To the first edition, 2010
It is with great pleasure that we introduce this first volume of the Collected Writings of Ted Grant. It represents the first step of a very long project that aims at publishing all of his writings. Our aim is to make Ted’s contribution to the history of the revolutionary movement available to a broader public. We believe this project will contribute to the education of the next generation of Marxist cadres in the traditions that Ted kept alive throughout his long-standing activity in the labour movement.
The history of the Workers’ International League (WIL) is so closely linked with the work of Ted Grant that it is impossible to separate them. Especially after Ralph Lee’s departure in 1940, Ted emerged as the WIL’s most prominent theoretician. From that time on he drafted the majority of the main political documents of the movement.
In a number of cases we have been able to trace Political Bureau or Central Committee minutes where we find Ted being put in charge of drafting a certain document. Some other documents carry the fingerprint of Ted’s style so evidently that there can be no doubt about their authorship. Clearly, the documents, although drafted by Ted, would have had input from other members and can be considered the fruit of collective effort. Ted, however, was the main driving force. These documents reflect the views of the collective leadership of the WIL, which Ted played a significant role in formulating.
For these reasons we have decided to include in this volume all the main political documents of the WIL that we could trace. We also decided to include all materials relating to the important debate of February – March 1941 on the proletarian military policy, in which Ted Grant, Gerry Healy and Andrew Scott defended a Majority Executive Committee (EC) position and Jock Haston, Sam Levy and Millie Kahn put forward a Minority view. This debate was instrumental in forging a genuine principled unity amongst the WIL leadership and in orientating the activities of the WIL during the war.
The authorship of all texts is indicated when different from Ted Grant and where there is known authorship.
Ted would have drafted or written many lead articles in Youth for Socialism, Socialist Appeal and Workers’ International News that were published unsigned because they represented an official statement of the WIL. We decided not to include this material in the present volume and hope to publish it separately at a later date. The same decision was taken in relation to Ted’s complete correspondence, because of the amount of research work needed to collect and edit that material. Again, it is our intention to publish this at a later date.
All texts have been checked against the original documents and are published here in their original form, except for evident typing errors that have been corrected and formatting characters that have been standardised throughout. Where editorial insertions were necessary for clarification, they have been introduced in square brackets [ ].
To the second edition, 2025
We are delighted to present the second edition of this volume, which is being published alongside a new edition of the second volume, as well as a brand new third volume covering the years 1945-46.
This edition features two additional letters that have been recovered since the first edition. First and foremost is a very important letter that Trotsky sent to the WIL in 1938. This letter was suppressed by the American SWP, and was subsequently lost for eight decades. We have reproduced an article written by Alan Woods detailing the extraordinary story of how the letter was rediscovered in 2019, which includes the letter itself. We have also uncovered an early letter from Ted Grant to the Militant Group, dated December 1937. This new material can be found in the appendix.