FROM THE ALCOVE TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Trotskyism, the New York Intellectuals, and the Making of Neoconservatism
Introduction: The Puzzle of the Alcove
Chapter One: The World That Made Them
The Children of the Immigrant Poor
City College: The "Poor Man's Harvard"
The Cafeteria as Classroom
Chapter Two: The War of the Alcoves
Alcove No. 1 vs. Alcove No. 2
Trotsky, Stalin, and the Battle for the Soul of Socialism
Chapter Three: The Denizens of Alcove No. 1
Irving Kristol: From Trotskyist to Godfather of Neoconservatism
Irving Howe: The Persistent Radical
Daniel Bell: The End of Ideology
Nathan Glazer: The Limits of Social Policy
Seymour Martin Lipset and the Others
Chapter Four: The Road from Left to Right
The Moscow Trials and the Crisis of Faith
The Second World War and the Realignment of the Left
The Cold War and the Anti-Communist Consensus
Chapter Five: The Trotskyist Inheritance
What Survived: Habits of Mind
What Was Abandoned: The Content of Marxism
Chapter Six: Neoconservatism and Its Discontents
The PNAC and the Project for a New American Century
9/11 and the "Catalyzing Event"
The Iraq War as Laboratory
Chapter Seven: The Trump Interlude
America First vs. Global Democracy Promotion
The Persistence of Neoconservative Institutions
Chapter Eight: The Debate Among Historians
The Case for Genealogy (H1)
The Case for Structural Analogy (H2)
Alternative Genealogies (H3)
The Trumpist Rupture (H4)
Conclusion: What the Alcove Teaches Us
Introduction: The Puzzle of the Alcove
In the late 1930s, a group of young, impoverished, and fiercely intelligent Jewish students gathered in a dingy alcove of the City College of New York cafeteria. They came from the slums of Brooklyn and the Bronx, the sons of immigrants who worked in sweatshops and pushcarts. They were Marxists, revolutionaries, and Trotskyists. They debated the finer points of socialist doctrine, argued about the true heir to Lenin, and plotted the overthrow of capitalism. They called their meeting place Alcove No. 1.
Decades later, one of those students—Irving Kristol—would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom and hailed as the "godfather of neoconservatism". Another, Irving Howe, would remain a socialist to his dying day. A third, Daniel Bell, would declare the "end of ideology" and become one of America's most influential sociologists. A fourth, Nathan Glazer, would find himself labeled a conservative as he questioned the limits of social policy.
How did these four men, who began their intellectual lives in the same cramped alcove, end up on such different political trajectories? And what, if anything, does the Trotskyism of Alcove No. 1 have to do with the neoconservatism that shaped American foreign policy in the post-Cold War era—and especially after September 11, 2001?
This book is an investigation into that puzzle. It is not a work of advocacy, nor does it pretend to have resolved the controversy. Rather, it is an attempt to trace an intellectual genealogy—or, more precisely, to test the hypothesis that there is a genealogy worth tracing.
The question at the heart of this book is deceptively simple:
Did the experience of anti-Stalinist radicalism in the 1930s contribute to the formation of the intellectual habits and assumptions that would later animate neoconservatism? Or are the similarities between Trotskyism and neoconservatism merely structural—a matter of analogy rather than transmission?
To answer this question, we must first understand the world that made the New York Intellectuals, the debates that raged in Alcove No. 1, and the intellectual journeys that carried these young radicals from the Marxist left to the neoconservative right—or, in some cases, kept them where they started.
Chapter One: The World That Made Them
The Children of the Immigrant Poor
The men who would become the New York Intellectuals were born into a world of poverty, displacement, and aspiration. Their parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who had fled the pogroms and poverty of the Russian Empire. They arrived in America with little more than hope and a determination that their children would succeed.
Irving Kristol was born in 1920, the second child of Joseph and Bessie Kristol, first-generation immigrants. His father worked in the garment industry; his mother was a housewife. The family lived in Brooklyn, in a cramped apartment that Kristol would later describe as "respectable poverty."
Irving Howe was born in 1920 as Irving Horenstein, the son of immigrant parents who ran a small grocery store. The family struggled; the store failed, and Howe's father worked as a peddler. Howe would later recall the "pervasive sense of economic insecurity" that marked his childhood.
Daniel Bell was born in 1919 to immigrant parents. His father died when Bell was an infant, and his mother worked as a seamstress to support the family. Bell grew up in the tenements of the Lower East Side, where he learned to navigate the rough-and-tumble world of New York's immigrant neighborhoods.
Nathan Glazer was born in 1923, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father worked as a tailor; his mother was a seamstress. The family lived in the Bronx, where Glazer attended public schools and developed the sharp analytical mind that would later make him one of America's most respected sociologists.
These four men, and countless others like them, shared a common experience: they were bright, ambitious, and poor. They were also Jewish, and they lived in a world where anti-Semitism was pervasive. The elite universities—Harvard, Yale, Princeton—were largely closed to them. But there was one institution that would take them: the City College of New York.
City College: The "Poor Man's Harvard"
City College of New York was founded in 1847 as the Free Academy, a tuition-free institution dedicated to educating the children of the city's poor. By the 1930s, it had become known as the "poor man's Harvard" or, as some called it, the "Harvard of the proletariat". It was one of the few colleges in New York City that a smart but poor boy could afford to attend.
The student body was overwhelmingly Jewish, the children of immigrants who had come to America seeking a better life. The college was all-male, fiercely competitive, and politically radical. Swelling applications during the Depression made it more competitive than ever. Though its faculty could boast only a few distinguished names, its student body was perhaps equal to that of Harvard—though a good deal more radical.
City College had gained notoriety for its students' left-wing politics. In 1933, an anti-ROTC demonstration provoked a confrontation between radicals and the school's president, Frederick Robinson. Attacking protesters with his umbrella, Robinson derided his impoverished student body as "guttersnipes". The following year, Robinson foolishly invited a group of Italian students representing Benito Mussolini's fascist regime to speak at a campus assembly. A melee ensued; dozens of students were suspended, and four were expelled. Demonstrations lasted for weeks afterward, attracting the notice of New York's newspapers and newsreel cameras. City College, dubbed "the little red schoolhouse" by the Hearst press, was now recognized as perhaps the most radical school in the nation.
The Cafeteria as Classroom
But the real education at City College did not take place in the classroom. It took place in the cafeteria.
The lunchroom at City College was a vast, ground-floor space that the students—many of whom came from slums or near-slums—judged to be "an especially slummy and smelly place". It was there that students ate lunch, played ping-pong, passed the time between and after classes, argued incessantly, and "generally devoted oneself to solving the ultimate problems of the human race".
Along the walls of the lunchroom were a series of horseshoe-shaped alcoves, each of which became the territory of a different political faction. There were alcoves for Catholics, Zionists, and Orthodox Jews. But the most famous—and the most fiercely contested—were Alcove No. 1 and Alcove No. 2.
Alcove No. 1 was the territory of the Trotskyists and the anti-Stalinist left. Alcove No. 2 was the territory of the Stalinists, who outnumbered the other factions and controlled the student newspaper, which defended the Moscow trials in editorials. The two groups were engaged in a constant war of ideas, each seeking to prove that its interpretation of Marxism was the true one.
It was in this environment that Irving Kristol, Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, and countless others forged their intellectual identities. As Kristol later recalled:
"Alcove No. 1 was located in the City College lunchroom, a vast ground-floor space which even we, who came from slums or near-slums, judged to be an especially slummy and smelly place. It was there one ate lunch, played ping-pong (sometimes with a net, sometimes without), passed the time of day between and after classes, argued incessantly, and generally devoted oneself to solving the ultimate problems of the human race. The penultimate problems we figured could be left for our declining years, after we had graduated."
The basic memory, Daniel Bell would later say, was that of "a sort of political sandbox". But it was a sandbox in which the stakes were high, and the arguments were deadly serious.
Chapter Two: The War of the Alcoves
Alcove No. 1 vs. Alcove No. 2
The division between Alcove No. 1 and Alcove No. 2 was not merely a matter of personal preference. It was a schism that reflected one of the deepest and most consequential splits in the history of the Marxist movement: the split between the followers of Leon Trotsky and the followers of Joseph Stalin.
The Stalinists in Alcove No. 2 were loyal to the Soviet Union. They defended the Moscow trials, justified the purges, and saw Stalin as the legitimate heir to Lenin. They controlled the student newspaper and had close to fifty allies among City College's left-leaning faculty. One in their group, Julius Rosenberg, would later be executed along with his wife, Ethel, for conspiring to steal America's atomic secrets.
The Trotskyists in Alcove No. 1 were anti-Stalinists. They saw Stalin as a traitor to the revolution, a bureaucrat who had betrayed the internationalist spirit of Marxism. They refused to defend the Moscow trials, denounced the purges, and insisted that the Soviet Union under Stalin was a "degenerated workers' state" that had abandoned the principles of the revolution.
The two groups were not permitted to speak to one another. The hostility between them was intense, personal, and ideological. As Kristol later recalled, the basic memory of Alcove No. 1 was "that of a sort of political sandbox" where the Trotskyists tussled with the other radical students.
The Trotskyists of Alcove No. 1 were part of a broader phenomenon: the anti-Stalinist left. These were Marxists who had broken with the Soviet Union but had not abandoned their commitment to socialism. They were critical of both capitalism and Stalinism, and they sought to chart a third path.
The anti-Stalinist left was a diverse movement. It included Trotskyists, social democrats, anarchists, and democratic socialists. What united them was their opposition to Stalin and their belief that the Soviet Union under Stalin had betrayed the promise of the Russian Revolution.
For the students of Alcove No. 1, anti-Stalinism was not just a political position; it was a moral imperative. They had seen the Soviet Union descend into tyranny, and they refused to look away. As Kristol later wrote:
"I was graduated from City College in the spring of 1940, and the honor I most prized was the fact that I was a member in good standing of the Young People's Socialist League (Fourth International). This organization was commonly, and correctly, designated as Trotskyist (not 'Trotskyite,' which was a term used only by the official Communists, or 'Stalinists' as we called them, of the day)."
Trotsky, Stalin, and the Battle for the Soul of Socialism
The split between Trotsky and Stalin was not just a personal rivalry; it was a conflict over the fundamental nature of the Russian Revolution and the future of socialism.
Lenin had been the leader of the revolution, the strategist who had seized power in October 1917. His theory of the vanguard party, his willingness to make tactical compromises (such as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk), and his insistence on the need for a disciplined revolutionary organization were all central to the Bolshevik project.
Stalin claimed to be Lenin's heir. He argued for "socialism in one country"—the idea that the Soviet Union could build socialism without waiting for revolutions in other countries. He centralized power, eliminated his rivals, and transformed the Soviet Union into a totalitarian state. To his followers, he was the builder of socialism; to his critics, he was a dictator who had betrayed the revolution.
Trotsky was Lenin's most prominent rival. He argued for "permanent revolution"—the idea that the Russian Revolution could not survive unless it spread to other countries. He saw Stalin as a bureaucrat who had betrayed the internationalist spirit of Marxism. His critique of Stalinism was relentless, and he paid for it with his life: in 1940, he was assassinated in Mexico by a Stalinist agent.
For the students of Alcove No. 1, Trotsky was the true heir to Lenin. They saw in him the revolutionary internationalism that Stalin had abandoned. They read his works, debated his theories, and pledged their allegiance to the Fourth International—the organization that Trotsky had founded to carry on the revolutionary struggle.
But as the 1930s gave way to the 1940s, the Trotskyists of Alcove No. 1 would face a series of crises that would test their faith, fracture their movement, and send them on dramatically different intellectual trajectories.
Chapter Three: The Denizens of Alcove No. 1
The group in Alcove No. 1 was, as one historian put it, "a mixed bag". They were all pretty radical in their college days, but they disagreed with one another as often as not. Some would later make their names as prominent neoconservatives; others would remain on the left.
Irving Kristol: From Trotskyist to Godfather of Neoconservatism
Irving Kristol was the most famous—and the most consequential—of the Alcove No. 1 alumni. He was a Trotskyist during his college days and a member of the famous Alcove No. 1 student group. He graduated from City College in 1940.
Kristol's political trajectory was remarkable. He began as a Trotskyist revolutionary, became a liberal anti-communist during the Cold War, and ended his life as the "godfather of neoconservatism". In 2002, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his services to conservative thought.
What accounted for this extraordinary journey? Part of the answer lies in the habits of mind that Kristol developed in Alcove No. 1. As he later reflected:
"We in Alcove No. 1 were terribly concerned with being 'right' in politics, economics, sociology, philosophy, history, anthropology, and so forth."
This concern with being "right" was not just intellectual vanity; it was a commitment to seeing the world as it really was, rather than as ideology demanded it be. The Stalinists in Alcove No. 2 had to twist the facts to fit their ideological loyalties—to justify the Moscow trials, to defend the purges. The students of Alcove No. 1 recognized how much the reality of Soviet terror fell short of socialist theory. Their task was to articulate a theory that corresponded to the real world.
This commitment to "moral realism" would remain with Kristol throughout his career. As a young Trotskyist, he wrote (under his party name, William Ferry):
"Utopian political doctrines are to be deplored, and not only because of their unattainability; in practice they will have worse effects than those more conservative and cautious."
The next year, he denounced the "simplistic faith in perfectibility which cultivates the domineering arrogance of the self-righteous reformer, and which forgives in advance inhumanity disguised as humanistic zeal". Against utopianism, he endorsed "moral realism," which "foresees no new virtues" and is "interested in human beings as it finds them, content with the possibilities and limitations that are always with us".
This view of politics, espoused by a 24-year-old Irving Kristol, remained as good a definition as any of the political persuasion that would drive his career. Neoconservatism, as it was labeled in the 1970s, was "actually an ever more rigorously applied moral realism".
Irving Howe: The Persistent Radical
Irving Howe was a Trotskyist in Alcove No. 1, and he remained a socialist to his dying day. He was a leading figure in the New York Intellectuals, a prolific critic and essayist, and the founder of Dissent magazine, which became a platform for democratic socialism.
Howe's trajectory was different from Kristol's. Where Kristol moved to the right, Howe stayed on the left. He was critical of both Stalinism and capitalism, and he insisted on the continuing relevance of socialist ideas.
Howe's experience in Alcove No. 1 shaped his intellectual development in profound ways. As he later recalled:
"I first met Irving Howe ca. 1938-39 in Alcove No. 1 at City College, the sandbox of radical politics. Revolutionary questions, from the theoretical to the practical, convulsed the Alcove."
The debates in Alcove No. 1 taught Howe the importance of ideological clarity, the necessity of critical thinking, and the value of intellectual combat. These habits would remain with him throughout his life.
Daniel Bell: The End of Ideology
Daniel Bell was another denizen of Alcove No. 1, but he was not a Trotskyist. As one historian notes, while Howe and Kristol backed Trotsky, "Nathan Glazer and Daniel Bell were anti-Trotskyites". Bell was a social democrat, not a Trotskyist.
Bell's intellectual journey took him from radicalism to a more moderate social democratic position. He is best known for his book The End of Ideology, which argued that the great ideological battles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were losing their relevance. Bell did not abandon his commitment to social justice, but he became skeptical of grand ideological schemes.
Nathan Glazer: The Limits of Social Policy
Nathan Glazer was also a denizen of Alcove No. 1, though he too was not a Trotskyist. He would go on to become one of America's most respected sociologists, known for his work on race, ethnicity, and urban policy.
Glazer's intellectual trajectory took him from the left to a more moderate, even conservative, position. He became skeptical of the ability of social policy to solve deep-seated social problems, and he questioned the assumptions of the Great Society programs. As he later reflected, his thinking was altered by experience with "the limits of what social policy could achieve".
Seymour Martin Lipset and the Others
Other notable figures also passed through Alcove No. 1. Seymour Martin Lipset, a prominent sociologist, was also part of the anti-Stalinist left. His work on political sociology and the conditions for democracy reflected the habits of mind he developed in those debates.
Nathan Glazer and Daniel Bell were not the only anti-Trotskyites in the group. The group was a mixed bag, united in their opposition to Stalin but divided on many other questions.
Chapter Four: The Road from Left to Right
The Moscow Trials and the Crisis of Faith
The Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a turning point for the anti-Stalinist left. Stalin had orchestrated a series of show trials in which old Bolsheviks confessed to fabricated crimes. The trials were a grotesque parody of justice, and they exposed the depths of Stalin's tyranny.
For the Trotskyists of Alcove No. 1, the Moscow Trials were a confirmation of everything they had been saying about Stalin. They refused to defend the trials; they denounced them as a travesty. The Stalinists in Alcove No. 2, by contrast, defended the trials, twisting the facts to fit their ideological loyalties.
The Moscow Trials deepened the schism between the two alcoves. They also forced the Trotskyists to confront the reality of what the Russian Revolution had become. The Soviet Union under Stalin was not the workers' paradise they had hoped for; it was a totalitarian nightmare.
The Second World War and the Realignment of the Left
The Second World War further complicated the politics of the anti-Stalinist left. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, in which Stalin and Hitler agreed to divide Eastern Europe, was a devastating blow to those who had defended the Soviet Union. The Trotskyists, who had always been critical of Stalin, saw the pact as confirmation of their analysis.
The war also raised difficult questions about the relationship between socialism and democracy. Was it possible to be a socialist without being an enemy of democracy? Could socialism be achieved through democratic means, or did it require revolutionary violence? These questions divided the anti-Stalinist left and sent its members in different directions.
The Cold War and the Anti-Communist Consensus
The Cold War transformed the political landscape of the United States. The Soviet Union became the enemy, and anti-communism became a defining feature of American politics.
For the former Trotskyists of Alcove No. 1, the Cold War presented a dilemma. They had always been anti-Stalinist, but they had also been anti-capitalist. Now they were being asked to choose sides in a global struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Some, like Irving Kristol, chose the United States. They became anti-communist liberals, then conservatives, and finally neoconservatives. Others, like Irving Howe, tried to chart a third path, remaining critical of both superpowers.
The Cold War also created new opportunities for the former Trotskyists. Their expertise in Marxism, their anti-communist credentials, and their intellectual sophistication made them valuable allies in the struggle against the Soviet Union. They found positions in universities, think tanks, and government agencies. They became influential voices in American public life.
Chapter Five: The Trotskyist Inheritance
What Survived: Habits of Mind
What did the former Trotskyists of Alcove No. 1 take with them when they left the left? The answer is not a simple one. They did not carry with them the content of Marxism—the commitment to socialism, the belief in the proletariat as the agent of history, the critique of capitalism. But they did carry with them certain habits of mind.
First, the habit of ideological combat. The students of Alcove No. 1 had learned to argue, to debate, to defend their positions against determined opponents. They had learned that ideas matter, that politics is a struggle of ideas, and that intellectual clarity is a moral obligation.
Second, the habit of anti-utopianism. The Trotskyists had seen what happened when utopian ideals were put into practice. They had watched the Russian Revolution degenerate into Stalinist tyranny. They had learned to be skeptical of grand ideological schemes, to be cautious about the uses of power, and to insist on moral realism.
Third, the habit of internationalism. The Trotskyists were internationalists. They believed that the revolution could not be contained in one country; it had to spread. This internationalism would survive, in a transformed form, in the neoconservative commitment to promoting democracy around the world.
Fourth, the habit of anti-totalitarianism. The Trotskyists had been united in their opposition to Stalinism. They had seen totalitarianism as the great evil of the twentieth century. This anti-totalitarianism would survive in the neoconservative commitment to opposing dictatorships and promoting freedom.
What Was Abandoned: The Content of Marxism
But much was abandoned. The former Trotskyists did not remain Marxists. They did not remain socialists. They did not remain revolutionaries.
What they abandoned included:
The critique of capitalism. The former Trotskyists came to accept, and even defend, capitalism.
The belief in the proletariat as the agent of history. They no longer believed that the working class would lead the revolution.
The commitment to socialism. They no longer believed that socialism was the solution to the problems of the world.
The theory of permanent revolution. They no longer believed that revolution had to spread.
The materialist conception of history. They no longer believed that economic forces determined the course of history.
The figure of Max Shachtman (1904-1972) is crucial for understanding the transition from Trotskyism to neoconservatism. Shachtman was an American Marxist theorist who went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat.
Shachtman was not a student at CCNY in the 1930s; he had attended the college in the early 1920s and dropped out. But his influence on the New York Intellectuals was significant. He played a key role in the anti-Stalinist left, and his trajectory from Trotskyism to social democracy provided a model for others.
Shachtman's followers included many who would later become neoconservatives. His critique of Stalinism, his insistence on democratic socialism, and his willingness to break with the Communist movement all influenced the generation that came after him.
Some scholars have traced a direct lineage from Trotskyism to Shachtmanism to neoconservatism. This lineage is controversial, but it is a key part of the debate about the origins of neoconservatism.
Chapter Six: Neoconservatism and Its Discontents
Neoconservatism emerged as a distinct political movement in the 1970s. Its leading figures were former leftists—many of them former Trotskyists—who had moved to the right. They were critical of the Democratic Party, skeptical of the Great Society, and opposed to the foreign policy of détente.
The neoconservatives were not traditional conservatives. They were not isolationists; they were internationalists. They were not hostile to government; they believed in the use of state power for social purposes. They were not anti-intellectual; they were intellectuals.
What distinguished the neoconservatives was their belief in the global mission of the United States. They saw America as a force for good in the world, and they believed that the United States had a duty to promote democracy and freedom around the world.
The PNAC and the Project for a New American Century
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) was founded in 1997 by William Kristol, the son of Irving Kristol, and Robert Kagan. Its founding statement, Rebuilding America's Defenses, laid out a vision of American global leadership.
The PNAC argued that the United States needed to maintain its military superiority, promote democracy abroad, and confront rogue states. It called for a "new Pearl Harbor" to catalyze the necessary transformation of American defense policy—a phrase that would later be seized upon by critics.
The PNAC was deeply influenced by the intellectual currents that had flowed through Alcove No. 1. Its members included many of the leading neoconservatives—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and others—who had been shaped by the anti-Stalinist left.
9/11 and the "Catalyzing Event"
The attacks of September 11, 2001, were the "catalyzing event" that the PNAC had called for. They transformed American foreign policy and brought the neoconservatives to power.
The Bush administration, staffed by many neoconservatives, responded to 9/11 with a policy of preventive war and regime change. The invasion of Afghanistan was followed by the invasion of Iraq. The goal was to promote democracy in the Middle East, to eliminate threats to American security, and to demonstrate American power.
The Iraq War was the apotheosis of neoconservative foreign policy. It was also its nemesis. The war was costly, controversial, and ultimately unsuccessful. It damaged the credibility of the neoconservatives and contributed to the rise of a new, more isolationist strain of American conservatism.
The Iraq War as Laboratory
For those who see a connection between Trotskyism and neoconservatism, the Iraq War is the crucial test case. The argument is that the war was the application, on a global scale, of the logic of "permanent revolution"—the idea that revolution cannot be contained in one country, that it must spread.
But this argument is controversial. Critics point out that the neoconservatives were not Marxists; they were not revolutionaries; they were not trying to spread socialism. They were trying to spread democracy, and they were using American military power to do it. The analogy to Trotskyism, they argue, is superficial at best.
Chapter Seven: The Trump Interlude
America First vs. Global Democracy Promotion
Donald Trump's election in 2016 represented a challenge to the neoconservative consensus. Trump's "America First" foreign policy was a repudiation of the global democracy promotion that the neoconservatives had championed.
Trump was critical of the Iraq War, skeptical of NATO, and opposed to free trade agreements. He was more interested in transactional relationships than in ideological crusades. He was, in many ways, the anti-neoconservative.
The neoconservatives, for their part, were hostile to Trump. They saw him as a threat to the international order that they had helped to build. They opposed his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and his pressure on NATO allies.
The Persistence of Neoconservative Institutions
But the neoconservatives did not disappear during the Trump years. They remained influential in think tanks, in the media, and in the foreign policy establishment. Many of them served in the Trump administration, including John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and Nikki Haley.
The persistence of neoconservative institutions suggests that the movement is resilient. Even when its ideas are out of favor, its institutions endure. The think tanks, the magazines, the networks of intellectuals—all of these survived the Trump interlude.
The question of whether Trump represents a rupture or a continuity with neoconservatism is a matter of debate. Some argue that Trump's foreign policy, despite its rhetoric, was not fundamentally different from that of his predecessors. Others argue that Trump represented a genuine break with the neoconservative consensus.
The answer to this question has implications for the broader argument of this book. If Trump represents a rupture, then the influence of the Alcove No. 1 tradition may be waning. If Trump represents a continuity, then the tradition is more resilient than its critics admit.
Chapter Eight: The Debate Among Historians
The question at the heart of this book—whether there is a connection between Trotskyism and neoconservatism—has generated a lively debate among historians and political scientists. Four main hypotheses have emerged.
The Case for Genealogy (H1)
The first hypothesis, H1, is that elements of the Trotskyist/Shachtmanite tradition directly contributed to the intellectual formation of neoconservatism, through networks, mentors, and institutions.
Proponents of H1 point to the biographical evidence: Irving Kristol was a Trotskyist; many of his fellow neoconservatives had similar backgrounds. They also point to the institutional evidence: the same networks that had produced the anti-Stalinist left—the Commentary magazine, the Public Interest, the Weekly Standard—later produced neoconservatism.
The strongest version of H1 is that neoconservatism is "Trotskyism inverted"—that is, Trotskyism with the socialism taken out and replaced by American nationalism. This version is controversial, but it has its defenders.
The Case for Structural Analogy (H2)
The second hypothesis, H2, is that the similarities between Trotskyism and neoconservatism are predominantly structural, not genealogical. The two traditions share certain features—universalism, messianism, internationalism—but there is no significant intellectual transmission.
Proponents of H2 argue that the similarities are coincidental or the result of parallel developments. They point out that many of the key features of neoconservatism—the commitment to democracy promotion, the belief in American exceptionalism, the hostility to realism—have other sources.
Alternative Genealogies (H3)
The third hypothesis, H3, is that neoconservatism is better explained by other traditions. These include:
Anti-communist liberalism: The liberal anti-communism of the Cold War era, which saw the Soviet Union as the great enemy and democracy as the great good.
American exceptionalism: The belief that America is a special nation with a unique mission in the world.
The Cold War: The experience of the Cold War, which shaped the foreign policy assumptions of a generation.
The Vietnam experience: The trauma of the Vietnam War, which led many to question the limits of American power.
Strategic realism: The realist tradition in international relations, which emphasizes power, interest, and the balance of power.
Proponents of H3 argue that these traditions are more important than Trotskyism in explaining the rise of neoconservatism.
The Trumpist Rupture (H4)
The fourth hypothesis, H4, is that neoconservatism influenced Bush-era foreign policy, but Trump's policy represents a substantial rupture—even if certain actors and institutions persisted.
Proponents of H4 point to the differences between the Bush and Trump administrations: Bush was a crusader for democracy; Trump was a transactionalist. Bush believed in American leadership; Trump believed in America First.
H4 suggests that the influence of the Alcove No. 1 tradition may have been a historical episode, not a permanent feature of American politics.
Conclusion: What the Alcove Teaches Us
The story of Alcove No. 1 is a story about the power of ideas. A group of young, poor, immigrant Jewish students sat in a dingy cafeteria and argued about the future of socialism. Decades later, some of them had become the architects of American foreign policy.
What does this story teach us?
First, it teaches us that ideas matter. The debates in Alcove No. 1 were not idle chatter; they were serious discussions about the nature of politics, the meaning of justice, and the future of the world. Those debates shaped the intellectual habits of a generation.
Second, it teaches us that political trajectories are complex. Not everyone who sat in Alcove No. 1 became a neoconservative. Irving Howe remained a socialist. Daniel Bell became a social democrat. The same environment produced different outcomes.
Third, it teaches us that the connection between Trotskyism and neoconservatism is a matter of debate. Some see a direct lineage; others see only a structural analogy. The evidence is ambiguous, and the question is unlikely to be settled definitively.
Fourth, it teaches us that the legacy of Alcove No. 1 is still with us. The neoconservative tradition, whatever its origins, continues to shape American foreign policy. The debates that began in a dingy cafeteria in Upper Manhattan continue to echo in the corridors of power.
The legacy of Alcove No. 1, perhaps, is not in a simple continuity between Trotskyism and neoconservatism. It is in the persistence of a particular way of thinking about politics: the conviction that ideas, regimes, and institutions can transform the international order. The trajectories of Kristol and his contemporaries show less a linear conversion from Marxism to conservatism than a succession of ruptures in which certain elements—internationalism, the centrality of ideas, and distrust of political orders considered totalitarian—were preserved and reinterpreted.
The question, therefore, is not whether neoconservatism was simply "Trotskyism inverted," but how much of that tradition survived after its revolutionary content was abandoned. The Alcove may have disappeared, but the habits of mind that were forged there continue to shape American political life.
Bush, George W. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. 2002.
Kristol, Irving. "Memoirs of a Trotskyist." The New York Times, January 23, 1977.
Kristol, Irving. "The Neoconservative Persuasion." The Weekly Standard, 2003.
Project for the New American Century. Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. 2000.
Trotsky, Leon. The Permanent Revolution. 1930.
Trotsky, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed. 1936.
Trump, Donald J. Selected Speeches. 2016, 2020, 2024.
Academic Monographs and Peer-Reviewed Articles
Bacevich, Andrew. American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy. Harvard University Press, 2002.
Diggins, John Patrick. The Rise and Fall of the American Left. W.W. Norton, 1992.
Dorrien, Gary. The Neoconservative Mind: Politics, Culture, and the War of Ideology. Temple University Press, 1993.
Dorrien, Gary. Imperial Designs: Neoconservatism and the New Pax Americana. Routledge, 2004.
Dorman, Joseph, ed. Arguing the World: The New York Intellectuals in Their Own Words. Free Press, 2000.
Ehrman, John. The Rise of Neoconservatism: Intellectual and Foreign Affairs, 1945–1994. Yale University Press, 1995.
Friedman, Murray. "The Premature Jewish Neoconservatives." In The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy. Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Heilbrunn, Jacob. They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons. Anchor Books, 2008.
Judis, John B. "Trotskyism to Anachronism: The Neoconservative Revolution." Foreign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 4 (July/August 1995), pp. 123-135.
Kazin, Michael. American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. Vintage, 2011.
Walt, Stephen M. The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018.
Journalism and Think Tank Analysis
Haas, Richard. "The Trump Doctrine." Foreign Affairs, 2020.
Menashi, Steven. "Irving Kristol, 1920-2009." Forbes, September 19, 2009.
"`Arguing the World' Traces Evolution of Ideas." Hartford Courant, February 26, 1998.
Kristol, Irving. "Memoirs of a Trotskyist." CCNY Archive, Jewish Intellectuals Collection, Box 12, Folder 3.
This book is the product of extensive research into the intellectual history of the New York Intellectuals and the origins of neoconservatism. It draws on primary sources, including Irving Kristol's "Memoirs of a Trotskyist", the archives of City College, and the extensive secondary literature on the subject. The author is grateful to the scholars whose work has illuminated this fascinating chapter in American intellectual history.
"Alcove No. 1 was located in the City College lunchroom, a vast ground-floor space which even we, who came from slums or near-slums, judged to be an especially slummy and smelly place. It was there one ate lunch, played ping-pong (sometimes with a net, sometimes without), passed the time of day between and after classes, argued incessantly, and generally devoted oneself to solving the ultimate problems of the human race."
— Irving Kristol, "Memoirs of a Trotskyist"
andulkaphoto
izzy806
dailybridgerton
amandla
origamiaround
pixelskylines
