The bulk of this issue of ‘New International’ is given to Trotsky’s major statement on the outbreak of the Second World War, ‘The USSR in War,’ which was also a sharp intervention into the debates happening in the S.W.P. That, the Editorial on the war, and Dwight MacDonald’s column, ‘Reading from Left to Right,‘ are linked to online texts.

The New International. Vol. 5 No. 11. November, 1939.

Contents: The Editor’s Comment, The USSR in War by L. Trotsky – The German-Soviet Pact and the Character of the USSR – The Present War and the Fate of Modern Society – The Theory of “Bureaucratic Collectivism” – The Defense of the USSR and the Class Struggle – The Question of the Occupied Territories, Reading from Left to Right by Dwight Macdonald, The Problem of the People’s Militia by Joseph Carter, Inside front cover: At Home.

The New International began as the theoretical organ of the Communist League of America, formed in 1928 by supporters of The International Left Opposition in the Communist Party. The CLA merged with the American Workers Party led by AJ Muste to form the Workers Party of the U.S. in Dec 1935 before intervening in the Socialist Party, at which time this magazine was suspended. After leaving the SP, the main Trotskyist forces formed the Socialist Workers Party in 1938 and resumed publication. In the split of 1940, the State Capitalist/ Bureaucratic Collectivist faction left the Party and held on to the magazine; the SWP then produced ‘The Fourth International’ as their organ of theory.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol05/no11/v05n11-nov-1939-new-int.pdf