The Liberator (magazine) facts for kids

The Liberator was a monthly magazine that supported socialism. It was started in 1918 by Max Eastman and his sister Crystal Eastman. They created it to continue the work of The Masses magazine. The Masses had been closed down by the United States government during wartime.

The Liberator was very focused on politics. It featured lots of art, poems, and stories. It also included political news and comments. From late 1922, the magazine became connected to the Communist Party of America (CPA). In 1924, The Liberator joined with two other magazines to form The Workers Monthly.

History of The Liberator Magazine

The Liberator magazine focused on news from around the world. It featured John Reed, a war reporter and founder of the Communist Labor Party. He wrote about what was happening in Soviet Russia. Other reporters like Robert Minor, Frederick Kuh, and Crystal Eastman sent in stories from Europe after the war.

Art and Writing in The Liberator

Like The Masses, The Liberator used a lot of political art. Many artists contributed, including Maurice Becker, E.E. Cummings, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Lydia Gibson, William Gropper, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller, J.J. Lankes, Boardman Robinson, Edmund Wilson, Wanda Gág, and Art Young. Each cover of The Liberator was unique and colorful. The magazine also published poems and stories by writers like Carl Sandburg, Claude McKay, and Arturo Giovannitti.

Challenges and Changes for The Liberator

Keeping the magazine affordable was difficult because it was so detailed. To save money, they used very thin, cheap paper. This made the magazine fragile and hard to preserve. Even though it sold up to 60,000 copies each month, not many copies of The Liberator have survived today.

In 1922, The Liberator faced problems with money and motivation. Editor Max Eastman became more interested in writing books than editing. Around January 1, 1922, he handed over his editor role to Floyd Dell, a literary critic. During 1922, under Dell's leadership, the magazine focused more on art and culture than politics. It even published early poems by Claude McKay and stories by Michael Gold.

When money became very tight that year, the Communist Party of America stepped in. They worked with Eastman, Dell, and the writers to take over the magazine. This change officially happened in October 1922.

The Liberator and the Communist Party

After the fall of 1922, The Liberator became the main magazine for the CPA and its related group, the Workers Party of America. It kept a similar look and style, including fiction. However, its political content became more focused on Communist ideas. Important Communist leaders like C. E. Ruthenberg, John Pepper, William Z. Foster, Jay Lovestone, and Max Bedacht began writing long articles for it. Robert Minor, who had been an anarchist but became a strong Communist, served as editor during this time. Joseph Freeman helped him as an associate editor for the literary parts.

Merging of Magazines

In 1924, The Liberator merged with two other magazines. These were The Labor Herald, from the Workers Party's Trade Union Educational League, and Soviet Russia Pictorial, from the "Friends of Soviet Russia" group. They all combined to create a new magazine called The Workers Monthly.

The Workers Monthly was very similar to The Liberator from 1923–24. It continued as the main magazine for the Workers Party's ideas until 1927. At that point, it changed its name and style to The Communist. In January 1945, the publication's name changed again to Political Affairs. In January 2008, Political Affairs stopped printing on paper and became an online-only magazine. It was later stopped completely, with its last issue in 2016.

See also

In Spanish: Liberator (revista) para niños