Congratulations, Monthly Review, for embracing the opportunity to reach so
many more readers through this webzine. Your truly internationalist
perspective, and rigorous, independent socialist thinking, is so badly
needed right now, and feels more relevant than ever.
Monthly Review in conquest of the air? Wasn´t it a private kingdom of weapons, toxics, and lies? Great news for all of us, humble terrestrians.
I think this new web site is a wonderful initiative. Every thing we can do to be more active in the terrain of the ideas is crucial for the future of humanity.
MR has a lot to do with who I am today. It’s no exaggeration to say that reading books by Baran, Sweezy, and Braverman changed my life
more than 25 years ago, and reading the magazine ever since has helped me immeasurably to understand the world we live in. So best of luck with this new venture. Given the web’s reach, I’m confident that MR, under the skilled, energetic guidance of Yoshie Furuhashi, will reach even more minds, young or not, than ever before!
Times certainly are changing. Left and populist parties have come to power in several countries. Social movements against imperialism, global corporations, and environmental destruction have been growing. Leading capitalist countries are trying to cope with world-wide trade and financial imbalances and are increasingly living on debt and speculation. More than ever, we need research and analysis that goes to the roots and helps explain how the various social movements are related to the struggle against capitalism. That is where MR comes in: independent, critical examination of society that will assist people’s struggles for the sake of humanity. Entering cyberspace and its huge audiences is indeed a welcome development. How grand to see MR spreading its wings.
The banners will wave, the masses will march, the young will dance in the street, and webzine will be born.
Congratulations to Monthly Review for launching a new webzine. Based on its long and illustrious history, there is no doubt that this online publication will reach millions before long.
As moderator of a Marxism mailing list, I have felt a real kinship with Monthly Review in a variety of ways. To begin with, Marxmail sees itself in the tradition of the American Socialist, a magazine co-edited by Bert Cochran and Harry Braverman from 1954 to 1959 that tried to apply Marxism creatively to American society and the world. It was initiative very much in the spirit of Monthly Review that also saw itself as an independent and critical-minded voice of the left. It was indeed no accident that Harry Braverman went to work for Monthly Review not long after the American Socialist ceased publishing. Since some of the ideas that found final expression in “Labor and Monopoly Capital,” MR’s best-selling book of all time, had first been raised in the pages of the American Socialist, there is obviously a real continuity between the two journals.
Marxmail has also benefited from the material support of Michael Yates, a long-time contributor to MR and currently an associate editor. Michael’s brand of working-class economics is a hallmark of the Monthly Review, which never forgot its ties to the class that can ultimately change the world.
We have also been inspired by the ecosocialist insights of the current editor John Bellamy Foster. In my own postings to the Marxism mailing list about the environmental crisis, I have made frequent references to John’s articles and books.
Finally, Marxmail has a number of subscribers who have contributed to MR in the past, from Gary McLennan in Australia to Will Miller, a U. of Vermont philosophy professor who passed on recently.
We’d like to think of ourselves as a big extended Marxist family and with the introduction of the MR webzine, it might be just the right time to pass out cigars!
The announcement of the belligerent Truman Doctrine in 1947 and the humiliating result of the ill-judged Wallace Presidential Campaign in 1948 signaled the end of any progressive hopes for a growth of democracy in the United States or of peace beyond its borders. Honest radicals, stunned by the Supreme Court’s easy surrender of the First Amendment, joined Cold War liberals in running for cover. A few, a very few congressmen like Vito Marcantonio refused to give in, a few periodicals like the National Guardian, persisted in telling truth to power, but one by one were destroyed or forced into bankruptcy. Then suddenly two madmen — a socialist union organizer and teacher and an academic Marxist scholar, Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, announced they had, in the face of all probabilities, decided to launch an uncompromisingly honest radical Monthly Review. With warm support from Albert Einstein and some financial assistance from the Christian socialist Harvard professor, F. O. Matthiessen, the first issue appeared in 1949. There were good years and bad years but today the situation is far worse than it was half a century ago, Yet, as Leo liked to say, when times get tough the tough get going. And so today we announce not a retreat but an advance. Heartened by the increasing participation of newly involved young people everywhere, we offer them and our veterans an additional up-to-date forum in a daily Web site.