Alan Woods (political theorist)
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Through Leadership
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.
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Split in Militant
In the early 1990s, Woods and his mentor, Ted Grant, left 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 was known as Socialist Appeal, which in 2024 became the Revolutionary Communist Party. The IMT became the Revolutionary Communist International in 2024.
Political views
Woods was the editor for some years of the Marxist journal Socialist Appeal, published in London.
Woods has had meetings with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. President Chávez publicly stated in a TV broadcast that he was reading Woods' book Reformism 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 newspapers then by international media outlets, for an article (Where is the Venezuelan revolution going?) he wrote on the IMT website.
In November 2012, Woods went on a speaking tour in both the United States and Canada.