABSTRACT Defining the Monster: The Social Science and Rhetoric of Neo-Marxist Theories of Imperialism in the United States and Latin America, 1945-1973 by Christopher Cody Stephens Drawing from a range of newly available archival materials gathered from multiple countries, my dissertation traces the North American academic reception of Latin American anti-imperialist intellectual traditions in the 1960s and 1970s. Obviously this is a broad story, to which I only contribute a piece. To limit the scope of the narrative, I have focused primarily on the intellectuals surrounding the independent socialist journal Monthly Review, and used that as a frame for bringing in other actors. The archival source base includes the personal papers of Paul Sweezy, Paul Baran, Andre Gunder Frank, and Harry Magdoff; the journals Monthly Review, Studies on the Left, American Socialist; and the international records of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP). The correspondence of the editors of Monthly Review and the records of the SWP reveal a broad and overlapping network of actors spanning virtually the entire globe. I have also drawn from a wide range of South American sources to provide the context and background for the intellectual currents these North American thinkers encountered when they turned their attention to South American thought, as indicated in their correspondence. Notable examples include the works of José Carlos Mariátegui, Silvio Frondizi, Milcíades Peña, Sergio Bagú, Theotonio dos Santos, vii Ruy Mauro Marini, Regis Debray, and Adolfo Gilly as well as internal documents of the University of Chile’s Centro de Estudios Socioeconomicos, an interdisciplinary research center that housed many of the most influential dependentistas from 1966 to 1973. The narrative unfolds both chronologically and thematically. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy—the two US-based Marxist economists who collaboratively did the most to work out the holistic theory of political economy behind 1960s neo-Marxist imperialist discourse—and situates Sweezy’s magazine Monthly Review in the context of the early Cold War New York intellectual scene. Through examining Baran’s and Sweezy’s early academic careers, we can see the space briefly opened for academic Marxism by the political and social context of the late 1930s and the Great Depression. Prior to the Cold War, Sweezy and Baran personified the blurry, liminal space between Popular Front fellow-traveler and New Deal policy-oriented intellectual. Monthly Review came to life amid the erosion of that social-intellectual space. The “independent socialist” journal’s editors and regular contributors experienced the erosion as the collapse of their social and material foundations, and the traumatic experience would have a deep impact on their theoretical system. Chapter 2 narrates the solidification of Baran’s and Sweezy’s unique brand of Marxism against the backdrop of the dominant political and intellectual trends of the United States in the 1950s. Chapter 3 follows the propagation of Monthly Review’s brand of Marxism to early New Leftists through the magazine editors’ role in constructing a certain interpretation of the origins and significance of the Cuban Revolution. Sweezy and MR co-editor Leo Huberman offered the first book-length analysis interpreting Castro’s Cuba as a “socialist” viii state. This perspective reached an audience of New Left campus radicals through Monthly Review’s influence over the founders of Studies on the Left. Chapter 4 follows the intellectual biography of a young development economist named Andrew Frank through his radicalization by the Cuban Revolution, subsequent deep immersion in Latin American thought, and emergence as Andre Gunder Frank to introduce dependency theory to English-speaking scholarly audiences in North