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Revolutionary Communist Party (UK, 1944)
The Revolutionary Communist Party was a British Trotskyist group, formed in 1944 and active until 1949, which published the newspaper ''Socialist Appeal'' and a theoretical journal, ''Workers International News''. The party was the ancestor of the three main currents of British Trotskyism: Gerry Healy's Workers Revolutionary Party, Ted Grant's Militant and Tony Cliff's Socialist Workers Party. History During the Second World War, there were two rival Trotskyist parties in Britain: the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) with around 70 members, and the Workers International League (WIL) with around 400 members. At the instigation of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI), the two groups met during the early 1940s, fusing into a single party in March 1944. The WIL had taken a position similar to the Proletarian Military Policy adopted by the Fourth International (and its large US member, the Socialist Workers Party) on issues to do with war, whi ...
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Jock Haston
James "Jock" Ritchie Haston (1913–1986) was a Trotskyist politician and General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Great Britain. Early years Haston was born in Edinburgh and went to sea in the merchant navy where he became a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). He moved to Trotskyism in the mid 1930s, after splitting with the CPGB in 1934 upon watching Soviet ships break the public trade boycott of Nazi Germany. The Paddington group, which he led, joined the Militant Group led by Denzil Dean Harber, and in 1937 when a group of South African Trotskyists appeared in London, it was Haston who moved their acceptance of membership in the Trotskyist group. The South Africans were led by Ralph Lee (born Raphael Levy), hence they were referred to as the "Lee Group," and had been active in that country. A dispute with the Communist Party of South Africa was to follow them to Britain however, and it was alleged that Lee had stolen strike funds from a ...
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Socialist Workers Party (United States)
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a communist party in the United States. The SWP began as a group which, because it supported Leon Trotsky over Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, was expelled from the Communist Party USA. Since the 1930s, it has published '' The Militant'' as a weekly newspaper. It also maintains Pathfinder Press. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union, the SWP was the largest Trotskyist organization in the United States. During the 1960s and 1970s, the SWP and its youth wing, the Young Socialist Alliance, were the third-largest socialist organizations, after the Communist Party USA and Students for a Democratic Society. The SWP suffered many splits and its membership declined. The modern SWP is smaller than its progeny, such as the Trotskyist Socialist Alternative and the Marxist-Leninist Party for Socialism and Liberation. The SWP places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba. During the 2020s, the SWP has ...
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1945 Neath By-election
The 1945 Neath by-election was a parliamentary by-election held for the British House of Commons constituency of Neath in South Wales. Neath was considered a safe seat for the Labour Party and had been held by William Jenkins since the 1922 general election. No other candidate had stood in the seat at the last general election."Neath Polling To-Day", ''Manchester Guardian'', 15 May 1945 Jenkins died on 8 December 1944, but as World War II was still underway, the process of calling a by-election was slow, and the date was ultimately set as 15 May 1945. Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson, ''War and the International'' (1986) pp. 136–140 Candidates The Labour Party expected to easily hold the seat, and stood local miner D. J. Williams. Williams was a member of Pontardawe Rural District Council, and the Executive Council of the South Wales Miners' Federation. He had been part of a miners' delegation to the Soviet Union and was known for his opposition to Welsh nationalism. ...
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Anarchist
Anarchism is a political philosophy and Political movement, movement that seeks to abolish all institutions that perpetuate authority, coercion, or Social hierarchy, hierarchy, primarily targeting the state (polity), state and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with Stateless society, stateless societies and voluntary Free association (communism and anarchism), free associations. A historically left-wing movement, anarchism is usually described as the libertarian wing of the socialist movement (libertarian socialism). Although traces of anarchist ideas are found all throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in Labour movement, workers' struggles for emancipation. #Schools of thought, Various anarchist schools of thought formed during ...
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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 Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse working-class candidates. A sitting independent MP and prominent union organiser, Keir Hardie, became its first chairman. The party played a key role in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee (1900), Labour Representation Committee, to which ILP members Hardie and Ramsay MacDonald were delegates at its foundation in 1900. The committee was renamed the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party in 1906, and the ILP remained affiliated until 1932. In 1947, the organisation's three parliamentary representatives defected to the Labour Party, and the organisation joined Labour as Independent Labour Publications in 1975. Organisational history Background As the nineteenth century came to a close, working-class representation in political office ...
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Militant Workers Federation
The English word ''militant'' is both an adjective and a noun, and it is generally used to mean vigorously active, combative and/or aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in "militant reformers". It comes from the 15th century Latin "''militare''" meaning "to serve as a soldier". As adjective Militant can mean "vigorously active and aggressive, especially in support of a cause" as in 'militant reformers'. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, defines ''militant'' as "Having a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause". The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines ''militant'' as "aggressively active (as in a cause)". It says that the word ''militant'' might typically be used in phrases such as 'militant conservationists' or 'a militant attitude'. An example of the adjective usages is demonstrated when ''The New York Times'' ran an article titled ''Militant Environmentalists Planning Summer Protests to Save Redwoods'' describi ...
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Tyneside
Tyneside is a List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, built-up area across the banks of the River Tyne, England, River Tyne in Northern England. The population of Tyneside as published in the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 774,891, making it the eighth most-populous List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, urban area in the United Kingdom. Tyneside is made up of the metropolitan borough, metropolitan boroughs of Newcastle upon Tyne, Metropolitan Borough of Gateshead, Gateshead, North Tyneside and South Tyneside. The area is surrounded by the North East Green Belt. Residents of the area are commonly referred to as Geordies. Settlements The Office for National Statistics, ONS 2011 census had 774,891 census respondents inside the "Tyneside Built-up Area" or "Tyneside Urban Area". These figures are a decline from 879,996; this loss was mainly due to the ONS reclassifying Hetton-le-Hole, Houghton-le-Spring, Chester-le-Street and Washington, Tyne and Wear, Washingt ...
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Kent Miners' Association
The Kent Miners' Association was a trade union in the United Kingdom which existed between 1915 and 1945, representing coal miners in the county of Kent. After 1945 it was reorganised as the Kent Area of the National Union of Mineworkers. Early history Coal was discovered in Kent in the late-19th century, but extraction did not begin until 1912.Nigel Yates, ''Kent in the Twentieth Century'', pp.30-35 The Kent Miners Association was established in 1915, and immediately affiliated to the Miners' Federation of Great Britain.Arthur Marsh and Victoria Ryan, ''Historical Directory of Trade Unions'', pp.221-222 Working conditions in the mines were poor, and mine owners struggled to attract workers, giving a strong bargaining position to the union. In 1941, a dispute emerged over additional payments for working a particularly difficult seam. Official arbitration backed the mineowners, prompting more than 4,000 coal miners to strike, despite a wartime ban on industrial action. The ...
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Charlie Van Gelderen
Charlie van Gelderen (14 August 1913 – 26 October 2001) was a South African Trotskyist active in the British Labour movement from the 1930s. He attended the founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938, and towards the end of his life he was the last survivor of that conference. In the 1940s, he played the leading role for the Revolutionary Communist Party's fraction in the Labour Party. He became a leader of the International Marxist Group, and served on the editorial board of its magazine, ''International''. After the break-up of the IMG, he joined the International Socialist Group. References External linksMemorial meeting report ''International Viewpoint ''International Viewpoint'' is the English-language online magazine of the Trotskyist reunified Fourth International. It focuses on publishing articles on the political and social situation throughout the world, notably by translating articles ...''Obituary by Terry Conway and Penelope Duggan In ...
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Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party, often referred to as Labour, is a List of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom that sits on the Centre-left politics, centre-left of the political spectrum. The party has been described as an alliance of social democrats, democratic socialists and trade unionists. It is one of the Two-party system, two dominant political parties in the United Kingdom; the other being the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party. Labour has been led by Keir Starmer since 2020 Labour Party leadership election (UK), 2020, who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom following the 2024 United Kingdom general election, 2024 general election. To date, there have been 12 Labour governments and seven different Labour Prime Ministers – Ramsay MacDonald, MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Attlee, Harold Wilson, Wilson, James Callaghan, Callaghan, Tony Blair, Blair, Gordon Brown, Brown and Starmer. The Labour Party was founded in 1900, having e ...
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Entrist
Entryism (also called entrism, enterism, infiltration, a French Turn, boring from within, or boring-from-within) is a political strategy in which an organization or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program. If the organization being "entered" is hostile to entryism, the entryists may engage in a degree of subterfuge and subversion to hide the fact that they are an organization in their own right. Socialist entryism "Boring from within" One entryist strategy that took place in the United States is called the "boring from within" strategy. Radical workers would join established (and often conservative) trade unions and attempt to join their leadership to shift their stances leftward. These workers were called "borers". Boring was opposed by radical workers who supported dual unionism, where radical unions would attempt to win over workers and firm-level union loca ...
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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. The group formed as a tendency of the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) in 1940. It was described by other tendencies in the disintegrating organisation as pacifist. The group opposed Trotsky's Proletarian Military Policy, and was expelled in 1943. On the first day of conference held by the Fourth International in 1944, the Left Fraction and also the Trotskyist Opposition were reunited with the RSL. Despite the objections of the Left Fraction, the second day saw the reformed RSL unified with the rival Workers International League – on the WIL's terms – to form the new Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). Sam Bornstein and Al Richardson, ''Against the Stream'' (Socialist Platform, 1986) The Left Fraction initially remained withi ...
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