Fusion resolution (moved by WIL)¶
Core Argument¶
Digest: Fusion Resolution (Moved by WIL)¶
This chapter records the formal unification of the two main British Trotskyist organisations—the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) and the Workers’ International League (WIL)—into a single British section of the Fourth International. The core argument is that a decade of debilitating splits, rooted in tactical disagreements and exacerbated by the isolation of the movement during a period of working-class defeat, must now be superseded. The war, the resolution contends, has inaugurated a new stage of class struggle, creating favourable conditions for Trotskyism to merge with a rising tide of militancy. To exploit this opportunity, the fragmented forces must be consolidated under a single leadership, bound by the programme and statutes of the Fourth International, and governed by majority decisions on the tactical questions that had previously divided them.
The resolution makes several key claims. First, that the splits were a product of objective conditions—defeat and reaction—rather than fundamental principle, since both organisations were in agreement on the Fourth International’s programme. Second, that the new period demands unity as a precondition for growth. Third, that the fusion takes place against the backdrop of the dissolution of the Third International and the degeneration of its national sections into agencies of the ruling class, a process that is driving Stalinist militants towards the Fourth International. The resolution therefore appeals to all isolated comrades and communist workers to join the unified party.
The chapter also records the debate on the resolution, which reveals the persistence of the very antagonisms the fusion was meant to dissolve. The central point of contention was an amendment, moved by a supporter, to reopen discussion of the 1938 split for its educational value. Haston (WIL) opposed this, arguing that the amendment was a disguised demand for the WIL to admit past errors and seek forgiveness—a condition that would have prevented fusion. He noted that the International Secretariat had itself now called for the closure of all discussion on 1938. Hilda Pratt (WIL) dissented, arguing that mistakes were part of the growth process and that the question should be raised again in the future for clarification. Harber (Militant group) accused Pratt of playing a disruptive role, recalling her 1938 expulsion. Healy (WIL) supported a compromise: closure for six months, but not the permanent exclusion of the question. The amendment was defeated decisively (11 to 54 votes).
The polemical thrust is thus directed against two positions: the demand to reopen old wounds as a condition of unity, and the sectarian refusal to fuse at all (one delegate from the Left fraction absurdly claimed the RSL was a national party and the WIL an international one, making fusion impossible). The resolution itself, and Haston’s defence of it, argues that a united party must be built on majority decisions, not on retrospective admissions of guilt. The past is dissolved in the interest of the future.