The end of the war brought about an entirely novel situation in Europe, presenting the Marxists with difficult and unforeseen theoretical problems. The revolutionary wave in Western Europe did indeed manifest itself in the election of left governments and the strident demands of the workers for concrete reforms and social change. But the full impact of the workers' movement was blunted by the Communist and Socialist Party leaderships, acting as a brake on developments. The precise characterisation of the post-war regimes in Western Europe and the perspectives for these countries were the subjects of intense debate within the Trotskyist movement.

In the debates about likely international developments - whether the post-war economy was heading for slump or boom, how long the post-war boom would last, whether or not capitalism had learnt to 'overcome' cyclical crises, and so on - Ted Grant often drew on the immediate experience and the statistical data of political and economic developments in Britain, for obvious reasons. In these cases, the intention was, nevertheless, to illustrate those processes that affected the advanced capitalist countries as a whole. But in addressing activists in the British labour movement it is also essential to point to those features and characteristics which, among the advanced countries, are peculiar to British capitalism. Within the general crisis of world capitalism, in other words, consideration has to be given to the special crisis of British capitalism.