Max Eastman - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Max Forrester Eastman was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

on literature, philosophy and society, a poet

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, and a prominent political activist

Activism

Activism consists of intentional efforts to bring about social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing...

. For many years, Eastman was a supporter of socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

, a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Renaissance

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned the 1920s and 1930s. At the time, it was known as the "New Negro Movement", named after the 1925 anthology by Alain Locke...

and an activist for a number of liberal and radical

Political radicalism

The term political radicalism denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary means and changing value systems in fundamental ways...

causes. In later life, however, his views turned sharply, and he became an advocate of free market

Free market

A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...

economics and an anti-Communist.

Early life and education

Eastman was born in Canandaigua

Canandaigua (city), New York

Canandaigua is a city in Ontario County, New York, USA, of which it is the county seat. The population was 11,264 at the 2000 census...

, Ontario County

Ontario County, New York

As of the census of 2000, there were 100,224 people, 38,370 households, and 26,360 families residing in the county. The population density was 156 people per square mile . There were 42,647 housing units at an average density of 66 per square mile...

, New York. Both his parents, Samuel Elijah Eastman and Annis Bertha Ford, were Congregational Church

Congregational church

Congregational churches are Protestant Christian churches practicing Congregationalist church governance, in which each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs....

clergy and together served as pastors at the church of Thomas K. Beecher

Thomas K. Beecher

Thomas K. Beecher was a preacher and the principal of several schools. He was a traveling man, living in many places such as: Litchfield, Connecticut, Boston, Massachusetts, Cincinnati, Ohio, and Elmira, New York. There is a memorial statue built in Elmira, New York were he spent a large portion...

near Elmira, New York

Elmira, New York

Elmira is a city in Chemung County, New York, USA. It is the principal city of the 'Elmira, New York Metropolitan Statistical Area' which encompasses Chemung County, New York. The population was 29,200 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Chemung County.The City of Elmira is located in...

. (In 1889, his mother had become one of the first women ordained as an American minister.) This area was part of the "Burned-over district

Burned-over district

"Burned-over district" refers to the religious scene in western and central region of New York, in the early 19th century, where religious revivals and Pentecostal movements of the Second Great Awakening took place....

," which earlier in the 19th century had generated much religious excitement, including the formation of the Mormon

Mormon

The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

movement, and social causes, such as abolitionism

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

and support for the Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause. The term is also applied to the abolitionists,...

. Through his parents, he became acquainted with the famous author Samuel Clemens, better known as "Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

," in his youth.

Eastman graduated with a bachelor's degree from Williams College

Williams College

Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...

in 1905. From 1907 to 1911, he completed the work toward a Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

(PhD) in philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

under the noted philosopher John Dewey

John Dewey

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...

, and was a member of both the Delta Psi and Phi Beta Kappa societies. Settling in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

with his sister Crystal Eastman

Crystal Eastman

Crystal Catherine Eastman was a lawyer, antimilitarist, feminist, socialist, and journalist. She is best remembered as a leader in the fight for women's right to vote, as a co-editor of the radical arts and politics magazine The Liberator, and as a co-founder of the Women's International League...

, he became involved in a number of political causes, including helping to found the Men's League for Women's Suffrage

Men's League for Women's Suffrage

The Men's League for Women's Suffrage was a society formed in 1907 by the left-wing writers Henry Brailsford, Max Eastman, Laurence Housman, Henry Nevinson and others to pursue women's suffrage.-External links:*...

in 1910. While at Columbia, he was an assistant in the philosophy

Philosophy

department, as well as a lecturer with the psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

department. After completing the requirements for his doctoral degree, he refused to accept it and simply withdrew in 1911.

Leading radical

Eastman became a key figure in the left-leaning Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

community, and lived in its influence for many years. He combined this with his academic experience to explore varying interests, including literature, psychology and social reform. In 1913, he became editor of America's leading socialist

Socialism

periodical, The Masses

The Masses

The Masses was a graphically innovative magazine of socialist politics published monthly in the U.S. from 1911 until 1917, when Federal prosecutors brought charges against its editors for conspiring to obstruct conscription. It was succeeded by The Liberator and then later The New Masses...

, a magazine which combined social philosophy with the arts. Its contributors during his tenure there included Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson

Sherwood Anderson was an American novelist and short story writer. His most enduring work is the short story sequence Winesburg, Ohio. Writers he has influenced include Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, J. D. Salinger, and Amos Oz.-Early life:Anderson was born in Clyde, Ohio,...

, Louise Bryant

Louise Bryant

Louise Bryant was an American journalist and writer. She was best known for her Marxist and anarchist beliefs and her essays on radical political and feminist themes. Bryant published articles in several radical left journals during her life, including Alexander Berkman's The Blast...

, Floyd Dell

Floyd Dell

Floyd Dell was an American author and critic.-Biography:Floyd Dell was born in Barry, Illinois on June 28, 1887....

, Amy Lowell

Amy Lowell

Amy Lawrence Lowell was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926.- Personal life:...

, Mabel Dodge Luhan

Mabel Dodge Luhan

Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...

, Robert Minor

Robert Minor

Robert Berkeley "Bob" Minor was political cartoonist, a radical journalist, and a leading member of the American Communist Party.-Early life:...

, John Reed, Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...

, Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair

Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. , was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle . It exposed conditions in the U.S...

and Art Young

Art Young

Arthur "Art" Young was an American cartoonist and writer. He is most famous for his socialist cartoons, especially those drawn for the left wing political magazine The Masses between 1911 and 1917.-Early Years:...

. The same year he published Enjoyment of Poetry, an examination of literary metaphor from a psychological point of view. During this period, he also became a noted advocate of free love

Free love

The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...

and birth control

Birth control

Birth control is an umbrella term for several techniques and methods used to prevent fertilization or to interrupt pregnancy at various stages. Birth control techniques and methods include contraception , contragestion and abortion...

.

In his first editorial for The Masses, Eastman wrote: "This magazine is owned and published cooperatively by its editors. It has no dividends to pay, and nobody is trying to make money out of it. A revolutionary and not a reform magazine: a magazine with a sense of humour and no respect for the respectable: frank, arrogant, impertinent, searching for true causes: a magazine directed against rigidity and dogma wherever it is found: printing what is too naked or true for a money-making press: a magazine whose final policy is to do as it pleases and conciliate nobody, not even its readers."

The numerous denunciations of U.S. participation in World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

later published in The Masses, many authored by Eastman, became a source of intense controversy and stimulated official reaction. Eastman twice stood trial under provisions of the Sedition Act

Sedition Act of 1918

The Sedition Act of 1918 was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds...

, but was acquitted each time. In a July 1917 speech he complained that the government's aggressive prosecutions of dissent meant that "[y]ou can't even collect your thoughts without getting arrested for unlawful assemblage." In 1918, The Masses was forced to close due to charges under the Espionage Act of 1917

Espionage Act of 1917

The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law passed on June 15, 1917, shortly after the U.S. entry into World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18, Crime...

.

It was Eastman who raised the money to send radical John Reed to Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

in 1917, and it was Eastman's journal which published the articles which became Ten Days That Shook the World

Ten Days that Shook the World

Ten Days that Shook the World is a book by American journalist and socialist John Reed about the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 which Reed experienced firsthand. Reed followed many of the prominent Bolshevik leaders, especially Grigory Zinoviev and Karl Radek, closely during his time in Russia...

, Reed's famous account of the Bolshevik Revolution.

In 1919, Eastman and his sister Crystal

Crystal Eastman

(who was one of the founders of American Civil Liberties Union

American Civil Liberties Union

The American Civil Liberties Union is a U.S. non-profit organization whose stated mission is "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States." It works through litigation, legislation, and...

) created a similar publication titled The Liberator and there published such writers as E. E. Cummings

E. E. Cummings

Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...

, John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos

John Roderigo Dos Passos was an American novelist and artist.-Early life:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dos Passos was the illegitimate son of John Randolph Dos Passos , a distinguished lawyer of Madeiran Portuguese descent, and Lucy Addison Sprigg Madison of Petersburg, Virginia. The elder Dos Passos...

, Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

, Helen Keller

Helen Keller

Helen Adams Keller was an American author, political activist, and lecturer. She was the first deafblind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree....

, Claude McKay

Claude McKay

Claude McKay was a Jamaican-American writer and poet. He was a seminal figure in the Harlem Renaissance and wrote three novels: Home to Harlem , a best-seller which won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature, Banjo , and Banana Bottom...

and Edmund Wilson

Edmund Wilson

Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...

. In 1922 after continuing financial troubles, it was taken over by the Workers Party of America

Workers Party of America

The Workers Party of America was the name of the legal party organization used by the Communist Party USA from the last days of 1921 until the middle of 1929. As a legal political party the Workers Party accepted affiliation from independent socialist groups such as the African Blood Brotherhood,...

. (In 1924, The Liberator was merged with two other publications to create The Workers Monthly, and Eastman's association with the magazine ended.

In 1922, Eastman embarked on a fact-finding tour of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

to learn about the Soviet enactment of Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

. He stayed for a year and nine months, observing the power struggles between Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

and Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

, and he attended the Party Congress of May, 1924. Leaving Russia in June 1924, he remained in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

for the next three years. Upon returning to the United States in 1927, Eastman published several works that were highly critical of the Stalinist system, beginning with Since Lenin Died, which was written in 1925. In that essay, he described Lenin's Testament

Lenin's Testament

Lenin's Testament is the name given to a document written by Vladimir Lenin in the last weeks of 1922 and the first week of 1923. In the testament, Lenin proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet governing bodies...

, a copy of which Eastman had smuggled out of Russia and in which Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

proposed changes to the structure of the Soviet government, criticized the leading members of the Soviet leadership, and suggested Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

be removed from his position as General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. The Soviet leadership denounced Eastman's account and used Party discipline

Party discipline

Party discipline is the ability of a parliamentary group of a political party to get its members to support the policies of their party leadership. In liberal democracies, it usually refers to the control that party leaders have over its legislature...

to force Trotsky, then still a member of the Politburo

Politburo

Politburo , literally "Political Bureau [of the Central Committee]," is the executive committee for a number of communist political parties.-Marxist-Leninist states:...

, to write an article denying Eastman's version of the events. In other essays, Eastman described conditions for artists and political activists in Russia. Such essays made Eastman unpopular with American leftists of the time. In later years, however, his writings on the subject were cited by many on both the left and the right as sober and realistic portrayals of the Soviet system.

His first wife was fellow radical Ida Rauh; they divorced in 1922. In 1924 he married Elena Krylenko, a native of Moscow, whom he met during his stay in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

. Elena was sister to Nikolai Krylenko

Nikolai Krylenko

Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko was a Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet politician. Krylenko served in a variety of posts in the Soviet legal system, rising to become People's Commissar for Justice and Prosecutor General of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic.Krylenko was an...

, the organizer of many of Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin

's infamous "show trials"

Although Eastman's view of the Soviet Union was sharply altered by his experiences there and by subsequent study, his commitment to left-wing political ideas continued unabated. While in the Soviet Union, Eastman began a friendship with Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, which endured through the latter's exile to Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

. There, Trotsky was murdered with an iceaxe by an agent of Stalin in 1940. Mastering the Russian language in little more than a year, Eastman translated several of Trotsky's works into English, including his monumental three-volume History of the Russian Revolution

History of the Russian Revolution

The History of the Russian Revolution by Leon Trotsky is a 3 volume book on the Russian Revolution of 1917, first published in 1932, translated into English by Max Eastman...

, as well as works by the poet Alexander Pushkin, including The Gabrieliad.

During the 1930s Eastman continued writing critiques of contemporary literature

Contemporary literature

Contemporary literature is literature with its setting generally after World War II. Subgenres of contemporary literature include contemporary romance.-History:This table lists literary movements by decade. It should not be assumed to be comprehensive....

. He published several controversial works in which he criticized James Joyce

James Joyce

James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...

and other modernist writers, who, he claimed, fostered "the Cult of Unintelligibility." When Eastman had asked Joyce himself why his book was written in a very difficult style, Joyce famously replied, "To keep the critics busy for three hundred years." Eastman published The Literary Mind (1931) and Enjoyment of Laughter (1936), in which he also criticized some elements of Freudian theory. In the 1930s, he debated the meaning of Marxism

Marxism

with philosopher Sidney Hook

Sidney Hook

Sidney Hook was an American pragmatic philosopher known for his contributions to public debates.A student of John Dewey, Hook continued to examine the philosophy of history, of education, politics, and of ethics. After embracing Marxism in his youth, Hook was known for his criticisms of...

(who, like Eastman, had studied under John Dewey

John Dewey

at Columbia University) in a series of public exchanges. Eastman was an active traveling lecturer throughout the 1930s and 1940s, when he spoke on various literary and social topics in cities across the country.

Changing political beliefs

Following the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

, Eastman started to abandon his socialist

Socialism

beliefs, becoming increasingly critical of the ideas of Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

, Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Veblen

Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...

, and G. W. F. Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...

which he had once admired. In 1941, he was hired as a roving editor for Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace...

magazine, a position he held for the remainder of his life. About this time, he also became a friend and admirer of the noted free market

Free market

economists

Economics

Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

Friedrich Hayek

Friedrich August Hayek CH , born in Austria-Hungary as Friedrich August von Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism and free-market capitalism against socialist and collectivist thought...

, Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig Heinrich Edler von Mises was an Austrian economist, philosopher, and classical liberal who had a significant influence on the modern Libertarian movement and the "Austrian School" of economic thought.-Biography:-Early life:...

and Wilhelm Röpke

Wilhelm Röpke

Wilhelm Röpke was Professor of Economics, first in Jena, then in Graz, Marburg, Istanbul and finally in Geneva, and the main spiritual father of the German social market economy, theorising and collaborating to organise the post-World War II economic re-awakening of the then destroyed German...

, and an ally to the American writers James Burnham

James Burnham

James Burnham was an American popular political theorist, best known for his influential work The Managerial Revolution, published in 1941. Burnham was a radical activist in the 1930s and an important factional leader of the American Trotskyist movement. In later years he left Marxism and produced...

, John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (journalist)

John Rensselaer Chamberlain was an American journalist, historian of business and the economy, and literary critic, dubbed "one of America’s most trusted book reviewers."-Early life:...

and John Dos Passos

John Dos Passos

. Hayek referred to Eastman's life and to his repudiation of socialism in his widely read The Road to Serfdom

The Road to Serfdom

The Road to Serfdom is a book written by the Austrian-born economist and philosopher Friedrich von Hayek between 1940–1943, in which he "warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning," and in which he argues...

, and, in turn, Eastman arranged for the serialization of the future Nobel

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

laureate's work in Reader's Digest

Reader's Digest

. Later, Eastman wrote articles critical of socialism for the early libertarian

Libertarianism

Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...

publication The Freeman

The Freeman

The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty is one of the oldest and most respected libertarian journals in the United States. It is published by the Foundation for Economic Education . It started as a digest sized monthly study journal; it currently appears 10 times per year and is a larger-sized magazine. FEE...

when it was edited by his friends John Chamberlain and Henry Hazlitt

Henry Hazlitt

Henry Stuart Hazlitt was an American economist, philosopher, literary critic and journalist for such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, The American Mercury, Newsweek, and The New York Times...

.

Initially, Eastman had supported Senator Joseph McCarthy

Joseph McCarthy

Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...

, but he soon came to believe that the anti-Communist movement was "taken over by reactionary forces." In 1955, his repudiation of the Left reached a high water-mark with the publication of Reflections on the Failure of Socialism. By this time, he had come to believe that the Bolshevik Revolution, "rather than producing freedom, produced the most perfect tyranny in all history." Also in 1955, he became one of the original contributing editors of the conservative

Conservatism

Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...

National Review

National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...

magazine.

In the 1950s, Eastman joined the classical liberal Mont Pelerin Society

Mont Pelerin Society

The Mont Pelerin Society is an international organization composed of economists , philosophers, historians, intellectuals, business leaders, and others who favour classical liberalism...

founded by Hayek and Mises, and was a participating member of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom

American Committee for Cultural Freedom

The American Committee for Cultural Freedom was the U.S. affiliate of the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization that, during the Cold War, sought to encourage intellectuals to be critical of the Soviet Union and Communism, and to combat, according to a writer for the New York Times, "the...

at the invitation of Sidney Hook. Although his politics moved Eastman into conservative circles, he remained a lifelong atheist

Atheism

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...

, and, in the 1960s, he broke with his friend William F. Buckley, Jr.

William F. Buckley, Jr.

William Frank Buckley, Jr. was an American conservative author and commentator. He founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, hosted 1,429 episodes of the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999, and was a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist. His writing was noted for...

and resigned from National Review

National Review

s Board of Associates on the grounds that the magazine was too explicitly pro-Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

. Shortly after this, he also publicly opposed U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

. Despite his advocacy of free market

Free market

economics, many of Eastman's positions remained unconventional for a political "conservative." Favoring the self-description of "radical conservative," he rejected the label "libertarian

Libertarianism

" then being used by political writer Rose Wilder Lane

Rose Wilder Lane

Rose Wilder Lane was an American journalist, travel writer, novelist, and political theorist...

, a term which Eastman associated with the ideas of the writer Albert Jay Nock

Albert Jay Nock

Albert Jay Nock was an influential United States libertarian author, educational theorist, and social critic of the early and middle 20th century.- Life and work :...

.

A prolific writer, Eastman published more than twenty books on subjects as diverse as the scientific method

Scientific method

Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of...

, humor, Freudian

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

psychology

Psychology

and Soviet

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

culture. He composed five volumes of poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

, a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

and translated into English some of the work of Alexander Pushkin. For the Modern Library

Modern Library

The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...

, he edited and abridged Marx'

Karl Marx

Das Kapital

Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...

. He also produced two volumes of memoirs, as well as two volumes of recollections of his friendships and personal encounters with many of the leading figures of his time, including: Pablo Casals

Pablo Casals

Pau Casals i Defilló , known during his professional career as Pablo Casals, was a Spanish Catalan cellist and conductor. He is generally regarded as the pre-eminent cellist of the first half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest cellists of all time...

, Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...

, Eugene Debs, John Dewey

John Dewey

, Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan

Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...

, Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

, Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...

, Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

, H. L. Mencken

H. L. Mencken

Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...

, John Reed, Paul Robeson

Paul Robeson

Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...

, Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet, playwright and feminist. She received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and was known for her activism and her many love affairs. She used the pseudonym Nancy Boyd for her prose work...

, George Santayana

George Santayana

George Santayana was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. A lifelong Spanish citizen, Santayana was raised and educated in the United States and identified himself as an American. He wrote in English and is generally considered an American man of letters...

, E. W. Scripps

E. W. Scripps

Edward Willis Scripps , was an American newspaper publisher and founder of The E. W. Scripps Company, a diversified media conglomerate, and United Press news service. It became United Press International when International News Service merged with United Press in 1958. The E. W...

, George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw

George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

, Carlo Tresca

Carlo Tresca

Carlo Tresca was an Italian-born American newspaper editor, orator, and labor organizer who was a leader of the Industrial Workers of the World during the decade of the 1910s. Tresca is remembered as a leading public opponent of fascism, stalinism, and Mafia infiltration of the trade union movement...

, Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

, Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

and H. G. Wells

H. G. Wells

Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

. His biographical portraits have been called "brilliant," and his psychological study of the young Trotsky, "pioneering," by historian John Patrick Diggins

John Patrick Diggins

John Patrick Diggins was a professor of history at the City University of New York Graduate Center, the author of more than a dozen books on widely varied subjects in American intellectual history.-Biography:...

.

Eastman's last memoir was Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epic (1964). He died at his summer home in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the age of 86.

Actor Edward Herrmann

Edward Herrmann

Edward Kirk Herrmann is a U.S. television and film actor. He is best known for his Emmy-nominated portrayals of Franklin D...

portrayed Eastman in the 1981 film Reds, starring Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty

Warren Beatty born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director. He has received a total of fourteen Academy Award nominations, winning one for Best Director in 1982. He has also won four Golden Globe Awards including the Cecil B. DeMille Award.-Early life and...

, which was based on the life of John Reed and was winner of three Academy Awards. The irony of Eastman's famous good looks being depicted by Herrmann, and Reed's bookish appearance being depicted in the film by the handsome Beatty, has been noted by Diggins

John Patrick Diggins

Selected works

Enjoyment of Poetry, 1913. http://www.archive.org/details/enjoymentofpoetr00eastrich
Child of the Amazons, and other poems, 1913. http://www.archive.org/details/childoftheamazon00eastrich
Journalism Versus Art, 1916. http://www.archive.org/details/journalismversus00eastuoft
Colors of life; poems and songs and sonnets, 1918. http://www.archive.org/details/colorsoflifepoem00eastuoft
The Sense of Humor, 1921. http://www.archive.org/details/senseofhumor00eastuoft
Leon Trotsky: The Portrait of a Youth, 1925.
Since Lenin Died, 1925. http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015012178243
Marx and Lenin: The Science of Revolution, 1926.
The Literary Mind: Its Place in an Age of Science, 1931.
Artists in Uniform, 1934.
Art and the Life of Action, 1934.
The last stand of dialectic materialism : a study of Sidney Hook's Marxism. New York: Polemic Publishers, 1934.
Enjoyment of Laughter, 1936.
Stalin's Russia and the Crisis in Socialism, 1939.
Marxism: Is It a Science?, 1940.
Heroes I Have Known, 1942.
Enjoyment of Living, 1948.
Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, 1955. http://mises.org/books/failuresocialism.pdf
Great Companions: Critical Memoirs of Some Famous Friends, 1959.
Love and Revolution: My Journey Through an Epoch, 1964.
Seven Kinds of Goodness, 1967.

External links

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