In this recording from the Marxist Summer School 2013, Jorge Martin, writer for www.marxist.com and International Secretary for Hands Off Venezuela, discusses the contributions made by Ted Grant – founder of the Militant Tendency – towards the Marxist theory of the state and the analysis of the Stalinist regimes in Russia and Eastern Europe after the Second World War, primarily based on Ted Grant’s excellent document “Against the Theory of State Capitalism”.

In 1949, Ted Grant, founder of the Militant Tendency and Socialist Appeal, wrote a polemical response to Tony Cliff on the class nature of the Soviet Union, arguing against Cliff’s theory of “State Capitalism”. Ted’s response provides an in-depth Marxist analysis on a range of questions, from the transition from capitalism to socialism, to the key issues of the state and the nature of Stalinism.

To celebrate this year’s centenary of Ted Grant, founder of the Militant Tendency and Socialist Appeal, we are re-publishing a series of Ted’s key writings. We begin with Ted’s pamphlet “The Rise and Fall of the Communist International”, which analyses the founding of the Third International and its decline under Stalin.