Peter Taaffe - "A Parting of The Ways"

"A Parting of The Ways"

In the Militant editorial and in the document "Two Trends: Political Roots of The Breakaway" in January 1992, an in his book about Militant, Taaffe identified other issues which had become problematic. Political disagreements within the group existed over Black Monday (1987), Russia, Afghanistan and South Africa). Taaffe accused Grant of "never prepared to enter into a dialogue. Ted effectively claimed a right of political veto" over the executive committee of the Militant. For Taaffe, there was 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.". He claimed that Grant "publicly asserted his views against the majority of the editorial board on crucial issues, 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 argued 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 final issue was the approaching collapse of the Soviet Union, or for them, the 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.