If Militant had seized power…

The year is 1991. The socialist revolution in Britain has begun, led by the Militant Tendency. After months of protests against the hated poll tax, Ted Grant and his followers succeed in winning over the working-class to the idea of overthrowing the hated capitalist order once and for all. The police and armed forces sent … Read more

The CWI Split of 1991-2, or Debate in Trotskyist Sects: Part 9

The 1991-2 split in the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) brought about the demise of Militant, the CWI’s British section, and gave birth to the two main organisations that came out of it – the Socialist Party under Peter Taaffe, and Socialist Appeal under Ted Grant, Alan Woods and Rob Sewell. When I was … Read more

The terrible truth about the IMT Split of 2010 – or, Debate in Trotskyist Sects: Part 8

When I was in the IMT, we boasted endlessly of our democratic credentials. We compared ourselves favourably with Peter Taaffe’s organisation, which hounded out dissidents mercilessly. We replayed the trauma of the 1991-2 split over and over again. We convinced ourselves that we had much higher standards for our organisation. Little did I know that … Read more

How I raised my differences in the IMT, or Debate in Trotskyist Sects: Part 7

When I joined the IMT, I found myself in this strange environment with which I was both personally, and, as it would turn out, politically incompatible. It was inevitable that it would all end in tears and that, as with so many other times in my largely depressing life, separation, ostracism and anger all round … Read more

Ted Grant Is Always Right!

I have just read Tony Aitman’s obituary of Ted Grant from 2006. Aitman is a member of Peter Taaffe’s Socialist Party (which made off with the majority of the organisation after the split in Militant between Taaffe and Grant). In the obituary, Aitman is respectful but notes Grant’s many flaws, in particular a tendency to … Read more

The Sensational Anti-Semitism of the International Marxist Tendency

Just a few months ago, I would have denied that the IMT was anti-Semitic. I would have said that, for all my problems with them, I did not see anti-Semitism as one of them. I even convinced myself, for a time, that our position on Israel was ‘moderate’ compared to those of other left-wing sects … Read more

The Sensational Anti-Semitism of Ted Grant (and other Marxists)

I had my criticisms of Ted Grant and Socialist Appeal, but I considered it free of the taint of anti-Semitism – until now. You see, our position on Israel-Palestine was obviously absurd, but was distinct from the overtly racist position of the SWP, which has no problem with the ‘reactionary’ Israeli working-class being driven into … Read more

The Poverty of Dialectics: A Debunking of Dialectical Materialism

Introduction A central feature of Marxism (and indeed, Trotskyism) is dialectical materialism. Marx developed his theory of dialectical materialism from his re-interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy. Hegel borrowed the concept from Heraclitus, an ancient Greek thinker, who famously argued that the world was in flux and contained contradictions. On this basis, he stated that ‘No one … Read more

The terrible truth about Socialist Appeal

Background Socialist Appeal is the British section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), founded in 1992 by Ted Grant and Alan Woods after their split with Peter Taaffe and their comrades in Militant (since renamed the Socialist Party). The actual circumstances of the split are shrouded in assertion, counter-assertion, slander, counter-slander and the elaborate falsification … Read more