In two volumes, ‘Leftward Ho!’ features selected writings, originally published 1928–1948, by US-based independent and dissenting Marxists on a wide range of topics: political economy, anti-imperialism, mass culture, critiques of women’s and racial oppression, and more. We feature work of distinguished authors, some of whom initially, in the first years of the Great Depression, stood with the Communist Party but from 1933 to 1937 moved toward a Marxian-socialist critique of Soviet government and the ‘Stalinist’ politics of the Third (Communist) International. We survey salient debates within these critical circles and then recount the story of ‘intellectuals in retreat’ from Marxism (and those persistent radicals who challenged them) from the early 1940s up to 1948, dubbed ‘the last year of the Thirties’ by socialist writer and organizer Michael Harrington (1928–1989).