Tony Cliff

Tony Cliff (SWP). Born in a Jewish family in Palestine, he moved to Great Britain in 1947 and took the name of Tony Cliff.

Biography and Ideology

In the 1940s he moved to Great Britain. He broke with the fourth international heiress of Trotsky, for his positions with respect to the USSR, but always remained within the Marxist tradition, considering himself a follower of Leon Trotsky's ideas.

Tony Cliff developed several theories that helped analyze the reality of after World War II: defined the USSR as state capitalism and characterized how " limited revolutions " those carried out in Third World countries (as in Cuba or China) by not being rooted in the active role of the working class. He also explained the economic Boom of the 50 and 60s based on the huge arms expenditure. Cliff's contributions served to maintain the tradition of socialism from below at the same time that explained the context in which it was lived after World War II.

The ideas he developed helped the construction of the revolutionary left. During the 1940s he founded the Socialist Group international that was growing until he reached in the 70s to become a political party with 3000 militants, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP). The SWP is currently one of the main Trotskyist organizations in the world. In most developed countries there are also organizations that follow the same ideas forming the Socialist Tendancy International. In Spain, the reference organization of this current is Marx21.

work

Highlights his works state capitalism in the USSR, a biography of Lenin in three volumes, a biography of Trotsky, another by Rosa Luxemburg and Trotskyism after Trotsky .