Bøker av Ted Grant

The first volume of Ted Grant's Writings. It covers the period from 1938-42, when he was involved in building up the forces of Trotskyism in Britain, and emerged as the principal theoretician of the British Trotskyist movement.

The October Russian Revolution, led by Lenin and Trotsky, swept away landlordism and capitalism and placed the working class in power for the first time. It transformed the idea of socialism from theory into practice. From this point of view, the Bolshevik revolution can be considered the greatest event in history.The revolution changed the course of world history and the last century has been dominated by its consequences. Ted Grant's book traces the evolution of Soviet Russia from the Bolshevik victory of 1917, through the rise of Stalinism and the political counter-revolution, its emergence as a super-power after the Second World War, and the crisis of Stalinism and its eventual collapse.The book, which was first published in 1997, has been updated and edited in the light of new developments and the subsequent re-establishment of capitalism in Russia. Grant based his analysis on that of Leon Trotsky, who first analysed Stalinism in his Revolution Betrayed.While the counter-revolution has attempted to bury the memory of October, the new crisis of world capitalism has led to a revival of interest in Marxism and the significance of Bolshevism. The republication of Ted Grant's book in this centenary year of the revolution therefore comes at a fitting time.

The ideas of Lenin and Trotsky are without doubt the most distorted and slandered ideas in history. For more than 80 years, they have been subjected to an onslaught from the apologists of capitalism, who have attempted to present their ideas - Bolshevism - as both totalitarian and utopian. An entire industry was developed in an attempt to equate the crimes of Stalinism with the regime of workers' democracy that existed under Lenin and Trotsky.It is now more than thirty years since the publication of the first edition of this work. It was written as a reply to Monty Johnstone, who was a leading theoretician of the Communist Party of Great Britain. Johnstone had published a reappraisal of Leon Trotsky in the Young Communist League's journal Cogito at the end of 1968. Alan Woods and Ted Grant used the opportunity to write a detailed reply explaining the real relationship between the ideas of Lenin and Trotsky. This was no academic exercise. It was written as an appeal to the ranks of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League to rediscover the truth about Trotsky and return to the original revolutionary programme of Lenin.Also included in this new edition is Monty Johnstone's original Cogito article, as well as further material on Lenin's struggle with Stalin in the last month of his political life. The foreword is written by Trotsky's grandson, Vsievolod Volkov.

This is the second volume of Ted Grant's Writings, which covers the period from 1943 to the end of the Second World War in 1945, when he was involved in establishing the genuine forces of Trotskyism in Britain. As editor of the Socialist Appeal and political secretary of the Workers' International League, he became the principal theoretician of the British Trotskyist movement and drafted its main documents and resolutions throughout this period. Ted's participation in the revolutionary movement was to span a period from 1928, when he was introduced to Marxism, through to his death in 2006. For all those who knew him, he was a truly remarkable and inspiring figure. The articles and documents contained in this second volume of his Writings coincided with the emergence of WIL as one of the most successful Trotskyist groups in the world. In 1944 it fused with the remains of the old Revolutionary Socialist League to form the Revolutionary Communist Party, and was recognised as the official section of the Fourth International in Britain. The first two volumes cover a decisive period in history. It was the most testing time for British and world Trotskyism. As Hitler occupied Europe, the WIL was alone on the continent in applying the proletarian military policy that had been outlined by Trotsky. This it managed to do in the most successful fashion, allowing the WIL to establish an important proletarian base. By the end of the war, revolutionary events had swept Europe, as Trotsky had predicted, but were derailed by the Stalinists and social democrats. The writings in this book constitute an essential and rich part of the theoretical heritage of Marxism, which can serve to educate the new generation of workers and youth who are entering into political activity at this time of deep capitalist crisis.