Regarding Ted Grant

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

To anybody this may concern,

There is a sect of the Worker's International League here in my city. I attended a single meeting of theirs last year, and before then I had never heard of Ted Grant. Now that school is out and I actually have time to do some research, I would like to know more about the Grantist tendency and its history. I would appreciate being pointed to a comprehensive text (Internet or hard copy), but if that isn't possible, I would be more than willing to listen to what any of you have to say about him. I have recently gotten to know somebody in the WIL and would like to understand their politics. I may join, but just as easily I may not. I greatly appreciate your time.

[Q]

The WIL in the US is part of the International Marxist Tendency which keeps a website called marxist.com (http://marxist.com) and also maintain a Ted Grant archive (http://www.marxist.com/ted-grant/).

Ted was a historically important figure in the British Trotskyist movement an was a founding member of Militant in 1964, arguably the biggest Trotskyist organisation in Britain ever with about 8000 members in the 1980's. Internationally the Committee for a Workers' International (http://socialistworld.net) was founded which right now has a presence in over 40 countries across the globe. There are quite a few CWI members here, including myself.

Ted and another leader by the name of Alan Woods however had a strong disagreement over the nature of working in social democracy. At the end of the 1980's there was a general realisation in the CWI that social-democracy was moving to the right, embracing neoliberal policies. Ted and Alan disagreed and they used their influence to walk out in 1991 to form their own international, which would become the IMT. This damaging behaviour caused the CWI to loose about half of the international at the time.

In the past there were quite a few IMT'ers here on Revleft, but most left and the remainder is inactive. The last bit you might be interested into is that the US affiliate of the CWI is called Socialist Alternative (http://socialistalternative.org).

[Kronsteen]

I only know about Ted Grant through the prisms of philosophy, and of being in the other large British trotskyist group, the SWP (part of the other international grouping, the IS). No one doubted his utter, unfailing dedication, or his ability as both leader and intellectual.

Unfortunately he was one of those who spent his entire adult life expecting capitalism to enter its final death throes very very soon. Every crisis in capitalism was the beginning of the end, and every bit of worker resistance was the first spark of revolution.

He and Woods wrote a book on dialectics called "Reason in Revolt", detailing how the the Anti-duhring in particular anticipated modern science. I've read some of it, and their misunderstandings of high-school science are really embarrassing.

There's a discussion of a recent talk on the recession by Alan Woods, here on revleft (http://www.revleft.com/vb/listen-28-minute-t170877/index.html?t=170877).

As for membership, the SWP and the SP (aka SPEW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_%28England_and_Wales%29)) both habitually lied about their numbers in the 80s and 90s. From what I can gather, the SP probably had about 4000 at its peak, and has around 2000 now.

They do work with the SWP in electoral alliances. As 'Militant' in the 80s, they were an entrist group within the Labour party, though the majority decided Labour couldn't be moved leftward, and only a few including Grant chose to stay.

I'm sure Q knows much more about that period than me, so if I've misremembered, he can tell us.

[Q]

He and Woods wrote a book on dialectics called "Reason in Revolt", detailing how the the Anti-duhring in particular anticipated modern science. I've read some of it, and their misunderstandings of high-school science are really embarrassing.
Yes, I've been told this quite a few times. They're supposedly even getting the physics wrong of a glass of boiling water. That is pretty sad.


As for membership, the SWP and the SP (aka SPEW (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_Party_%28England_and_Wales%29)) both habitually lied about their numbers in the 80s and 90s. From what I can gather, the SP probably had about 4000 at its peak, and has around 2000 now.
"Membership" can be a very elastic term. For example, the SWP currently claims a little over 7000 "registered members", but only a third or so actually bother to pay any dues, even less show up at meetings. The SP undoubtedly has a similar phenomenon. If you would count in actual, that is a somewhat active and dues paying, membership I think you'll get close to 1500 for the SWP and around 1250 for SP. This is based on diverse reports, such as the Socialism event, etc. But it remains a guessing game, even for me, who has official numbers for all sections.


They do work with the SWP in electoral alliances. As 'Militant' in the 80s, they were an entrist group within the Labour party, though the majority decided Labour couldn't be moved leftward, and only a few including Grant chose to stay.
It has to be pointed out that Labour at the time was also actively expelling Militant members. Selling the paper was a valid reason to be expelled. Ted Grant, being a high profile figure of course, was one of the first to be expelled and by the time the majority decided to jump ship about 200 members had already been kicked out anyhow.


I'm sure Q knows much more about that period than me, so if I've misremembered, he can tell us.
The book The Rise of Militant (you can read it online (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/militant/), a hardcopy is rare these days) gives some insight in this period, although you sometimes have to read between the lines as not everything is reported. There is a tendency for the good stuff to be mentioned, while the less rosy details are quietly disregarded. Despite that, it has many valuable details on method and ideas that formed both the CWI and IMT. Liverpool - A city that dared to fight (read online (http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/liverpool/), also rare these days as hardcopy) is likewise an interesting book in this regard. Both can be somewhat daunting to read though as the writing style of Taaffe is very thick on "permanent optimism".

[eyeheartlenin]

I was in the WIL, the Grantist organization in the US, which, at the time, was the best left wing group where I live, and we read Lenin and Trotsky together, and we provided a critique of the ISO, etc., from the left, and it was a very good group at the time, I thought. Then came Chávez and the "Venezuelan revolution" (which, after 13 years in power, has left capitalism in control of the means of production in that country). With Alan Woods' first trip to Caracas, years ago, the main work of the Grantist movement became serving as cheerleaders/volunteer publicists for Chávez, in the hopes that he would imitate Fidel and nationalize the means of production in Venezuela, laying the foundation for a planned economy. That, obviously, never happened, and it appears the chavista movement will soon go into crisis as, unfortunately, Chávez' illness progresses.

My evaluation of Grantism, the IMT and the US WIL, is that their involvement with chavismo reveals the Grantists' main weakness and error: they enter other people's movements, and some of those movements are not even working class, and if they are, they are the social-democratic or Stalinist parties that have helped keep capitalism functioning for decades. The Grantists enter those parties and they just stay there, seemingly, for their entire careers. So, Grantism is a dead end and a complete waste of political effort. If you are a British Grantist, what you have to show for your years of activism in the British Labour Party, is Tony Blair as Prime Minister. That's the result of all the decades of Grantism in the UK. What a waste!

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Thanks to all of you, I feel as though I have a much better idea of where to go from here, at least as far as understanding Grantism is concerned.

@eyeheartlenin: Let me see if I can accurately gauge your views on the WIL. Are you saying that in addition to being a reformist party, they tend to approach the Venezuelan question uncritically by lionizing Chavez? If that is true, then there is more than enough cause for me to stay away. All I can say is that Chavez did not come up once in the single meeting that I attended.

But perhaps my main question concerns political errors. To what extent would you say that a political error in general is so egregious that the supporting party itself must be dismissed? Please bear in mind that I am not dismissing your views at all, I am only genuinely curious about your views in this respect.

[eyeheartlenin]

Dear Megaman: Thanks for your careful reading of what I wrote: I certainly think that the Grantists I knew approached chavismo uncritically. It may well be that the WIL has moved on ... to other egregious errors. :)

I also think that putting workers or subjectively revolutionary young people in a counter-revolutionary, reformist environment, like a social-democratic or Stalinist party, permanently, is the egregious error you describe in your most recent post, and that error is sufficient reason to keep looking, beyond Grantism, for a group.

Have you considered Socialist Action? Or, even better, working with the Fracción Trotskista?

Anyway, best of luck. – eyeheartlenin

[The Idler]

Have you ruled out Marxist parties other than Trotskyist ones?

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Have you ruled out Marxist parties other than Trotskyist ones?
Speaking only for myself, I have to answer yes. But maybe that won't always be the case. After all, who knows what future developments may bring? For the here and now, however, I am not fond of the other branches of Marxism. Stalinism (or its paltry synonym, Marxism-Leninism) utterly disgusts me. Maoism's emphasis on the peasantry does not interest me. Anarchism's only merit is its meticulous meandering (although I've heard Platformism is better). Of course, please take these opinions with a grain of salt, for that is all that they are. Since I'm here to learn, those opinions as a rule cannot be set in stone. I hope that answers your question.

[The Idler]

There's a few libertarian Marxist tendencies that you have not mentioned that you might not have considered because you haven't yet encountered them including Autonomism, so-called Impossibilism, Left Communism and Council Communism.