''Political Affairs Magazine'' was a monthly

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

publication, originally published in print and later online only. It aimed to provide an analysis of events from a

working class The working class is a subset of employees who are compensated with wage or salary-based contracts, whose exact membership varies from definition to definition. Members of the working class rely primarily upon earnings from wage labour. Most c ...

point of view. The magazine was a publication of the

Communist Party USA The Communist Party USA (CPUSA), officially the Communist Party of the United States of America, also referred to as the American Communist Party mainly during the 20th century, is a communist party in the United States. It was established ...

and was founded in 1944 upon the closure of its predecessor, '' The Communist'', which was founded in 1927. Well-known editors of ''Political Affairs Magazine'' included V. J. Jerome,

Gus Hall Gus Hall (born Arvo Kustaa Halberg; October 8, 1910 – October 13, 2000) was an American activist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) from 1959 to 2000. As a labor leader, Hall was closely associated wi ...

, Hyman Lumer,

Herbert Aptheker Herbert Aptheker (July 31, 1915 – March 17, 2003) was an American Marxist historian and political activist. He wrote more than 50 books, mostly in the fields of African-American history and general U.S. history, most notably, ''American Negro ...

Gerald Horne Gerald Horne (born January 3, 1949) is an American historian who holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. Background Gerald Horne was raised in St. Louis, Missouri. After hi ...

, and Joe Sims. Other editors included

Max Weiss Miksa (Max) Weisz (21 July 1857 – 14 March 1927) was an Austrian chess player born in the Kingdom of Hungary. Weiss was born in Sereď. Moving to Vienna, he studied mathematics and physics at the university, and later taught those subjects. Wei ...

. In 2016, the magazine stopped publishing articles and merged with ''

People's World ''People's World'', official successor to the '' Daily Worker'', is a Marxist-Leninist and American leftist national daily online news publication. Founded by activists, socialists, communists, and those active in the labor movement in the earl ...

''.

History

At its founding, ''Political Affairs'' was the theoretical organ of the

, generally publishing articles intended almost exclusively for members of the Communist Party. In the late 1990s, that role changed. ''Political Affairs'' shed its role as an internal organ of the Communist Party and adopted a broader stance. It provides Marxist perspectives on many contemporary issues and engages in theoretical discussions relevant to Marxists and the labor movement. In addition to articles devoted to national and international politics, the magazine offers poetry, book reviews, occasional reviews of music and film, interviews, and occasional short stories. The publication can be traced back to ''The Masses'', the famous

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village, or simply the Village, is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street (Manhattan), 14th Street to the north, Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the s ...

paper of the 1910s. After being suppressed by the government, the paper continued as ''The Liberator''. Independently of this, the Friends of Soviet Russia had established another monthly, ''Soviet Russia'', in 1919. In 1924 the title was changed to ''Soviet Russia Pictorial''. Finally,

William Z. Foster William Z. Foster (born William Edward Foster; February 25, 1881 – September 1, 1961) was a radical American labor organizer and Communist politician, whose career included serving as General Secretary of the Communist Party USA from 1945 to ...

had begun ''Labor Herald'' as the official publication of his Trade Union Educational League in March 1922. When the

Workers Party of America The Workers Party of America (WPA) was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from December 1921 until the middle of 1929. Background As a legal political party, the Workers Party accepted affiliation from indep ...

had finally been consolidated as the unified above-ground Communist Party in the United States, it was determined that the party should have a theoretical monthly as well as a daily, in line with Lenin's guideline in '' What Is To Be Done?'' The above three publications were combined into ''Workers Monthly'', which debuted in November 1924. It changed its name to ''The Communist'' in 1927 and to ''Political Affairs'' in 1944.

References

External links

Official websiteArchive''Political Affairs'' archive
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

Archive of ''Workers Monthly'' from November 1924 - February 1927
* ttps://www.marxists.org/history/erol/1946-1956/ Marxists Internet Archive: Political Affairs articles of 1945 after Browderism {{Authority control Communist periodicals published in the United States Monthly magazines published in the United States Defunct political magazines published in the United States Communist Party USA publications Magazines established in 1944 Defunct Marxist magazines Online magazines with defunct print editions Magazines disestablished in 2016