Introduction

Wellred

Core Argument

This introductory chapter situates the 1944 fusion conference as the culmination of a protracted effort to unify the principal Trotskyist groupings in Britain, a project driven by the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. The text identifies the key factions: the Left Fraction and Trotskyist Opposition of the Revolutionary Socialist League, the Militant Group, the bulk of the RSL membership, and the Workers’ International League. The Fourth International, founded in September 1938, had recognised the RSL as its official British section. The WIL, while programmatically aligned with the FI, remained outside it due to a fundamental disagreement over the tactics the FI prescribed for the British situation. This tactical divergence, coupled with the RSL’s internal fractional paralysis, rendered the official section less effective than the WIL. The chapter notes that the International Secretariat had pursued unity since 1938, but all prior attempts had failed.

The immediate catalyst for the conference was a September 1943 resolution from the International Secretariat, which mandated fusion in light of Britain’s strategic importance in the wartime military and political conjuncture. The FI dispatched a representative, Terence Phelan, to Britain in autumn 1943 to oversee the process. In January 1944, the RSL groupings held their own conference and agreed to fuse. Formal negotiations then commenced between the RSL and WIL, with Phelan present at all meetings. The chapter records that each grouping submitted its own resolutions and was permitted to speak to them, but the WIL’s resolutions were carried, revealing a balance of forces heavily favouring the WIL. The fused organisation, named the Revolutionary Communist Party, became the officially recognised British section of the Fourth International. The chapter concludes by noting that the agenda, resolutions passed, and brief notes on the military policy debate are included in the subsequent text. The polemical thrust is implicit: the WIL’s tactical line, which had previously kept it outside the FI, has now been vindicated by the conference vote, displacing the RSL’s position and resolving the long-standing organisational schism.