Has the RCP surreptitiously changed its position?¶
Core Argument¶
Here, the author mounts a polemical defence of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) against accusations, levelled by a comrade named Stuart, that the British party has surreptitiously altered its political line. The core argument is that Stuart, having himself changed positions, is projecting his own inconsistency onto the RCP to mask his failure to raise the question of perspectives at the time of the 1944 Fusion Conference between the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) and the Workers' International League (WIL). The chapter’s narrative thrust is to expose what it calls Stuart’s “conscious distortion” by reprinting the full Fusion Conference resolution, thereby demonstrating that the RCP’s perspective was unambiguous and has remained consistent.
The resolution, quoted in full, establishes the RCP’s strategic orientation for the immediate post-war period. Its key claims are several. First, while the Labour Party is the mass party of the British working class, it is assessed as “almost dead” in the present conjuncture, losing working-class confidence as evidenced by the Scottish Nationalist challenge in Kirkcaldy. Second, the most fruitful field for factional work is not the Labour Party but the Independent Labour Party (ILP), which is expected to re-affiliate to the Labour Party and become the main left-wing organisational base. Third, the primary axis of activity is the industrial front—factories, shop-stewards, and trade unions—where the party must raise the “independent banner of the Fourth International” and recruit revolutionary militants directly. The resolution explicitly subordinates all factional work in existing organisations to the overriding task of building the independent revolutionary party. The author insists that this perspective was clear to all present, including Stuart, who originally agreed with it.
The chapter draws on the historical context of post-war British labour movement fragmentation: the Labour Party’s temporary decline, the Communist Party’s rapid growth, and the ILP’s uncertain trajectory. It also invokes Trotsky’s writings on the entrist tactic, specifically the concept of “temporary liquidation” of the independent organisation during entry work. The polemic is directed squarely at Stuart, who is accused of sophistry for arguing that building the independent party is a “process” that cannot be counterposed to manoeuvres with reformists. The author dismisses this as a “frivolous” and patronising lecture on the ABCs of Trotskyism, noting that Trotsky himself understood that the independent organisation could be temporarily liquidated as a tactic. The chapter thus defends the RCP’s line as orthodox and accuses Stuart of bad faith.