The New Leader Records, 1895-2008 [Bulk Dates: 1924-2006] MS#1427 ©2009 Columbia University Library SUMMARY INFORMATION Creator The New Leader Title and dates The New Leader Records, 1895-2008 [Bulk Dates: 1924-2006] Abstract These records contain correspondence, artwork, organizational records, and a full run of issues published by The New Leader, a liberal magazine of news and opinion that operated from 1924 until 2006. Size 180 linear feet (225 boxes: 103 document boxes, 75 custom-made boxes, 23 oversize boxes, 18 record size cartons, 6 card files) Call number MS#1427 Location Columbia University Butler Library, 6th Floor Rare Book and Manuscript Library 535 West 114th Street The New Leader Records New York, NY 10027 Language(s) of material English, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Yiddish History of The New Leader The New Leader, a social-democratic journal of “news and opinion,” commented upon, engaged with – and, at times, actively attempted to reconfigure – the tenor of its epoch. From 1924 to 2006, it printed significant work by prominent intellectuals on an array of subjects, but it devoted its best energies and much of its editorial space to criticizing the Soviet Union. Originating as the official newspaper of the American Socialist Party, it evolved into a liberal anti-communist magazine that truly found its voice as an untiring adversary of Stalinism. The combination of progressive social advocacy and staunch Cold War combativeness allowed it to engage an unusually wide swath of the political spectrum; its stances attracted praise or ire – and often both – from figures as diverse as Upton Sinclair and Senator Joseph McCarthy. “It would be impossible for any normal person to agree with all that appears in The New Leader,” wrote The New York Times on the occasion of the journal’s thirtieth anniversary, “but it is possible for all lovers of free expression to welcome the fact that The New Leader exists and that, with its variety of voices, it continues to sound off.” For eighty-two years, the magazine featured crucial, vivid reportage. “Every good impulse in social and political life has had the support of this paper,” a columnist noted. “Every lively, honest and decent writer who had something interesting and important to say has had his chance.” Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter From Birmingham City Jail” appeared in its pages; it was the first American periodical to provide a forum for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. World leaders and policymakers contributed essays, as did literary icons such as Albert Camus, Arthur Koestler, Richard Wright, Hannah Arendt, and George Orwell. These bylines, though gaudy, could be found elsewhere. It was a set of New York intellectuals – notably Daniel Bell, Sidney Hook, Irving Kristol, Lionel Trilling, and Eric Bentley – who wrote most prolifically for The New Leader, and endowed it with a unique pluck and purpose. More than any other individual, however, Samuel “Sol” Levitas shaped the journal’s character and policy. The longtime executive editor was known as the “Jefferson of East 15th Street.” A world traveler, his wide acquaintance gave his publication global reach and a cosmopolitan perspective. He pursued authors everywhere, and his relentless requests kept “contributors of five continents at work.” Some wrote for The New Leader out of commitment to its cause, others because of their respect for Levitas. No one did so for the money; at best, the magazine offered a “tangible token of appreciation.” In the postwar years, European correspondents were compensated with “food and commodity packages.” But, most people worked gratis. To produce a quality journal in such conditions took determination. When Levitas had a particular person in mind for a certain piece, he wouldn’t let up. “He gets articles written for him by pleading [or] scolding,” wrote a Newsweek reporter. One author wrote to him: “You are the most flattering, persecuting Editor I have ever known.” Born in Ruff, Russia, in 1894, Sol Levitas became a socialist at the age of fifteen. He allied with the Mensheviks – a moderate party that was nevertheless far too radical for the Czarist state – and, at sixteen, he was jailed for the first time. As World War One began, he traveled to Chicago to Page 2 of 102 The New Leader Records avoid military service. Then, in February 1917, when the Romanovs were deposed, he hurried back to participate in the revolution. Arriving in the Pacific port of Vladivostok, he edited the Labor Daily and served as vice-mayor of the city, supporting the liberal provisional government against Bolshevik radicals. In October, Lenin’s party came to power and the Menshevik moment was over. For the next few years, Levitas was imprisoned repeatedly for writing and organizing against the Soviets. In 1923, disguised as a Red Army colonel, he escaped from Russia, returning to the United States for good. Levitas toured the country, joining the Socialist Party, contributing articles to the Jewish Daily Forward, and raising money for other Russian exiles. If his Soviet sojourn had introduced him to factionalism in its highest stage, he soon learned that leftists in America were also adept at in- fighting. Their divisions could be read through their journals. The Call, a socialist newspaper based in New York City, folded after a party split in 1918. The short-lived Leader failed soon thereafter. The New Leader appeared for the first time on Saturday, January 19, 1924, in a standard newspaper format. A copy cost a nickel; a year’s subscription was two dollars. From the start, its international character was apparent: the front page featured stories on high rents in New York City, the Labour government in Great Britain, and a German economic crisis. Letters from Eugene V. Debs, A. Philip Randolph, and Ramsay Macdonald wished success for the fledgling publication. Staff worked in a warren of rooms housed in a nineteenth-century office near Union Square. In the early days, a few full-timers wrote most of the main pieces. Daniel Bell alone contributed about 5,000 words each week. “Foreign correspondents used to be invented – always with high-class names,” recalled a contributor. “And, since their expense accounts were negligible, they could be spotted over the earth with carefree negligence.” In 1930, Levitas was brought onto the magazine staff as business manager. He and the editor, James Oneal, had divergent visions for The New Leader, and their struggle for control soon degenerated into very un-comradely behavior. Oneal complained that Levitas wanted “not a Labor and Social Democratic paper but a vague labor-liberal-progressive paper with Social Democracy so faded out of its columns that the reader will have to use powerful glasses to find it.” In 1935, Levitas filed charges with the Socialist Party Grievance Committee against two opponents “for destroying a large number of New Leaders, defacing the entire office of the New Leader in my absence and for inscribing on every available place the word ‘pimp.’” In 1936, after another factional cleavage, the journal allied with the newly created Social Democratic Federation. Levitas was named executive editor and Oneal eventually resigned. “The New Leader,” Levitas’ eventual successor would write, “thus became the only place the Mensheviks ever won a revolution.” As a disillusioned exile and an enthusiastic immigrant, Levitas was equally determined to denounce Russian dictatorship and to support American democracy. For leftists – and even liberals – in 1939, these were not trendy positions; the Soviets were pushing for a popular front of progressive groups, while U.S. capitalism was still suffering its Great Depression. The New Leader defied the consensus, exposing the cruelties and dissimulations of totalitarian regimes. It intuited the possibility of a Hitler-Stalin pact months before the deal’s existence became generally known. For taking these stances, the magazine was “hissed and booed.” For “many, many years,” Levitas recalled, it was “a lone voice calling attention to the manipulations and machinations of communists everywhere.” Its unrelenting anti-Bolshevism was even less welcome during World War Two, when the Russians became a “gallant democratic ally” and Stalin was transformed into “good old Joe.” Page 3 of 102 The New Leader Records Most Americans believed that defeating Hitler was the nation’s highest concern. “Only the Social-Democratic weekly, The New Leader, with its limited circulation, continued its lonely fight for the truth,” wrote Sidney Hook. Not only did the magazine cling to its peacetime priorities, its editor chided those who appeared to soften. In 1943, Levitas rebuked Upton Sinclair for signing a petition supporting the Soviet Union. The novelist’s response showed how most people understood the world situation. “We are in a position just now where our very existence depends upon the Red Army and its supporting population,” Sinclair wrote. “I just don't feel that we can afford to think about factional disputes and differences of program and policy at this time.” Through the most calamitous decade of the twentieth century, when partisans and philosophers around the globe adapted to wrenching dislocations, the magazine had remained consistent. It was still, as Time described it in 1944, a “mouthpiece for many shades of liberal and leftist opinion, except Trotskyists, Stalinists and Norman Thomas Socialists…” Though The New Leader had supported the American war effort, its strident denunciations of the Russian alliance at times had been an annoyance to the administration. While most journalists celebrated the Yalta accords, Levitas’ magazine denounced all accommodations with Stalin. After 1945 – as ties between the United States and the Soviet Union frayed and finally tore – the journal found itself moving into the political mainstream; its interests and those of the U.S. government were increasingly convergent. “Without boasting, we can claim that historical events have completely vindicated our position on communism in Russia,” wrote Levitas in 1949 to William Donovan, wartime director of the Office of Strategic Services.