Ted Grant joins Trotsky
Good bye and good riddance to former leader of Militant, Ted Grant, one of the troika of unpleasant men - along with Gerry Healey and Tony Cliff - who competed to run British Trotskyism following the 1947 split in the Revolutionary Communist Party.
Mr Grant helped contribute to the madness that overwhelmed Labour in the early '80s and allowed Maggie Thatcher to trash Britain, encouraged the suicide of local government in Liverpool later in the same decade, and ensured the Labour Party's youth section was a wholly owned subsidiary of another party, the Revolutionary Socialist League, for over 20 years.
His followers combined moronic politics based on unacheivable "transitional demands" drawn from the teachings of Russian Civil War mass-murderer Leon Trotsky with day to day thuggery designed to intimidate democratic socialists out of the Labour Party.
Trots differ from Stalinists only in their whinging about having come out on the losing side in the internal politics of the 1920s CPSU - they actually invented the "Red Terror" tactics that Stalin perfected on an industrial scale. Like Stalinists, Militant and other Trots support violent revolution, dictatorship of the proletariat, a vanguard party and democratic centralism. Unlike Stalinists, they are also politically dishonest and seek to enter into and take over democratic socialist parties.
If there is a hell, I hope there is a special circle in it where Ted can join Leon, Tony, Gerry et al in an eternity of selling newspapers to each other.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 7:26 pm
17 Comments:
Pleasant as ever. I despise militant; but I notice you don't mention the fact that they built masses of social housing and refused to do what the Thatcher Government wanted.
7:02 am, July 23, 2006
Careful, Adele. A comparison of some of your your left-leaning comments here with some of your more right-leaning contributions to your own weblog suggests that you may be in severe danger of contracting "Diane Portillo disease".
7:59 am, July 23, 2006
allowed Maggie Thatcher to trash Britain, encouraged the suicide of local government in Liverpool later in the same decade
Margaret Thatcher won an election on a massive tide of public support in 1979 following a lacklustre and incompetent right-wing Labour administration. What role did three men and a dog play in this?
How did Liverpool City Council commit suicide? It was alive and well and run by the Lib Dems last time I checked its website.
9:54 am, July 23, 2006
Sorry, but a man just died.
You can politically disagree with someone as long as you want, but I think when someone dies, a minimum decorum should be kept
2:07 pm, July 23, 2006
I encouraged to see Luke maintaining the Quaker values of his upbringing.
No chance he's feeling bitter and twisted, eh?
3:19 pm, July 23, 2006
I suppose that when Vanessa Redgrave (the first celebrity trot that comes through my mind) dies, he'll organize an all night celebration in Hackney theaters! :wink:
4:19 pm, July 23, 2006
How disgraceful, the man has just died you obviously have no respect for anyone.
and regardless whether or not you agreed with his politics, he reached thousands of people in his lifetime and encouraged them to engage in labour surely that is what labour should be doing even now reaching out to people??
encouraging them?
no wonder we have a decline in membership and participation with people like you around.
6:09 pm, July 23, 2006
Anonymous - I'd have a bit more respect for you if you told me who you were.
Um, as for Diane I believe in the ability of the public sector to deliver services and hence would never send my kids to private school.
I don't have right wing views. I believe in srongly in labour in power. I believe in supporting democracy.
I also believe many of the views expressed on this blog are right wing beyond blairite so in comparison I suppose you could say I express left wing views.
6:21 pm, July 23, 2006
Marshajane, I have lots of respect for most people, but not for people who don't believe in parliamentary democracy and would in the unlikely event there ever was a revolution in this country, have me and other democratic socialists killed.
Adele, I think the contradiction anonymous has spotted is that here you are offering a plea in mitigation of Militant yet your own blog is headed by Neil Kinnock's superb 1985 Conference Speech calling for their expulsion from the Labour Party and citing their mismanagement of Liverpool City Council?
By the way what's your basis for saying that I'm to the right of Blairite? Would that be because I support the union link, an elected Lords, and electoral reform, and opposed publicly as a PPC foundation hospitals and top-up tuition fees - and am deeply skeptical about the "choice" agenda in public services. I assume it's because of my views on foreign policy but I don't see being in favour of intervention by the West to bring about democracy in the Middle East as a "rightwing" position.
7:52 pm, July 23, 2006
Can someone explain the Quaker reference? I was brought up as an atheist - though went to a Methodist school.
7:53 pm, July 23, 2006
Well I'm sorry if there was a contradiction. Militant were ruining the labour party and had to stopped. However, considering there is a lack of social housing in most of our major cities, perhaps that is one thing that we could learn from them.
On why I think you are right wing, well on your list of things you support:
The USA - not good when they have one of the scariest foreign policies in the world.
The State of Israel - being partisan is not good. Don't forget how many civilians they have killed. Better would be to say you support a democratic 2 state solution where Israelis and Palestinians live side by side.
The liberation of Iraq - yes I support its liberation; but not bombing the hell out of it.
But good on you for opposing top up fees and the choice agenda.
10:45 pm, July 23, 2006
"[I] opposed publicly as a PPC foundation hospitals and top-up tuition fees - and am deeply skeptical about the "choice" agenda in public services."
Who are you and what have you done with the real Luke Akehurst?
11:46 pm, July 23, 2006
yeah, well done on the tuition fees call. you just went up in my estimations.
I agree with you about Militant too, but then someone accused me of being in socilist action a coupla months ago, and I've been raving ever since.
I also think you are right wing beyond blairite, but not because of your foreign policy view (though I disagree to a degree there).
the voracious, uncomprimising and factionalistic approach to attacking the moderate left is generally what gives me that impression. don't you think it a bit dodgy to go on about;
1)people like charles clarke mouthing off
2)rigid party discipline
when you have just admitted your own dissent on fundamental blairite bedrocks? not that I condemn that at all, by the way!
12:24 am, July 24, 2006
You're pretty sick, aren't you mate?
4:15 pm, July 24, 2006
Can someone explain the Quaker reference? I was brought up as an atheist - though went to a Methodist school.
It's explained in detail on your real website: http://www.lukeakehurstsblog.blogspot.com
4:28 pm, July 24, 2006
Ted Grant did more for socialism in each year of his life than you will ever do. His theories have been borne out by history unlike the right wing Fabians who said that capitalism would never return to slump and mass unemployment. Please read 'Will there be a slump' by Ted Grant before you post malicious uninformed drivel.
10:57 pm, July 25, 2006
His theories have been borne out by history? When can we expect a revolution then?
10:28 am, July 26, 2006
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