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On July 9, Ted Grant celebrates his 90th birthday. We interviewed him about his life's struggle and how he sees things today. Ted has been an active Trotskyist all his life, since the early 1930s in South Africa and then in Britain from 1934 onwards.
Is there a period in all your years of activity that you find particularly significant?
I have been through many ups and downs. We started with a small group in 1938 of around a dozen or so. In the course of the Second World War we managed to build it up into a sizeable organisation of several hundred (the RCP) with a strong trade union base. But even this was not sufficient to avoid the defeats of the working class that took place after the war. But because of the antics of the so-called leaders of the Fourth International the work we had done was almost destroyed.
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I wouldn't say that any of these periods was particularly more significant than the others. At all times, whether good or bad, Marxists can develop the ideas, learn and build up the forces in preparation for the great tasks that history has prepared for us.
You have made a major and key contribution in building several organisations in your lifetime. Again, was there one that stands out for you?
I would say that the most significant is what we are building today! The past is behind us. We have to look forward to the future. It is a question of picking up the threads and pulling them together and going forward. That is the task of the Socialist Appeal and the In Defence of Marxism web site.
You have made a major contribution in developing the ideas of Marxism. What in your view would you say are the key questions?
At the end of the Second World War all the other so-called Trotskyists were thrown by the events then taking place. They did not fully understand the nature of the period. They thought revolution was round the corner. Some had the crazy idea that the war wasn't even over, or that a Third World War was imminent. We in Britain were really the only ones to understand the nature of the boom that was then beginning. It turned out to be the longest and most powerful boom in the history of capitalism. This was bound to have an effect.
In the same period we had the phenomenon of proletarian bonapartism (Stalinism) spreading to Eastern Europe. We had the Chinese Revolution of 1949. By sticking firmly to the method of Marxism, the method developed by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, we were able to build on that tradition. We came to the conclusion that the regimes in Eastern Europe, China (and later Cuba, Vietnam, and several others) were merely a photocopy of the Russian model, but not that of 1917 but of the terrible caricature of socialism that emerged under Stalin. We were the only ones to understand the real nature of these regimes. The others zig-zagged all over the place. First China and Eastern Europe were capitalist (in spite of the nationalised planned economy!) then suddenly, in some cases (China, Cuba, Yugoslavia) they became "relatively healthy workers' states". With this method you are lost.
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The attitude of Marxists to the mass organisations is the key. Unless we understand this we will never build anything viable in a million years. Our approach to this question is based on the traditions of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. It was not something we invented. Read Lenin's Left wing communism, or Trotsky letters and articles on the situation inside the mass organisations in the 1930s. But we also built on this and developed it further. We were compelled to do so in a certain sense in the 1950s and 1960s because of the alienation of the working class from genuine Marxism at that time. We understood that when the mass of the working class moves in a decisive manner it does so through the trade unions and the mass workers' parties. All history teaches this. Comrades must get a feel of history, and understand how the class moves. What we have done is to apply the method of Marxism to the conditions of today. Trotsky had a genuine feel for the mass movement. He understood how the workers move and he always stressed the need for the Marxists to link up to the class. All the other groups who claim the mantle of Trotsky have never really grasped his method. It is not enough to mouth off a few quotes learnt by memory. The method is the key thing.
What would you say was Trotsky's major contribution to the movement?
He said it himself. It was his analysis of Stalinism. With Lenin dead he was the only one who could deal with the question of the degeneration of the first workers' state in history. Without this the movement would have been lost. His last ten years were spent in re-arming the movement, in preserving and developing the ideas. We stand proudly on the shoulders of this giant. Without the "Old Man" we could not have achieved what we did. And we could not build what we are building today.
What about the future prospects of the movement?
There are bound to be big movements of the working class in Britain, in Europe and throughout the world. We already see the first signs of this with the massive general strikes in Italy, Spain, Greece… even countries like Austria and Sweden are being affected. The whole of Latin America is in turmoil. All this is bound to have an effect on the Marxist movement as well. We can only benefit from all this.
The youth are once again on the move. They are the key. He who has the youth has the future. These youth will come to us. No other tendency has kept its bearings like we have. The others have abandoned the fundamentals of Marxism and so their organisations have turned to dust. Once you abandon the fundamental principles of Marxism you are lost.
We have preserved and developed the ideas for the future generations. For a period we were sidelined by history. Now the tide is turning once more. Our period is coming and I am confident that we will build a massive force both in Britain and internationally. Once the ideas of genuine Marxism become the ideas of the masses no force on earth will be able to stop them.
July 2, 2003.
Visit the Ted Grant Internet Archive.
See also: Ted Grant's contribution to Marxism.
