Paul Mattick and Otto Strasser

[Rakesh Bhandari]

In John Nagles The NASDP as an Alternative Political Elite for Capitalism
in Crisis in Radical Perspectives on the Rise of Fascism in Germany,
1919-1945 (Monthly Review Press, 1989), a fascinating account is given of
how the NASDP was normalized and entered into coalition building with big
capitalists by, among other things, purging the SA and
Strasser leadership factions: "despite the absence of bourgeois political
liberty and bourgeois parties, the NASDP did evolve in ways that
represented a kind of normalisation to established elite standards. Most
often cere are the defeat and bloddy pruge of both the Strasser left wing
of the party and the Roehm SA leadership on June 30, 1934. Bracher also
notes that by end of 1934, nearly 80% of the political leadership
consisted of newcomers who had joined the party since the beginning of
1933" p. 206

 As I noted in my first reply, the understanding of this purge may enable
exceptional insight into  the true nature of the NAZI regime. Again, I am
neither  confirming nor disconfirming Mattick's sponsorship of Otto
Strasser (Gregor was presumably a brother or close relative). But I am
saying that I would have attended such a talk for the inside perspective  
it could have provided. 

Now anyone who reads Mattick's writings, esp Anti Bolshevik Communism,
will find such criticisms of authoritarianism, militarism and statism to
make the charge of fascist sympathies absurd in the extreme. And do note
that Ken Lawerence has not had a word to say about anything Mattick
actually wrote, including in this context his essay on spontaneity and
organization in Anti Bolshevik Communism. 
Again I will check with PM jr about this "sponsorship" of Strasser. 
Yours, Rakesh