Memo

From New International, Vol. XVI No. 5, September–October 1950, p. 257.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.

Our readers may be interested in the role The New International plays abroad. It is important to bear in mind the fact that throughout the world the weakness of socialist movements which are free from ideological and political dependence on either Stalinism or American capitalism is reflected in the virtual absence of any serious theoretical periodicals.

From Germany a friend writes:

“That I, as a socialist mainly interested in theory, appreciate The New International very much, is clear. Talking some time ago of an article published in your magazine, I contacted a member of the former ‘Left Opposition.’ He knew the journal already and asked me to tell you his address with his request, to send him the NI ...”

Another friend writes:

“With great interest I read of the debate between Shachtman and Browder in Labor Action. It would be very valuable to have the factual material presented by Shachtman in print. It is a general lack of our propaganda on the Russian question that the most important data on wages, bureaucratic privileges, prices, etc., are scattered over some dozens of books written in several languages ...”

We are glad that the last issue of the NI was able to furnish our friend with some of this material, and we hope to add to it in the future.

The revolutionary socialists in Europe and Asia lack not only good periodical material; especially in the lands once under Hitler’s control, all Marxist works are in short supply, and particularly the works of Leon Trotsky and his collaborators.

We are informed that the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin are now available in German, as they have been republished in the Russian zone. But all the independent socialists still are in great need of Trotsky’s contributions to socialist analysis and theory.

Any Marxist books sent The New International in any language will be promptly sent to Germany. Could you help us in the ideological rearming of the German socialists?

L.G. Smith, Bus. Mgr.

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Last updated on 18 October 2018