The first Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was formed in early 1938 by the merger of the Marxist League led by

Harry Wicks Harry Wicks (16 August 1905 – 26 March 1989) was a British socialist activist. Born in Battersea, London, he went to work on the railways and joined the National Union of Railwaymen in 1919. He joined the Labour Party, but after Black Frid ...

and the Marxist Group led by

C. L. R. James Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901 – 31 May 1989),Fraser, C. Gerald, ''The New York Times'', 2 June 1989. who sometimes wrote under the pen-name J. R. Johnson, was a Trinidadian historian, journalist and Marxist. His works are in ...

.Barberis, Peter; McHugh, John; Tyldesley, Mike. ''Encyclopedia of British and Irish Political Organizations: Parties, Groups and Movements of the 20th Century''.

A & C Black A & C Black is a British book publishing company, owned since 2002 by Bloomsbury Publishing. The company is noted for publishing '' Who's Who'' since 1849. It also published popular travel guides and novels. History The firm was founded in 18 ...

, 2000, p160 In August 1938, James P. Cannon and

Max Shachtman Max Shachtman (; September 10, 1904 – November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. He went from being an associate of Leon Trotsky to a social democrat and mentor of senior assistants to AFL–CIO President George Meany. Beginnings S ...

came to London in an attempt to unite all four British Trotskyist groups. The RSL, the

Militant Group The Militant Group was an early British Trotskyist group, formed in 1935 by Denzil Dean Harber, former leader of the entrist Marxist Group in the ILP, as a separate entrist group inside the Labour Party. Initially known as the Bolshevik-Leni ...

, and the Revolutionary Socialist Party merged to form a new Revolutionary Socialist League, but the Workers International League (WIL) refused, claiming that agreement on perspectives was insufficient and that the new group represented a dilution of

democratic centralism Democratic centralism is a practice in which political decisions reached by voting processes are binding upon all members of the political party. It is mainly associated with Leninism, wherein the party's political vanguard of professional revo ...

. The new RSL became the British affiliate of the newly formed

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of wor ...

. It maintained the Militant Labour League for those members who were involved in Labour Party

entryism Entryism (also called entrism, enterism, or infiltration) is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand the ...

, and published ''The Militant''. The group adopted a defeatist policy during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, which it modelled on

Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 19 ...

's revolutionary defeatist tactics of the 1914–1918 war. This was seen by its rivals in the WIL as pacifism. However, it had some initial successes when the Shop Assistants' Union adopted its position in 1940. This led the Labour Party to ban the Militant Labour League. In addition, the group became increasingly inactive as many younger members were conscripted into the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

. The group's opposition to the war became a major cause of factional strife both within the group and between it and the WIL. Three major positions developed, with ensuing factional divisions. Firstly, a

Left Fraction The Left Fraction, sometimes calling itself the Left Fraction, British Section of the Fourth International (In Opposition), Harry Selby, Brief Notes on the History of the Left Fraction' (1964) was a Trotskyist organisation in the United Kingdom. ...

formed, which opposed the war on a basis all other factions described as pacifist. Secondly, the leadership faction around

Denzil Dean Harber Denzil Dean Harber (25 January 1909, Streatham, – 31 August 1966) was an early United Kingdom, British Trotskyist leader and later in his life a prominent British ornithologist. Denzil Dean Harber was born at 25 Fairmile Avenue, Streatham ...

held a position that opposed the

Proletarian Military Policy The Proletarian Military Policy was a policy adopted by the Fourth International in response to World War II. It was an attempt to apply transitional demands such as trade union control of military training and the election of officers to transform ...

(PMP) of the WIL and was described by its opponents as semi-pacifist. Third, the WIL and tendencies leaving the RSL at different times adhered to the aforementioned PMP. In 1939, some RSL members split to form the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL), which

Isaac Deutscher Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was th ...

soon joined, due to the inaction of the RSL leadership when the war began. Initially, they used the RSL name and only changed the name later. However, the majority of the RWL joined the WIL in 1940, with the remainder returning to the RSL in 1941. Another split produced the Socialist Workers Group which published ''Socialist Fight'' and entered the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates ...

, some of its former members eventually joining the Trotskyist Opposition which had been expelled from the RSL in 1942. This group, led by John Lawrence, advocated adoption of the PMP of the Socialist Workers Party and was in favour of fusing with the WIL. Collaboration between the Trotskyist Opposition and the WIL was so close that Lawrence was employed by the latter on technical tasks. In 1943, the Left Fraction who were opposed to that policy were expelled. The leadership of the Revolutionary Socialist League refused to enter into any unity negotiations, despite the party's drastic reduction from 300 to 20 members, until in 1944 the Fourth International held a two-day conference. This conference was required to reunite the group so that it could fuse with the WIL into a single organization which could then affiliate to the Fourth International. As planned on the first day, the Trotskyist Opposition and the Left Fraction were reunited with the RSL. Despite the objections of the Left Fraction, the second day saw the reformed RSL unified with the WIL – on the WIL's terms – to form the new Revolutionary Communist Party.

References

* Al Bornstein and Sam Richardson (1986), "Against The Stream" in ''The War and the International: A History of the Trotskyist Movement in Britain 1937-1949''. London: Socialist Platform. {{Authority control Political parties established in 1938 Political parties disestablished in 1944 Defunct Trotskyist organisations in the United Kingdom 1938 establishments in the United Kingdom 1944 disestablishments in the United Kingdom