An important issue of ISR. John Spargo’s takes up the issue of women in the S.P. (forced by the women of the S.P.); Rives La Monte on ways to spread the Good News of Debsian Socialism; Arthur M. Lewis defends historical materialism against Kidd (and Kropotkin); English professor and left Socialist William E. Bohn gives us ‘Poetry and Social Revolt’; Louis B. Boudin challenges Morris Hillquit and the Socialist Party’s right wing on the immigration debate held at the International’s Stuttgart Congress; and most importantly, I.M. Robbins (Isaac Max Rubinow) begins his major, sixteen-part study of Black America, ‘The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem.’, It is easily the most important theoretical work produced by a Marxist on race and racism in the U.S. before World War One. It deserves to be republished in its entirety.

The International Socialist Review. Vol. 8 No. 8. February, 1908.

Contents: Woman and the Socialist Movement by John Spargo, Methods of Propaganda by Robert Rives La Monte, Benjamin Kidd’s Religious Interpretation of History by Arthur M. Lewis, Poetry and the Social Unrest by William E. Bohn, The Economic Aspects of the Negro Problem by I.M. Robbins, Immigration at Stuttgart.. by L.B. Boudin, DEPARTMENTS, Editor’s Chair, Socialism Abroad, Whisperings in the Library, World of Labor, News and Views, Publishers’ Department.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/isr/v08n08-feb-1908-ISR-gog.pdf