Editing Monthly Review (section)

===Establishment===
Following the failure of the independent [[1948 United States presidential election|1948 presidential campaign]] of [[Henry A. Wallace]], two former supporters of the Wallace effort met at the farm in [[New Hampshire]] where one of them was living. The two men were literary scholar and [[Christian socialism|Christian socialist]] [[F. O. Matthiessen|F.O. "Matty" Matthiessen]] and [[Marxism|Marxist]] [[economist]] [[Paul Sweezy]], who were former colleagues at [[Harvard University]]. Matthiessen came into an inheritance after his father died in an automobile accident in [[California]] and had no pressing need for the money. Matthiessen made the offer to Sweezy to underwrite "that magazine [Sweezy] and Leo Huberman were always talking about," committing the sum of $5,000 per year for three years. Matthiessen's funds made the launch of ''Monthly Review'' possible, although the amount of the seed money was reduced to $4,000 per year in the second and third years by the executors of Matthiessen's estate following his suicide in 1950.<ref name=phelps3>{{Cite journal|author=C. Phelps|doi=10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1|title=Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century|journal=Monthly Review|volume = 51|issue=1|pages=1–21|year=1999}}</ref>

Although Matthiessen was the financial angel of the new publication, from the outset the editorial task was handled by Sweezy and his co-thinker, the left wing popular writer [[Leo Huberman]]. The author of an array of books and pamphlets during the 1930s and early 1940s, the [[New York University]]-educated Huberman worked full-time on ''Monthly Review'' from its establishment until his death of a [[heart attack]] in 1968.<ref name=phelps3-4>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 3-4</ref>

Sweezy and Huberman were complementary figures guiding the publication, with Sweezy's theoretical bent and writing ability put to use for a majority of the editorial content, while Huberman took charge of the business and administrative aspects of the enterprise. Sweezy remained at home in New Hampshire, traveling down to New York City once a month to read [[manuscript]]s, where Huberman conducted the day-to-day operations of the magazine along with his wife, Gerty Huberman, and family friend Sybil Huntington May.<ref name=sweezy1987-1>{{Cite journal | last1 = Savran | first1 = S. | last2 = Tonak | first2 = E. A. | last3 = Sweezy | first3 = P. M. | doi = 10.14452/MR-038-11-1987-04_1 | title = Interview with Paul M. Sweezy | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 38 | issue = 11 | pages = 1 | year = 1987 }} p. 32-33</ref>

Briefly joining Sweezy and Huberman as a third founding editor of ''Monthly Review'' — although not listed as such on the publication's [[Masthead (American publishing)|masthead]] — was German émigré [[Otto Nathan]] (1893–1987). Although his time of editorial association with the magazine was short, Nathan was instrumental in obtaining what would become a seminal essay for the magazine, a lead piece for the debut May 1949 issue by [[physicist]] [[Albert Einstein]] entitled "[[Why Socialism?]]"<ref name=whysocialism>{{Cite journal | last1 = Einstein | first1 = A. | doi = 10.14452/MR-061-01-2009-05_7 | title = Why Socialism? | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 61 | issue = 1| pages = 55–61 | year = 2009 }} HTML version available at the ''Monthly Review'' website: {{cite web|title=Why Socialism?|url=http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism|access-date=18 January 2014|date=May 1949}}</ref><ref name=AboutMR>[http://monthlyreview.org/about "About ''Monthly Review''"].</ref>

Another key contributor during the first 15 years of ''Monthly Review'' was economist [[Paul A. Baran|Paul Baran]], frequently considered as the third member of an editorial troika including Sweezy and Huberman. A [[tenure]]d professor at [[Stanford University]], Baran was one of a very few self-identified Marxists to teach economics at American universities during the [[Cold War]] period. Baran worked closely with Sweezy on a book regarded as a landmark in Marxist theory entitled ''Monopoly Capital,'' although he died of a heart attack prior to the work's first publication in 1966.<ref name=phelps4-5>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999 }} p. 4-5.</ref>

''Monthly Review'' launched in 1949 with a circulation of just 450 copies, most of whom were personal acquaintances of either Huberman or Sweezy.<ref name=sweezy1987-2>{{Cite journal | last1 = Savran | first1 = S. | last2 = Tonak | first2 = E. A. | last3 = Sweezy | first3 = P. M. | doi = 10.14452/MR-038-11-1987-04_1 | title = Interview with Paul M. Sweezy | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 38 | issue = 11 | pages = 1 | year = 1987 }} p. 43-44</ref> The magazine's ideology and readership closely paralleled that of the independent socialist weekly newspaper ''[[National Guardian|The National Guardian]]'', established in 1948. Despite a conservative political climate in the United States, the magazine quickly reached a critical mass of subscribers, with its paid circulation rising to 2,500 in 1950 and to 6,000 in 1954.<ref name=phelps7-9>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_1 | title = Introduction: A Socialist Magazine in the American Century | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–21 | year = 1999}} p. 7-9.</ref>