Tony Cliff facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Tony Cliff
|
|
|---|---|
Tony Cliff in 1986
|
|
| Born |
Yigael Glückstein
20 May 1917 Zikhron Ya'akov, Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, Ottoman Empire
|
| Died | 9 April 2000 (aged 82) London, England, United Kingdom
|
Tony Cliff (born Yigael Glückstein, Hebrew: יגאל גליקשטיין; 20 May 1917 – 9 April 2000) was a political activist who followed the ideas of Leon Trotsky. He was born into a Jewish family in an area called Ottoman Palestine. In 1947, he moved to Britain. By the late 1950s, he started using the pen name Tony Cliff. He helped start the Socialist Review Group, which later became the International Socialists, and then the Socialist Workers Party in 1977. Tony Cliff was a key leader for all three of these groups.
Contents
Tony Cliff's Life Story
Growing Up in Palestine
Tony Cliff was born Yigael Glückstein in Zikhron Ya'akov in 1917. This area was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Later that year, Britain took control of the region during World War I.
He was one of four children. His parents, Akiva and Esther Glückstein, were Jewish immigrants from Poland. They had moved to Palestine as part of a large wave of Jewish immigration. His father worked as an engineer. Tony Cliff grew up in Mandatory Palestine, which was ruled by Britain. A family friend was Moshe Sharett, who would later become a Prime Minister of Israel.
Yigael went to school in Jerusalem. He then studied at the Technion in Haifa. He later studied economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. When he was young, he became interested in Communism, which is a political idea about shared ownership. At 15, he joined a youth political group. By the late 1930s, he was a strong supporter of Trotsky's ideas and was against Zionism, which supports a Jewish state in Palestine.
When World War II began, Yigael worked to stop Jewish people from joining the British war effort. He saw the war as a fight between powerful empires. He was arrested by the British in 1939 and spent a year in prison. In prison, he met other important political figures.
In 1945, he met and married Chanie Rosenberg, a Jewish socialist from South Africa. They moved to Tel Aviv that year. Chanie worked as a teacher to support them.
Moving to Britain
Tony Cliff and Chanie moved to Britain in 1947. However, Tony Cliff could never become a British citizen. He remained a person without a country for the rest of his life. He was even sent away by British authorities and lived in the Republic of Ireland for several years. He was only allowed to live in Britain because his wife, Chanie, was a British citizen.
Living in London, Yigael became active again with the Revolutionary Communist Party. He became a leader in this group. He supported the party's leaders and discussed the nature of countries controlled by Russia and Communist parties. This also involved talks about industries owned by the government in Britain.
When the Revolutionary Communist Party broke up, Yigael's supporters joined another group. In 1950, he helped start the Socialist Review Group. This group had a journal of the same name, where Yigael wrote many articles. Later, another journal called International Socialism became their main publication.
Because he didn't have official residency rights in Britain, Yigael used different names. He used names like Roger or Roger Tennant. The name 'Tony Cliff' first appeared in 1959 for his book about Rosa Luxemburg. In the 1960s, he used many of his old pen names in the International Socialism journal.
International Socialists and SWP
Yigael’s group changed its name to the International Socialists in 1962. It grew from less than 100 members in 1960 to about 3,000 members by 1977. At that point, it was renamed the Socialist Workers Party (SWP).
Tony Cliff remained a main leader of the SWP until he passed away in 2000. He was very important in guiding the SWP to adapt to changes in society. For example, after many strikes in the early 1970s, he believed that the workers' movement was slowing down. He argued that the party needed to change its activities. This led to a big debate, which Tony Cliff's side eventually won.
Tony Cliff's life story is closely tied to the groups he led. He had a major heart operation shortly before he died.
Tony Cliff's Ideas
Tony Cliff was a revolutionary socialist. He followed the ideas of Leon Trotsky. He tried to make Vladimir Lenin's ideas about political parties work in his time. Much of what he wrote was meant to help his party with its tasks.
Most groups that follow Trotsky's ideas believe that countries controlled by Stalinist parties are "degenerated workers' states" (like the Soviet Union) or "deformed workers' states" (other Stalinist countries). These states have government planning and ownership of property.
Tony Cliff had a different idea. He was a main person who disagreed with this view. He believed these states were a form of "state capitalism." This means the state acts like a big capitalist owner. He insisted his ideas were his own and not from others who had similar thoughts.
Personal Life
Tony Cliff spent most of his time on building his political party. He didn't drink or smoke, and he didn't socialize much. He did care for his family.
His wife, Chanie Rosenberg (1922–2021), was also a very active member of the Socialist Review Group, International Socialists, and SWP. She wrote many articles about social issues. She was also active in the National Union of Teachers until she retired. Three of their four children also became members of the SWP. One son, Donny Gluckstein, wrote two books with his father.
Tony Cliff is shown as a character named Jimmy Rock in a book called Redemption by Tariq Ali.
Tony Cliff's Books
- The Problem of the Middle East (1946)
- The Nature of Stalinist Russia (1948)
- Stalin's Satellites in Europe (1952)
- Stalinist Russia: A Marxist Analysis (1955)
- Perspectives of the Permanent War Economy (1957)
- Economic Roots of Reformism (1957)
- Rosa Luxemburg: A Study (1959)
- Trotsky on Substitionism (1960)
- Deflected Permanent Revolution (1963)
- Incomes Policy, Legislation and Shop Stewards (with Colin Barker) (1966)
- France: The Struggle Goes On (with Ian Birchall) (1968)
- The Employers’ Offensive, Productivity Deals and how to fight them (1970)
- The Crisis: Social Contract or Socialism (1975)
- Lenin Vol. 1: Building the Party (1975)
- Portugal at the Crossroads (1975)
- Lenin Vol. 2: All Power to the Soviets (1976)
- Lenin Vol. 3: Revolution Besieged (1978)
- Lenin Vol. 4: The Bolsheviks and World Communism (1979)
- Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation, 1640 to today (1984)
- Marxism and trade union struggle, the general strike of 1926 (with Donny Gluckstein) (1986)
- The Labour Party, A Marxist History (with Donny Gluckstein) (1986)
- Trotsky Vol. 1: Towards October 1879-1917 (1989)
- Trotsky Vol. 2: The Sword of the Revolution 1917-1923 (1990)
- Trotsky Vol. 3: Fighting the Rising Stalinist Bureaucracy 1923-1927 (1991)
- Trotsky Vol. 4: The darker the Night, the Brighter the Star 1927-1940 (1993)
- Trotskyism after Trotsky, the origins of the International Socialists (1999)
- A World to Win: Life of a Revolutionary (2000)
- Marxism at the Millennium (2000)
More Information
- You can find a summary of Tony Cliff's papers at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Library. An online summary is available.
See Also
- Bureaucratic collectivism
- Deflected permanent revolution
- New class
- Permanent revolution
- State capitalism
- Ted Grant and Gerry Healy - two other former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party who started other Trotskyist groups.
