Aftermath
The attack did not impress radical intellectuals. Not even those who were themselves critical of Hook's pragmatism found Jerome's approach productive. Rather than stigmatize Hook, Jerome's hatchet job reinforced the convictions of many who already held the Communist Party's theoretical and political approach hapless.
J.B.S. Hardman, editor of a trade union publication, "The Advance," wrote to Hook that, "If the job had not been done so clumsily and to a considerable degree dishonestly, I should not like to take exception to it, for the `revision' is there. The trouble with professional and labeled Marxians is that they neither know Marx nor care to know him; if anybody isn't going about the matter religiously he is their enemy entirely. They only feel safe in an atmosphere of faith. Then they know how to exact it and how to break it."[15]
Jerome's blast failed even to satisfy those intellectuals who remained dedicated Communists. "New Masses" editor Granville Hicks wrote to Hook that "it ought to be possible to criticize a man's ideas without calling him a social- fascist," and confessed that, "Personally I cannot accept your instrumentalism, and I should have welcomed an intelligent analysis of it. But Jerome's article is practically worthless."[16]
Even at the late date of September 1933, Smith College professor Newton Arvin wrote Hook that he had greatly enjoyed "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx:" "I don't know what the official Party attitude toward it is (though I suppose it is unfavorable), but if you are still proscribed as a heretic, I fear that I am one, too, for I haven't succeeded in seeing anything that, in my ignorance perhaps, strikes me as wrong with it."[17]
The smear campaign against Hook did not abate, however. In January 1933, the "Daily Worker" unleashed a wave of invective against him. One article described approvingly the disruption by hecklers of a teachers' meeting at which Hook and his old City College professor Harry Overstreet spoke.[18]
In another "Daily Worker" polemic, H.M. Wicks-a "master of vituperation," as one former Communist who knew him recalls-purported to explain "how Hook serves capitalists." After calling Hook a "shallow vulgarizer," "muddled pretender" and "philosophic hack," Wicks alleged that Hook had been privately telling "those who will listen that no one in the Communist Party, U.S.A. or in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union knows the first thing about philosophy."[19]
In February and March, "The Communist" published Hook's reply to Jerome, which Hook had shared with Arvin, Hicks, and Corliss Lamont prior to publication.[20] The move was highly unusual for a journal devoted to laying down uniformly correct positions, since it admitted implicitly the value of exchange over fundamental differences within Marxism. Rather than simply produce Hook's reply, however, "The Communist" printed it within a two-part article by party leader Earl Browder, sandwiching long passages from Hook's response betwixt Browder's point-by-point rebuttal.
Jerome and Wicks came in for some criticism from Browder for the clumsy manner in which they had carried out their attacks, but Browder came down on their side on the general charge that Hook had "an understanding of Marxism in conflict with that of the Communist Party and the Communist International." Hook began his rebuttal to Jerome with quotations from Marx, Lenin, even Stalin-this was the first and only time that Hook would summon Stalin as a positive authority in defense of a position-meant to demonstrate that each rejected dogmatism.
Hook justly accused Jerome of "intellectual dishonesty" for misrepresenting his position and called for a "creative Marxism" rather than one based upon sacred texts. "The teachings of Marx, Engels and Lenin are the most valuable truths we have . . . . But they themselves have urged that any movement which refuses to learn new things in new situations-to submit all principles to the test of experience and action-is doomed to sectarianism and futile failure."
Browder, however, accused Hook of arrogance in presuming that he, and not the Communist parties of the world, understood Marxism properly. Hook's philosophy, Browder concluded, was idealist, so that "while it puts on a brave revolutionary face as emphasizing action, more action, [it] achieves the opposite result in reality by laying the foundation for confusion and disruption."[21]
Before the exchange, Hook harbored hopes that Browder would come to his defense, though in a letter to Will Herberg he lamented "illiterate party bureaucrats like Jerome and Don and Wicks, [who] attempt to settle things merely by quotation." With the mutilation of his reply to Jerome in "The Communist" and Browder's refutation, it was clear that Hook could expect no redemption from on high.
"What a piece of work," wrote Herberg.
Are you satisfied now that you can expect
nothing from Browder? Browder not only
endorses all of Jerome's lies and outright
forgeries but even "blames" Jerome for not
going far enough: "Jerome's crime in this
respect is serious because he thereby detracted
slightly from the full force of his attack
against Hook's revisionism." In my opinion,
Browder's article is even more ignorant and
even more indecent, if that is possible, than
Jerome's.
Morris U. Schappes concurred: "Well, Browder is as bad as Jerome, and he doesn't seem able to learn from your demonstration of Jerome's blunders."[22]
By late spring 1933, Hook and the Communist Party were completely estranged. Hook's philosophical convictions ran too deep to permit him to capitulate to party authority, as Browder insisted. Precisely because he remained a communist and revolutionary Marxist, Hook was unable to submit to the authoritarian and monolithic form of discipline that had been demanded from him by the Communist Party.
The onslaught against Hook's Marxism by party officials had only given urgency to a differentiation long in the making. Hook's pragmatism had given to his Marxism a methodological emphasis upon provisional truth rather than absolute certainty, scientific inquiry over doctrinaire fidelity, flux and change over fixity and determinism, and the potential of human action over fatalism. Although Hook did not deny the importance of theoretical works and historical conditioning, he sought to restore the active and subjective component of Marxism against the hardened Marxism propounded by the Second International.
While occasionally critical of official Communism, Hook had been a dedicated fellow-traveler and political supporter of the Communist Party. His criticisms derived not from a hostility to communism as a principle and social goal, but from the perception that official Communism was straying from its stated aim and classical theory.
Intellectual historian Morton White once wrote that John Dewey had led a "revolt against formalism" in philosophy.[23] Likewise, Hook helped to initiate a revolt against formalism within American Marxism. The formalists, typified by Jerome, Wicks, Don and Browder, temporarily crushed his revolt. Unwittingly they had driven him to revolution.
Hook had sought to refute the copy-book materialism of Lenin in "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism," but only so as to make sense of the revolutionary activism of the Lenin of "What Is to Be Done?" Now, it appeared, Lenin and the rest of the revolutionary tradition required rescue from the Communists.
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Notes
1) Hook, "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx" (New
York: John Day, 1933), 9. Subsequent page references are
to this work unless otherwise noted.
2) The latter phrase illustrates why Paul Buhle is mistaken
to interpret "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx" as
a critique of dialectical materialism. Only much later
did Hook treat dialectical materialism as metaphysical
dogma. In "Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx," Hook
considered dialectical materialism the correct term for
Marx's philosophical standpoint. Of course, like Hook's
earlier article on the subject, "Towards the
Understanding of Karl Marx" emphasizes the dialectical,
or active and historical, nature of Marx's materialism.
He meant nothing religious, mystical or dogmatic by it.
Perhaps Buhle meant to counterpose the book to Stalinism,
but since Hook never criticizes the Communist Party or
its official philosophy explicitly anywhere in the book,
even that interpretation would have to be heavily
qualified. Paul Buhle, "Marxism in the USA" (London:
Verso, 1987): 166-67.
3) Georg Lukacs, "History and Class Consciousness," trans.
Rodney Livingstone (Cambridge: MIT, 1971), and Karl
Korsch, "Marxism and Philosophy", trans. Fred Halliday
(New York: Monthly Review, 1970).
4) A common criticism of "Towards the Understanding of Karl
Marx" is its supposed bias against Engels, whom, critics
allege, Hook blamed for supplying the scriptural
justification for economic determinism in Marxism. The
objection is inexplicable. It is true that Hook
criticized Engels in places. He also criticized Marx and
Lenin. But Hook summoned Engels as an authority just as
often, and he criticized those Marxists who cited Engels
to justify their economic determinism and fatalism. The
letters translated by Hook and appended to the book were
meant to demonstrate Engels' flexibility and opposition
to economic determinism.
The allegation that Hook maligned Engels is not merely
mistaken. It misleads, because Hook's interpretation of
Engels was situated strategically within his central
project of rescuing both Marx and Engels from their
doctrinal usurpation by the Second International. It is
ironic that Hook's attempt to refute a one-sided reading
of Engels has been met by a similar reading of Hook.
Those who have faulted the early Hook, especially
"Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx," for a supposed
anti-Engels bias include: Max Eastman, "The Last Stand
of Dialectical Materialism: A Study of Sidney Hook's
Marxism" (New York: Polemic Publishers, 1934);
Cristiano Camporesi, "The Marxism of Sidney Hook," Telos
12 (Summer 1972): 115-127; Alan Wald, "The New York
Intellectuals" (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina, 1987): 125-6; Buhle, "Marxism in the USA,"
166; and George Novack, "Polemics in Marxist Philosophy"
(New York: Pathfinder, 1978): 109. For favorable
references to Engels by Hook, see "Towards the
Understanding of Karl Marx," 30-33, 117, 129, 139, 153-
54, 172, 179-80, 182-83; for critical reference to Marx
and Lenin, whose assertions that revolution in the U.S.
might come about peacefully struck Hook as untenable, see
290-93.
5) Harold J. Laski, Introduction to Marx, "The New Republic"
75 (28 June 1933): 186-187; Benjamin Stolberg, The
Americanization of Karl Marx, "The Nation" 136 (12 April
1933): 414-415.
6) Readers familiar only with the neo-pragmatism of
philosopher Richard Rorty and others influenced by the
linguistic turn may be surprised by this anatomy of
classical pragmatism (or "paleo-pragmatism," as historian
Robert Westbrook has dubbed it). The contemporary
pragmatist boom, which reaches well beyond philosophy
into feminism, legal theory and literary criticism, often
takes forms influenced by post-structuralism and post-
modernism. Neo-pragmatism differs in important ways from
the Deweyan intellectual milieu in which Hook, as a
second-generation pragmatist, formed his views. The
literature on pragmatism is immense, but for several
useful historical overviews, see David A. Hollinger, "The
Problem of Pragmatism in American History," "In the
American Province" (Bloomington: Indiana University,
1985): 23-43; Cornel West, "The American Evasion of
Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism" (Madison:
University of Wisconsin, 1989); Richard J. Bernstein,
"The Resurgence of Pragmatism," in "Social Research"
59:4 (Winter 1992): 813-840; and James T. Kloppenberg,
"Pragmatism: an Old Name for Some New Ways of Thinking?"
in "The Journal of American History" 83:1 (June 1996):
100-138.
7) Harold J. Laski, "Introduction to Marx," in "The New
Republic" 75 (28 June 1933): 186-187; Benjamin Stolberg,
"The Americanization of Karl Marx," in "The Nation" 136
(12 April 1933): 414-415.
8) In the intervening years, pragmatism and Marxism have
been repeatedly counterposed. For the case that
pragmatism is petty-bourgeois, which rests upon the
historical association of pragmatism with political
liberalism and middle-class reform currents, see George
Novack, "Pragmatism versus Marxism" (New York:
Pathfinder, 1975). For the argument that it is the
ideological expression of monopoly capital and
imperialism, which draws upon Dewey's pro-war stance
during the First World War and his criticism of the
Soviet Union, see Maurice Cornforth, "In Defense of
Philosophy: Against Positivism and Pragmatism" (London:
Lawrence & Wisehart, 1950); Harry K. Wells, "Pragmatism:
Philosophy of Imperialism" (New York: International,
1954); and J.S., "Against Pragmatism," in "The
Communist" 2 (Summer/Fall 1978): 3-60. A facile
dismissal of pragmatism is also made by Shlomo Avineri in
"The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx"
(Cambridge: Cambridge, 1968): 74-5. Each of these
three strands counterposes Marxism and pragmatism from a
particular left-wing perspective--Trotskyist, Stalinist
and social-democratic, respectively--but there have from
time to time been more sympathetic treatments of
pragmatism from within Trotskyism and social democracy,
at least. See, for instance, James Kloppenberg,
"Uncertain Victory: Social Democracy and Progressivism
in European and American Thought, 1870-1920" (New York:
Oxford, 1986). For a neo-pragmatist call for radical
intellectuals to dispense with Marxism and socialism, see
Richard Rorty, "The Intellectuals at the End of
Socialism," in "Yale Review" 80:1-2 (April 1992): 1-16.
9) On the contrary, Hook hailed the Soviet Union's
"progressive elimination of national, cultural and racial
hostilities among its heterogenous peoples," which he
said had been done by "voluntary participation in a
socialist economy" and "not by suppressing national units
or indigenous cultures" (247), an estimation that he
would come to reconsider rather quickly.
10) Stolberg, 414.
11) For a sampling of Stalinist philosophy from the 1930s,
all of which attempt to codify dialectical materialism
into a fixed system, see: V. Adoratsky, "Dialectical
Materialism" (New York: International, 1934); Howard
Selsam, "What is Philosophy? A Marxist Introduction"
(New York: International, 1938); David Guest, "A
Textbook of Dialectical Materialism" (New York:
International, 1939).
12) This reconstruction drawn from Hook, "Out of Step",
158-65. Hook's account of the meeting cannot be
verified, but his recollection of the conversation's
subjects corresponds to the issues at stake in the
subsequent published debate as well as to philosophical
positions he expressed in "Towards the Understanding of
Karl Marx." On rumors that the Party sought Hook as a
member, see John McDonald to Alan Wald, 6 August 1985
(Hook Papers, Box 133).
13) Don article: "Daily Worker" (14 Dec. 1932): 4, as
quoted in Klehr, "The Heyday of American Communism," 83,
428 n. 34. Information on Sam Don (born Sam Donchin) is
drawn from A.B. Magil to author, 8 March 1992; and
interview with Sender Garlin, 9 May 1992.
14) All citations from V.J. Jerome, "Unmasking an American
Revisionist of Marxism," in "Communist" (Jan. 1933):
50-82.
15) J.B.S. Hardman to SH, 17 Jan. 1933 (Hook Papers, Box 2).
16) Granville Hicks to SH, 25 Jan. 1933 (Hook Papers,
Box 2). Within a few more years, Hicks himself would
take a shot at Hook when, at the height of the Popular
Front, he published a bit of humorous doggerel in the
"New Masses". The subject of Hicks' poem, "Revolution in
Bohemia" (1938), is Halstead Weeks, a dilettante who
flirts with revolution, only to go over to the anti-
Stalinist left and then withdraw from politics
completely: "He found the works of Sidney Hook sublime /
And planned to read Karl Marx when he had time."
Granville Hicks in the "New Masses", ed. Jack Alan
Robbins (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1974):
314.
17) Newton Arvin to SH, 8 Sept. 1933 (Hook Papers, Box 5).
18) M.B. Schnapper, "Teachers Expose, Discomfit Sidney
Hook and Overstreet," in "Daily Worker" (25 Jan. 1933).
19) Harry Wicks (1889-1957) was a member of the CP from
1922-1938. He was expelled after it was discovered that
he had been working as an undercover agent for a private
company, raising the distinct possibility that Wicks'
attack on Hook was a deliberate exacerbation of tensions
by a provocateur. "Vituperation": Interview with Sender
Garlin, 9 May 1992. On Wicks: H. M. Wicks,
"Revolutionary Theory Applied to Present-Day Problems,"
in "Daily Worker" (10 Jan. 1933); Harvey Klehr, "Wicks,
Harry," in "Biographical Dictionary of the American
Left," ed. Bernard K. Johnpoll and Harvey Klehr (New
York: Greenwood, 1986): 414-415.
20) Granville Hicks to SH, 25 Jan. 1933 (Hook Papers, Box 2).
21) Earl Browder, "The Revisionism of Sidney Hook," in
"Communist" (Feb. 1933), 135, 145, and (Mar. 1933), 289,
299. The Browder condemnations were given added weight
when they were reproduced in Earl Browder, "Communism in
the United States" (New York: International, 1935):
316-333.
22) Will Herberg to SH, 7 Feb. 1933 and 26 Mar. 1933
(Hook Papers, Box 15); Morris U. Schappes to SH, 6 Feb.
1933 (Hook Papers, Box 2).
23) Morton White, "Social Thought in America" (New York:
Viking, 1952).