Paul Mattick
Paul Mattick Sr. was a German-American Marxist political writer, activist, and theorist, associated with the council communist movement. Throughout his life, Mattick was critical of capitalism, Bolshevism, and Keynesian economics. His work focused on the critique of political economy, crisis theory, and the self-emancipation of the working class.
Born in Pomerania, Mattick became politically active during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 as an apprentice at Siemens. He joined the Spartacus League and later the Communist Workers' Party of Germany, participating in radical actions during the turbulent Weimar Republic. Emigrating to the United States in 1926, he settled in Chicago and became involved with the Industrial Workers of the World and later the unemployed movements during the Great Depression.
During the 1930s, Mattick was a key figure in the American council communist milieu, editing journals such as International Council Correspondence. He corresponded extensively with European council communists like Karl Korsch and Anton Pannekoek, and was influenced by Henryk Grossman's theories of capitalist breakdown. After a period of relative isolation following World War II, his work, particularly Marx and Keynes: The Limits of the Mixed Economy, gained renewed attention with the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in Europe.
Mattick remained a prolific writer, analyzing contemporary capitalism, state intervention, and the failures of both traditional social democracy and Leninist vanguardism. He advocated for a classless society based on workers' councils and direct democratic control over production and distribution.
Early life and political awakening in Germany
Childhood and World War I
Paul Mattick was born on March 13, 1904, in Pomerania, then part of the German Empire, and spent his early childhood in Berlin. His family was part of the urban migration of the early 1900s; his father, originally a farmhand, became an unskilled laborer at the Siemens manufacturing complex in Berlin, while his mother worked as a maid and laundress. The family, which included Paul and four sisters, lived in poverty in a single room in the Charlottenburg district. Despite their limited literacy, Mattick's parents emphasized education. His father, initially a stone-hauler, became a teamster at Siemens and joined a socialist union, often engaging in political discussions with younger workmates. The family read socialist newspapers like Vorwärts and the Sunday supplement Neue Welt. At age nine, Mattick was encouraged by his father to join the Social Democratic youth group, which was known for its anti-war and anti-militarist stance.The outbreak of World War I in 1914 dramatically altered Mattick's life. His father was drafted and sent to Belgium, and his mother increased her outside employment. School conditions deteriorated due to budget cuts, and Mattick described many instructors, some disabled military officers, as sadistic. This led to his deliberate academic failure to avoid a particularly notorious teacher and a general aversion to formal schooling. Widespread food shortages and rationing led Mattick and his friends to steal food and coal. He contracted tuberculosis during this period, a health issue that would persist into adulthood.
German Revolution and radicalization
Mattick's mother became his initial conduit to political activity. In May 1916, at age twelve, he followed her to an anti-war strike and demonstration where looting occurred. He witnessed a woman use her hatpin against a mounted police officer's horse, leading to the officer being unseated and trampled—an event he later saw as his first encounter with direct revolutionary action. His father, upon returning from active duty in 1916, aligned with the anti-war movement and the Spartacus League.In March 1918, at age fourteen, Mattick began an apprenticeship as a tool-and-die maker at Siemens, where his father worked. While he found the shop floor experience harsh and abusive, similar to his schooling, he valued the classroom instruction in subjects like stenography, drafting, and mathematics, which trained him for skilled decision-making.
During the German Revolution of 1918, which began with the Kiel mutiny in November, Siemens closed for several days. Mattick roamed Berlin, witnessing the revolutionary fervor. He was elected as an apprentice representative to the factory council formed at Siemens but was disappointed by its lack of radicalism and the persistence of hierarchical attitudes. He became active in the Freie Sozialistische Jugend, which served as a meeting point for radical youth regardless of their parents' specific left-wing affiliations. The FSJ in Charlottenburg, where Mattick was active, had about 200 members.
The German Communist Party formed in late 1918, drawing from groups including the Spartacists. Mattick aligned with its more radical, anti-parliamentary, and anti-union wing. The KPD had close ties with syndicalists, particularly the Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands. During the Spartacist uprising in January 1919, Mattick caught a glimpse of Karl Liebknecht. The uprising was suppressed by the Freikorps, and Rosa Luxemburg and Liebknecht were murdered. This period of "revolution in retreat" was depressing for the left. Mattick's FSJ group began publishing its own paper, Junge Garde, for which he wrote and distributed articles.
KAPD and early activism
The Kapp Putsch in March 1920, a right-wing military coup attempt, was met by a massive general strike. Mattick participated in demonstrations in Charlottenburg. After attempting to retrieve weapons from a complex occupied by putschists, he was arrested and severely beaten by police officers with sword belts, losing consciousness. His sixteenth birthday coincided with the coup's collapse. In the aftermath, the Social Democratic government used putschist-sympathizing troops to suppress radical leftists.Following the Ruhr uprising, Mattick became a founding member of the Communist Workers' Party of Germany in April 1920. The KAPD, which initially had around 38,000 members nationwide, viewed itself as a temporary organization until the working class could seize power through workers' councils. Mattick's youth group joined the KAPD en masse. He contributed to its Charlottenburg paper, Rote Jugend, and participated in expropriations to fund the movement, including stealing metals from Siemens and attempting robberies. These "class-conscious crimes" were guided by a politicized ethic regarding targets and the use of proceeds.
During the March Action of 1921, a series of KPD and KAPD-initiated strikes and uprisings, Mattick's youth group agitated among the unemployed in Berlin. Mattick participated in an attempt to instigate a walk-out at the large Borsig factory complex, but it was unsuccessful. Prior to these events, he had been arrested for theft of workplace materials from Siemens; following a lengthy legal process and the intervention of his Siemens instructors, he was dismissed from his apprenticeship and received a jail sentence, though it appears he avoided serving significant time.
Interwar activism and emigration
Germany in the early 1920s
After leaving Siemens, Mattick's employment became sporadic. He traveled to Hanover and Bremen, a center of radical activity, working briefly as an electrician before returning to Berlin. He found a clerical job with a sugar industry trade association, where he engaged in petty theft of mail and eventually sold the association's entire archive to a paper-recycling dealer, using the proceeds for his youth group. He also hawked newspapers to earn money for meals.A relationship with Selma Babad, a multilingual typist eight years his senior, began during this period. Babad assisted Mattick with forging documents for employment, as he lacked complete apprenticeship papers. Their correspondence covered a wide range of political and literary topics. Babad, more moderate politically, encouraged Mattick to pursue regular employment and further professional training. The relationship eventually ended, with Babad criticizing Mattick's recklessness and perceived immaturity.
The radical left in Germany was in decline, with the KAPD shrinking significantly by 1922 due to internal splits and dwindling support. One major schism involved the relationship with the Russian Bolsheviks; another concerned the structure of the movement, with some advocating for a "unity organization" that would merge political and workplace functions. Despite these issues, the combined KAPD-AAUD-AAUE still had around 50,000 adherents in mid-1922. Mattick worked briefly at Deutz Engines in Cologne, a physically demanding job in locomotive production. He helped instigate a strike there, leading to his arrest warrant for destruction of property, though charges were later dropped. He also participated in an AAUD strike at the Hoechst chemical complex in Leverkusen, which involved a two-week factory occupation.
During these years, Mattick developed important friendships. Reinhold Klingenberg, whose family home in Berlin provided a sanctuary and exposure to art and literature, shared a similar radical political trajectory. Karl Gonschoreck, a fellow working-class writer and expropriator, encouraged Mattick's literary efforts and published in the same KAPD and AAUD papers, such as Kommunistische Arbeiter Zeitung and Kampfruf. Between 1924 and 1926, Mattick published around twenty pieces, including vignettes, political commentary, and book reviews. He also had contact with the Cologne Progressives, a group of radical artists including Franz Seiwert, through his acquaintance Paul Kühne.
In Cologne, Mattick met Frieda Olle, the widow of the expressionist poet Walter Rheiner. Seven years his senior, charismatic, and involved in Cologne's radical art and publishing scene, Frieda had two young children, Renee and Hans. After Walter Rheiner's death by drug overdose in June 1925, Frieda faced pressure from welfare authorities due to her cohabitation with Mattick and her reliance on public support. To prevent her children from being placed in foster care, Paul and Frieda married four months after Rheiner's death.