Geoff Collier
Active Member
Fullyplumped said:
Not necessarily but in this case it is
ted grant dead?
- Thread starter belboid
- Start date
Not necessarily but in this case it is
Geoff Collier said:
see this article for the CG connection -
http://www.newswales.co.uk/?section=Politics&F=1&id=6401
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
nwnm said:
Which article proves exactly nothing. The onlything solid it says is that CG published statements of solidarity with the IRSP. Given that the SWP has printed many staements in solidarity, and rightly so, with the struggle of the IRA agianst the British occupation of NI does that mean that it has a 'connection' with Sinn Fein?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Divisive Cotton said:
I have no idea what you are talking about, perhaps you could try being a little more coherent?
cutnsplice said:
Leaving aside the fact that you seem to think that "no you are" is a witty and scathing riposte, even on its own slowest kid in the school playground terms, this doesn't make any sense.
Divisive Cotton said:
On second thoughts you should stick to the incoherence - at least that way you just look stupid rather than both stupid and dishonest.
DIY Manual
New Member
Nigel Irritable said:
Think he's saying that Socialist Party regard Ted Grant as less than a comrade, because they ran Militant into the ground, when Ted Grant had political perspectives that might not have thrown away the mighty Militant for nothing, and this the reason for which they parted company.
Lingering resentment of others for own failures, and all that. Seems to be a bit mean-spirited to have nothing on any CWI pages about it.
Money from Hepscott Road sale dried up so can't pay any full-timers to attend to website?
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
DIY Manual said:
In fact Militant and the Socialist Party, in the years since the Grant/Woods split, have published a number of pieces dealing with Ted Grant's contribution. Their tone has been generous, although not uncritical. I realise that any note of critical thought about the "great leader" (Grant) or the "dear leader" (Woods) upsets and shocks members of Socialist Appeal though.
Grant remained until his death a comrade in the socialist movement, although one with deeply mistaken ideas unable to make a conceptual break from an earlier period. He had the excuse of being in his eighties and nineties though, which is more than can be said for the rest of his organisation.
DIY Manual said:
There seems to be some confusion here. The 1990s were a difficult period for all serious left wing organisations, given the march to the right of the Labour Party, the collapse of the Stalinist regimes (which for all that they were barbarous dictatorships set back the idea that any alternative was possible), the destruction of the miners, the various other massive trade union defeats and subsequent near all-time low in militancy. Militant/Socialist Party certainly had a rough time of it, but managed to keep a substantial cadre organised around a socialist programme, to analyse the changing situation and then more recently to begin growing again.
Were there mistakes made? Certainly. Would Ted Grant's "political perspectives", by which you chiefly mean staying attached limpet like to Blair's New Labour, have improved matters? I rather doubt it. We have after all Socialist Appeal to look at by way living (well, undead) example - an organisation which has been reduced to a small rump of barely active older members, propped up by a few imported Spaniards. They have been at it for fifteen years now and yet they have made precisely zero progress in the Labour Party. Would these "perspectives" have helped Militant defy gravity in the 1990s? They certainly haven't helped Grant's own group.
DIY Manual said:
There will be an obituary in time, which will certainly not be "mean-spirited" although as stated above it won't be the kind of hagiography which Socialist Appeal seem to specialise in. It is after all a tragedy that Grant ended his life as nominal figurehead of a tiny, rather bewildered, sect.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Sort of like Betrayal Bingo.Nigel Irritable said:
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
mutley said:
A fair point. I suppose I was making the error of seperating Dessie O'Hare's torture and maiming of a kidnapped dentist from the more usual run of the mill dismemberings carried out by bomb or "punishment beating".
DIY Manual said:Lingering resentment of others for own failures, and all that. Seems to be a bit mean-spirited to have nothing on any CWI pages about it.
Money from Hepscott Road sale dried up so can't pay any full-timers to attend to website?
As Nigel's already said, we don't run our SP website like 'rolling news' - it's updated on a weekly basis.
As for the CWI site, I think comment on the middle east is a bit more important to produce quickly - the obituary can come in good time.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Nigel Irritable said:
Sounds a bit like Billy Hutchinson ...
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
I pointed out in a post some months ago that Grant was the original state capitalist in the RCP that Cliff then set out to refute but converted to instead - but someone else claimed it was Haston, though I heard it from the lips of Cliff's landlord, Charlie van Gelderen.belboid said:
Taafe manages in his second paragraph to get a dig in by confirming that Grant was a state cap - something I've never heard admitted by the Militant tradition before ,and that it would have been heresy to admit while Grant was still in Militant.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
Fisher_Gate said:
I note that the series THE TENDENCY TOWARD STATIFICATION published in Socialist Appeal in 1947 is different in style from the 1948 Workers International News article THE TENDENCY TOWARD STATIFICATION, A NECESSARY CORRECTION. In my opinion and it was also the opinion of Al Richardson the former article is the work of Jock Haston rewritten by Grant who would appear to be the sole author of the latter article.
It is the former article which gives rise to the incorrect assertion that Grant was a supporter of state capitalist theory. In fact the article does not embrace that theory while tending towards it but was clearly the starting point for Cliff as he acknowledges somewhat indirectly by making clear his debt to Haston in his autobiography. Given that Cliffs period of working directly with Haston was quite brief it seems more than possible that it was Hastons authorship of this idea that Cliff was acknowledging.
I note that Al Richardson went fuirther and argued that Haston derived the idea of state capitalism from his reading the literature of the SPGB and transmitted that to Cliff in turn. Although i suspect Al over played that particular idea it seems very likely to me that the older idea of state socialism did play some role in the thiking of Haston. Which would be highly unlikely with either Cliff or Grant who let us remember originated outside this country.
Van Gelderan is it should be noted by no means unique in attributing the idea of state capitalism to Grant not Haston. Indeed the former members of the RCP seem to have been divided as to opinion on this question. But I find the opinion of Duncan Hallas, a supporter of Hastons majority and then a leader of the Socialist Review group most convincing and he was of the opinion that Haston was the originator. As the author of the only important documents by the state capitalist minority not written by Cliff I would suggest his testimoney is of more value than that of say Van Gelderan who despite being a supporter of the majority was about to capitulate to Healy and had a record of slandering Grants mentor Raff Lee.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
neprimerimye said:
I can only quote what van Gelderen said when he spoke on this. He had a flat in London that the Cliff/Glucksteins came to live in. He expected them to only stay days, but instead they more or less invited themselves to stay months, so they shared the flat and regularly discussed RCP debates.
According to van Gelderen, Cliff began to be obsessed by Grant raising issues in support of State Capitalism in RCP meetings, so he went off to the British Library every day to research a refutation. After some weeks he came back and said that Grant was right and the USSR was state cap after all, but according to van Gelderen, Grant had moved on and dismissed the state cap theory. Cliff continued to work on converting his research into his document on state capitalism.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
Fisher_Gate said:
Fair enough that is one persons opinion and testimony. But as i've pointed out opinion amongst former RCP majorityites, most now dead of course, is divded. The written evidence however suggests that the idea came from Haston and was originally authoered by him with grant completing the document I refred to earlier. Materials in the Internal Bulletin of the RCP in this period also suggests that concept was that of Haston.
Actually the interlinked discussions within the RCP on state capitalism and nationalisation in Britain are of a very high standard. Except for the contributions of the pro-FI faction which are utter tosh. If you like I can easily list the most relevant documents.
Nigel Irritable
Five, Ten, Fifteen Years
Fisher_Gate said:
In fact the argument that the leadership of the RCP (basically Haston and Grant by that stage) had flirted to some degree or other with some form of theory of state capitalism before rejecting it is a fairly old one. It has been mentioned before both in Richardson and Bornstein's work and in at least one Socialist Party pamphlet.
This is hardly that surprising. While the leaders of the Fourth International, Mandel, Pablo et al were floundering about coming up with idiocy after idiocy so as to avoid reassessing Trotsky's predictions, the RCP leadership were trying to assess the world as it was. It's only an "admission" or a "dig" to say that Grant and Haston looked at state capitalism as a theoretical explanation if you think that important theories spring fully grown from the heads of great men. The point is that:
a) Grant did not just apply his mind to the problem of Stalinist expansion and come up instantly with the theory of Proletarian Bonapartism or deformed workers states. It was the end product of process of thought and argument.
b) Some of his best work and biggest contributions were in response to mistaken ideas he had himself dallied with.
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
Nigel Irritable said:
Just a small point here Nigel. The RCP's leadrship at that point cannot be reduiced to haston and grant. in fact the leade4rship team which Haston had built was fully intact at the time of the discussions in the organisation on Eastern europe and nationalisation. Other than Raff Lee, who had returned to South Africa, and Andrew Scott, who dropped out around 1943 for reasons unknown the entire leading layer of the WIL was in place and had been augmented by D D Harber and latterly Tony Cliff. The only losses being Healy and his fellow jokers.
Tokyo said:
Now deceased but T Dan Smith was a former RCP member he was later jailed in connection with the Poulson scadal. Poulson was an architect who won many council contracts in the 60's and 70's through bribery and corruption. Left a legacy of concrete. I knew a few old RCP ers still around on Tyneside in the early 90's I doubt there is any one around today.
Fisher_Gate
Active Member
Tokyo said:
Is Bill Hunter still alive?
Geoff Collier
Active Member
BarryB said:
Don't forget Chanie Rosenberg
geoff
neprimerimye
Well-Known Member
BarryB said:
Good people.
Anyhow George for one is of the opinion that it was Grant that originated the ideas on the statification of capital that Cliff built on. Sam Levy held it was Haston. They are the only dformer RCPers I have personally asked for their views on this question.
Given that opinion was and is split on the question I feel that we have to defer to the written record which is suggestive that Haston was the major originator.
Geoff Collier
Active Member
Geoff Collier said:
Nor, as I did, Frank Henderson
