Obituary
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Party
Chinese
July on tion
Science
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1910, nalist, established secret soon al the Kuomintang.
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was first sider the out the which might in-
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Isaacs was vehhis per-
SC an anarchist group; from the Liga socialista rivolutzionaria, an organization which defines itself as Trotskyist; and from Medicina democratica (Democratic Medicine). March 1934 demonstrates a complete turn-about, and he remained of the CannonShachtman leadership for the rest Roberts, Isaacs played ment of the late 1930s. When the Appeal was launched in late 1937, Isaacs was for several years real editor - organizing the staff, assigning articles, and editing most of the contributions - despite Max Shachtman's name on the mast-
In 1938 he published his classic The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, with an introduction by Trotsky. As early as 1935 Isaacs had begun his collaboration on the book with Trotsky, travelling to Norway for a series of discussions in the summer of that year. Both Trotsky's introduction and Isaacs diary notes from the interviews are available in Leon Trotsky on China (New York: Monad, 1976, pp. 578-91 and 541-46).
Although Isaacs supported Cannon and Trotsky during the 1939-40 split with Shachtman, he was discouraged by the assassination of Trotsky and left the SWP soon afterwards. In 1943 he began a new career as a Newsweek editor and correspondent. In 1951 The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution was reissued with Trotsky's introduction deleted and the revolutionary Marxist conclusions expunged. That same year Isaacs inaugurated his academic career, teaching at Harvard University, the New School for Social Research, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The most famous among Isaacs' subsequent books is Idols of the Tribe: Group Identity and Political Change (1975). In 1980, Isaacs and his wife Viola returned to China and re-established relations with people they had known in the 1930s. An account of this visit was published as ReEncounters in China (1985).
Alan Wald 27