Political Affairs (magazine)

Political Affairs Magazine is a monthly, online Marxist publication. It aims to provide an analysis of events from a working class point of view. Political Affairs Magazine is a publication of the Communist Party USA. It was founded in 1944 upon the closure of its predecessor, The Communist, which was founded in 1924. Well known editors of Political Affairs Magazine include Gus Hall, Hyman Lumer, Herbert Aptheker, and Joe Sims. Sims continues as publisher.

At its founding, Political Affairs was the theoretical organ of the Communist Party, USA, generally publishing articles intended almost exclusively for members of the Communist Party. In the late 1990s, that role changed, and Political Affairs shed its role as an internal organ of the Communist Party and adopted a broader stance.

It provides Marxist perspectives on many contemporary issues and engages in theoretical discussions relevant to Marxists and the labor movement. In addition to articles devoted to national and international politics, it offers poetry, book reviews, occasional reviews of music and film, interviews, and occasional short stories.

It can be traced back to The Masses the famous Greenwich Village paper of the 1910s. After this was suppressed by the government, it continued as The Liberator. Independently of this, the Friends of Soviet Russia had established another monthly, Soviet Russia in 1919. In 1924 the title was changed to Soviet Russia Pictorial. Finally, William Z. Foster had begun Labor Herald as the official publication of his Trade Union Educational League in March 1922. When the Workers Party of America had finally been consolidated as the unified above ground communist party in the United States, it was determined that the party should have a theoretical monthly as well as a daily, in line with Lenins guideline in What is to be done? The above three publications were combined into Workers Monthly, which debuted in November 1924. It changed its name to The Communist in 1927 and Political Affairs in 1944.