Trotskyism after Trotsky

Posted item #8 Interview: 50 years of the International Socialist tradition
Tony Cliff's vital theoretical breakthrough was in the late 1940s, when he developed a theory of the Soviet Union, and its sattelite states in Eastern Europe, as state capitalist. This required a break form the dominant analysis in the Trotskyist movement internationally, which was riven with confusion about how to understand Stalinism. He was forced out of the British Trotskyist organisation of the time, along with those who agreed with him, and had to found, in 1950, an initially tiny independent group which took its name from the publication it produced: Socialist Review.

Cliff, however, viewed his work - theoretically and practically - as continuing the authentic Marxist tradition represented by Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky and many lesser names. He had to start small with the Socialist Review Group, but this was preferable to staying with a moribund organisation that had lost its way. Considerable far-sightedness and determination was required to pursue this course of action.

The interview posted here was conducted in 1997, half a century after Cliff first speculated that the so-called Communist countries might in fact be a version of capitalism, but one where the state essentially took the role of employer, where in the absence of competition between private firms there was nevertheless fierce competition - economically and militarally - with rival states.