Council Communists | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Paul Mattick |
| Founded | 1934 (1934) |
| Dissolved | 1943 (1943) |
| Split from | Proletarian Party of America |
| Newspaper | International Council Correspondence |
| Ideology | Council communism |
| Political position | Far-left |
In 1934 a group of left communists within theIWW joined with a dissident faction of theProletarian Party to form theUnited Workers Party. The group soon changed its name toGroups of Council Communists or simply theCouncil Communists.[1]
Originally based in Chicago, the group's main activity was producing its journalInternational Council Correspondence, which was calledLiving Marxism when the group transferred to New York in 1938 andNew Essays in its final issues in 1942 and 1943. The group published important articles byPaul Mattick,Anton Pannekoek,Karl Korsch and the first English translation ofRosa Luxemburg'sOrganizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy. Its most important original work may have beenThe Inevitability of Communism by Paul Mattick, the first book length critique ofSidney Hook'sTowards the Understanding of Marx. Hook thought the work important enough to attempt to get it published by a mainstream publisher.[2]
The periodical, which was originally produced with voluntary labor, increased readership inversely to the growth of membership in the organization. The journal gained readers as the group lost members. Shortly after the entry of the US into the Second World War interest in radicalism began to fade. When the cost of producing the journal became too expensive to accommodate its circulation the group was dissolved and the periodical folded.[3]
