Editing Monthly Review (section)

===New Left era and after===
From the middle years of the 1960s, radical political theory saw a resurgence in association with the emergence of a [[New Left]] in Europe and North America. ''Monthly Review'' grew in stature in tandem with this resurgence.<ref name=jbf1990-485>John Bellamy Foster, "Monthly Review," in Mari Jo Buhle, Paul Buhle, and Dan Georgakas (eds.) ''Encyclopedia of the American Left'' New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; p. 485.</ref> While remaining an intellectual journal not oriented towards acquiring a mass readership, circulation of the publication nonetheless grew throughout this era, approaching 9,100 in 1970 before peaking at 11,500 in 1977.<ref name=phelps20>{{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. 20-21.</ref>

While ''Monthly Review'' remained essentially a publication with roots in the so-called "Old Left", it was not unsympathetic to the young radical movement which grew in conjunction with the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and the opposition to [[conscription]] and the [[Vietnam War]]. Among those associated with the 1960s New Left published by the ''Monthly Review'' were [[C. Wright Mills]], [[Herbert Marcuse]], [[Todd Gitlin]], [[Carl Oglesby]], [[David Horowitz]], and [[Noam Chomsky]].<ref name=phelps20 />

The ''Monthly Review'' editorial staff was joined in May 1969 by radical economist [[Harry Magdoff]], replacing Leo Huberman, who had died in 1968. Magdoff, a reader of the publication from its first issue in 1949, bolstered the already well-developed "[[Third-Worldism|Third-Worldist]]" orientation of the publication, based upon revolutionary events in [[Cuba]], China, and [[Vietnam]]. Certain [[Maoism|Maoist]] influence made itself felt in the content of the publication in this period.<ref name=magdoff1999>{{Cite journal | last1 = Phelps | first1 = C. | last2 = Magdoff | first2 = H. | doi = 10.14452/MR-051-01-1999-05_3 | title = Interview with Harry Magdoff | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 51 | issue = 1| pages = 54–73 | year = 1999 }} p. 54, pp. 61-64</ref>

''Monthly Review'' became steadily more critical of the [[Soviet Union]] in the 1960s and 1970s, with editor Paul Sweezy objecting to the [[Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia|Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia]] in 1968 and the suppression of the [[Solidarity (Polish trade union)|Polish trade union "Solidarity"]] through [[Martial law in Poland|martial law]] in 1981.<ref name=phelps24-25>{{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. 24-25.</ref> In the latter case, Sweezy declared the incident had proved beyond doubt that "the Communist regimes of the Soviet bloc have become the expression and the guardians of a new rigidified hierarchical structure which has nothing in common with the kind of socialist society Marxists have always regarded as the goal of modern working class movements."<ref name=sweezy1983>{{Cite journal | last1 = Sweezy | first1 = P. M. | title = The Suppression of the Polish Workers Movement | doi = 10.14452/MR-034-08-1983-01_3 | journal = Monthly Review | volume = 34 | issue = 8 | pages = 27–30 | year = 1983 }} p. 30</ref>

Despite an apparent decline of the American Left in the 1980s, ''Monthly Review''{{'}}s circulation hovered in the 8,000 range throughout the decade.<ref name=jbf1990-484>John Bellamy Foster, "Monthly Review," in [[Mari Jo Buhle]], [[Paul Buhle]], and [[Dan Georgakas]] (eds.)''Encyclopedia of the American Left.'' New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1990; p. 484.</ref>

Between 1997 and 2000, ''Monthly Review'' was co-edited by [[Ellen Meiksins Wood]], Magdoff and Sweezy.