[Book] The Unbroken Thread

The development of Trotskyism over 40 years

For over 40 years, Ted Grant has been the foremost figure of Trotskyism in Britain and internationally. In the post-war period, the effects of world boom, the policies of right wing Labour Party reformism and the degeneracy of Stalinism combined to make a massive onslaught against the ideas of Marxism. While Grant's contemporaries now stand on the right of the movement, in dusty academic circles or have sunk into obscurity, the articles in this collection show the clarity of Grant's understanding and his ability to deepen and expand the ideas of Leon Trotsky. His position in recent years as political editor of Militant, that the journal's key influence in areas such as Liverpool, have made his ideas more relevant than ever before. No one involved in the struggle to change society and end the rule of capitalism and Stalinism can afford to be without this book. Nor can any serious student of the past 40 years, or of current affairs, afford to ignore its contents.

(from the original back cover of the book, published in 1989)

Contents

(Articles marked* are major extracts from the original document.)

• Introduction by John Pickard

Section One – The War Years

• Introduction
• Lessons of Spain (1938)
• A Reply to the RSL – Chauvinism and Revolutionary Defeatism* (June 1943)
• Preparing for Power* (June 1942)
• The Rise and Fall of the Communist International* (June 1943)
• Why Hitler Came to Power (December 1944)

Section Two – Western Europe after the War

• Introduction
• The Changed Relation of Forces in Europe and the Role of the Fourth International (March 1945)
• Democracy or Bonapartism in Europe – A Reply to Pierre Frank (August 1946)
• National Democratic Revolution or Proletarian Revolution: The Tasks in Germany* (January 1947)
• Socialism and German Rearmament* (1953)
• The Rise of De Gaulle and the Class Struggle in France* (May 1958)

Section Three – Eastern Europe

• Introduction
• Czechoslovakia – The Issues Involved (April 1948)
• Against the Theory of State Capitalism (1949)
• Stalinism in the Post War World (June 1951)

Section Four – The Colonial Revolution and Proletarian Bonapartism

• Introduction
• The Chinese Revolution (January 1949)
• Reply to David James* (Spring 1949)
• The Colonial Revolution and the Sino-Soviet Split* (August 1964)
• The Colonial Revolution and the Deformed Workers' States* (July 1978)

Section Five – The Post War Boom: Origins, Effects and Decline

• Introduction
• Economic Perspectives 1946 (April 1946)
• Marxism versus New Fabianism – Part One (November 1952)
• Will There be a Slump? (1960)
• World Perspectives* (1977)
• World Perspectives* (1979)

Section Six – The Special Crisis of British Captitalism

• Introduction
• Perspectives in Britain* (July 1946)
• The Menace of Fascism – What it is and how to fight it (1948)
• Britain in Crisis* (September 1977)

Section Seven – The Method of Marxism

• Introduction
• Marxism versus New Fabianism – Part Two (May 1953)
• A Reply to Comrade Clifford* (1966)
• Appeal against Expulsion, Labour Party Conference (September 1983)