Ted Grant | |
|---|---|
 Grant in 1985 | |
| Born | (1913-07-09)9 July 1913 |
| Died | 20 July 2006(2006-07-20) (aged 93) |
| Nationality | South African |
| Occupation(s) | Political theorist, writer, activist |
| Movement | Militant (United Kingdom), International Marxist Tendency |
| Website | www |
Edward Grant (bornIsaac Blank;[1] 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006)[2] was a South AfricanTrotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the groupMilitant and laterSocialist Appeal.
Grant was born Isaac Blank inGermiston, South Africa. His father, Max Blank, was aLithuanian Jewish emigré fromTavrig, who was involved in the mineral business, and his mother, Adelle, was originally from theParisian district ofLe Marais. They had two sons, Isaac and Isador, and three daughters, Rose, Rachael and Zena.[3][4]
His parents divorced and he was brought up by his mother who took in lodgers to supplement her income. He was introduced to Trotskyism by one of these lodgers, Ralph Lee, a leader in the Bolshevik-Leninist League to which Lee would later recruit him.[5] In 1934, Grant left South Africa for Britain, changing his name to Edward Grant in the process. Before reaching the UK he stopped over in France to meetTrotsky's son,Lev Sedov. Once in Britain, he joined theMarxist Group, an entryist group in theIndependent Labour Party.[2]
In 1935, theJohannesburg-based Bolshevik-Leninist League joined with a similar group inCape Town to form theWorkers Party of South Africa. In 1937, after a series of factional difficulties and accusations of financial misconduct, Lee and several of his supporters left South Africa and joined Grant in England in theMilitant Group (an entrist group in theLabour Party which Grant and others joined after leaving the Marxist Group).[6] Factional accusations against Lee would follow him from South Africa, resulting in Lee and his supporters, including Grant, being expelled from the group in 1938.[5][7][8]
The former Militant Group members formed theWorkers' International League. The group grew, and in 1941, he became editor of its paper. He continued his role in the fusedRevolutionary Communist Party. In 1945, Ted Grant, together withJock Haston and others, argued that there would be a new but limited period of economic expansion of the 1950s and 1960s in the west. This contrasted with the perspectives of theAmerican Socialist Workers Party led byJames Cannon in 1945.[9]
Following the breakup of the RCP, Grant joinedGerry Healy's faction, but was soon expelled for failing to support other expulsions.[7] He formed a new, small tendency in the Labour Party. Later named theRevolutionary Socialist League, it was recognised as the official British section of theFourth International between 1957 and 1965. In 1964 it founded the newspaperMilitant.[10]
By the 1980s, the group was known as theMilitant tendency and had become a significant force in the Labour Party, having successfully taken control of theLabour Party Young Socialists since 1972,[11][12] and infiltrated constituency parties electing two of its members Labour MPs.[13] As well,Militant in Liverpool had taken control of the Labour Party inthat city as well as ofLiverpool City Council resulting in high-profile confrontations with theThatcher government as well as the national Labour Party leadership.[14]
Grant, and others from the group, was expelled from the Labour Party in 1983 while many members of Militant were later expelled underNeil Kinnock after the Left lost control of the party machinery.[10]
At the end of the 1980s, Militant was active in theanti-Poll Tax movement against theThatcher government'sCommunity Charge (popularly known as the poll tax). Meanwhile, there was a growing faction which believed that continuing support for the Labour Party was impeding the growth of the tendency. Grant worried that his organisation was shifting away from interpreting Trotsky's theories and indulging in "activism"; he had argued that Militant's MPs should pay the poll tax to protect the group.[15] A debate arose within Militant:Peter Taaffe and his supporters argued in favour of abandoning the entryist tactic, and instead began standing candidates against the Labour Party, first in the1991 Liverpool Walton by-election and then in the1992 general election in Liverpool and Scotland. Ted Grant opposed these developments and, after a special national conference confirmed the decision to leave the Labour Party, Grant was expelled from Militant along withAlan Woods in 1992.[16]
Following their expulsion Grant and Woods started a new group inside the Labour Party known by the name of its publicationSocialist Appeal. The split also left Grant and his supporters outside theCommittee for a Workers' International (CWI), but he and Woods were able to found the Committee for a Marxist International (now called theRevolutionary Communist International) with international supporters.
He and the others were expelled formally on 17 February 1938
Finally, Peter Taaffe and other Militants, alongside whom Grant had stood shoulder to shoulder for so long, insisted that the principle should be dropped. When Grant, and another like-minded spirit, Alan Woods, refused to concede the point, both men were expelled from Militant in 1992.
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