Remembering Irving Howe
Geltman, Emanuel
What shall I, can I, say about a close friendship and collaboration that lasted well over fifty years, even if my fellow editors allow me some extra space? (I hear Irving's voice in my ears,...
...Of those present, he had heard my voice most often...
...That would be about 1937, but the friendship did not take shape until the split in the Socialist Workers party where the "minority" of 40 percent—the so-called Shachtmanites —left to form the Workers party, later the Independent Socialist League...
...But he recovered, and began to write as well as ever...
...No home...
...With Stanley Plastrik and some others we had begun to debate differences about the Marshall Plan and other issues, debates which, in the nature of the movement, were sharp...
...This is not supposed to be about me but some—much—of myself has to enter—like a stab in the gut...
...And that we did...
...More important, Irving began to write books, the first one I think on Sherwood Anderson, then Politics and the Novel—a truly independent exercise...
...Let it be said that while money and resources (writers, for example) were seen as a problem, we never gave the threat of McCarthy much thought...
...It was immediately attacked, from the right (especially in a long review in Commentary) and from the left, and all of a sudden we had a reputation...
...I hear Irving's voice in my ears, an injunction he ordered on just about everything we published: cut it...
...So I rose and said something like: In the last year or so, when Irving—already ill—felt the intimations of mortality, he would worry about what would happen to Dissent...
...We would walk around, always stopping at the 8th St...
...Doubtless it was when the Trotskyists (having entered the Socialist party as part of what was called "The French Turn" —a subject I leave to historians) left the SP, along with the leadership of the YPSL...
...Because his writing read so smoothly there were those who thought he could churn it out...
...Since the money we collected was in 530 • DISSENT escrow we reached into our own meager pockets for later mailings...
...What to do...
...The long association took a little longer to break, even if it was done in the most comradely way...
...A few looked at me...
...It reasserts his principal commitment (in an article written long ago with Coser) that democratic "socialism is the name of our desire...
...Our editors will surely be impatient...
...Bookshop, and move Dissent to a prominent position, along with whatever book of Irving's had been published...
...But, should you go first, I promise a short speech...
...Irving had spent the war years in Alaska, reading, preparing himself for the literary career for which he later became so well known, but always sharing his literary interests with his political interests and commitments...
...And writers...
...At first, we—some of us anyway—might as well have been called Carterites, after Joe Carter—which is my backhanded way, of which I'm sure Irving would have approved, of introducing a much delayed "eulogy" for a dear friend and mentor about whom I never wrote a word because I didn't know he had died until years after the event...
...How...
...Finally, there is an end to weeping, but treasured memories remain...
...We have new (and many "old") editors and it will continue to be an excellent periodical, even if it remains the cottage industry it always was...
...A letter over Meyer Schapiro's signature brought in small contributions, and names of other people to ask...
...Probably in the famous City College alcove when, several years older, I went there to speak for a small Trotskyist, YPSL (Young Peoples Socialist League) club...
...When I came out of the army I resumed editing the paper for several years, while Irving wrote for it, and for the New International (the "theoretical" monthly...
...And now I've written more than I wanted to, breaking a kind of promise...
...There were pauses lasting five minutes, it seemed, between speakers...
...somehow we managed, since enthusiasm goes a long way...
...Irving had begun to teach at Brandeis...
...Ever vigilant about money, Stanley promised contributors that the money would be held in escrow and returned if we did not publish...
...Yes, theoretically...
...By the same token, when he wrote political books, he chided himself because he should be writing on literature...
...Shachtman himself never claimed "ownership...
...I remember a time, I think he was writing his book on Faulkner, when he was laboring over the last chapter, and he complained—why am I writing this when I should be writing about politics...
...Irving and Stanley resigned in 1952 and I followed—with others—a few months later...
...In January 1954 we published our first issue...
...Irving would come by my home in the Village, help dummy up the galley proofs—in the days of "hot metal" one did that...
...Until .. . Operating on a shoestring, we all did double duty...
...And we had Irving, who wrote for almost every issue of the magazine until, until—it's hard to get it out—he died, having first faced the torment of three operations and a prolonged stay in the hospital...
...Irving, Stanley, Jack Rader, and I would meet from time to time to examine our politics and where we belonged...
...Irving loved to walk and talk...
...So where do I go from here...
...When the party sent me to serve as "organizer" in California, Irving took on the editorship by himself...
...What end...
...No one could speak easily...
...We held meetings, invited others who might be interested...
...When did I first meet Irving...
...Irving worked for Dwight Macdonald on Politics, then for Partisan Review, and—well, it paid better—as a book critic for Time...
...I replied frivolously: since I'm older, I'm likely to die first and all I ask is that you make a short speech...
...Irving's son, Nick, spoke to those present: You were the voices Irving heard most...
...Finally, in 1953, we decided to go ahead with the unlikely project...
...Silone wrote, Harold Rosenberg wrote, Paul Goodman, Erich Fromm, Norman Mailer, and the greatest coup of all, "On Socialist Realism," by someone named Tertz, who, we later discovered, was the great Russian dissident, Sinyaysky...
...And this is it...
...We had lost touch...
...We had decided that if we could raise, say, a thousand dollars, enough for a year's publication, we could start...
...Manny, bring it to an end...
...Well, there was a private funeral service before the big memorial service at the 92nd St...
...While there, Lew Coser— who had written for Labor Action—proposed that we issue a magazine...
...In 1940, the WP launched its weekly, Labor Action, of which I was editor and Irving my associate...
...Add Henry Pachter, George Lichtheim, Ben Seligman—we had writers...
...When he was drafted, I returned to New York and Labor Action—until I was drafted at which point Al Glotzer took over...
...Were we paid...
...Not so...
...This much I know, Dissent will go on...
...Y, for a few friends and family...
...Had I gone first, Irving would surely have written something more graceful...
...We reached a thousand, and a comrade who proved to be a very good friend added a thousand...
...Most of all, I recall Irving's last article on the validity of a utopian vision...
Vol. 40 • September 1993 • No. 4
