EDITORIAL STATEMENT
As
OUR READERS KNOW,
the tradition of aestheticism has
given way to a literature which, for its origin and final justification,
looks beyond itself and deep into the historic process. But the forms
of literary editorship, at once exacting and adventurous,
which char-
acterized the magazines of the aesthetic revolt, were of de finite cultu-
ral value; and these forms
PARTISAN REVIEW
will wish to adapt to
the literature of the new period.
Any magazine, we believe, that aspires to a place in the vanguard
. of literature today, will be revolutionary in tendency; but we are also
convinced that any such magazine will be unequivocally independent.
PARTISAN REVIEW
is aware of its responsibility to the revolutionary
movement in general, but we disclaim obligation to any of its organ-
ized political expressions. Indeed we think that the cause of revolu-
tionary literature is best served by a policy of no commitments to any
political party. Thus our underscoring of the factor of independence
is based, not primarily on our differences with anyone group, but on
the conviction that literature in our period should be free of all fac-
tional dependence.
There is already a tendency in America for the more conscious
social writers to identify themselves with a single organization,
the
Communist Party; with the result that they grow automatic in their
political responses but increasingly less responsible in an artistic sense.
And the Party literary critics, equipped with the zeal of vigilantes,
begin to consolidate into aggressive political-literary amalgams as many
tendencies as possible and to outlaw all dissenting opinion. This pro-
jection on the cultural field of factionalism in politics makes for lit-
erary cleavages which, in most instances, have little to do with literary
issues, and which are more and more provocative of a ruinous bitter-
ness among writers. Formerly associated with the Communist
Party,
PARTISAN REVIEW
strove from the first against its drive to equate the
interests of literature with those of factional politics. Our reappearance
on an independent
basis signifies our conviction that the totalitarian
trend is inherent in that movement
and that it can no longer be
combatted from within.
But many other tendencies exist in American letters, and these,
we think, are turning from the senseless disciplines of the official Left
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