Socialist Appeal was the British section of the

International Marxist Tendency The Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) is a Trotskyist political international. It was founded as the Committee for a Marxist International (CMI) by British-based South African political theorist Ted Grant and his supporters after th ...

(IMT), founded in 1992 alongside the IMT by supporters of

Ted Grant Edward Grant (born Isaac Blank; 9 July 1913 – 20 July 2006) was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant tendency, Militant and later Socialist Appeal (UK, 1992), ...

and Alan Woods after they were expelled from the

Militant tendency The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party, organised around the ''Militant'' newspaper, which launched in 1964. In 1975, there was widespread press coverage of a Labour Party report on the infiltrat ...

of the Labour Party. In 2024 the Great Britain-based elements of the IMT were relaunched as the Revolutionary Communist Party. The organisation described itself as a "Marxist organisation which stands for the socialist transformation of society." Its stated aim was to build a revolutionary leadership capable of leading the working class in a struggle against capitalism. It described its politics as descending from

Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky,; ; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky'' was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, and political theorist. He was a key figure ...

. Socialist Appeal published a fortnightly newspaper under the same name until January 2024, and operated the Wellred Books publisher and bookstore.

History

In the 1970s and 1980s, Socialist Appeal's predecessor, the

, had been a significant force within the British Labour Party. At the height of its influence in the mid-to-late 1980s, Militant had three Labour MPs, control of

Liverpool City Council Liverpool City Council is the Local government in England, local authority for the City status in the United Kingdom, city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Liverpool has had a local authority since 1207, which has been reformed on numerous ...

and later initiated the campaign that they claim forced the abandonment of the

poll tax A poll tax, also known as head tax or capitation, is a tax levied as a fixed sum on every liable individual (typically every adult), without reference to income or resources. ''Poll'' is an archaic term for "head" or "top of the head". The sen ...

. Grant had been one of the founders and the theoretical leader of the Militant group, but he was expelled with other supporters after the 1991 debate on the Open Turn. The split was caused by what Grant and Woods claimed was the bureaucratic centralist degeneration of Militant's internal regime, as well as Grant's continued support for the tactic of

entryism 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, organiz ...

within the Labour Party. In 1991, Militant decided by a large majority to abandon entryism in the Labour Party. Ted Grant, once the group's most important member, was expelled and his breakaway minority, which adopted the name Socialist Appeal, continued with the entryist strategy. The majority changed its name to Militant Labour and then in 1997 to the Socialist Party. Socialist Appeal began publishing their own journal in 1992. In 2000, the group was estimated to have around 250 supporters. In 2013, Socialist Appeal launched a student wing, the Marxist Student Federation (MSF), to provide a "national platform for Marxist ideas in the student movement," focused on political discussions at university Marxist societies, as well as campaigning within the

labour movement The labour movement is the collective organisation of working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It can be considere ...

. Following the Scottish independence referendum in which Scots voted to retain the union with the rest of the United Kingdom, the International Marxist Tendency launched a separate Scottish periodical called ''Revolution'', which analysed events in Scotland, and put forward a Marxist position in relation to the Scottish independence movement. ''Revolution'''s masthead carries the slogan "For a Scottish workers' republic and world socialist revolution!". In July 2021, the Labour Party's National Executive Committee banned Socialist Appeal and ruled that its members could be automatically expelled from the Labour Party. On 14 November 2023, Socialist Appeal announced that the IMT within Great Britain would be refounded as the Revolutionary Communist Party. The founding congress of the party took place in May 2024.

Publications

''Socialist Appeal'' refers to the fortnightly newspaper of the same name. In September 2009, the publication ''Socialist Appeal'' changed from a magazine journal format to a full colour tabloid. As part of the establishment of the Revolutionary Community Party, the paper was merged with the Scottish IMT newspaper, ''Revolution,'' to form ''The Communist'' in January 2024. The group also produced and/or published books, pamphlets, magazines and other Marxist educational material through the Wellred Books site operated by themselves. ''Socialist Appeal'' was also the name of two British Trotskyist newspapers associated with Ted Grant in the 1940s: one was the newspaper of the Workers International League and immediately following that of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

International Marxist Tendency

Socialist Appeal was part of the then International Marxist Tendency (now the Revolutionary Communist International). In

Latin America Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...

, it supported President of Venezuela's

Hugo Chávez Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (; ; 28 July 1954 – 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician, Bolivarian Revolution, revolutionary, and Officer (armed forces), military officer who served as the 52nd president of Venezuela from 1999 until De ...

’s Bolivarian Revolution and the IMT instigated the formation of the Hands Off Venezuela campaign group to support Chávez. The IMT ran the multilingual website ''In Defence of Marxism'', which is now run by the RCI.

References

External links

Official website

In Defence of Marxism

Wellred online bookshop

Ted Grant Internet Archive

Marxist Student Federation
{{Authority control Entryists Factions of the Scottish Socialist Party Revolutionary Communist International Militant tendency Political parties established in 1992 Political parties disestablished in 2024 Trotskyist organisations in the United Kingdom 1992 establishments in the United Kingdom Organisations associated with the Labour Party (UK) Newspapers established in 1992 Socialist newspapers published in the United Kingdom

History

Publications

International Marxist Tendency

See also

References

External links