Quick Facts
Biography
Alan Woods (born 23 October 1944 ) is a Trotskyist political theorist and author. He is one of the leading members of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), as well as of its British affiliate group Socialist Appeal. He is political editor of the IMT's In Defence of Marxism website. Woods was a leading supporter within the Militant tendency within the UK Labour Party and its parent group the Committee for a Workers' International until the early 1990s. A series of disagreements on tactics and theory led to the expulsion from the tendency of Woods and Ted Grant, who founded the Committee for a Marxist International (soon renamed International Marxist Tendency) in 1992. They continued with the policy of entryism into the Labour Party. Woods has expressed particularly vocal support for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and repeatedly met with the socialist President of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez (in office 1999-2013), leading to speculation that he was a close political adviser to the president.
Political life
Early life
Woods was born into a working-class family in Swansea, South Wales and grew up in the Townhill and Penlan areas of the city. At the age of 16 he joined the Young Socialists and became a Marxist, becoming a supporter of the Trotskyist Militant tendency within the Labour Party. He studied Russian at Sussex University and later in Sofia (Bulgaria) and Moscow State University (MGU). Woods's work in Brighton for the Militant tendency established an important base of support at the university and in the town. He later moved back to south Wales, becoming the first regional full timer for the organisation. He, his wife, and two small daughters moved to Spain in the early 1970s where his well-known political stance placed him amongst those struggling against the Francisco Franco dictatorship, where he worked to establish the Spanish section of the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). Woods speaks several languages, including Italian, English, Spanish, French, German and Russian.
The split in Militant
In the early 1990s Woods and his mentor, Ted Grant, were expelled from the Militant tendency and its parent organization, the Committee for a Workers' International, over what they considered to be the ultraleft turn of this organisation when it decided to split from the Labour Party. The minority group led by Ted Grant also argued that a decline in emphasis on political education, as well as the development of a bureaucratic clique around Peter Taaffe was damaging Militant. Grant and Woods and their supporters internationally formed the Committee for a Marxist International in 1992, which was later to be known as the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), and remained active in the Labour Party. The British section of the IMT is known as Socialist Appeal.
Recent activities
Woods was the editor for some years of the Marxist journal Socialist Appeal, published in London. He is currently a leading theoretician in the IMT and editor of its website In Defence of Marxism. He writes on the current political situation in Venezuela and the tasks to be carried out by revolutionaries elsewhere.
Woods has had meetings with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and defends the idea that the Bolivarian Revolution is the germ of the World Revolution. Woods also travels and supports other revolutionary processes in Pakistan, Bolivia, the Middle East and Cuba. He is a close friend of Trotsky's grandson Vsievolod Platonovich "Esteban" Volkov, who regards Woods' work as closest to Trotsky's theories.
President Chavez publicly announced in a TV broadcast that he was reading Woods' book Reform or Revolution "in great detail", which encouraged speculation that Woods was an advisor to the President.
In 2010, Woods was subject to severe criticism, firstly by some Venezuelan right-wing newspapers and groups like Primero Justicia, then by international media, for an article (Where is the Venezuelan revolution going?) he wrote on the IMT website. He wrote it after the latest Venezuelan general elections advocating to further radicalise the Bolivarian Revolution towards "the expropriation of the commanding heights of the economy". His reply to these attacks was given widespread attention in the Venezuelan media.
In November 2012 Mr. Woods went on a speaking tour in both the United States and Canada.
In November 2015, Woods claimed that the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader "contains the embryonic seeds of revolutionary developments."
Publications
- Marxism in Our Time (1992)
- China in Crisis (1994)
- A Socialist Alternative to the European Union (1997)
- Revolution in Albania (1997)
- A New Stage in the Capitalist Crisis (1998)
- Indonesia: the Asian Revolution has Begun (1998)
- The Kosovo pogrom and the Balkan Powder-keg (1998)
- Crisis in Russia, the free market failure,
- History of Philosophy,
- Two books co-authored with Ted Grant
- Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution (1999).
- Marxism and the National Question (2000)
- British Poets and the French Revolution (2003)
- The revolutionary dialectic of Republicanism – An Open Letter to Irish Republicans (2003).
- In Defence of Marxism – Reply to Israel Shamir (2004)
- The Celia Hart Controversy – Stalinism or Leninism? (2004)
- Ireland: Republicanism and Revolution (2005)
- The Venezuelan Revolution – a Marxist perspective (2005)
- Marxism and the U.S.A. – article (Wellred USA, 2005).
- The Reawakening of the World Working Class and the Tasks Faced by Marxists (2006)
- Reformism or Revolution – Marxism and Socialism of the 21st Century (reply to Heinz Dieterich) (2008)
- XXI Century Socialism, or There is Nothing New Under the Sun November 2010
- Marxism and Anarchism – A collection of writings (2012)