Paul Mattick

German council communist and active member of the 1918 German Revolution who emigrated to the USA and wrote widely on the German and Russian revolutions and the Marxist critique of political economy.

Mattick's classic work on the economic theories of Henryk Grossman and the dynamics behind the inevitable downfall of capitalism.

The German Revolution, chapter 7 from Mattick's work Reform or Revolution, looks at the events upsurge of working class militancy in Germany during November 1918.

Mattick analyses "the superficiality of the ideological differences between Stalinism and Trotskyism" and why "Trotsky's own past and theories", with his role in the construction of the Russian regime, "condemned 'Trotskyism' to remain a mere collecting agency for unsuccessful Bolsheviks".

The council-communist Paul Mattick looks back at the German revolution he participated in.

Mattick ponders the then-recent events of May 1937 - when the counter-revolutionary consequences of the CNT and POUM's compromises with bourgeois democracy and Stalinism became deadly reality.

A short biography of German council communist tool maker-turned academic Paul Mattick.

Comprised of six articles written in the years between 1974 and 1978, Economics, Politics and the Age of Inflation is a study of the role of the state in economic affairs. In making this analysis, Mattick shows us the interconnections between the phenomenal world of capitalism and social production relations.

Keynesian economics claimed to have overcome the problem of economic depressions. However, as Mattick argues that crises are inherent within capitalism and that neither the market nor Keynesianism can stop "the steady deterioration of the economy". Written in 1974, Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory is one of Mattick's most valuable contributions to the Marxist critique of political economy and radical theory in general.

"Taking refuge in the idea of spontaneity is indicative of an actual or imagined inability to form effective organisations and a refusal to fight existing organisations in a 'realistic' manner. For to fight them successfully would necessitate the formation of counter-organisations, which, by themselves, would defeat the reason for their existence."...

The difference between a reformist and revolutionary analysis of economy.

Why the parties and unions are obstacles to be overcome - and the need for working class self-organisation.

Interviewed in 1977 by Italian radicals, the late veteran council communist speaks on crisis, politics, organisation and revolution.

This interview was given in February 1975. It was never published. Initially it was aimed to be part of a radio programme on workers' councils which never went on the air. A French translation was added to the second French edition of Workers' Councils (Spartacus, November 1982). Reprinted from Vol. 4 "Workers Councils" -- Anton Pannekoek (ECHANGES), where it appeared as an appendix.

Paul Mattick critically analyses Otto Rühle's role in the German Revolution.

Mattick reconsiders the legacy of Rosa Luxemburg, particularly her critique of Bolshevism and her economic theory.

Mattick surveys the historical organisational forms of the old workers movement, and how a changing capitalism has either integrated them or made them redundant.

Mattick challenges Marcuse's claim that capitalism can finally 'integrate' the proletariat into bourgeois society as a class with no remaining revolutionary potential.

A comparison of Leninist vanguardism with Luxemburg's more subtle conceptions of working class organisation.