The New Reasoner
In July 1957, E. P. Thompson and former members of the Communist Party Historians' Group published the first edition of the socialist journal The New Reasoner. The editorial committee for the first issue included John Saville, Randall Swingler, Ronald Meek, Doris Lessing and Kenneth Alexander. (1)
According to Christos Efstathiou: "If The Reasoner tried to reform the CPGB from the inside, The New Reasoner was an effort to reform the Communist and labour movement outside the Party. The new journal looked for a radical third way beyond the Communist or Trotskyist schemes and the reformist tendencies of British labourism. It was no longer a journal of intra-party discussion, but a journal of 'socialist humanism', which tried to develop socialism with a humanist face, as its editors pointed out." (2)
The editors stated that the journal would carry theoretical and analytical articles and "a wide range of creative writing - short stories, polemic, satire, reportage, poetry, and occasional historical or critical articles - which contribute to the rediscovery of our traditions, the affirmation of socialist values, and the undogmatic perception of social reality." It included articles by E. P. Thompson (Socialist Humanism), Eric Hobsbawm (Dr Marx and the Victorian Critics), Peter Fryer (Hungarian Uprising), John Saville (Palme Dutt and Indian Independence), Jean-Paul Sarte (The French Socialist Party) and Peter Worsley (The Anatomy of Mau Mau). (3)
Dorothy Thompson became the business manager of the journal. Her biographer and friend, Sheila Rowbotham, pointed out: "Characteristically, her competence meant she was designated business manager, though she also read through submitted manuscripts. The break with the Communist party was painful, but it also brought hope in the creation of a new left. Dorothy worked with the writers, artists, historians and trade unionists who were forming the new left clubs in many towns." (4)
In April 1958, John Saville contacted Ralph Miliband, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, and a member of the Labour Party, inviting him to contribute to the journal with an essay "on some fundamental questions for socialists concerning the transition to socialism in Britain". (5) This was published as The Transition to the Transition and the same year The New Reasoner also published another article by Miliband on The Politics of Contemporary Capitalism. (6) At the end of the year he became the only person who had never been a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain to join the editorial board of the journal. (7)
Primary Sources
(1) E. P. Thompson and John Saville, The Reasoner (July 1956)
It is now, however, abundantly clear to us that the forms of discipline necessary and valuable in a revolutionary party of action cannot and never should have been extended so far into the processes of discussion, of creative writing, and of theoretical polemic. The power which will shatter the capitalist system and create Socialism is that of the free human reason and conscience expressed with the full force of the organised working-class. Only a party of free men and women, accepting a discipline arising from truly democratic discussion and decision, alert in mind and conscience, will develop the clarity, the initiative, and the élan, necessary to arouse the dormant energies of our people. Everything which tends to cramp the intellect and dull their feelings, weakens the party, disarms the working class, and makes the assault upon Capitalism - with its deep defences of fraud and force - more difficult... We take our stand as Marxists... History has provided the chance... for the scientific methods of Marxism to be integrated with the finest traditions of the human reason and spirit which we may best describe as Humanism.