Table Of ContentMarxism in a Lost Century
Historical Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Sébastien Budgen (Paris)
Steve Edwards (London)
Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam)
Peter Thomas (London)
VOLUME 80
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm
Marxism in a Lost Century
A Biography of Paul Mattick
By
Gary Roth
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Roth, Gary.
Marxism in a lost century : a biography of Paul Mattick / by Gary Roth.
pages cm. — (Historical materialism book series, ISSN 1570-1522 ; volume 80)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-22779-8 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-28226-1 (e-book)
1. Mattick, Paul, 1904–1981. 2. Communists—United States—Biography. 3. Communists—
Germany—Biography. 4. Communism—United State—History—20th century.
5. Communism—Germany—History—20th century. I. Title.
HX84.M295R67 2015
335.4092—dc23
[B]
2014037420
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities.
For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 1570-1522
isbn 978-90-04-22779-8 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-28226-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff and Hotei Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
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This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Photos xi
List of Abbreviations xiii
About the Notes xiv
1 Introduction 1
2 Children at Work and War 6
At Home 6
Protest and Revolution 13
Revolution in Retreat 21
3 Young Radicals 25
March 1920 25
KAPD 29
4 Between Berlin and Cologne 36
Bouts of Unemployment 36
Movement in Decline 41
Older Friends 47
5 New Worlds 55
Voyages 55
Work and Writing 60
Amalgamation 65
6 Chicago in the Depression 70
Opening Years 70
Opposition and Accusations 77
Across the Country 85
Crisis Theory 90
7 The Unemployed Movement 96
The Workers League 96
Federation and Party 102
Fascism’s Initial Impact 109
The German Émigré Community 114
vi contents
8 The Independent Left 121
German to English 121
Editors’ Reluctance 129
9 International Council Correspondence 136
Pamphlets and Authors 136
The Inevitability of Communism 145
Mid-Decade 151
10 Towards War 159
International Developments 159
Opportunities 163
Living Marxism 172
11 End of an Era 180
Self-Reflections 180
Anti-Fascism 190
12 The War Years 202
Relationships 202
New Essays 207
Leaving Chicago 214
13 New York City 219
Isolation 219
Travelling to Berlin 228
14 Quiet Times 236
Writers’ Bloc 236
Back to Nature 247
Boston 256
15 Rekindling 266
Recent Admirers 266
A New Left 271
16 Reception 281
Discovery in Germany 281
From Marx and Keynes to Roskilde 289
contents vii
17 Winding Down 298
Last Years 298
Illness 302
Archives 311
Works Cited 313
Index 328
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the many people who contributed to this book in important
ways with letters (deposited at the International Institute of Social History in
Amsterdam) and memories, suggestions, and encouragement shared during
interviews, conversations, and emails: Sam Abramovitch, Claudio Albertani,
Dan Antenen, Signe Arnfred and Jan Birket-Smith, Jörg Asseyer, Robert Barsky,
Walter Boelke, Jr., Uli Bohnen, Gabriella Bonacchi, Volkhard Brandes, Jeremy
Brecher, David Broder, Michael Buckmiller, Paul Buhle, Yvonne Jacquette
Burckhardt, Connie and Uwe Conradt, Ada Cavazzani, Noam Chomsky, John
Clegg, Mario Cogoy, Adam Cornford, Mary Lynn Cramer, Belinda Davis,
Christoph Deutschmann, Norman Epstein, William Evan, the late Jake Faber,
Walter Fähnders, Bjarne Avlund Frandsen, Wesley Frost, Geoffrey Gardner,
Marc Geoffrey and Gisela Richter, Marvin Gettleman, Loren Goldner, Hellmut
Haasis, Linda Hamalian, Finn Hansson, James Herod, David Jacobs, Preben
Kaarsholm, Gabriel and Joyce Kolko (both deceased), Michael Kubina, Rick
Kuhn, David Laibman, Götz Langkau, Ted Leigh, Pricilla Long, Peter Lösche,
Frank Mecklenburg, Seymour Melman, Fred Moseley, Hans-Harald Müller,
Claude Orsoni and Yolande Benarrosh, Antonio Pagliarone, Raúl Páramo-
Ortega, the late Nunzio Pernicone, Christopher Phelps, Anne Porter, Claudio
Pozzoli, Karla Doris Rab, Finn Dam Rasmussen and Line Vestergård, Rudi
Rizman, Kevin Rowley, Edith Schloss, Rudi Schmiede, Eberhard Seifert, Larry
Shute, Justin Spring, Daniel and Rina Saint James, Evan Stark, Hansjoerg Viesel,
Richard Weisskoff, Ursula Welsch, Uwe Wesel, Mary Wheeler, Robert Wheeler,
Jeff Wilson and Floriane Gremion, Michael Wreszin, Steve Wright, David Yaffe,
and Andrew Yarrow.
Florence Barrau-Adams, Nicole Bryan, Angela Rooke, Hélène Sampson,
Anita Sower, and Franck Veyron helped at various stages with research. Almut
Fitzgerald transcribed handwritten letters, some dating to the 1920s and writ-
ten in a script no longer used. At the iish, my thanks to Ella Molenaar and
especially Mieke Ijzermans for her hospitality and special assistance. From
Dana Library at Rutgers University in Newark, many obscure requests were
handled by Natalie Borisovets, Dorothy Grauer, Marlene Riley, Carolyn Foote,
and Glenn Sandberg. Susan Carruthers, Grace Roosevelt, and Danny Hayward
read the manuscript with great care, and I am deeply beholden to each of them
for the time they devoted to this task. One huge benefit of this project has been
the new friends who offered much support and assistance, among them Naomi
Sager, Jorge Valadas and Laure Batier, the late Leif Hansen and Merete Thorøe.
x acknowledgements
To Paul Mattick, Jr., I owe a very special thanks, for the friendship, the many
good meals, comments and suggestions, and the carte blanch access to his
parents’ papers, including the key to their Vermont home, and to Katy Siegel
for her warmth and engagement. This book is dedicated to Ilse Mattick (1919–
2009) and to Anne Lopes, who has accompanied me on this and other journeys
through life, as I have accompanied her.
