DAVID SIDORSKY
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appropriately constrain and resist subversion by antidemocratic move–
ments that exploited opportunities afforded by a free society in order to
achieve political power and to end future democratic processes.
In the Soviet Union, Hook's writings on Marxism brought him in
contact with the scholarly work of the Marx-Engels institute in
Moscow. The Institute's director, David Riazanov, was a very early vic–
tim of Stalin's purges . Thus, Hook's political radar, which was always
sensitive to the abuse of individual rights, received an "early warning
signal" of the nature of the emerging totalitarianism in the Soviet
Union.
In a
I932
essay, Hook expressed his hope for the possibility of a social–
ist transformation of history that would have been catalyzed by the
achievement of the "Revolution" in Russia. (This rhetoric contrasted
sharply with a standard anticommunist view in which the "Revolution"
is characterized as a "coup" or "putsch" carried out by Lenin and a small
cadre of followers against the reformist and democratically oriented gov–
ernment of Alexander Kerensky.) Yet even though this essay still held out
hope for revolutionary socialism, Hook concluded, with reference to
what he termed a series of "horrendous excrescences" in the Soviet Union
during Stalin's recent consolidation of power. His awareness and focus on
these "horrendous excrescences" led
to
his anticommunism.
This third major step in Hook's intellectual career, anticommunism,
provides the basis for the title of his autobiography:
Out of Step .
For
when Marxism was unpopular, Hook was in the vanguard of its inter–
preters: he taught the first college course on Marxism in the United
States . When, in the
I930S,
support for the Soviet Union and for social–
ism became widespread and was a major force in the intellectual, liter–
ary, and artistic cultural circles of the West, including the United States,
Hook was among the very small group of dedicated anticommunists.
Anticommunists then were on the fringe of American political cul–
ture. Their explicit critique of the Soviet Union represented a minority
view, even in comparison to the Communist Party, which had expanded
its influence through networks of "fellow travelers," liberal supporters
of "antifascism," and numerous "fronts" or movements for "progres–
sive culture."
During that period, the most significant forum for anticommunist
views was
Partisan Review.
That journal, which had originally been
founded as a pro-communist, high culture alternative to
The New
Masses,
sought, under the editorship of William Phillips and Philip
Rahv, to explore the possibilities of a union between Marxism and mod-
