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
ofliterary editorship, at once exacting and adventurous, which char–
acterized the magazines of the aesthetic revolt, were of definite cul–
tural 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 van–
guard of literature today, will be revolutionary in tendency; but we
are also convinced that any such magazine will be unequivocally in–
dependent.
Partisan Review
is aware of its responsibility to the revolu–
tionary movement in general, but we disclaim obligation to any of its
organized political expressions. Indeed we think that the cause of
revolutionary literature is best served by a policy of no commitments
to any political party . Thus our underscoring of the factor of inde–
pendence is based, not primarily on our differences with any one
group, but on the conviction that literature in our period should be
free of all factional 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 vigi–
lantes, begin to consolidate into aggressive political-literary amalgams
as many tendencies as possible and to outlaw all dissenting opinion.
This projection on the cultural field of factionalism in politics makes
for literary cleavages which, in most instances, have little to do with
literary issues, and which are more and more provocative of a ruin–
ous bitterness among writers . Formerly associated with the Commu–
nist 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
• Original
Partisan Review
Editorial Statement.
