170
PARTISAN REVIEW
One of the chapters of Hook's autobiography is ostensibly an
account of the early days of
Partisan Review,
with a few strictures
about its more recent history. But it is less an account than an at–
tempt to erase its history and to downplay its influence. (Once be–
fore, in a letter to
The New York Times,
Hook objected to the impor–
tance given to the magazine by Nathan Glazer.) Hook's memoir is
mainly an elegy to himself and a putdown of most of the people as–
sociated with the magazine. It is largely a patchwork of misinforma–
tion and distortion, interspersed with some casuistry, though it does
dispense a few backhanded compliments to me. In fact, it sounds as
though it were written by someone else, by a ghostwriter with just
enough familiarity with the facts to twist them, and with not enough
literary or political sensibility.
It is perhaps idle to speculate about Hook's motives. Could they
be political as well as personal? At present, Hook is a fellow-traveling
neoconservative, though he also claims to be a socialist- a closet
socialist? But this would not be enough to explain his hostility. Since
there are so many issues on which we agree with the more sensible
neoconservatives, surely Hook could have found more suitable tar–
gets among the liberal-left writers and publications. Nor, I assume,
could he be critical of us for abandoning the cause of socialism.
Could there be deeper personal grievances? Hook claims to have
been the political brain behind the early politics of the magazine,
and he may feel that his political influence has not been recognized
sufficiently. He says, for example, that we were scared to confront
the Stalinists explicitly and directly. But this is not true: the first
editorial in the new
Partisan Review
stressed our repudiation of Sta–
linist culture and politics. Hook also says we were taken in by the
Moscow trials until he showed us the light. This also is not so. The
truth is that Hook did have some input into the magazine, but not as
much as he would now like us to believe. He did know a good deal
about Marxism, but so did we, and we scarcely needed any instruc–
tion about the nature of Stalinism, for we had more direct ex–
perience of it than Hook. Hook indicates, too, that I mediated be–
tween him and the magazine . This is correct, but it does not reveal
the extent to which the others associated with the magazine dispar–
aged Hook's monolithic anticommunism and his limited philosophical
horizons - or that at times Hook was invited to write for the mag,!zine
largely because of my insistence.
Some of the silliest things in Hook's recollections are his chiding
Rahv and me for not being genuine revolutionists, a strange criterion
