Correspondence February - June 1943¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter of internal documents captures a pivotal moment in British Trotskyist history, revealing the bitter factional struggles that accompanied the movement's wartime development. The correspondence revolves around three interconnected axes: organisational discipline, political strategy, and the fraught relationship between the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) and the Workers' International League (WIL).
The expulsion of comrade GH emerges as a central disciplinary case, treated by the Political Bureau as a matter of political principle rather than personal grievance. GH's offence lay in joining the Independent Labour Party, conducting opposition behind the Executive Committee's back, and resigning when confronted. The Bureau's statement was deliberately moderate, though a far more damning case could have been made. The organisation, now bearing national responsibilities, could not tolerate such disloyalty. GH refused to defend his position, swore falsely on his revolutionary honour, and informed ILP members of his stance before formal expulsion. This episode illustrates the movement's insistence that party discipline was not bureaucratic formalism but a necessary condition for revolutionary effectiveness.
On industrial unionism, the correspondence strikes a dialectical note: the slogan is deemed out of date as an immediate agitational issue in Britain, yet retains value as a broad educational perspective. The fundamental error of sectarians, the document argues, is to impose ideal forms upon the workers' movement rather than follow its actual development. Factory and workers' committees will likely supersede the trade unions before industrial unionism is achieved—a prediction grounded in the transitional programme's logic.
The most revealing material concerns the WIL's relationship with the American Socialist Workers Party. An SWP visitor to London reported that the Socialist Appeal was eagerly read by the American rank-and-file, who admired British Trotskyists for their attacks on bourgeois and Stalinist positions. The visitor was impressed by the application of the transitional programme to industrial questions, noting that the United States was not yet ready for workers' control slogans. Full agreement was reached on military policy, with no opposition within the SWP. The visitor concurred with the WIL's criticism of the RSL on three points: Labour to power, military policy, and workers' control. He spent an afternoon with eight RSL members, seven of whom expressed disagreement with their own organisation's policy. The IS regarded the WIL with extreme friendliness; the visitor considered the WIL the best exponent of the transitional programme internationally, while the RSL, he thought, was moving away from the Fourth International.
Following the Comintern's dissolution, the WIL proposed an immediate unification conference. The RSL rejected this, accusing the WIL of lying about its status and failing to reply to earlier documents. The RSL insisted on prior political agreement and questioned the WIL's motives. Meanwhile, the Trotskyist Opposition, expelled from the RSL and fused with the Socialist Workers Group, proposed discussions and joint action on the film Mission to Moscow. The chapter thus captures a movement torn between unity and principle, struggling to find its footing in the treacherous terrain of wartime politics.