Dos Passos, John (1896–1970)

JOHN DOS PASSOS found a unique place in the history of American literature and politics with his shift from the radical left of his early career to the conservative right that lasted until the end of his life, with both stances informing and structuring his writing. Born in the midst of worldwide social upheaval, Dos Passos had a youth that followed the template of the privileged: private schools, the European tour, and Harvard University. It was at Harvard that he began his exploration [Page 617]of perceived social injustices and Europe's various socialist uprisings. In 1917, Dos Passos joined many young Americans, including Ernest Hemingway and other literati, in Europe as a volunteer ambulance driver. As with most of the young and naive Americans, he was horrified by the brutality, the senselessness of the deaths, and the lies of the leaders. From his experiences during this time, Dos Passos formed the background for his novel, Three Soldiers, which signaled the beginning of his self-“declassing” and further explorations into social awareness.

From this early beginning until his disillusionment during the Spanish Civil War, the young author aligned himself with various socialistic enterprises. Dos Passos explored various methods of infusing his work with a social perspective, addressing the inequities of the American capitalist social structure. His interests in socialism and the dehumanizing effects of modern industrialization on the working class pervade his most famous works: Manhattan Transfer (1925) and the trilogy U.S.A. (1929–36).

Dos Passos also acted upon his interests in the plight of the modern worker. From the mid-1920s through the late 1930s, he wrote for the leftist publication The New Masses and for the radical theater group New Playwrights Theatre. Although his political stance was decisively leftist during this period, Dos Passos never joined the Communist Party. He explained this refusal to friends and political compatriots by denouncing the bloody violence of the communist revolutions in Europe, as well as claiming that the Communist Party was another bureaucratic machine trying to control the masses through lack of education and control of the wealth. Fascism was “a disease of sick capitalism,” he wrote.

By the mid-1930s, his socialist ardor began to cool, but he continued to look for solutions to the condition of the working class both in America and abroad. In 1937, his work as a reporter eventually took him to Spain during the Spanish Civil War, where he found fascists and the Republican government in an alliance to suppress the newest social revolution. When he returned from Spain, the once angry and fervent socialist began exploring other options for reform instead of revolution. Demoralized and bitter, Dos Passos turned from Europe and its widespread anarchy and toward American tradition and democracy for the answers to his search for the freedom of the individual in the midst of the “bureaucratic industrial organization.” His shift to the conservative right began. Convinced that only in American traditions and democracy would the country solve its social problems, Dos Passos immersed himself in the lives and events of 17th-and 18th-century American history.

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