We reproduce an article published in Lalkar in 1986 in order to enlighten our readers about the history of the various Trotskyite counter-revolutionary outfits, some of whom have changed their names, the latest incarnation being the so-called Revolutionary Communist Party, which is being promoted by the ruling circles in opposition to the CPGB-ML.
With news of the expulsion from the Labour Party of members of the so-called Militant Tendency on an almost regular basis, it is timely to look at just what the history of Trotskyism has been in Britain since 1932. It was then that Reg Groves was expelled from the Communist Party of Great Britain and went off to form the ‘Balham Group’, Britain’s first Trotskyist organisation.
After about five years this Trotskyist ‘movement’ had managed to muster up about a dozen members. By 1938 there were a few other small groups, and from the mid-1930s they fought against the formation of a People’s Anti-fascist Front. It could already be seen that these Trotskyites, who professed to support socialist revolution and the labour movement as a whole, were a severe hindrance to both. It is hardly surprising that the receipients of Trotskyite ‘support’ and often less than grateful.
It was in 1938 that Trotsky sent JP Cannon of the US Socialist Workers’ Party to Britain to set up a section of the ‘Fourth International’ (Trotskyist). He found a number of small sectarian groups mainly occupied in fighting each other. Things had started as they were to go on. The groups included the Militant Group (NOT to be confused with the Militant Tendency), the Workers’ International League (formed by G Healy and J Haston when they split from the Militant Group), the Marxist League led by CLR James (whose views on cricket were far better than his views on politics), a group round H Sara and H Wicks who were in the Labour Party. Cannon managed to unite most of the groups, briefly, and to form the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).
During the Second World War, these people, who had opposed the Popular Anti-fascist Front on the basis that it was alleged to be a sell-out to the bourgeoisie – a line that could help nobody other than the Nazis – had the gall to denounce the USSR as a ‘collaborator with Nazism’ for having entered into the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. They deliberately failed to see that this pact represented a diplomatic coup for the forces of international socialism, having deflected the blows of fascist Germany away from the socialist USSR towards Germany’s rival imperialists.
With the victory of the Labour Party in the elections of 1945, and as no one would take any notice of them in their own right, most Trotskyites decided to jump on the Labour Party bandwagon and become members of it.
However, in 1953 the RCP split. Ted Grant went off to form a group called ‘International Socialist’ (not to be confused with the International Socialists, who later became the Socialist Workers’ Party. He then went on to form the Revolutionary Socialist League – generally known as the Militant Group (Yes, this is the Militant Tendency). Another group at that time well hidden inside the Labour Party formed the International Marxist Group as it was to be known when it surfaced 15 years later.
If this short history begins to get a little confused, then that is because those involved were more than a little confused. Meanwhile, in 1951, the International Socialists (the ones who became the Socialist Workers’ Party) were born of M Kidron and T Cliff, who, like all ‘good’ Trotskyites of the day, were hiding inside the Labour Party.
In 1972 the SWP was ripe for a split – and off went a group to form the Revolutionary Communist Group. The RCG itself soon split, and some of them became the Revolutionary Communist Tendency which, having recruited about a dozen members, decided it was large enough to call itself the Revolutionary Communist PARTY.
The SWP had also expelled a group called Workers’ Fight, which became the International Communist League, and in 1975 they expelled Workers’ Power, which fused with the ICL, but left again within a year.
Meanwhile, back on the Labour Party funny farm, we had the Revolutionary Socialist League (alias the Militant group – now the Militant Tendency) and the International Marxist Group. Just to confuse things, IMG left the Labour Party only to re-enter it in 1982, renaming itself the Socialist Labour Group, by which name it is still known.
Now, the original Revolutionary Communist Party (the one led by Gerry Healy, which was originally the Workers’ International League, not the one that used to be the Revolutionary Communist Tendency) changed its name, first to the Socialist Labour League and then to the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (WRP). A small splinter left the WRP in 1971 to form the Socialist Labour Group. The WRP expelled A Thornett in 1974: he formed the Workers’ Socialist League, which later joined forces with the International Communist League to form the Socialist Organiser Alliance in 1982.
About two years ago the SOA expelled some of its members, who in turn formed Socialist Viewpoint.
Last year [1985] the WRP split and BOTH factions still insist that they are the true WRP.
For completeness one more group should be mentioned, the Spartacists. They did not emerge from a split with anyone because they are an American import whose main activity is going on demonstrations with banners bearing catchy slogan like ‘Drive out SDP Fifth Column Labour Party Can Betray Without CIA Connections! Smash NATO, Defend USSR’. In case you are wondering why Trotskyites call for the defence of the USSR, this ‘defence’ is of the usual Trotskyite kind in that the Spartacists also call for “political revolution to overthrow the Kremlin bureaucracy”.
All in all it is ironic that these groups, who have a long history of expelling everyone, regularly find themselves being expelled from the Labour Party in which they should not have been in the first place if, as their names suggest, they are Revolutionary, Marxist, Internationalists, etc. Are they in a strong position to accuse others of conducting a Witch Hunt against them? Let he who is without sin cast the first stone!
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