An interview with Harry Magdoff - co-editor of the 'Monthly Review' - Interview

Monthly Review, May, 1999 by Christopher Phelps

In my articles later issued as The Age of Imperialism, I showed how aid and debt creation created persistent balance of payments problems and debt peonage. These, together with currency devaluation, which The Age of Imperialism also explained, are strategic factors in the current economic crisis in Asia. I am not claiming the mantle of prophecy for MR, rather, proper recognition of MR's record of understanding the lasting bonds of the third world, even the most successful countries; the quarter century of stagnation in the advanced capitalist world; and the international financial explosion.

ENGAGING WITH THE THIRD WORLD

Q: People use the phrase "third worldism" to describe the politics of MR. One thing that is sometimes said on the left about the magazine is that it neglected class struggles within the imperialist centers - within the United States, for example - in the misplaced belief that struggles in the periphery were going to eventually solve the revolutionary problem. Actually, in rereading the magazine, I don't think that criticism of the magazine stands up, with a few exceptions. There has always been attention to labor and internal struggles within the advanced capitalist countries.

MAGDOFF: There's always been. The accusation of "third worldism" comes, I think, from two sources. One is that much more attention was paid to third world situations and third world struggles by MR than by any other publication on the left. In other words, you found out more. There was more space devoted to it. The other is that to us this is where the struggles were taking place. It wasn't the fact that we knew what the next step in history was going to be, or that we expected, as some believed, that the periphery would surround the centers of capitalism. It's just that this was important, and this is where the struggle actually was.

We did have articles on labor whenever there was something that we felt was worth publishing. But within the left there were those who felt that this was third worldism, and they accused us of saying that everything was in the third world. We felt that we were reporting what was happening, what we thought was important. The fact is that there was a Cuba, there were things happening in China that were very different, and, of course, there was the Indo-Chinese war, and so on. I think this is also a distinguishing feature of Monthly Review - it had to be. Our aim was to deal with reality. We didn't speculate about the future. We had our hopes, but we weren't about to forecast the future. Our task was, and remains, the analysis of the real world.

Q: How do you now think about the range of armed struggles in the third world for which the magazine had enthusiasm? Some now say that the left rather uncritically invested hope in a whole series of such movements, hope that turned out to be unwarranted. Things certainly haven't panned out in quite the way that the magazine wished.

MAGDOFF: I don't think that it is up to the left to judge whether it is warranted or unwarranted when people are in struggle where there is tremendous poverty, misery, and little hope, and in the process either make mistakes, or don't make the best decisions, or are misled by opportunists. It is a natural phenomenon, to be expected. History does not come easy.