The Trotskyist Movement in Great Britain¶
Core Argument¶
The Trotskyist Movement in Great Britain, as defined in a 1944 War Cabinet memorandum by the Home Secretary, constituted a distinct current of Marxism that had split from Stalinism. Its doctrinal foundation rested on the interpretations of Marx and Lenin by Leon Trotsky, opposing Stalin’s theory of ‘socialism in one country’, his personal dictatorship, the erosion of the Soviets, and the emergence of privileged social layers. Trotskyists denied that the USSR was socialist, insisting instead on the necessity of simultaneous world revolution. Their ultimate objective was the establishment of Workers’ Governments founded on common ownership and workers’ control, to be prepared for through militant agitation on wages and conditions. They regarded the Second World War as a struggle between rival imperialisms, yet offered unconditional support to the Soviet Union.
The British movement had existed since 1929. On 12 March 1944, the Revolutionary Socialist League and the Workers’ International League merged to form the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), led by former WIL figures including Haston, Lee, Grant, Tearse, and Atkinson. Total membership was probably well below 1,000, with only 152 in London. The party was strongest on Clydeside and weakest in the Midlands and South Wales. It attempted to penetrate the Independent Labour Party and created the Militant Workers’ Federation as a front organisation. Its income for 1943 was £2,654, derived chiefly from members’ contributions, with no evidence of foreign funding. The RCP’s policy was to stimulate class feeling and secure leadership among militants, exploiting grievances in strikes without directly provoking them. Its industrial influence was slight, confined to advising strike leaders in engineering and apprentices’ disputes; in mining, it was negligible. The memorandum concluded that the RCP had a small, localised influence, unlikely to rise beyond being ‘sparring partners’ to the Communist Party.
The RCP’s programme demanded that trade unions establish state-funded military schools to train worker-officers, and that workers be armed under the control of committees elected in factories, unions, and on the streets, to defend democratic rights against domestic and foreign reaction. Internationally, it opposed all forms of race hatred and discrimination—including Vansittartism, antisemitism, and the Colour Bar—and called for fraternisation between workers and soldiers of all countries. It demanded unconditional defence of the Soviet Union, with arms and materials sent under Trade Union and factory committee control. Finally, it argued for a socialist appeal to workers in Germany, Europe, Japan, and globally, based on this British programme, to unite the struggle against Nazism, Fascism, and capitalist oppression, aiming for a Socialist United States of Europe and a Federation of Asiatic Soviet Socialist Republics.