Peter Taaffe
Encyclopedia
SPEW
SPEW may refer to:*Socialist Party , a Trotskyist party active in England and Wales*Spam Prevention Early Warning System, an anonymous service*Spew, a short story by Neal Stephenson published in the anthology Hackers...
and member of the International Executive Committee of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI), which claims sections in over 35 countries around the world.
Taaffe was founding editor of the Marxist Militant newspaper in 1964, and became known as a leader of the Militant Tendency
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...
. Taaffe was expelled from the Labour Party in 1983, along with other members of the Militant editorial board, Ted Grant
Ted Grant
Edward "Ted" Grant , 9 July 1913 in Germiston, South Africa – 20 July 2006 in London) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain...
, Keith Dickinson, Lynn Walsh
Lynn Walsh
Lynn Walsh is a leading figure of the Socialist Party of England and Wales, the English and Welsh part of the Committee for a Workers International, and editor of the Socialist Party's monthly magazine, Socialism Today.-Biography:...
and Clare Doyle.
Taaffe was influential in the policy decisions of Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Joe Anderson.-Domain:...
of 1983-87, in the formation of the Militant Tendency's policy in relation to the Poll Tax
Poll tax
A poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
in 1988-1991, and the Militant Tendency's 'open turn' from the Labour Party in the late 1980s, becoming general secretary of the Socialist Party in 1997.
Background
Taaffe is from a working-class background in Birkenhead, on the Wirral peninsula in Cheshire (now part of MerseysideMerseyside
Merseyside is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 1,365,900. It encompasses the metropolitan area centred on both banks of the lower reaches of the Mersey Estuary, and comprises five metropolitan boroughs: Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton, Wirral, and the city of Liverpool...
). He first joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is an anti-nuclear organisation that advocates unilateral nuclear disarmament by the United Kingdom, international nuclear disarmament and tighter international arms regulation through agreements such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty...
, before joining the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
where he was attracted to the radical element in the Liverpool Labour Party. In an interview with the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘The Party’s Over’, Taaffe gave a few biographical details:
In Liverpool, the militant tradition to which Taaffe refers was can be traced to a founder member of the Communist Party (Albert Houghton) who had "long battled with the Stalinists" forming a basis for Trotskyism in Liverpool before the Second World War.
"I came into contact with Socialist Fight in 1960" writes Taaffe. Socialist Fight was the newspaper of a small group of mainly (but not entirely) industrial militants in Liverpool going by the name of the Revolutionary Socialist League
Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1957)
The Revolutionary Socialist League was a Trotskyist group in Britain which existed from 1956 to 1964.-Formation:After the dissolution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Ted Grant and his supporters were expelled from the RCP's successor The Club in 1950 and formed the International Socialist...
(RSL), and led by Jimmy Deane
Jimmy Deane
Jimmy Deane was a British Trotskyist who played a significant role in building the Revolutionary Socialist League...
and Ted Grant
Ted Grant
Edward "Ted" Grant , 9 July 1913 in Germiston, South Africa – 20 July 2006 in London) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain...
.
Taaffe considered the ideas they defended to be significant. He "does not subscribe to the view that the struggles of small groupings are of no historical significance." This small group supported the ideas of Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, who had opposed the rise of the Stalin-led elite in the Soviet Union and its theory of "socialism in one country", and who proposed that genuine Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, followed by Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, had always argued that only the working class in the advanced capitalist countries could lead a revolution to establish socialism. These were the ideas to which Taaffe subscribed.
Taaffe argues that "There is a long tradition going right back to the 1930s and Trotsky himself, of Trotskyist groups and organisations which endeavoured to find a base within the labour movement and working class." When Taaffe joined this group, "Ted Grant and the Deanes (Jimmy
Jimmy Deane
Jimmy Deane was a British Trotskyist who played a significant role in building the Revolutionary Socialist League...
, Gertie, Brian and Arthur), had been involved in the Trotskyist movement for decades."
This was at the time of the Clydeside apprentices’ strike of 1960. This strike spread to Merseyside and elsewhere, involving "upwards of 100,000" young apprentices, and radicalised new layers of youth, some of whom came into the orbit of Trotskyism (Taaffe cites Ted Mooney, Terry Harrison, Tony Mulhearn and others.)
Ted Grant, with Jock Haston and others, had played an essential role in re-orienting the followers of the ideas of Trotsky at the end of the Second World War, in the period of relative prosperity and stability which opened up. In the 1950s Grant had been editor of Socialist Fight, but the relatively affluent period had been difficult and membership was continuing to fall. By 1964 Socialist Fight had ceased publication.
Peter Taaffe and the 'Militant' newspaper
In 1964, Taaffe writes that the "youth supporters of Militant" drew on their experiences gained during the 1960 Clydeside apprentices’ strike in "seeking to organise and mobilise the LiverpoolLiverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
apprentices. Ted Mooney and I played leading roles, together with Harry Dowling and Dave Galashan, in organising an apprentices' strike in one factory, English Electric, on the East Lancashire Road." About 20,000 of the 70,000 engineering apprentices downed tools in total. By this time the second issue of the Militant had come out.
Earlier in 1964, Ted Grant, Liverpudlians Jimmy Deane (who was National Secretary) and Keith Dickenson, Ellis Hillman, John Smith and others on the executive of the RSL decided to launch the Militant newspaper "without complete unanimity" Taaffe writes.
Peter Taaffe, who lived in Liverpool at that time, was appointed editor, and Roger Protz
Roger Protz
Roger Protz is a British writer, journalist and campaigner. He was an early member of the Campaign for Real Ale in 1971, and has written several books on beer and pubs...
, who lived in London where the paper was to be produced, and who had experience working on a magazine, was appointed technical editor. A business editor (S Mani) and sub editors were appointed. "I was elected as the first editor of Militant in 1964," writes Taaffe, "and the only full-timer in 1965, with Keith Dickinson working with me as an invaluable unpaid 'part-timer' for the paper from 1965." http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/2006/450/mp9.htm
Taaffe's task was to change the whole approach of this small group towards the working class – to speak in the language of the "Labour and trade union movement".
"Drive Out the Tories" was the headline of the first issue of the Militant, with an article written by the business editor, S. Mani. Below the Militant logo were the words "For Youth and Labour". Inside, above the Editorial, was printed: "Militant. Editor: Peter Taaffe (Walton Young Socialists). All correspondence to the business manager: S. Mani". The addition of the "Walton Young Socialists" indicated the significance with which Peter Taaffe and the Militant viewed both young socialists themselves, and their organisation. With Peter Taaffe in Liverpool, Protz, Keith Dickinson, Ted Grant and others did most of the work on the first few issues.
In 1965 Taaffe was able to move to London, and was immediately faced with the loss of both Jimmy Deane as national secretary and Roger Protz as technical editor of Militant. He became full time national secretary as well as editor of the Militant, despite a serious shortage of money: "I was compelled first of all to sleep on the floor of a supporter in Balham... once or twice spending sleepless nights in the entrances of subways". Eventually, the group became known by the name of the paper, and was either referred to as "Militant" or the "Militant Tendency
Militant Tendency
The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...
".
Many of Peter Taaffe's major signed articles in Militant during the first few years were on international topics: the Congo, Dominica, Latin America, Vietnam, Rhodesia, China, bearing witness to Taaffe's interest in international affairs. In Issue 16, in May 1966, perhaps to coincide with the international working class celebrations on May Day, Taaffe's article led the front page with the banner headline 'Internationalism the Only Road'.
In September 1965, Militant issue no.9 ran a major front page article by Taaffe under the banner headline: "Nationalise the 400 Monopolies". This was the first instance of Militant's distinctive demand by which it was clearly identified within the Labour and Trade union movement - the demand for the nationalisation of usually a specific number of multinational companies, which were said to control 80 percent or more of the economy, under workers' control and management, and the establishment of a socialist plan of production. Demands of this nature in the Militant are considered 'transitional demand
Transitional demand
In Marxist theory, a transitional demand either is a partial realisation of a maximum demand after revolution or an agitational demand made by a socialist organisation with the aim of linking the current situation to progress towards their goal of a socialist society.-Development of transitional...
s', following the tradition established by Leon Trotsky and his followers. A Militant resolution of this form was passed at Labour Party national conference in 1972 by "3.5 million [block] votes to less than 2.5 million". The Rise of Militant
Expulsion from the Labour Party
In the 1980s, after a period of growth in the 1970s, the Militant Tendency became the most prominent and influential Trotskyist organisation in Britain. Its successes and set backs are outlined in two substantial books by Peter Taaffe: The Rise of Militant and Liverpool - A City That Dared to Fight (with Tony MulhearnTony Mulhearn
Anthony Mulhearn is a British political campaigner known for being a prominent member of the Socialist Party and its predecessor, the Militant tendency...
).
The growth of Militant resulted from various factors, including its decision to remain rooted in the Labour Party, its leadership of the struggle of Liverpool City Council in 1983 - 1987, its prominence in the trade unions such as the civil servants union CPSA, where Militant supporter John Macreadie
John Macreadie
John Macreadie was a Scottish trade unionist and a longstanding supporter of the Militant tendency.- Early life and career:...
won the General Secretary's position (only to have it overturned) and its widespread support within the Labour Party, particularly amongst the Labour Party youth section, the Labour Party Young Socialists
Labour Party Young Socialists
The Labour Party Young Socialists was the name of the youth section of the British Labour Party from 1965 until 1993. The LPYS was the most successful of the youth sections of the Labour Party in the post war period, at one point having nearly 600 branches and attendances at its national...
.
During this period, the Labour Party under Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
and especially Neil Kinnock
Neil Kinnock
Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...
moved to purge Militant from the party. In 1983, Peter Taaffe, Ted Grant, Keith Dickinson, Lynn Walsh
Lynn Walsh
Lynn Walsh is a leading figure of the Socialist Party of England and Wales, the English and Welsh part of the Committee for a Workers International, and editor of the Socialist Party's monthly magazine, Socialism Today.-Biography:...
and Clare Doyle, were expelled from the Labour Party, in an expulsion of the editorial board of Militant (the leading members of the Militant Tendency).
A year later, speaking at the Wembley Conference Centre to several thousand supporters celebrating 20 years of the Militant, Taaffe highlighted the media attention now fixed on the Militant. Speaking about a "marvellous article" in the Daily Mirror, by now under the ownership of Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
, he said:
Taaffe reports on a GCE A level examination question, "'Discuss the ideas of the Militant Tendency' - we hope there'll be many people who took that paper sitting in the audience today". His speech contrasted on the one hand the determination showed by the miners
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...
in the UK miners' strike of 1984–1985, and the Liverpool victory of the previous year under the leadership of the Militant Tendency, and on the other the "five years of defeats" inflicted on workers as a result of poor Labour and trade union leadership.
At Labour Party conference in 1985, the fury of Kinnock’s attack on the Militant-led Liverpool City council was shocking to many on the left. Eric Heffer
Eric Heffer
Eric Samuel Heffer was a British socialist politician. He was Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool Walton from 1964 until his death. His working-class background and consciousness fed in to his left-wing politics, but to an extent disguised the depth of his knowledge: with 12,000 books in...
MP walked off the stage during Kinnock's speech, and later commented "Mr Kinnock's attack on the Militant-led Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council
Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. It consists of 90 councillors, three for each of the city's 30 wards. The council is currently controlled by the Labour Party and is led by Joe Anderson.-Domain:...
had shocked him”.http://century.guardian.co.uk/1980-1989/Story/0,6051,108249,00.html
In Liverpool: A City that dared to fight
written by Taaffe and Tony Mulhearn in 1987, Taaffe characterised Neil Kinnock in this way: “The bourgeois recognized early that Kinnock’s role in attacking Liverpool and the miners was an attempt to sanitise the Labour Party, ridding it of all that ‘socialist nonsense.’” Taaffe went on to predict “an enormous recoil towards the left” within the Labour Party. But this prognosis was overtaken by the profound changes which took place in the Labour Party.
Decisive moves against the Labour Party Young Socialists
Labour Party Young Socialists
The Labour Party Young Socialists was the name of the youth section of the British Labour Party from 1965 until 1993. The LPYS was the most successful of the youth sections of the Labour Party in the post war period, at one point having nearly 600 branches and attendances at its national...
after the 1986 Labour Party conference decision to re-organise the LPYS, had begun to undermine Militant’s vital base there, and marked the beginnings of the "long-term decline" in Labour's membership
which the left attributed to embittered workers tearing up their party cards. Bob Parry, the [Liverpool] Riverside MP, denounced Kinnock as the "biggest class traitor since Ramsey MacDonald" according to Taaffe.
In 1988, 7000 attended a Militant rally in the Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace
Alexandra Palace is a building in North London, England. It stands in Alexandra Park, in an area between Hornsey, Muswell Hill and Wood Green...
, and Peter Taaffe began assessing with the Scottish Militant members the prospects of battle around the government's Community Charge (Poll Tax) legislation. But for the forces Taaffe and the leadership of the Militant had rallied, the prospects for the Militant in the Labour Party were dismal. The re-election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1983 and 1987, the defeats of the miners in 1985, of the print workers in 1986-7, and of the Liverpool City Council in 1987, and the ferocious witchhunt of the Militant supporters significantly reduced working class militancy in the period after 1987, which was reflected in the falling membership of the Labour Party, and the corresponding fall in support which the Militant received in the Labour Party.
In fact it was Grant who had argued in Problems Of Entrism (1959) http://marxist.net/openturn/historic/index.html and reprinted in great secrecy by the Militant in 1973 with an introduction by Peter Taaffe, that it was correct to leave the Labour Party under certain circumstances, as indeed the British Trotskyists who were in the Labour Party before the Second World War had done.
Taaffe's 1973 Introduction to this document says it is "rightly considered as a key document of the tendency". Grant's words encapsulated the conclusion that was being gradually drawn by the members and leadership of the Militant as a result of the changes in the Labour Party in the 1980s – too slowly, Taaffe later argued. “Militant was slow to draw all the necessary conclusions from these developments”
The Liverpool struggle 1983 - 87
In the four year Liverpool struggle, Taaffe was closely involved with developments, discussing with close friends and leading Liverpool Militant supporters, such as the former print worker Tony MulhearnTony Mulhearn
Anthony Mulhearn is a British political campaigner known for being a prominent member of the Socialist Party and its predecessor, the Militant tendency...
. Mulhearn co-authored with Taaffe the 500 page book Liverpool - A city that dared to fight. He was President of the Liverpool District Labour Party during these events, in which the Liverpool City Council declared it was "Better to break the law than break the poor", agreed an illegal budget, and built 4,800 houses and bungalows, and improved 7,400 houses and flats (amongst other works), before the 47 councillors were surcharged and removed from office http://www.liverpool47.org/.
Their opponents however claimed that Liverpool was in chaos. At the 1985 Labour Party conference Labour leader Neil Kinnock became famous for his impassioned denunciation of the Labour-led Liverpool City Council. The speech had many airings on television, and was still topical when it was replayed by the Labour Party in its party political broadcast during the 1987 general election campaign. Commentators expressed great praise of the speech in programmes, articles and columns throughout the media. In the 1987 election, the Labour Party was again defeated in a landslide, the Conservative's overwhelming majority reduced slightly from 143 to 102.
Taaffe argues that until 1986 the Militant still had widespread support amongst the soft left in the Labour Party: "On 2 January 1986 even David Blunkett
David Blunkett
David Blunkett is a British Labour Party politician and the Member of Parliament for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, having represented Sheffield Brightside from 1987 to 2010...
warned Kinnock that he could not expect the support of the 'soft left of the Labour Party if he embarks on a purge of the Militant Tendency after the current inquiry into the Liverpool District Party'." Blunkett continued:
Taaffe comments "However, he did not heed his own advice once the Inquiry had met." Liverpool - A City That Dared to Fight p358.
Taaffe wanted to take the Liverpool battle towards a split with the Labour Party at that stage. In the interview for the BBC Radio 4 programme ‘The Party’s Over’ Taaffe makes the following remarks:
The Liverpool District Labour Party, which Taaffe says in the same interview had a very large attendance of 700, was suspended by the Labour Party in 1986. Thus Taaffe here indicates that he argued for defying the ban, which would have been in all essentials a split from the Labour Party.
The Poll Tax 1989 - 1991
At an April 1988 “one-day conference with delegates from every area of Scotland where Militant had supporters and influence” in Glasgow, which was attended by "Peter Taaffe, Militant's National Leader, and introduced by Bob Wylie, then Militant's leader in Scotland", Tommy SheridanTommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan is a Scottish socialist politician. He has had various prominent roles within the socialist movement in Scotland and is currently one of two co-convenors of the left-wing Scottish political party Solidarity....
writes: "The conference was indeed fateful." This conference decided to adopt the tactic of "mass non-payment" of the Poll Tax, and the "building of a Scottish-wide network of local anti-poll tax unions and regional federations" - a strategy which was clearly in tune with large swathes of the population. In fact Prime Minister John Major
John Major
Sir John Major, is a British Conservative politician, who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1990–1997...
subsequently reported that 17.5 million people had either not paid or were in serious arrears just before abolishing it.
Anti Poll Tax Unions were set up around the country, and brought together on an all-Scotland and then an all-Britain basis. These bodies, which brought Tommy Sheridan to prominence and are described in detail in Taaffe’s 'The Rise of Militant', had to be built outside, and essentially in opposition to the Labour Party, which was implementing the Poll Tax at local level, and expelling Militant supporters, such as Militant supporting Labour MP Terry Fields
Terry Fields
Terence Fields was a British trades unionist and Labour Member of Parliament for Liverpool Broadgreen. He was a supporter of the Militant tendency.-Early life:...
who refused to pay the Tax.
During this period of mass struggles the Militant had played to a wide audience. The Liverpool struggle and the Poll Tax struggle of 1989 - 1991 were significant working class struggles. In 1984 the Liverpool struggle had forced the British government into a temporary retreat, causing apoplexy in some of the media. "The august Times (11 July 1984) thundered: 'Danegeld in Liverpool'." writes Peter Taaffe in Liverpool - A City That Dared to Fight, chapter 8 p151 http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/liverpool/l9.htm. The Poll Tax non-payment campaign has been widely credited for causing British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s downfall. The BBC, for instance, reports: "The unpopularity of the new charge led to the poll tax riots in London in March 1990 and - indirectly - to the downfall of the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the November of the same year". The headline of this 'On this day' retrospective is "1990: One in five yet to pay poll tax" http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/august/14/newsid_2495000/2495911.stm (See also Poll Tax Riots
Poll Tax Riots
The UK Poll Tax Riots were a series of mass disturbances, or riots, in British towns and cities during protests against the Community Charge , introduced by the Conservative government led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher...
.) Peter Taaffe argues that:
The Open Turn
From 1987, differences between, on the one hand, Taaffe and others on the executive committee of the Militant and the CWI, and Grant and his supporters on the other became apparent.The decisive issue between these two leaders and their supporters arose in 1991. It centred on whether the group should take an "open turn", initially called the "Scottish turn", which meant founding an independent political party outside of the Labour Party, or whether it should continue with entryism. Taaffe and the majority in Militant supported the Scottish turn and the creation of Scottish Militant Labour
Scottish Militant Labour
Scottish Militant Labour was a minor political party operating in Scotland in the 1990s and was part of the Committee for a Workers' International...
whilst Grant and a minority opposed it. These became known as the 'Majority' and the 'Minority' positions, and both the Majority and the Minority produced documents which were printed together and circulated. The documents of the 'Minority', and those of the 'Majority' are both presented here: Marxism and the British Labour Party - the 'Open Turn' debate.
The dispute arose first around the situation in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
and then in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
where the Militant Tendency had become very prominent. Electoral prospects in Scotland looked promising. Tommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan
Tommy Sheridan is a Scottish socialist politician. He has had various prominent roles within the socialist movement in Scotland and is currently one of two co-convenors of the left-wing Scottish political party Solidarity....
fought two elections while in prison, where he had been incarcerated for his defiance of the Poll Tax. He took second place in the Pollok constituency at the 1992 General Election
United Kingdom general election, 1992
The United Kingdom general election of 1992 was held on 9 April 1992, and was the fourth consecutive victory for the Conservative Party. This election result was one of the biggest surprises in 20th Century politics, as polling leading up to the day of the election showed Labour under leader Neil...
, finishing ahead of both the Conservatives
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
and the Scottish National Party
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party is a social-democratic political party in Scotland which campaigns for Scottish independence from the United Kingdom....
with 6,287 votes. A few weeks later he won the Pollok
Pollok
Pollok is a large district on the south-western side of the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It was built to house families from the overcrowded inner city...
ward on Glasgow City Council.
The ‘Open Turn’ debate took place essentially between April and October 1991. In April 1991 the Militant executive body decided to support the "Scottish Turn" as it was initially termed. The Rise of Militant p433-4. Very shortly afterwards the dispute broke out.
A special national conference was organised in October 1991, in which the two factions presented their arguments. A series of quite substantial documents were printed. In each document both factions presented their arguments, (now online.http://www.marxist.net/openturn/index.html). Between April and October 1991, discussions were held at branch, district and regional level with speakers from both factions taking part. At an all-London meeting, for instance Ted Grant addressed a packed meeting to respectful silence, as did a speaker from the majority, but failed to gain the support of the meeting. At the October 1991 conference the majority gained 93% of the votes. There were no more meetings of this nature, and no more joint documents were produced.
In January 1992, the majority leadership claimed that the minority was intending to split from Militant. Peter Taaffe published an extended editorial in the Militant (24 January 1992) entitled “A parting of the ways” which announced that following the "Scottish turn" decision at the special conference in October 1991, Tommy Sheridan had been put forward as "candidate for Glasgow Pollock in the approaching general election."
Taaffe reminds the reader that the past ten months had been one of "profound debate" culminating in the special October 1991 in which the majority had overwhelming support. Many opponents of the 'Scottish turn' will remain loyal supporters of Militant, Taaffe predicts, but immediately after the special conference, Ted Grant and his group took steps to set up their own, rival publication, established "their own small premises and their own staff and are raising their own funds. We regret Ted Grant has split in this way. He made a vital contribution...”
Grant and his leading supporters claimed they were expelled, and reconstituted themselves as the Socialist Appeal
Socialist Appeal
Socialist Appeal is the publication of a British Trotskyist organisation operating within the Labour Party which was founded by Ted Grant and Alan Woods after they were expelled from the Militant tendency. The organisation is popularly known as the Socialist Appeal group, and publishes a monthly...
tendency, after its paper, and Scottish Militant Labour eventually became the Scottish Socialist Party
Scottish Socialist Party
The Scottish Socialist Party is a left-wing Scottish political party. Positioning itself significantly to the left of Scotland's centre-left parties, the SSP campaigns on a socialist economic platform and for Scottish independence....
(SSP).
"A parting of the ways"
In the major Militant editorial A parting of the ways (January 1992) and in the document Two Trends: Political Roots of The Breakaway of the same date, as well as in his book The Rise of Militant, Peter Taaffe identifies, in addition to the disagreements over the question of the "Open turn" a number of issues which had arisen.There were, firstly, political disagreements over a number of important current events, economic, national and international (for instance Black Monday (1987)
Black Monday (1987)
In finance, Black Monday refers to Monday October 19, 1987, when stock markets around the world crashed, shedding a huge value in a very short time. The crash began in Hong Kong and spread west to Europe, hitting the United States after other markets had already declined by a significant margin...
, Russia, Afghanistan and South Africa).
Secondly Taaffe accuses Grant of being "never prepared to enter into a dialogue. Ted effectively claimed a right of political veto" over the executive committee of the Militant.
Thirdly there was, Taaffe argues, a difference of views over the achievements of the last ten years. "They claim that over the last ten years Militant has relegated theory and moved towards activism. Incredibly, they dismiss as "activism" the outstanding interventions of Militant supporters in the miner's strike and the Liverpool council battle...Above all they relegate our successful leadership of the anti-poll tax movement which defeated Thatcher." On the contrary, counters Taaffe, it is Grant and his followers who have fallen into "dogmatism" and betray an atrophy of thought: "The former minority are political dinosaurs. They operate with outmoded formulas which no longer apply... an absolutely dogmatic, black and white, undialectical approach towards political phenomena, both in Britain and on an international scale.".
Lastly, Taaffe says that Grant "publicly asserted his views against the majority of the editorial board on crucial issues, [which] threatened to have a disorientating effect on some of our supporters".
One disagreement over current events was over 'Black Monday' - a sharp fall in the international stock markets in 1987. Grant believed a worldwide slump would arise from the fall of the stock markets. "From a capitalist point of view at best this will be the worst post-war slump, but it is possible that it will be worse than the slump of 1929-33". Whilst Grant had the support of Alan Woods and Michael Roberts on this issue, he was opposed by Taaffe, Lynn Walsh, Bob Labi and what was to become the "majority". Here was first clearly delineated the dividing line that was drawn between the supporters of Grant and Taaffe. Taaffe writes that the discussion on the executive was "very sharp."
Taaffe argues that "To other members of the Editorial Board it was clear that the major capitalist states, especially Germany and Japan, were stepping in to finance a stabilisation of the world financial system. This, we argued, would allow the boom to continue for a time, postponing a recession and other problems into the future. This was what happened." Despite the disagreements, Grant proceeded to publish his views in the Militant. Looking back in 1992 Taaffe argues that Grant should have been challenged in writing. Such a challenge would have meant the formation of factions in 1987.
A second issue was the approaching crisis of Stalinism. Taaffe and the majority believed that the restoration of capitalism was possible in the Soviet Union. Grant disagreed. In fact in the same article on 'Black Monday' Grant added his view that "Any illusions in Gorbachev changing anything fundamental, will be shattered by the attitude of the Moscow bureaucracy to this crisis." The collapse of Stalinism was, Taaffe counters, "the end of an epoch", which led to capitalist triumphalism.
The Socialist Party
The majority in the Militant tendency, led by Peter Taaffe, argued that the Labour Party had become a thoroughly bourgeois party which no longer represented the working class. Militant went on to become Militant Labour and then the Socialist PartySocialist Party (England and Wales)
The Socialist Party is a Trotskyist party active in England and Wales.It publishes the weekly newspaper The Socialist and the monthly magazine Socialism Today...
in 1997, with Taaffe as general secretary. It campaigns in the trade unions to break the link with Labour and found a new party based on the working class, in contrast to the supporters of Socialist Appeal, who support a policy of work within the Labour Party and the trade unions in opposition to the Labour leadership's embrace of the Third Way
Third way (centrism)
The Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
under Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
.
Internationally, Taaffe won majority support in the Committee for a Workers International (CWI). The opposition to the Open Turn internationally walked out and founded the Committee for a Marxist International and its In Defence of Marxism
In Defence of Marxism
In Defense of Marxism may refer to:*In Defense of Marxism: The Social and Political Contradictions of the Soviet Union on the Eve of World War II, a collection of essays written in 1939 and 1940 by Leon Trotsky...
website. The CWI later founded a website Marxist resource from the Committee for a Workers' International in part to publish the documents written by Peter Taaffe and others in the CWI about these and other developments and debates, as a contribution to an analysis of what they perceive to be the complexities of the current period, and how to build the path to the working class for the ideas of Marxism.
Taaffe continues to play an important role in the Committee for a Workers International, writing books and pamphlets such as the History of the CWI, Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left (2002) and on the anniversary of the British general strike, 1926 General Strike - workers taste power (2006).
Taaffe's Marxism in Today’s World, (2006) arose from a visit to the CWI's offices in London by an Italian Marxist publishing collective, Guiovane Talpa, who conducted a probing interview with Peter Taaffe and Bob Labi on CWI policy over several days, publishing the transcript in Italian. At the completion of the project the CWI published an additional English version. This book discusses the views of the CWI on war, capitalism the environment and other issues, and is now being published in India.
Publications
Taaffe has written a number of books and pamphlets including:- Socialism and Left Unity, (2008)
- Marxism in Today’s World, (2006)
- 1926 General Strike - workers taste power, (April 2006)
- Upheavals in China (pamphlet), (April 2005).
- A socialist world is possible, (February 2005)
- Empire Defeated: Vietnam War - The Lessons For Today, (2003)
- Post-September 11: Can US Imperialism be challenged? (booklet), (September 2002) One of the CWI world conference documents
- Afghanistan, Islam and the Revolutionary Left (pamphlet), (February 2002)
- Cuba: Socialism and Democracy - Debates on the Revolution and Cuba Today, (2000)
- Global Turmoil (CWI world conference document 1998) Joint production of the CWI international secretariat
- The History of the CWI (pamphlet), (1997)
- The Rise of Militant: Militant's 30 years, (1995)
- A world in crisis (CWI world conference document 1994) Joint production of the CWI international secretariat
- The Masses Arise: The Great French Revolution, 1789-1815, (1989)
- Liverpool - A city that Dared to Fight, with Tony Mulhearn (1988)
External links
- Socialist Party (England & Wales) website
- Committee for a Workers' International website
- Marxist resource from the Committee for a Workers' International
- History of British Trotskyism By Ted Grant
- Militant's Real History: In reply to Ted Grant and Rob Sewell by Peter Taaffe (this is a reply to Ted Grant's History of British Trotskyism and Rob Sewell's Postscript to it)