Mon, 15/08/11

Paul Mattick

1904-1981

Paul Mattick archive in Englisch in the Marxist’s Internet Archives

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/index.htm

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Tue, 26/01/16

Anton Pannekoek: a brief biography

The vision of a social production and distribution determined by the producers themselves has its origins in council communism and the ideas of its main proponent, Anton Pannekoek.

Anton Pannekoek's life span coincided with what was almost the whole history of the modern labour movement; he experienced its rise as a movement of social protest, its trans formation into a movement of social reform, and its eclipse as an independent class movement in the contemporary world. But Pannekoek also experienced its revolutionary potentialities in the spontaneous upheavals which, from time to time, interrupted the even flow of social evolution. read more »

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Tue, 26/01/16

A Paul Mattick Interview

"The difference between councils and trade unions is that, while the latter lose their functions in a decaying capitalism, the former become a prefiguration of the organisation of socialist society."

Question : What relevance does Pannekoek's book have in Europe today ? Do you think that the analytic memory and theory of the past experience of council communism, as Pannekoek expresses them, can be "heard" and understood by workers here today ?

Answer : A book, such as Pannekoek's, is not in need of immediate relevance. It concerns itself with a historical period; with past occurrences as well as possible future experiences, in which the phenomenon of workers' councils appearing and disappearing points to a trend of development in workers' class struggle and its changing objectives. read more »

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