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Ted Grant Collected Writings Vol. 3: The Aftermath (1945-46)

Core Argument

This volume collects Ted Grant's writings from the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, a period he identified as a watershed in world history and within the Trotskyist movement. The central thesis is that the Allied victory produced a historically novel situation—one Trotsky had not foreseen—in which capitalism, Stalinism, and reformism were strengthened for an entire period, rather than collapsing as the Fourth International's leadership had mechanically predicted. Grant argues that the revolutionary wave that followed the war was systematically derailed by Stalinist and Social Democratic betrayals, producing not socialist revolution but unstable bourgeois democratic regimes across Western Europe—what he terms a "counter-revolution in democratic form."

The book sets out to prove that only a Marxist method capable of analysing concrete conditions, rather than enforcing preconceived notions, could grasp this new conjuncture. Grant polemicises relentlessly against the International Secretariat, James Cannon, and the faction around Gerry Healy, who clung to the 1938 perspective of imminent capitalist collapse and revolutionary victory. He demonstrates that the post-war economic recovery, the strengthening of reformist illusions, and the Labour government's temporary stabilisation of British capitalism required a fundamental strategic reorientation—including the rejection of entryism into the Labour Party, which Healy and the International demanded. The volume insists that the task of revolutionary Marxists is not to mechanically repeat slogans from a previous period but to study the living world in all its contradictions.

Overview

The volume is divided into three sections. The first covers international developments, substantiating Grant's earlier analysis of the changed relationship of forces in Europe. Grant exposes the imperialist machinations behind the founding of the United Nations, which he describes, quoting Lenin, as a "thieves' kitchen" designed to carve up the world under a cloak of democracy. He upholds international solidarity with German workers against the chauvinist chorus, blaming the German capitalists and all imperialist powers for the war. The Nuremberg trials are treated as a key site of imperialist hypocrisy—the Allies using the trials to obscure their pre-war support for Hitler—and as an opportunity for the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) to campaign against Stalin's slanders of Trotsky. Grant and the RCP challenged Soviet prosecutors to reproduce the fabricated evidence from the Moscow show trials, a campaign that reached layers of the British Communist Party ranks but was refused support by the American SWP under Cannon.

The second section covers Britain, where Labour's 1945 election victory opened a new period. Grant realised that post-war recovery, though still in its infancy, would strengthen reformism and Attlee's Labour, making entryism unfavourable. This is contrasted with the RCP Minority around Gerry Healy, backed by the Fourth International, who demanded dissolution into Labour. Grant's revised British Perspectives for 1946 are presented as evidence of his capacity to adjust strategy to objective conditions. The Neath by-election campaign of 1945 is held up as a model of bold open work by a small communist force, where the RCP won 1,781 votes against a bitter slander campaign.

The third section contains internal debates on entryism, democratic centralism, Stalinism, centrism, and economic perspectives. Grant polemicises against the mechanical and dishonest methods of the Fourth International leadership and Healy's Minority, contrasting them with his patient, scientific approach. The theoretical grounding is consistently Trotskyist: Grant draws on the theory of permanent revolution, the analysis of the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state, and the critique of centrism as a transient phenomenon that cannot survive a serious revolutionary crisis. He defends the concept of "counter-revolution in democratic form" against Pierre Frank's insistence that all post-war European regimes were Bonapartist, arguing that the bourgeoisie employs a flexible repertoire of counter-revolutionary methods determined by the concrete relation of class forces.

Chapter Guide

  1. Production — Grant argues that the Labour government's call for "increased production" is a class weapon to intensify exploitation, not improve living standards.
  2. Preface — Situates the volume within the deepening crisis of world capitalism since 2008 and argues Grant grasped the post-war shift while the Fourth International leadership clung mechanically to old prophecies.
  3. Introduction — Grant concludes the revolutionary wave would be derailed by the absence of mass Trotskyist parties, predicting a period of "Kerenskyism or Popular Frontism."
  4. 1945 – Arms and the Class — The Allied powers disarm mass partisan movements while arming reactionary elements, preparing for class war.
  5. Why the German People Flee From the Red Army — German masses flee not as a verdict on socialism but on Stalin's betrayal of it.
  6. World TUC – Their Masters' Voice — The World Trade Union Conference is a transmission belt for imperialist policy, not workers' interests.
  7. Allied Bombing Policy — Saturation bombing is a calculated instrument of imperialist strategy to destroy industrial competitors and revolutionary potential.
  8. Reaction in Greece — The Varkiza agreement is a device for counter-revolutionary restoration and white terror against the left.
  9. May Day: International Workers' Day — May Day's revolutionary internationalism has been betrayed by both Second and Third International leaderships.
  10. 'Peace' in Europe — The end of the European war is merely the prelude to a new phase of imperialist rivalry.
  11. Order of Lenin for US Millionaire — The award to Joseph Davies constitutes a deliberate insult to Lenin's legacy and a self-condemnation of Stalinism.
  12. 'Democracy' in Germany — Anglo-American imperialism reduces the German working class to semi-colonial servitude under the banner of 'democratisation'.
  13. Draft Resolution on the Far East and India — The imperialist war will trigger revolutions across Asia, but bourgeois democratic tasks can only be completed after the working class seizes power.
  14. New Thieves' Kitchen Formed — The United Nations is a direct successor to the League of Nations, a sham designed to fool the masses while great powers pursue imperialist interests.
  15. German CP Upholds Capitalists — The revived KPD under Stalinist direction acts as a counter-revolutionary force upholding capitalism in Germany.
  16. Allied Troops End 'Non-Frat' Order — The collapse of non-fraternisation is forced by mass violations, revealing the policy as a tool of class rule.
  17. Big Three Plot in Secret — The Potsdam Conference exemplifies the betrayal of working-class interests by all three Great Powers.
  18. Issued by the Central Committee of the RCP for Discussion in the Party — Genuine national freedom is impossible under capitalism; it must be integrated with socialist revolution.
  19. Potsdam — The conference is a sordid carve-up of continents conducted behind a veil of censorship.
  20. French Stalinists Back Reaction — The PCF abandons revolutionary internationalism for nationalist class collaboration.
  21. Communism or World Chaos — The atomic bomb represents a qualitative leap in destruction; only socialist revolution can prevent humanity's annihilation.
  22. Leon Trotsky — Trotsky's assassination is the logical culmination of a sixteen-year war between revolutionary internationalism and Stalinism.
  23. Trotsky's Contribution to Theory — Trotsky's theoretical legacy is indispensable for understanding the trajectory of the international workers' movement.
  24. Planning Ahead in Germany — Allied preparations for mass death in occupied Germany rival Nazi crimes in callousness.
  25. Stalin Falsifies Communist History — Stalin's Victory over Japan broadcast epitomises the degeneration from socialist internationalism into tsarist chauvinism.
  26. 'Peace' in the Far East — The end of the Pacific War represents a reconfiguration of imperialist rivalry, not genuine peace.
  27. The Thieves' Kitchen — The Five Power Conference is a conclave of robbers squabbling over the spoils of war.
        • — The Belsen Trial exposes the inherent barbarism of capitalism itself, not merely Nazi aberrations.
  29. Statement of the Political Bureau on the Coming Catastrophe — The Allies impose deliberate famine on the German people as a calculated act of imperialist policy.
        • — A polemic against the German IKD's theory of 'democratic' revolution, which represents a capitulation to bourgeois democracy.
  31. Stalinism responsible — Stalin's control over Poland and Czechoslovakia pursues national oppression rather than international socialist solidarity.
  32. Political Bureau Statement on Relief in Europe — The organised labour movement must take the lead in demanding relief for starving Europe.
  33. Big Five Farce — The Five Power Conference exposes the irreconcilable aims of the Allied victors.
  34. Long Live the Russian Revolution: War Awakens Russian Masses — The October Revolution remains the source of Soviet strength, but the masses now demand workers' democracy.
  35. Power Politics and the Atomic Bomb — The bomb has not altered the fundamental drivers of war, which lie in capitalist contradictions.
  36. French Elections — The 1945 election results represent a revolutionary verdict against capitalism, betrayed by Stalinist leadership.
  37. The Trial of the Nazis — Nuremberg is a hypocritical spectacle designed to deflect anger from the capitalist system.
        • — Colonial repression in Indonesia and Indochina employs the same brutal methods the Allies condemned in Nazi-occupied Europe.
        • — The Anglo-American loan agreement represents the formal subordination of British imperialism to American capital.
  40. Nuremberg Exposes Moscow Trials Frame-up — Nuremberg inadvertently provides the definitive refutation of the Moscow Trials.
  41. Press Silent on Moscow Nuremberg Link-up — The press maintains a conspiracy of silence about Vyshinsky's role in both the Moscow Trials and Nuremberg.
  42. UNO Thieves Kitchen — The United Nations is a mechanism for the victorious imperialist powers to carve up spheres of influence.
    1. To Give Representation to Natalia Trotsky 2. To Produce Evidence of Moscow Trials — A formal petition demanding Hess be interrogated about alleged meetings with Trotsky.
  44. Entire Press Silent on Nuremberg – Stalinist Frame-ups Exposed — The complete silence of Nuremberg on Trotsky-Nazi collaboration proves the Moscow Trials were frame-ups.
  45. Nuremberg: Stalin – Not Trotsky – Made Deal With Hitler! — Hess's defence introduces evidence of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, inverting the Moscow Trials' accusations.
  46. Imperialists prepare — The post-war period is a tense interregnum before a planned third world war.
  47. Anti-strike legislation — Truman's anti-strike legislation is a direct assault on the American working class.
  48. Pacific Experiment — The impending atomic test is a dress rehearsal for species suicide.
  49. Nuremberg and You – A Reply to Ivor Montague — Nuremberg's exhaustive investigation produced no evidence for the Moscow Trials' central allegation.
  50. Stalin Liquidates Two Republics — The deportation of entire nationalities is an act of unmitigated barbarism comparable to Nazi excesses.
  51. Bring These Witnesses – They Are Still Alive — The failure to call surviving Moscow Trial witnesses at Nuremberg proves the trials were frame-ups.
        • — Both world wars and Nazism are the direct result of capitalist rivalries, not collective German guilt.
  53. Salute the Spanish Working Class — The Spanish working class was defeated by political treachery, not Franco's military superiority.
        • — A polemic against Pierre Frank's schematic equation of all Western European regimes with Bonapartism.
  55. Economic basis and political superstructure — The political character of a regime is determined by the relations between classes, not mechanically by the economic base.
  56. Counter-revolution in a democratic form — A defence of the concept against Pierre Frank's dismissal, drawing on Weimar Germany and post-war Italy.
  57. Differing regimes in capitalist society — A Marxist taxonomy distinguishing Bonapartism, fascism, and bourgeois democracy.
  58. Prognosis in the light of events — A polemic against Frank's insistence on unbroken Bonapartism in post-war Europe.
  59. Was the Kerensky regime 'Bonapartist'? — Frank misreads Lenin and Trotsky by converting conditional observations about elements of Bonapartism into a rigid definition.
  60. Wolves Over Italy — The peace terms imposed on Italy are a vindictive imperialist settlement betraying Allied promises.
  61. New Purges in Russia — Post-war purges express class struggle within a degenerated workers' state.
  62. Paris Brawl is Ended — The Paris Conference exposes the fraud of post-war peacemaking.
  63. Fifty per cent vote for workers' parties — The Berlin election proves the German proletariat's enduring hold on socialist traditions.
  64. Allies modify policy — Allied policy toward Germany is reshaped by intensifying rivalry between Anglo-American imperialism and Stalinism.
  65. Thorez on home policy — Thorez's policy represents a complete betrayal of Marxism-Leninism.
  66. Marxist attitude to the state — The working class cannot simply seize the existing state machinery; it must smash it.
  67. Why We Contest This Election — The RCP's decision to contest the Neath by-election poses the fundamental question of working-class strategy.
  68. Post-War Promises — Post-war promises are a deliberate deception repeating the betrayal of 1918.
  69. Post-War Reality — British capitalism's imperial foundations have been fatally undermined, rendering social reform a hollow illusion.
  70. Our Programme for Power — A revolutionary socialist programme demanding nationalisation without compensation and workers' control.
  71. Pollitt Prepares for Right Turn — Pollitt's endorsement of Yalta represents a betrayal of fundamental Marxist principles.
  72. Solidarity with the German workers – workers of all lands unite! — A call for international working-class solidarity against chauvinist propaganda.
  73. The Revolutionary Communist Policy — A concrete outline of immediate measures a revolutionary communist government would enact.
  74. Trotskyism Lays Roots in Wales — The Neath by-election result is a landmark for revolutionary socialism in Britain.
  75. Character of the election meetings — The RCP's open, democratic meetings contrasted sharply with Labour's bureaucratic handling.
  76. The attitude of the ILP — The ILP leadership's refusal to support the anti-war candidate revealed its bankruptcy.
  77. Alun Thomas' case — The Communist Party's debate speech equates Trotskyism with fascism and calls for its elimination.
  78. Comrade Haston's case — Haston demolishes the CPGB's record using its own history and leaders' statements as evidence.
  79. Labour's

Chapters

183 chapters