Phillips: The position of the CP was an historical disaster--only a fool or a knave could have supported it after 1939.

Of the Communists I knew, for many of them Communism became their whole life. Mike Gold, for example [editor of New Masses, a Communist political magazine]. He was an example of a very extreme Marxist, and not too bright at that. For him, breaking with the Party meant starting a new life. He couldn't.

Crimson: What did breaking with the Party entail?

Phillips: If you broke with the Party, your former friends quit talking to you. It was like breaking with the Church. Say your mother was a Communist, your sister was a Communist, your best friend was a Communist--what were you going to do?

Crimson: What was Greenwich Village like back in those days?

Phillips: It wasn't, as some people think, a big orgy. There were, simply, more writers and painters living in the Village than anywhere else.

Crimson: Was proletarian writing at all significant on the American literary scene?

Phillips [snorting]: It was a concocted notion, a political notion invented by the CP for its own purposes. It was primarily a political weapon, and existed to the extent that writers believed it existed. No, I think it had only a small impact--if any--on later American literature. I think James T. Farrell and John Dos Passos produced the best fiction during those years, but I wouldn't particularly call it "proletarian."

Crimson: What set off Partisan Review from other "little" magazines?

Phillips: Most others were the expression of a few intellectual dissidents. Our readership was a little larger than theirs, but counting readers is a contemporary occupation. In general, Partisan Review had a broader appeal.

Crimson: What lessons do you carry with you from that period?

Phillips: We [Partisan Review editors] were in the process of evolving in the 1930s. We had been more or less Marxists during the early period. Gradually, we found ourselves questioning Marxism itself as a viable doctrine theoretically, or as a doctrine that explained political activity. The period of gradual change was extended up to the present time. We started focusing more on questions than on answers.

Crimson: Are you still a political activist?

Phillips: No. No more. The whole question of political position today is complex, unresolved. The classic Left solutions don't work. People who repeat the radical catechisms of the past show they aren't thinking.

If the book nations of socialism could be realized, I'd be a Socialist. The image of socialism is very appealing. But [sighing, a bit wisefully], it begs the question of how you achieve it.