1. Tony Cliff was born Yigael Gluckstein in Zikhron Ya'akov in the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem, in 1917, the same year Britain seized control of the territory from the Ottoman Empire during World War I He was one of four children born to Akiva and Esther Gluckstein, Jewish immigrants from Poland, who had come to Palestine as part of the Second Aliyah.
Tony Cliff had two brothers and a sister; his brother Chaim later became a notable journalist, theatre critic, and translator.
Tony Cliff had two prominent uncles: the noted doctor Hillel Yaffe and agronomist and Zionist activist Haim Margaliot-Kalvarisky.
Tony Cliff's piano teacher was a sister of Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, and his father's business partner was one of Weizmann's brothers.
Tony Cliff was arrested by the British in 1939, and imprisoned at Acre for twelve months.
Tony Cliff was deported by the British authorities and lived in the Republic of Ireland for several years.
Tony Cliff was permitted to take up British residency due only to the status of his wife Chanie as a British citizen.
Tony Cliff remained a leading member until his death in 2000.
Tony Cliff was central to the various reorientations carried out in the SWP to react to changes in the position of the working class.
Tony Cliff's biography is, as he himself remarked, inseparable from that of the groups of which he was a leading member.
Tony Cliff was a revolutionary socialist in the Trotskyist tradition, attempting to make Lenin's theory of the party effective in the present day.
In many ways, Tony Cliff was the main dissident from this idea, although some of his opponents have sought to associate his state capitalist view with other ideas: for example, the theory of 'bureaucratic collectivism' associated with Shachtmanite Workers Party in the United States.
Tony Cliff had little or no time for any activities not directly linked to the needs of building his party.
Tony Cliff did not drink or smoke, or socialise very much.
Tony Cliff's wife, Chanie Rosenberg, was an active member successively of the SRG, IS and SWP, in which she remained active for many years.
Tony Cliff is depicted as Jimmy Rock of the Rockers in Tariq Ali's satire Redemption.