The Nation

The Nation has drawn criticism over the years for its defense of dictatorial Communist and socialist regimes, including those of Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, and Hugo Chavez. ^{3  4  5}

Background

The Nation was established on July 6, 1865, at 130 Nassau Street in lower Manhattan, which was then known as “Newspaper Row.”  Its founding coincided with both the end of the Civil War and the closure of William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, which ceased publication after the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confirmed the abolition of slavery. A group of former abolitionists, led by journalist Frederick Law Olmsted, sought a new outlet to continue engaging with major political questions in a post-slavery America. ^{6  1}

The magazine’s first editor was Edwin Lawrence Godkin, an Irish immigrant who had previously reported for the London Daily News and written for the New York Times. Godkin’s Nation was explicitly classical liberal in orientation, favoring free trade, sound currency, and a merit-based civil service. Notably, in its early period The Nation opposed organized labor and interventions such as antitrust laws and the graduated income tax. Wendell Phillips Garrison, the son of the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, worked as the magazine’s literary editor from 1865 to 1906. ^{2  1  7}

In 1881, railroad baron Henry Villard purchased the magazine and merged it as a literary supplement with his daily newspaper, the New York Evening Post. Henry Villard’s son, Oswald Garrison Villard, inherited the magazine in 1900 and took over as editor in 1918, when only about 7,200 subscribers remained. Under Oswald Villard’s leadership, The Nation underwent a fundamental ideological transformation, abandoning its classical liberal commitments to support larger, more interventionist government. Villard supported the nationalization of industry, built circulation to 38,000 by 1920, and supported President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. ^{1  2}

During this era, The Nation developed an affinity for the Soviet government. The magazine published a eulogy of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin and ran favorable coverage of Joseph Stalin following his death in 1953. During the Cold War, the magazine was attacked as “pro-communist” for its advocacy of détente with the Soviet Union and its criticism of anticommunist politicians like former Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-WI). In 1946, the magazine published praise from Walter Duranty for Stalin’s political purges. While the New York Times Moscow correspondent, Duranty had won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting which later became notorious for covering up the Soviet-engineered famine in Ukraine,. ^{7  3}

Over the years, The Nation would also publish defenses of Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong and Pol Pot, the genocidal communist dictator of Cambodia under whose leadership the Khmer Rouge would murder an estimate 1.5 million people. ^{3  4}

One of the most important figures in The Nation’s development since the mid-to-late 20th century was Victor Navasky, who joined the magazine as editor in 1978 and later became publisher. Navasky was notably a major defender of Alger Hiss, the State Department official who was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, with Navasky maintaining his innocence throughout his life even after declassified government surveillance material confirmed Hiss’s guilt. Circulation of The Nation increased threefold under Navasky’s tenure as editor. Navasky died in January 2023 at the age of 90. ^{8  9  10}

Financials

Because The Nation is organized as a for-profit limited partnership rather than a nonprofit, it does not file public tax returns and detailed financial disclosures are not publicly available. A 2010 report from the New York Times stated that the magazine had operated at a deficit nearly every year since its founding, but had turned a profit in 2003 and reached its peak subscribership in 2006 at 187,000. By 2010, the magazine had been operating at a roughly $500,000 annual deficit since 2008. As a result of the changing media landscape the magazine had increasingly relied on donations and fundraising efforts, such as cruises, to increase revenue. ¹¹

Associated Organization

The Type Media Center, formerly known as The Nation Institute, was founded in 1966 as a nonprofit affiliate of The Nation. The institute adopted “Type Media Center” as its name in 2019. The center funds journalists, runs a publishing arm, and provides grants and awards. It also publishes the TomDispatch website. ^{12  13}

In 2024, the center reported $3,411,279 in revenue, $2,816,228 in net expenses, and $7,227,136 in net assets. ¹⁴

Foreign Advocacy Controversies

Venezuela

In keeping with its tradition of praising authoritarian left-wing leaders, The Nation frequently praised Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez on its pages. In 2005, Christian Parenti wrote a feature article for The Nation about Chavez and his rule in Venezuela that included accolades for his social achievements. In 2009, the magazine conducted an interview with Chavez. When Chavez died in 2013, the magazine ran several stories praising his time in office. One eulogy by Greg Grandin suggested Chavez was “not authoritarian enough.” ^{5  15}

Russia

The Nation received criticism over its stance on contemporary Russia and its authoritarian leader Vladimir Putin. These criticisms were primarily in response to the writings of the late Stephen F. Cohen, a long-time professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University. Prior to his death in 2020, Cohen was married to The Nation’s publisher and part owner, Katrina vanden Heuvel. ^{16  17}
Cohen regularly advocated for better relations between the U.S. and the Russian Federation and was a critic of the policy of NATO’s eastward expansion and blamed this policy and the West for the outbreak of the Donbass War in Ukraine in 2014. He also characterized the Obama administration’s policies towards Russia as starting a new cold war. ^{18  19}

Leadership

As of April 2026, Katrina vanden Heuvel was the publisher, editor, and part owner of The Nation. Vanden Heuvel first interned with the magazine in 1980 and joined it full time after graduating university. Heuvel, whose mother was an heiress and father a diplomat in the Kennedy administration, was part of a consortium that purchased the magazine in 1995, at which point she became the magazine’s editor, a position she held until 2019. She became publisher in 2005. In April 2025, The Nation announced that Heuvel would be returning to her position as editor in addition to her other roles. ^{20  21} Heuvel was married to the Russian studies professor and frequent and controversial commentator on U.S.-Russian relations, Stephen F. Cohen, who passed away from lung cancer in 2020. ¹⁷