It is generally accepted that the history of American neoconservatist political ideology traces back to the late 1960s-early 1970s to the shift from Stalinist-friendly Left to the side that is American conservatism. Although, the early neoconservative thoughts were found in the works of Thucydides and Alexis de Tocqueville, the cradle of what later was called neoconservatism was the City College of New York of 1920s. That time, the CCNY also called “Harvard of Proletaria” of “Jewish Harvard” (by this time, 80% to 90% of Jewish students – primarily children of Eastern European emigrants, mostly Russian and Polish, studied here) had become the epicenter of the radical left.
Decades earlier, in 1898-1899, two academic fraternities were established in City College of New York: Christian (Delta Sigma Phi) and Jewish (Zeta Beta Tau). Its founder, Richard J.H. Gottheil (1862–1936), lecturer in languages at Columbia University and the president of the American Federation of Zionists, aimed at the creation of Zionist association of the New York University. However, the migrants from Eastern Europe brought mostly communist ideas and convictions, rather than Zionist ones.
In his book “Age of Mercury. Jews in the Modern World”, Yuri Slezkine, Professor of University of California states that “the most remarkable thing about the pre-war history of Jewish students in the Soviet Union and in the United States was that while Soviet universities were cultivating communists, American universities were also cultivating communists”[1]. Taking into consideration that the majority of “New york intellectuals”[2] in 1930s were the children of Jewish immigrants, United States became the Promised Land for homines rationalistici artificiales. Isaac Rosenfeld remembers that the political interests affected all aspects of student life. The main front was between the Stalinists (who dominated the American Student Union) and the Trotskyists (who operated through the local branch of the Youth Socialist League). Politics was everywhere: if was the food and drinks… Love affairs, marriages, divorces, friendships, were sometimes based only on politics… Politics was form and content. This was the basic characteristic for all American universities that time and it was so in the City College of New York, but in its most hypertrophic form[3].
Thus, the City College of New York became the cradle for many American politicians, including famous “New York Four” – founders of neoconservatism – Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer and Irving Howe. Starting as the members of the Fourth Trotskyist International, they had grown up around the legendary Partisan Review journal. Although, the road from Trotskyism to neoconservatism is related with another prominent emigrant – Max Shachtman, a convinced Marxist and member of US Communist party. Though, for his Trotskyist views, Shachtman has been expelled from the party with a group of like-minded people and organized “Socialist Workers Party”, which laid down the foundation for the IV International.
In 1938, Shachtman become the head of the IV International founding congress and editor of “New International” political journal. That time he comes closer to James Burnham (the future author of “The Revolution of Managers”), Sidney Hook (the future informal leader of the “New York intellectuals”) and Dwight Macdonald, editor of the “Partisan Review”, which later became one of the most important triggers for the revolution of the 60s.
However, soon their pathways came apart. In 1936 a revolution against Franko’s regime erupts in Spain. Many of City College of New York Jewish students arrived to revolution-hit country for help, where it became obvious: Stalin is fighting not only against Franko, but the Trotskyist themselves. The developments in Europe by the end of 1930s force American Trotskyists to shift from left ideologies. It was that time, when revolution took place in the minds of Shachtman, Kristol and other prominent ideologists. Burnham started to reject socialism and shifted towards right so fast that became the main ideologist of right-conservative “National Review” journal. In 1939, Sidney Hook establishes the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization whose main task is to develop a new ideology that can replace communism. The Congress will become the working platform of the CIA and the leading cultural lever of the Cold War, designed to tear the European intelligentsia away from sympathy for the Soviet Union and insert Pan-Americanism and a new – non-Marxist – ideology into their heads. Throughout the 1940s, Shachtman still remains a convinced Trotskyist, but in the following decade the transformations became more rapid and deep: he renames his Workers’ Party into the Independent Socialist League and already in 1958 ISL becomes a part of US Socialist Party. Although Shachtman’s aim is to develop a “rebranded” version of socialism rather than to reanimate the orthodox one. His strategy was to make socialist to move to the right and democrats to shift to the left. By uniting the election districts, human rights organizations and labor unions in a coalition, Shachtman transforms US Democratic Party into a social-democratic one. This process comes to an end by 1960s – from that time they started to play an important role in the political life of the United States. In 1972, Shachtman and his team got close with Henry Jackson (Scoop) – convinced hawk, anticommunist and Zionist, but Jackson lost presidential elections and Shachtmanians lost their chance to influence the administration. Their “star” will light up years later during the President Reagan administration.
By that time, with “an easy hand” of Michael Harrington ex-trotskyists and proponents of their metamorphic versions have been called “neoconservatives”, borrowed and used by Irving Kristol in his “The Public interest” journal. For Kristol, neoconservatism was a persuasion, not an ideology, one that is as hopeful and forward-looking and cheerful as traditional conservatism is pessimistic and nostalgic and darkly foreboding[4].
[1] Yuri Slezkine, “Age of Mercury. Jews in the Modern World”, Moscow: Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2007.
[2] The “family” of New York intellectuals became extremely influential in 1940s-50s. Having gained respectability, New York intellectuals take on the role of mentors of the literary and cultural life of New York and America as a whole. It was this team of Jewish critics that decided whether you would become a writer in America or not.
[3] Vladimir Mozhegov, “The World Civil War”. Moscow: Rodina, 2021
[4] Reihan Salam, The First Neocon, The Daily Beast, July 14
