(en) France, Alternative Libertaire AL #236 - Read: Paul Mattick, "The revolution was a great adventure" (fr, pt)

This book is a memoir born of a collective work in progress carried out between France, 
Germany and the United States over several years. The result is superb both in substance 
and in form. Especially we know Paul Mattick for his most famous works such as Marx and 
Keynes and crisis and crisis theory, considered quite difficult to carry out a radical 
critique of capitalism. But we know much less man, his personality and experience. We knew 
vaguely that he was involved very early in the German revolution and was exiled to the 
United States where he was at the head of several magazines claiming the council 
communism. We can only be grateful to the group which participated Charles Reeves is one 
of the initiators of the project and the Journey editions for filling a void and allowed 
readers and readers to know today's hectic life Paul Mattick and historical periods and 
revolutionary movements in which the story takes place.

This book allows us to follow him when he was very young in the streets of Berlin in 
proletarian circles. These bands of young people roaming the streets, and work in the 
factory and after the war will enter when the revolution broke out in 1918 is followed. It 
reveals the various revolutionary organizations, the failure of the town of Berlin in 
1918-1919, spectacular actions which could involve young communists who brushed death at 
every moment and whose radical actions do not necessarily pleased to seniors. We discover 
the vast popular movement in reaction to the Kapp Putsch which relied on the army and the 
Freikorps in 1920. But also the great general strike in the Ruhr during which the 
anarcho-syndicalists have played a big role. Following reflux struggles after terrible 
repressions we follow him into exile in the United States in 1926. There it is again the 
factory, but also after the 1929 crisis, rather unsung movements self-organized 
large-scale unemployment and a large radicalism which will participate to the Paul Mattick 
breathlessness labor movement of the 1930s.

In the late 1960s when there is new revolutionary movements he will not hesitate to plunge 
the heart of the action including traveling to Europe to meet with students. The special 
feature of this book is that it is based on two interviews in which he says for the first 
time on his experience which was very unusual to him. The first has been redesigned to 
give the story that reads like a novel. And the second was kept in its form, it is an 
opportunity to discover his direct style and humor. Numerous photographs, illustrations, 
notes, a bibliography and a glossary make this book, the fruit of a remarkable work, a 
single document.

F. Krivitsky (AL Paris Sud)

o Paul Mattick, The revolution was a great adventure, Streets of Berlin revolt in American 
radical movements (1918-1934) , Montreuil, The Journey, 2013, 192 pages, 17 euros.