3. The internal debate of WIL on revolutionary military policy [February-March 1941]¶
Core Argument¶
The Workers’ International League (WIL) held a decisive internal debate from February to March 1941 over the correct revolutionary military policy for Britain at war. Andrew Scott’s lead article in Youth For Socialism and Workers’ International News argued that the British ruling class, like the French, would rather capitulate to Hitler than arm the working class, and called for arming the workers under a socialist programme to genuinely fight fascism. This provoked sharp criticism from Millie Kahn, Sam Levy, and Jock Haston, who feared the line capitulated to chauvinist pressure.
The Minority, led by Haston, charged that the Majority mechanically identified the French situation of 1940 with Britain in 1941, ignoring crucial differences. In France, the 1936 general strikes had created a revolutionary situation, halted by the Popular Front; by 1938 the masses were demoralised under Daladier’s semi-Bonapartist regime. Britain was economically stronger, with a larger but politically more backward proletariat not yet disillusioned with its bourgeoisie. The British bourgeoisie did not currently fear the working class, and the choice in a German invasion was not Hitler or social revolution but Hitler or American imperialism. The Minority insisted the slogan “Arm the workers—the only guarantee against Hitler’s invasion” presupposed inevitable British military defeat and fetishised Hitler. They proposed instead: “Arm the workers under workers’ control—the only guarantee for the defence of workers’ democratic rights.”
The Majority replied that the Minority’s criticism was abstract and formalistic. Even if invasion were repelled without arming the workers, arming them would make defeat inevitable. The bourgeoisie’s refusal to arm the whole people proved it preferred risking invasion rather than facing an armed working class impossible to disarm once class struggle sharpened. The slogan directly raised the problem of power: to fight Hitler, workers must take power into their own hands. The Majority insisted the new policy telescoped the tasks of overthrowing the bourgeoisie and fighting Hitler simultaneously, exposing Labour leaders who used the Hitler threat to justify destroying workers’ rights.
The debate sharpened the organisation’s understanding of Trotsky’s “proletarian military policy.” The Majority defended the method of proletarian militarism: instead of negative opposition to imperialist war, a positive programme for war aiming to transform imperialist war into revolutionary war by transferring control to the workers. The old policy of opposing all bourgeois war preparations was now insufficient. The task was to go with the workers into the army, raising demands for elected officers, trade union control of military training, and building a class-conscious armed movement—preventing a repeat of post-WWI demobilisation when bourgeois concessions disarmed returning soldiers. The debate ultimately strengthened the WIL’s cohesion, enabling successful intervention in the British army.