Correspondence May - November 1942¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: Correspondence May – November 1942
This chapter documents the fractious correspondence between the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) and the Workers’ International League (WIL) during a pivotal period of the Second World War, revealing deep political antagonisms that obstructed Trotskyist unity in Britain. The central dispute turned on the WIL’s slogans “Arm the workers” and “Nationalise the war industries under workers’ control.” The RSL denounced these as politically harmful and centrist, arguing that the British bourgeoisie had already armed workers through the Home Guard under its own control, and that calling for nationalisation to increase production during an imperialist war gave the slogans a patriotic coloration. The WIL, through its secretary Ted Grant, defended the slogans as compatible with revolutionary principles, accusing the RSL of abstract rationalism.
The RSL further rejected the WIL’s approach to the Labour Party, seeing no serious difference between “Labour to power” and “a third Labour government”, and accusing the WIL of adopting vaguer formulations to avoid commitment. On organisational unity, the RSL insisted that political unity must precede any merger, and pointedly reminded the WIL that the 1938 Founding Conference had characterised it as an unprincipled splitter group. The WIL, by contrast, argued it stood on the ground of the Fourth International and should be unified with it.
The correspondence also reveals tactical disputes over public polemics. After the RSL published an open attack on the WIL, E.C. Clapper, writing to the WIL, urged restraint, recommending that any reply be moderate and pedagogic to avoid opening a public controversy that would weaken the WIL’s negotiating position. He noted that both organisations had passed conference resolutions calling for a joint bulletin and a unification conference after six months of discussion, and that a committee of six had been created. The chapter thus captures a moment when the promise of unity was repeatedly undermined by fundamental political disagreements over the character of the war, the nature of the Labour Party, and the conditions for revolutionary regroupment.