In “America and the Pursuit of Happiness,” which appeared in The Nation in 1920, John Dos Passos wrote that each person is compelled by “the duty of the individual to his conscience” which he argued was of greater importance than the citizen’s duty to his government (Wrenn 45). In this essay he further described the necessity of the individual to accept responsibility to act against abuses of government or “bullying mob.” This essay, one of Dos Passos earliest politically motivated writings, offers insight into the value the author placed on both personal liberty and responsibility. This autonomy of thought is evident in the trajectory of his association with the Communist Party. It was this independence which propelled him toward the radical movement, but which also elucidates the author’s increasing frustration, which led to his criticism and eventual rejection of Marxism. Dos Passos rebuffed efforts by the party to manipulate and control authors and their product, in terms of both content and form. He felt that a writer could only produce his best and most compelling work by remaining free of the stifling limitations whether in the form of literary tradition or political partisanship. In each format available to him, fiction, non fiction and his own personal actions, Dos Passos challenged and critiqued the radical movement and its attempts to organize and control its members. His mythic status as a literary innovator and active campaigner on behalf of leftist causes won the respect of critics, who were often willing to ignore weaknesses in his politics, attributing them to ideological immaturity or vestiges of his bourgeois upbringing.
Dos Passos represented what V.F. Calverton referred to in his article, “Leftward Ho!,” as the “radicalization of the American intellectual.”. In this article, Calverton explored the phenomenon of a growing number of Americans, who like Dos Passos, was elitist by birth but radical by choice. Calverton argued that this shift in ideology of the literati comprised of middle class intellectuals was significant because it indicated that the economic inequalities of capitalism were slowly creeping up and affecting the middle class and the “professionals” like writers, engineers and scientists, with greater and ever increasing implications for the “educated” masses. It was hoped that although Proletarian Literature was generally being directed toward the proletariat, it would also reach the middle classes who were just becoming aware of class inequities. It was also relevant to Calverton, because radical tendencies were becoming more commonly featured in the works of authors who were already recognized within the field of literature. He believed that this shift evidenced a “harbinger of the more ripened revolutionary thought of the future” (Calverton, Leftward).
In a 1925 article in The New Masses in which he reported on a labor dispute in Passaic, “Dos Passos reveals his self consciousness and embarrassment at being a middle-class spectator of working-class hardship” (Rosen 51). His writing shows awareness of the disparity between himself and the proletariat he was assigned to write about. He was regularly disparaged by others within the movement, including author and editor Mike Gold, as being a “burgeios intellectual.” Yet he recognized that he was in a unique position and had an obligation to document the experience, “he was directing himself specifically to middle class liberals and writing as one of them” (Wrenn 59) Dos Passos also used his voice as a contributor within the pages of The New Masses and The New Republic to make appeals directed to the sensibilities of the middle class liberal because he feared the potential for inhumane treatment in the struggle of the impending class war precipitated by the economic turmoil that was beginning in 1929. Though his polemics were initially met with suspicion and disdain, critic Granville Hicks reports in his article “The Politics of John Dos Passos” that eventually Dos Passos recommendations of “‘neutralizing’ the middle class became a major communist aim” (91). Despite the fact that he had refused to join the Communist Party of the United States of America, the credibility and direction he offered as an author, activist and Fellow Traveler was invaluable. Hicks wrote that regardless of his hesitancy to become fully committed to the organizational structure of the left, “Dos Passos was rendering a more valuable service to the Communist Party at the time than most of its members, for his prestige was great and his sincerity was unchallenged. No one had more influence of the leftward swing of the intellectuals in the early 30’s” (92).
Dos Passos was the product of a classical education at Harvard University and international travel through which he gained both broad exposure and perspective which resulted in his development as a writer, but also as a skeptical observer. He became increasingly alarmed by the exploitation, injustice and devastation caused by war which he witnessed in the United States and abroad. Beginning with his first attempt to write a novel, One Man’s Initiation – 1917 which was published in 1920, he began to use his fictional writing as a method of exploring social issues. Dos Passos earliest fictional works, including the novels Three Soldiers and Rosinante to the Road Again, express discontent with war and industrialism. Though generally considered technically weak novels, they demonstrated a burgeoning class consciousness that was promising to Marxian critics.
Dos Passos earliest novels are also notable for their focus on invention of style and increasing use of symbol and imagery which would later become prominently featured in his novels, especially the USA Trilogy. In “The Fiction of John Dos Passos” John D. Brantley discusses the development of Dos Passos early skills as a novelist which were increasing with each new work, but were also forecasting his invention of heavily image dependent motifs and strategies. Brantley offers a description of the “‘still’ image which momentarily freezes men in motion…he captures the image as well as the response of the character involved in it” (36). The cinematic style “freeze frame” allows Dos Passos the ability to control time and direct the reader’s attention to elements within the novel, privileging description over narration. Brantley also explains how Dos Passos uses “the images, usually involving or ending with a simile, show an increasing attention to mass and color….[which] blocks out the large masses of form and color and then adds the details” (36). The impact of visual representations within the novels, as well as Dos Passos growing attention to color and detail, is certainly attributable to his artistic endeavors as a painter and his extensive study of visual arts as a young man.
Biographer Townsend Ludington cites Dos Passos exposure to the Armory Show, which highlighted the works of contemporary modern artists, as a significant event which helped to shape the author’s conception of art and the role of the artist. The artists featured in the exhibit flouted traditional structure and sparked controversy with their experimental styles and techniques. These painters and sculptors cast aside the constraints of realist convention and attempted to shock the audience into a state of greater awareness by refiguring everyday objects and experiences. Dos Passos fascination with artists who challenged conventional methods also extended to the field of literature as was evidenced by his diaries which indicated an interest and appreciation for both French Symbolism and modernist authors.
Dos Passos traveled to Russia in 1928 to study the socialist system, but his encounter with innovative film director Serge Eisenstein had a profound impact on the development of his unique literary style. In the article, “John Dos Passos and the Visual Arts,” author Michael Spindler writes:
Eisenstein’s sweeping achievement …was to abolish the individualistic in favour of the collective hero, dispose with the story and plot, and put montage – the striking juxtaposition of shots – at the center of his film theory and practice. The films were historical and sociological in content, interpreting their country and it’s past. They demonstrated the artistic possibilities that lay within such sweeping themes as social and political change” (403). Spindler further argues that it was this encounter that allowed Dos Passos the freedom and encouragement to move away form the constraints of the traditional novel and continue the experimentation in style that he had begun with techniques like stream of consciousness employed in Manhattan Transfer and the cinematic stylings such as “still image” featured in Three Soldiers.
An amalgamation of literary, visual and cinematic influences culminated in the production of the U.S.A. Trilogy which is commonly recognized as a unique form of proletarian literature known as the collective novel. In Radical Representations, Barbara Foley writes that “certainly in the United States, and possibly in the entire sphere of literary proletarianism outside the USSR, Dos Passos is the single most important pioneer in the form of the collective novel” (425). Foley explains that the collective novel is characterized by three distinguishing features: emphasizing the group over the individual, the use of experimental devices which break up the narrative and the documentation of contemporary reality. Dos Passos structured the novels into four distinct sections: fictional narratives, biographies, Newsreels and Camera Eye. The construction of each of these sections within the novels further challenged convention. Narratives were presented in a non linear manner. Biographies featured phrases which were emphasized through italics or indentation, and parenthetical comments. Newsreels offered authentic documentary fragments borrowed from newspapers and popular culture. The Camera Eye, featuring stream of consciousness, has been characterized by critic Janet Galligani Casey as “an openly lyrical Bildugsroman, [which] traces the subjective development of the ‘real’ John Dos Passos as he personally experiences the events through which the fictional characters live” (250). Foley explains the function of “these devices which direct attention to the process of textual construction and invite the reader consciously to consider the paradigm the author has chosen for describing and explaining the social totality” (401). Dos Passos further challenged historical conceptions of the novel by creating a text without plot, using multiple voices and presenting unsympathetic characters that fail to achieve resolution. Even the actual words and their placement on the page function to disorient the reader as Dos Passos collapses language, uses repetition and experiments with punctuation and white space on the page. Modernist techniques and the pioneering use of montage distinguished John Dos Passos as an author who was able to revision traditional literary devices and create a new form of literature which would defamiliarize and cause readers to rethink societal structures.
As reported in the biography Twentieth Century Odyssey, Dos Passos was delighted and encouraged by the generally positive critical reviews of the 42nd Parallel. Mary Ross from Books and friend and critic Edmund Wilson offered praise filled reviews. Other reviewers had concerns or guarded praise for the techniques used in the novels. Henry Hazlitt had “reservations” about some of the elements in the novel but offered a favorable opinion of the documentary devices incorporated through the Newsreels calling it a “brilliant effect”. John Chamberlain’s review in the New York Times commented favorably on the theme of the novel, but he faulted the “unfinished quality of the work, had doubts about what he called the “trick stuff” – the Camera Eyes and Newsreels – and did not see any apparent indication of Dos Passos’s own philosophy” (Ludington 290). Dos Passos was encouraged that his work was having the impact and provoking the thought that he intended. He felt that the positive reviews, especially the private encouragement by friend and respected fellow author Ernest Hemmingway, validated the use of the unorthodox strategies he was employing to convey his ideas. He began 1919, which would become the next installment in the trilogy, with a renewed commitment to the style he had undertaken.
The novel 1919 was published in 1932 and received accolades from reviewers. Critic Robert Rosen reports that “the more militant 1919 brought Dos Passos greater tribute: V.F. Calverton placed him ‘in the mainstream of proletarian literature’ and Michael Gold saw him growing politically ‘like corn in the Iowa sun’” (90). Malcolm Cowley wrote that he believed that it was a “landmark of American fiction.” Henry Hazlitt who had previously offered a mixed review of 42nd Parallel, recognized the “social implications” of the novel and compared it with others by such respected authors as Hemmingway and Dreiser. Hazlitt opined that in writing 1919 Dos Passos had rivaled these authors and in some ways was superior to them. (Ludington, chapters 17 and 18).
Soviet Critics also began to take notice of John Dos Passos in 1930, and “for a time many critics considered him the most important contemporary writer of the non-Soviet world” (Brown 334). In his article “Dos Passos and Soviet Criticism” critic Deming Brown explains that during the early 1930’s there were significant restrictions upon the publication of non-Soviet writers. Texts which were published had to conform to “aesthetic, ideological and political” standards being debated and determined by the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers and later by the Union of Soviet Writers. Brown postulates that permitting the wide publication of Dos Passos texts indicated a “calculated political decision” on the part of the “communist party, which was assuming increasing control over all Soviet publication policy, [which] must have felt that Dos Passos, both as a political figure and as a writer, could develop into a valuable ally” (334). His activities within the United States added credibility which garnered much needed support and funding for leftist causes.
Despite the Soviet’s fascination with the possibility and promise Dos Passos offered, all of the critics expressed concerns over elements of technique and ideology within his work. From 1932 -1934 the author consumed the literary community and inspired passionate exchanges. For many his work symbolized the growing debate over the value of modernism versus social realism. Influential Hungarian critic Georg Lukacs argued that by describing, rather than narrating, the writer is inserted into the work, despite the claim that formalist techniques allowed for greater subjectivity. He believed that:
“the loss of the narrative interrelationship between objects and their function in concrete human experience means a loss of artistic significance. Objects can then acquire significance only through the direct association with some abstract concept which the author considers essential to his view of the world. But an object does not thereby achieve poetic significance; significance is assigned to it (Lukacs 131)
Critics Pertsov and Kirpotin defended Dos Passos experimental methods of mixed genres as means of depicting the chaos of the bourgeois lifestyle. Others, like Selvinsky, Leites and Stenich expressed concerns over the incorporation of elements such as the Camera Eye and Newsreels as “culturally decadent”, “immature” and an expression of Dos Passos “internal conflict” between his bourgeois upbringing and his communist yearnings. There was vast disagreement over whether or not Dos Passos should become an influential force upon Soviet proletarian literature.
These Soviet debates over Dos Passos reached a heightened level amid the decision in 1934 by the Congress of Soviet Writers to adopt the doctrine of “social realism.” The intent according to Brown was the “creation of a single guiding literary theory which … would be employed by all Soviet writers” (Brown 334). According to author Terry Eagleton, this principle promoted:
the writer’s duty ‘to provide a truthful historico-concrete portrayal of reality in its revolutionary development’, taking into account ‘the problem of ideological transformation and the education of the workers in the spirit of socialism’. Literature must be tendentious, ‘party minded’, optimistic and heroic; it should be infused with a ‘revolutionary romanticism’, portraying Soviet heroes and prefiguring the future.” (38). Many Marxist critics expressed hope that Dos Passos’ writing would mature ideologically and develop into a style more reflective of this dogma. Ultimately a consensus was reached among Soviet critics that it would be unwise to encourage Soviet writers to pursue further study and imitation of Dos Passos, because his ideology was not sound and could potentially lead to confusion amongst its writers. It was suggested that perhaps Dos Passos could benefit from “comradely advice” and influence. Though the Soviets had once eagerly anticipated the final novel in the U.S.A. Trilogy it was never published in the U.S.S.R. Deming Brown suggests that “this boycott of the author was an act of political reprisal. His opinions had ceased to suit the Communist Party and so publication of his works, and critical consideration of them as well, were officially terminated” (349).
Brown’s assertion that Dos Passos status and credibility was diminished within the Soviet Union because of his opinions was the result of the authors growing disillusionment with the Communist Party made public through the author’s writings and actions. Several events occurred which caused Dos Passos to question the motivation of the organized movement and to more skeptically consider his endorsement of the party. His resentment increased gradually, and may be tracked in his letters, essays and through the body of the U.S.A. Trilogy, especially 1919 and The Big Money.
In May of 1926 John Dos Passos was listed as one of the founding contributors to a new “worker’s monthly” called the New Masses, which he hoped would be a format which invited exploration and debate for ideas free from the power of Soviet influence. Again Dos Passos sought liberty free of interference, and envisioned the new periodical as a vehicle through which a more Americanized version of Marxism might be realized. In an editorial which appeared in second installment called “The New Masses I’d Like,” he voiced concerns that the Soviet Communist Party might overwhelm the newspaper’s ability to view issues free of bias. He cautioned:
I don’t think it’s anytime for any group of spellbinders to lay down the law on any subject whatsoever. Particularly I don’t think there should be any more phrases, badges, opinions, banners imported from Russia or anywhere else…Why not develop our own brand? (Wrenn 52). He viewed The New Masses as being most valuable if it could truly be a forum for discussion and debate about new ideas and beliefs and argued that the publication should serve as a “litmus paper to test things by.” He rejected the notion that the periodical should be constrained by any doctrine but should focus instead on the issues facing the working class. This is one of the first examples in writing of his concern that the Marxist machine was obscuring the needs of the individual. He believed that the in its purest form The New Masses would be a vehicle for “making contact with the masses, of learning their needs, and not of preaching to them: ‘Wouldn’t a blank sheet for men and women who have never written before be better than an instruction book, whether the instructions come from Moscow or Bethlehem, Pennsylvania” (Wrenn 64). His idealized version of The New Masses became unattainable as the Communist Party increasingly insinuated itself into the publication.
In the late 1920’s and 1930’s Dos Passos, along with other famous socialists, became involved in labor disputes and political cases within the United States. They hoped that their involvement would raise awareness and funds in defense of cases in which they felt social injustices had occurred. Dos Passos became a vocal defender in the case of the Scottsboro Boys and the also in the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti. In 1931 Dos Passos traveled to Harlan, Kentucky as a member of the Dreiser Committee to investigate the conditions of mine workers involved in a violent labor dispute. During this trip he felt as though the Communists were using the notoriety of “Bloody Harlan” to promote the party, rather than to improve the conditions of the workers and their families. His conversations with miners confirmed “that the Communists were concerned not with people but tactics” (Landsberg 169). Dos Passos was moved by the plight of the miners, and agreed to compile and edit the interviews and information for publication which was released under the title Harlan Miners Speak: Report on Terrorism in the Kentucky Coal Fields, but refused to be complicit in the party’s publicity strategy surrounding the events. Biographer Townsend Ludington writes, “Dos had some second thoughts about the way the Communist Party manipulated people and situations to further its own ends, so when Earl Browder, head of the Communist Central Committee in New York, wanted him to return to Kentucky and stand trial for ‘criminal syndicalism’ he refused” (Fourteenth 381). Though Dos Passos recognized the credibility his name lent to social causes which he supported, he was angered by the party’s lack of compassion and resented their attempt to use his image and notoriety as a propaganda tool.
In a letter recounting the events in Harlan written almost twenty-five years later, Dos Passos reflected on the event, “ I think…that my first real disgust with the commies appeared when I saw them in action in Kentucky in the coal strike. A conversation with Earl Browder ended it” (Landsberg 169). At the time, he confided to friends regarding the events surrounding his trip to Harlan as “annoyances.” Whether this was the pivotal experience which transformed Dos Passos view of the communist party into the “bullying mob” he referred to in the essay “America and the Pursuit of Happiness” is unclear, however it clearly changed his perspective and forced him to view the actions of the Marxist machine more skeptically. Despite his agitation, he remained publicly silent about his growing disillusionment for fear of “giving aid to the enemy.”
The novel 1919 was published in 1932, and though Dos Passos was credited for creating a communist hero in the character of Ben Compton, several elements within the novel may be interpreted as evidence of Dos Passos’ ambivalence during this period. Ben Compton is presented early in the novel, as a minor character in the “Daughter” narrative. The section describes Daughter’s exposure to a textile strike, but the exchange between Ben Compton and Webb Cruthers is telling. The Webb character functions as a foil for Ben, although this is not completely clear until Ben’s character is featured at the end of the novel. When the two men encounter each other, Ben asks Webb if he will speak at the gathering, but Webb hesitates, uncertain what he would say. Ben responds “talking is the easiest part of the movement. The truth’s simple enough” (1919 215).
The manner in which the two characters react to similar events within the scene are revealing because they imply Dos Passos generalized views of party members. When the meeting leaders reach the hall they are locked out by police and ordered to disperse, but Ben spontaneously climbs atop a lamppost and begins to speak to the crowd. When he is taken away by the police, Webb also mounts a perch and begins to address the crowd, but when he sees the police approaching him he flees. When Webb and Daughter have reached safety she accuses him, “you ran like a deer.” Webb then responds “Do you think I ought to have waited and gotten arrested like Ben,” he then dismisses her accusation saying “you don’t understand revolutionary tactics, Anne” (1919 217). In his book, Dos Passos’ Path to the USA, author Martin Landsberg writes that the representation of the strike is interesting because, “Dos Passos does not depict any strikes as portentous events, he views them more than humdrum aspects of collective bargaining…[they] provide a means of examining American society and studying character” (217). Though both men spoke out against injustice in support of the communistic beliefs, Ben nor Webb effected any effective aid for the striking workers. Webb was more concerned with tactics, and Ben, because of the publicity surrounding his arrest, simply became a propaganda tool.
As if to underscore the contrast in character of the two men, the next scene depicts Webb trying to pressure Daughter into having sex with him, first by discrediting any “bourgeois nonsense ideas about love” and insisting that “people ought to be free and happy about sex” (1919 218). When his words fail to convince her, he becomes abusive and violent. Webb is depicted as a communist who employs the ideology when it benefits him, but fails to grasp the humanistic ideals of communism. This point is further illustrated in the next scene when Daughter again accompanies Webb to a strike. When the danger of arrest and physical assault bears down on the strikers, Webb runs, and leaves daughter behind to fend for herself. More significantly, when a female striker falls, no one within the crowd goes to her aid – except for Daughter, who is driven not by tactics or party solidarity, but by simple human compassion. When freed form jail Daughter is approached by Ben Compton and congratulated her for her actions which though she is not a communist or expressed an interest in becoming one, even honorable Ben Compton seems to be more motivated by the fact that she had “made a very good impression in the press” (220).
The Ben Compton character is privileged in its presentation in the Daughter narrative as being, handsome, passionate and willing to sacrifice for his beliefs, but his depiction in the chapter which features him offers a more complex view of Dos Passos’ much praised communist hero. First, it is important to consider the placement of Ben’s narrative within the body of the novel. Unlike other characters featured in 1919, Ben is the only one whose narrative is confined to a single chapter. Ben’s evolution from the child of an impoverished working class family into a symbol of resistance is documented in twenty-two consecutive pages, offering a fluid depiction of the events which transformed his thinking and caused him to commit himself to communism. This chapter is framed by biographies of “Joe Hill” and “Paul Bunyan” which describe the lives of two American working class men – Joe Hill and Wesley Everest, who were victimized by the capitalist system, and sought relief through their involvement in organized protest. The activists both end up meeting brutal deaths for their beliefs, but both men also face their fates (in Dos Passos retelling) with words spurring on future activism. In 1919, Ben too faces the sacrifice of twenty years in prison (a lifetime to a twenty-three year old) for his beliefs. Despite the depth of conviction attributed to him, elements of doubt are indicated as he faces his sentencing before the judge:
The only moment Ben came to life he was when he was allowed to address the court before being sentenced. He made a speech he’d been preparing all these weeks. Even as he said it it seemed silly and weak. He almost stopped in the middle. (357).
Though Ben had been previously described the intensity emotion he received from public speaking, and been energized by the opportunity to share his beliefs, he begins to question his convictions and the efficacy of the movement when he realizes that if he is to be released from jail early it will be due to the movement’s efforts. Dos Passos closes the novel, published in 1932 as “revolutionary hero” Ben is imprisoned as workers continue to be exploited and the devastation of war continues. Dos Passos writing at this time lacks the optimism and “prefiguring of the future” characteristic of proletarian literature, it is unclear if this is a result of the fact that he intended the novels to be part of a trilogy at the end of which communism would prevail, or if his political doubts were guiding his fiction.
Granville Hicks relates another incident which occurred in February 1934, during which Dos Passos was again horrified by the tactics of the Communists. The Socialist Party sponsored a meeting at Madison Square Garden in support of the repressed workers in Vienna. The Communists “invaded” the meeting which ended in a “first-class riot.” An open letter was sent to The New Masses by a group of twenty-five, including Dos Passos, reprimanding the Communist Party. Hicks relates that The New Masses responded with a letter singling out Dos Passos from among the signers which they claimed was made up of mostly “renegade and stoolpigeons.” They addressed him directly, “‘You…are different. To us, you have been, and, we hope, still are, Dos Passos the revolutionary writer, the comrade” (Hicks 93). Hicks continues, that although Dos Passos discontinued his association with leftist publications following this incident, he still “made no denunciations of communism, but his disillusionment was great, and it grew rapidly” (Hicks 93).
In a correspondence addressed to Edmund Wilson in January of 1935 (as Wilson was preparing to travel to Russia) it is clear that Dos Passos continued to privately mull the flaws of communism, and to consider alternative solutions. In the body of the letter he apologized to Wilson for his diatribe, but explains, “I’ve been laying around clarifying what I would be willing to be shot for” (Dos Passos, Fourteenth 462). His continued travels had allowed him interaction with “Cubans of radical education” and from his discussions and observations he concluded that the Stalinists were “alienating the working class movement of the world” adding, “what’s the use of losing your chains if you get a firing squad instead?” (461). Just as he was deeply troubled by the destructiveness of World War I, so he began to decry the “massacre” in Europe which he attributed to the Stalinists. The letter also indicates his belief that Soviet communism was negatively influencing the CPUSA which as a result was continually moving further away from its humanistic aims:
I suspect that a vast variety of things are going on in Russia under the iron mask of the Kremlin, but I don’t think any of them are of any use to us in this country – if our aims are freedom and the minimum of oppression – because they are working out various forms of organization that our great conjunctions are also working out in a very similar way. While those forms were headed toward
workers’ democracy they were enormously interesting but since they have turned away from that…I would personally prefer the despotism of Henry Ford, the United Fruit and Standard Oil than that of Earl Browder, and Amster and Mike
Gold and Bob Miner"(461). He ends the letter stating that he felt like a young man again, searching for answers, but this time experience had made him even more perceptive and skeptical.
In 1935, shortly after the official adoption of “social realism” by the Congress of Soviet Writers, Dos Passos publicly challenged the dictates as a violation of the craft. Though he recognized the value of the words of the everyman, as evidenced by his desire to give voice to the proletariat in his idealized version of The New Masses, he believed that the value of the professional writer was demonstrated by his ability to “mold and influence ways of thinking to the point of changing and rebuilding the language, which is the mind of the group” (Dos Passos, Writer 79). In “Writer as Technician” he explicitly states his belief that the writer is an isolated figure who must remain free from the distractions of “even the most noble political partisanship in the fight for social justice” (Dos Passos, Writer). He argued that the author must be able to “give free reign to those doubts and unclassified impulses which that are at the root of invention and discovery and original thinking” (Dos Passos, Writer) in order to honestly convey the discoveries he has made about the world around him. This essay, intended for presentation at the American Writer’s Congress of 1935, railed against the immense pressure to manipulate the writer and his work. Dos Passos’ contribution to the conference was to be read, but was not received in time. Printed materials from the event were being prepared for publication and Dos Passos was contacted by Malcolm Cowley and asked to “clarify” or rephrase a portion which referred to “militant Communism”. His response to this request was documented in a letter written to Cowley in May, 1935 which in more personal terms expresses the exasperation he felt toward the movement which he believed had become misguided. He begins by vowing not to write any more of these “lousy statements,” which he felt were often misconstrued and his true intentions were lost in the minutiae. More significantly, he complained to Cowley:
….right now the issue is classical liberties and that the fight has got to be made on them. The reason I see no other ground is that I don’t believe the Communist movement is capable of doing anything but provoke oppression and I no longer believe that the end justifies the means – means and ends have got to be one … I don’t think the situation is improving in this country – the comrades are just parroting Russian changes of mood and opinion which shows their impotence up even more (Dos Passos, Fourteenth 477). Essentially Dos Passos believed that the American communist experiment, especially under the influence of the Soviets, had failed. Granville Hicks writes “out of his dual disillusionment, the ole quarrel with capitalism and the new distrust of communism, he wrote The Big Money…” (93).
The depiction of radicals within The Big Money, represented by the characters Mary French, Don Stevens and Ben Compton, is an indictment of the communist party. Mary French is introduced in this novel and is portrayed as a woman who is compelled to improve the lives of those less fortunate through her hard work and dedication. Like a young Ben Compton, during her formative years she was exposed to inequality and hardship. She works at Hull House and later as a reporter exposing the poor conditions of worker’s families. Her involvement with her “duties” cause her to lose contact with family and friends and her efforts become all consuming. Though Mary’s sacrifices are represented as brave and heroic, her convictions ultimately result in skewed priorities and failed relationships, among these is her relationship with Ben Compton. Upon Ben’s release from jail (not due to organized efforts to win his release, but because of Armistice Day), Mary provides him a place to stay and they become romantically involved. Though they plan to marry, Ben is constantly absent on party business. When she becomes pregnant, Ben convinces her that they must abort the baby, because their duties to the party must not be interrupted. Eventually, Compton is expelled from the party, though he indicates that “…it doesn’t matter, I’m still a revolutionist…I’ll continue to work outside of the party” (Big 539). This assertion by Ben indicates Dos Passos belief that party association was not necessary to the true revolutionary, who only required conviction and willingness to demonstrate his beliefs.
The portrayal of the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, which Dos Passos had been so personally involved with, also indicates the authors shift in perspective of historical events. While the men were on trial, he had worked in concert with the communists to free the men, but the actions of Don Stevens in the fictionalized account belies Dos Passos altered view of events. Martin Landsberg explains:
In The Big Money Stevens’ attitude toward Sacco ands Vanzetti is almost as callous as that which Dos Passos describes the Communists as taking toward imprisoned [Harlan] miners in 1931. It is not an attitude that Dos Passos in 1927 saw as characteristic of Communists…When trade union officials, socialists, ministers and lawyers say this will lead to violence and may discourage a last minute commutation, Stevens says: ‘After allthey are brave men. It doesn’t matter whether they are saved or not anymore, it’s the power of the workingclass that’s got to be saved.’ …The difference between the treatment of the Communists in the narratives of Nineteen Nineteen (1932) and The Big Money (1936) is due to the political history…as well as Dos Passos own development” (220). Many have cited the involvement of the Soviets in the murder of Dos Passos’ friend Jose Robles in 1937 , and the subsequent cover up, as the event which ultimately terminated his association with communism, but a survey of his writing, especially during the period from around 1931 – 1936, shows increasing disillusionment and aggravation toward the radical movement. Dos Passos own moral code, captured in the essay written in 1920, required him to explore these concerns in his writing, for regardless of the threat – in the form of capitalism or “bullying mob,” be believed that the individual was duty bound to preserve liberty and expose any entity that would attempt to encroach upon them. Ironically, it was this love of independence (both literary and ideological) and authorial integrity which so captivated members of the Proletarian movement and gave him such power.
Works Cited
Belkind, Allen. Dos Passos, the Critics, and the Writer's Intention. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1971. Print.
Brantley, John D. The Fiction of John Dos Passos. The Hague: Mouton, 1968. Print.
Brown, Deming. "Dos Passos in Soviet Criticism." Comparative Literature 5.4 (Autumn, 1953): 332-50. Jstor. Web. 06 Feb. 2010.
Calverton, V.F. "Leftward Ho!" Modern Quarterly spring 1932: 26-32. Print.
Dos, Passos John. 1919. Debolsillo, 2007. Print.
Dos, Passos John. The Big Money. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2000. Print.
Dos, Passos John. The Fourteenth Chronicle: Letters and Diaries. Boston: Gambit, 1973. Print.
Dos Passos, John. "The Writer as Technician." American Writers' Conference. International, 1935. 79-82. Print.
Eagleton, Terry. Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley: University of California, 1976. Print.
Foley, Barbara. "The Collective Novel." Radical Representations: Politics and Form in U.S. Proletarian Fiction, 1929-1941. Durham: Duke UP, 1993. 398-441. Print.
Galligani Casy, Janet. "Historicizing the Female in U.S.A.: Revisions of Dos Passos's Trilogy." Twentieth Century Literature 41.3 (Autumn 1995): 249264. Jstor. Web. 12 Apr. 2010.
Hicks, Granville. "The Politics of John Dos Passos." Antioch Review 10.1 (Spring, 1950): 85-98. Jstor. Web. 24 Apr. 2010.
Landsberg, Melvin. Dos Passos' Path to U.S.A.; a Political Biography, 1912-1936. Boulder, Colorado: Associated UP, 1972. Print.
Ludington, Townsend. John Dos Passos: a Twentieth Century Odyssey. New York: Dutton, 1980. Print.
Lukacs, Gyorgy. Writer and Critic: and Other Essays. London: Merlin, 1978. Print.
Spindler, Michael. "John Dos Passos and the Visual Arts." Journal of American Studies 15.3 (1981): 391-405. Jstor. Web. 8 Apr. 2010.
Wrenn, John H. John Dos Passos. New York: Twayne, 1962. Print.
