In October 1962 Ted Grant summed up the contradictions posed by the post-war arms race between the major powers and the proliferation of nuclear armaments. The working class should never trust international institutions like the UN to address this or any other fundamental problem but should mobilise its own forces around a socialist programme, the only means to put an end to all wars.

In 1942 Ted Grant and Andrew Scott exposed the farcical call on Indian people by British rulers of a “war for freedom” while hundreds of millions were kept in chains. British imperialists promised the Indian masses freedom, but “after the war”, while cynically fostering the divisions on religious lines that would eventually lead to the bloody partition of India. British Marxists demanded Indian workers to be armed and to be granted immediate freedom from colonial rule.

“The government has proclaimed a crisis, exhorted the workers to greater exertions and sacrifices, only for them to be faced with the same situation in the next 2 years.” Back in 1961 Ted Grant analysed how the British ruling class constantly attempted to throw the weight of British capitalism’s decline onto the shoulders of the working class.

In 1961, the sixth economic crisis in Britain since the end of the Second World War was used once again by the Tory government to justify a policy of cutting taxes for the rich and introducing indirect taxation which affected the standards of living of ordinary people. Ted Grant exposed the ruthless class nature of these policies and invited the trade union and Labour leaders to action.