This week we publish in 3 parts a history of British Trotskyism by Martin Upham. This was a PhD thesis on the subject, and while we would not agree with all the points raised in it, we believe it deserves a wider audience, particularly for those interested in the history of our movement. For a more in-depth study of the subject readers are urged to consult Ted Grant's book on the the History of British Trotskyism.

The History of British Trotskyism to 1949

by Martin Upham

PART TWO
(1938-1944)

IX
APPLYING THE MILITARY POLICY:
1938 – 1941

British Trotskyists, like the general labour movement, were increasingly concerned about war. During the peacetime years up to 1939 they were able to live off the traditional Bolshevik view of imperialist war, though there was already controversy about what this meant in practical terms. No Trotskyists supported the war when it finally broke out: all factions continued to maintain that it was an imperialist war. But a bitter and protracted dispute developed between the RSL, the WIL and the Fourth International over the application of the anti-patriotic line.

The general Trotskyist attitude to war was established as early as 1934. War and the Fourth International (1934) [1] declared that a future world conflict would be imperialist and called for opposition to patriotism in all capitalist countries. War was likely to threaten the Soviet Union and there it was the duty of the working class to seek defence. The support of socialist and trade union leaders in every country for their government in the event of war was predicted as a certainty. British Trotskyists vigilantly watched the rising threat of war which they saw as a political issue dwarfing most others. In 1935 it had been enough to reverse the policy of the Marxist Group. From that year also, part of the Trotskyist charge against communism was its willingness to support an alliance of anti-fascist powers, if such a project should be cobbled into reality. When Trotskyists speculated on war, they drew on knowledge of the Great War, the only precedent they had. In 1936 Groves forecast dilution, the skeletal emergence of strike-breaking machinery and the exclusion of “leftists” from war industry. He predicted a gradual loss of trade union rights and recommended resistance to conscription, which was likely to be introduced in peacetime. Only thus would democratic countries be able to match their national resources to those of fascist countries. [2]

Suspicion of war preparations led Trotskyists to oppose every step in that direction. Their difficulty was that if their response was confined to opposition of this kind they were doomed to impotence. The Marxist Group recognised the problem early on:

“While we must combine planning for protection with anti-war propaganda, and must make every effort to present the outbreak of another world war, we cannot neglect to face the possibility of that war, and meet the problems involved”. [3]

But that conclusion could be drawn only after a frank recognition that the international situation was deteriorating faster than Trotskyism was gathering strength. There was no widespread disposition to face the implications of this unpalatable truth. [4] When E.L. Davis argued within the Militant Group for penetration of ARP organisations [5] he was rebuked. [6]

Just as Trotskyists assumed that labour and trade union leaders would rally patriotically, they were also sensitive to signs of backsliding within their own movement. [7] This made it difficult to move beyond an abstract anti-war line. But the capitulation of socialist leaders had taken place, among other reasons, because of intense mass pressure. This was hardly a problem for Trotskyists to worry about, and time was to show that chauvinistic hysteria would not, in any case, recur. If Trotskyism was to break out of isolation, it needed something more than a formal programme, however well grounded in Leninist precept. The Transitional Programme of the Fourth International, the second major document of the movement on war, tried to reach beyond pacifism, arguing “workers must learn the military arts” [8], but it was also an optimistic document declaring that crisis would shatter all parties and the Fourth International must be available to rally the proletariat.

This strictly general guidance left Trotskyists in Britain and elsewhere in a formal argument. They faced a political environment which was utterly different to that whose precedents provided so much of their inspiration, the prelude to World War One. The political battles of the left about war and rearmament were fought not in 1939 but in the mid 1930s. Key events in shifting the Labour Party from a broadly anti-war position were the trouncing of Lansbury at the 1935 conference and the critical vote of the PLP in July 1937 to abstain on the Service Department estimates, reversing its earlier position of opposition. [9] British Communist policy had been unqualified as late as 1934 [10] but by a series of national and international changes its main thrust became a drive to make sure Britain was on the right side in a peace front. [11] This induced increased political loneliness which tended to reinforce Trotskyists’ views.

They rejected any involvement with war preparations. No fine distinctions between attack and defence were allowed to pass, even a zigzag trench. [12] For all the occasional doubts of individuals, there were no differences here between the factions. [13] The RSL conducted an internal discussion over ARP, which culminated in the executive declaring against it after being advised by Jackson not to stand on passing proletarian moods. “The workers”, he advised, “are in general backward and lag behind the necessities of history.” [14] ARP was another means of reconciling the civil population to war. This attitude contrasts strongly with contemporary communist policy. [15]

Early 1939 saw Trotskyism resigned to being swamped by chauvinism on the outbreak of war. [16] But its isolation did not spring from the anticipated patriotic wave. Conscription, an important step towards militarization, was introduced in April 1939 for the first time in peace. [17] Resentment was qualified, even among the communists. [18] In the battle against conscription and the National Register only Trotskyism, the still pacifist ILP, and Labour mavericks battled it out minus reservations. The RSL however was later to reject the policy it followed at this time, whereby it allowed its members to make conscientious objection at tribunals. [19] Faced with imminent war, Trotskyists consistently called for Soviet defence. The circumstances leading to the Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939 were criticised, but not the right of the Soviets to conclude such an agreement. But WIL did attack the way communists in Britain presented it. [20]

The Militant Labour League greeted the outbreak of war with a manifesto branding it as imperialist and calling for the overthrow of the British ruling class. At this general level there was no patriotic incursion into any of the Trotskyists’ ranks. Where the factions differed was in their expectations of what the first few months would be like. The Socialist Anti-War Front, partly through its activity in the No-Conscription League had some success in putting itself at the centre of a movement with support from trades councils. Reg Groves used the extra channels open to him as a Labour candidate to maintain a stream of criticism until official party policy changed. [21] The RSL [22] and WIL both expected heavy and immediate suppression, and WIL actually anticipated it by moving a centre into exile. [23] The RSL had a particular fixation with chauvinist hysteria and continued to believe it was rampant in the face of all evidence. [24] There was opposition to the war, but it tended, like support for it, to be low key, devoid of enthusiasm. Everyone had lived with the likelihood of war for some time, and for political activists there was also the comforting thought that Britain was at least in a war against fascism. [25] These two factors, one affecting the majority and the other the minority isolated all revolutionaries, some of whom misread unanimity for enthusiasm.

As for the form of objection to the war, this was a problem in itself. The Call of the SAWF publicised conscientious objection, but this presented theoretical problems for Trotskyists. Mere refusal to take part was simply pacifism. The RSL expelled SAWF participants for this very reason. But while their view was that arms could be taken up either to defend workers’ organisations or overthrow a capitalist government, this was of little help in the concrete circumstances of September 1939. Capitalism still existed: it had not been overthrown. On a basis of non-complicity in an era of growing militarization of life, it would be difficult to distinguish Trotskyism from pacifism. Trotskyism had a rich Marxist legacy to draw on. Liebknecht had argued that the enemy of the workers was in their own country. The Bolshevik slogan for the turning of the imperialist war into a civil war was well known. [26] Revolutionary defeatism was considered the duty of the Fourth International. Even before the war, however, Trotsky was trying to reach beyond these simple principles. He reminded the International, “An irreconcilable attitude against bourgeois militarism does not at all signify that the proletariat in all cases enters into a struggle against its own national army”. [27]

Trotskyism expected the CPGB to support the war. This had been the drift of party policy before 1939. When it was reversed a month after war began, the communists moved to a policy which was radical but not Leninist. The most radical phase of this policy fell between October and the Fall of France. [28] During this time the war was damned as an imperialist conflict by the party, with the main blame falling upon the British and. the French. [29] It did not call for the war to be turned into a civil war, but demanded the replacement of Chamberlain with a new government pledged to begin peace negotiations. [30] WIL regarded communist policy at this time as pro-Hitler, and this belief was a motive behind the revulsion of many on the left from the party. [31] The change in the programme of the CPGB did not make it more well disposed towards Trotskyism. [32].

But the bourgeoisie was no more inclined to civil war than the proletariat. The first nine months of the conflict, the Phoney War, were notable for relaxation at home, if anything, to the irritation of many in the labour movement. [33] This again conflicted with forecasts. WIL argued that the pliancy of labour leaders rendered a strong state apparatus superfluous and concluded that the National Government had a “firm hold”. [34] But elections continued, and offered an opportunity for anti-war candidates of various kinds to oppose it. In this phase of the war, the general absence of discontent was reflected in their low votes. [35]

The Fall of France shifted the balance of communist policy [36] and tilted WIL in a new direction. [37] If the much heralded patriotic wave had any substance it was during the period from Dunkirk to the start of the Battle of Britain. [38] This could only strengthen the convictions of the RSL. WIL concluded that this was the time to build on an anti-fascist mood. It still expected government repression but began to see an opportunity to differentiate between those who would and who would not fight a genuinely anti-fascist war. [39] But the RSL saw in responses to the Fall of France “a determination to make any sacrifices to help British imperialism to win”. [40] It continued to assume that the first sign of a move to the left would be war weariness. In the WIL and in the SWP, however, thoughts were turning towards a programme on which those participating in the war could stand. It was the beginning of a search for a “Military Policy” which would advance positive proletarian tactics for winning an anti-fascist war.

The Emergency Conference of the Fourth International, held in New York in May 1940, issued its own manifesto. [41] It did not treat Military Policy in any detail, though it affirmed it as the only programme adequate for the needs of the epoch. Military Policy, it suggested, was an approach, not a principle. The war was merely a theatre in which Trotskyists advanced their views: Just as in a factory, they shared the experiences of other workers. Since the proletariat had failed to prevent war, it must now seek to remove the ruling classes from leading positions within it. The RSL received this manifesto with considerable embarrassment, and published it with a partial disclaimer. [42] WIL’s reception was cordial and from 1940 Youth for Socialism carried its own military programme in every issue. [43]

What became known as the American Military Policy (AMP) rested on two principal texts: a speech by J.P. Cannon to the Chicago convention of the SWP in September 1940 and his presentation on behalf of several defendants at a trial for sedition the next year in Minneapolis. At Chicago Cannon called for public money wherewith the trade unions might set up their own military training camps. [44] He argued that the pre-war policy of the Fourth International had been sound but insufficient. Trotskyists had warned against war yet failed to prevent it:

“It is not quite correct to say that the old line was wrong. It was a programme devised for the fight against war in time of peace. Our fight against war under conditions of peace was correct as far as it went. But it was not adequate. It must be extended.” [45]

As Cannon recalled, Trotskyism was at a disadvantage when it lacked concrete suggestions as to how Hitler might be resisted. It had formerly argued for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and then repulsion of the invaders. Now, he suggested, the two tasks must be telescoped. At the Minneapolis Trial of October 1941, Cannon went out of his way to reject sabotage of a war effort or. indeed any hindrance to it. He also opposed draft dodging. [46]

The RSL was to accuse WIL of lifting Military Policy from its American context, but there was stimulus enough for it in the last writings of Trotsky and even in some of his articles from before the war. Trotsky had been involved in a lengthy discussion with SWP members on attitudes towards war preparation. He advised against draft avoidance [47] and argued for using military training to acquire skills of arms. Military Policy

“... is revolutionary in its essence and based upon the whole character of our epoch, when all questions will be decided not only by arms of critics but by critiques of arms; second, it is completely free of sectarianism. We do not oppose to events and to the feelings of the masses an abstract affirmation of our sanctity.” [48]

What Trotsky advised was that the Fourth International should counterpose a genuine struggle against fascism to the “false fight” of the Petains. He also suggested that denunciation of war had not been the totality of the Bolshevik programme. While the Bolsheviks had won a majority between the February and October 1917 revolutions this was achieved chiefly, not by refusal to defend the fatherland, but by the slogan “All Power to the Soviets!” [49] The need for a positive programme in wartime made a deep impression on WIL and from the late summer of 1940 it tried to counter embryonic Vichyism with its Military Policy: elected officers, government-financed trade union-controlled training schools, public ownership of the armaments industry and a class appeal to German soldiers. [50] Trotskyists had to have a policy to meet every phase of experience of workers. Setbacks to the Allied cause in the spring and summer of 1940 apparently provided ample evidence for the WIL argument that a fight against fascism could not be won under the old ruling classes. Fifth column activities in Europe showed that there were people in influential circles who feared the workers within more than Nazism. [51]

The RSL, with the former Militant Group in complete control by the outbreak of war, drew opposite conclusions. The Fall of France had not led in its perception to war-weariness, only to grumbling, which had not been converted to a struggle against capitalism. [52] Coalition government resting on the patriotic mass provided for the present an acceptable substitute for fascism, but this would not prevent rapid deterioration of the political position at home. [53] Since revolutionaries were inevitably isolated under such circumstances, the RSL was not surprised that some should seek to break out by means of short cuts. These were opportunists however:

“The basic task of revolutionary socialists in such a period is not to seek opportunist ‘short cuts’ to the mass but to explain patiently the reactionary nature of the war .” [54]

The RSL thought some workers might support the slogan “Labour to Power” for the wrong reason, that it would bring a more efficient prosecution of the war. But it also believed that in the experience of seeking to make the slogan a reality, they would turn against the war itself. Trotskyists themselves, argued the RSL, had a guarantee against backsliding in the policy of revolutionary defeatism. The alternative was to end up like the WIL and the Fourth International. [55] Cannon’s Chicago policy was “in the spirit of Kautsky”, a “petty bourgeois hotch potch”. [56] WIL and others had failed to counterpose class features to nationalism, thus giving a left veneer to patriotism. Only in the case of the Soviet Union was it right for workers to assume a patriotic attitude. WIL was quite prepared to confront this argument. It saw positive features in popular willingness to fight fascism. People were willing to defend working class organisations, the true root of democracy. [57] It was sectarian to condemn defencism from an isolated position: analysis of war propaganda showed that the government sought support by projecting the conflict as a war for democracy against fascism. Far from abolishing workers” parties, the government leaned on their leaders to gain social support. [58] After a year of war the conviction that future political developments would favour the workers was a steady feature of WIL thought.

But neither of the two main Trotskyist factions was monolithic in its reaction to war. The RSL had always been under pressure from within against compromises with chauvinism. When RSL leaders dallied with the possibility of deep air raid shelters, the League branch at Leicester, where JL Robinson was the dominant influence, sternly reminded them, “Marxism remains the same in London as in Leicester”. In the view of Leicester, the heart of what was to become the Left Faction, no demands whatsoever on the war should be put. If one favoured a deeper shelter, why not a better gas mask, a more rapid firing machine gun, a faster tank? [59] If revolutionaries began to make concessions of this kind they might be led inexorably to improving the military efficiency of capitalism: they had to desire their own government’s defeat. [60] Hitler’s victory was preferable for the British workers; Churchill’s victory was preferable for the German workers. When the RSL Central Committee resisted Leicester’s critique the branch concluded that its “concessions” to chauvinism must be a tendency and that they should be removed from the leadership of the British Section. [61]

WIL also had a debate within its ranks where Haston led a minority of the EC He was not opposed to Military Policy as such, but argued that WIL had from early 1941 moved away from this policy as expounded by Trotsky and Cannon. WIL had, he asserted, shifted to making its main enemy the foreign enemy, and by reference to an alleged new popular mood. [62] WIL had argued for the distribution of arms to the workers who might then repel invasion [63], though it insisted its purpose was to separate workers from the bourgeoisie not to bring collaboration about. But Haston, like the Leicester RSL branch, thought Military Policy was being misused in Britain. [64] The formation of the Home Guard had been quite misunderstood: it was not a concession to the workers” desire for arms but the outcome of a full-blooded capitalist campaign. [65] Whereas WIL in the past had said that the best workers were against the war, it now said, “we want to fight Hitler but the bourgeoisie won’t let us”. [66] But when Healy answered Haston on behalf of the WIL leaders, he stated what was to be a major theme of its perspectives documents from now on – that all its arguments were directed towards demonstrating the need to take power. And he insisted that WIL based itself on the popular mood which regarded such bodies as the Home Guard as a defence against invasion:

“... the radicalisation of the workers is taking place at the moment not around the question of democratic rights as such but around the manner in which the bosses are prosecuting the war.”

Although Trotskyists were always projected as enemies of the Soviet Union, at least since the Moscow Trials, they had in fact consistently called for Soviet defence. Common ground among all [67] British Trotskyists at this time was that Russia remained a country where capitalism had been overthrown, [68] but they were not optimistic about its chances of withstanding a fascist assault. [69] They were faced with a rapid reversal of communist policy to a call for prosecution of the war to the full. [70] There was also far greater intensity in communist attacks on Trotskyists whom they accused of being dishonest in their calls for Soviet defence. The WIL argument was that Britain under a Churchill government must still be waging an imperialist war. Acquisition of a Soviet alliance could not, it insisted, alter this fact. The war could only become a just war if the workers of Britain took military and state power into their own hands. Otherwise all the criticisms made of the British government before Hitler invaded Russia retained their validity. [71] WIL did not propose inactivity in support of the Soviets but, like Tait and others in the ILP, called for all aid to be sent to Russia under trade union control. It began to see a road to workers’ power through a struggle over the handling of the war. Aided by quotations from Lenin it argued for a positive programme whereby the predatory war might be transformed into a just war. It argued that Lenin’s main drive in 1917 was not against war but for a workers’ government. Its own pre-conference thesis of 1942 was published under the ambitious title Preparing For Power. There it was suggested that military incompetence was a sign that the bourgeois system had outlived itself, and that it was leading workers to question the regime. [72] This provoked the RSL, which still insisted that a revolutionary mood could not possibly arise through a desire for more efficient prosecution of the war: WIL, it charged, was distorting the popular mood:

“When social explosions come, as come they will, they will not arise upon the basis of demands by the workers for a more effective prosecution of the war. No class struggles can arise on this issue because it is not a class issue as far as the workers are concerned.” [73]

Workers would be taking a class approach when they desired peace. WIL, charged the RSL, was concealing its own chauvinism behind revolutionary – sounding slogans which, in the wartime context, had a counter-revolutionary content. [74] When WIL replied, effectively, concluding the discussion, it was at its most unapologetic. It was against all occupations, but not to oppose the occupation of Britain would be to carry literal opposition to patriotism too far. It would be “inverted chauvinism”, supporting a foreign bourgeoisie while opposing one’s own. WIL agreed it had talked of an anti-fascist war, but claimed it had always explained that British imperialism could not wage such a war. [75] Exposure of social patriotism was not a live issue: revolutionaries now had to aim at workers’ power: “Our position towards war is no longer merely a policy of opposition, but is determined by the epoch in which we live, the epoch of the socialist revolution. That is, as contenders for power. Only thus can we find an approach to the working class.” [76]

Lenin’s task, reflected WIL, had been to hold an internationalist faction together in a patriotic time. Support would not come to Trotskyists who merely repeated his arguments. WIL reflected on the drift of Trotsky’s last article where he had argued that Fourth International policy did continue that of Lenin, but that “continuation signifies a development, a deepening and a sharpening”. [77]

Notes

1 The full text of this document, which was written by Trotsky, is in Writings (1933-34), 299-329.It appeared as a document of the IS.

2. R. Groves, Arms and the Unions (1936). This pamphlet was published by the Socialist League.

3. Fight, June 1937.

4. One of the Marxist Group recruits to the Labour Party opposed a purely negative attitude towards defence, raising the call for adequate protection, as far as possible under the control of workers’ organisations, (R.W., Air Raid Policy, Sept. 1936, Warwick MSS 15/4/2/15).

5. Quite early on Davis demanded “real protection” and called on the government to spend as lavishly on defence as on armaments, (Air Raid Policy, 27 May 1937, Internal Discussion Bulletin, June 1937, H.P., D.J.H. 2a/2, 7-10).

6. By Robinson, Nicholls and, (later), Bone.

7. Gould, an SWP delegate to the 1938 international conference, was alive to the fact the patriotism was not a danger for the Trotskyist movement (Minutes of the Founding Conference of the Fourth International, Documents, 294-6).

8. Military Training by the labour movement, the thesis advanced by the Transitional Programme, had respectable socialist antecedents in the armed wings of the Austrian and German social democrats. The RSL of 1938 had delegates present at the discussion of the document in the first session of the Founding Congress. In 1940, however, the RSL was to argue that a transitional demand for workers” arms did not have timeless application and certainly could not be advanced in a patriotic period where it might be used by imperialists for recruiting purposes.

9. C.L. Mowat, Britain Between the Wars 1918-1940, 1955, 632. For the evolution of Labour policy see J.F. Naylor, Labour’s International Policy, (1969), 261-92.

10. R.F. Andrews’s often quoted Labour Monthly article of 1934 which demanded that British and French workers should “under no circumstances” support an attack by their governments on fascist Germany, even if that country attacked the U.S.S.R, was well known to Trotskyists (See Workers Fight, Oct. 1938).

11. Following Hitler’s march into Austria R.P. Dutt reviewed communist policy since 1933 on the danger of war (Notes of the Month, Labour Monthly, April 1938, 195-219).

12. “While it may be true that a trench of itself is not an aggressive measure, when it is seen as means to continuing an Imperialist war, then it is obviously as important a part of the Government’s war plans as the construction of bombers” (Militant, Oct. 1938). ARP was also condemned, incidentally, as unlikely to work.

13. “‘Defence’ cannot be separated from offence. The gas-mask is the counterpart of the poison-gas bomb, air-raid shelters are the counterpart of the bombers. To tolerate the one is to tolerate the other, and the revolutionary must implacably reject both” (Voluntary Conscription, WIN, Dec. 1938, 1-3).

14. A central committee statement of 27 October 1938 was followed by a brisk discussion on ARP in which Robinson was sharp and intransigent on patriotic concessions and Hampstead declared the committee ultra-left, (RSL, Special Internal Discussion Bulletin, Nov. 1938, H.P., D.J.H. 13a/5, 5-8). At the February 1939 conference of the RSL only five votes were cast against the executive position on ARP Within the Labour Party ARP was something of an immediate issue because it was raised by local government representatives. This meant the RSL needed a policy (interview with J. Archer, Nov. 1973). WIL, also in the Labour Party, took a similar point of view: “No support for the National Register, no support for ARP , no support for capitalist ‘defence’ – these must be our slogans” (Voluntary Conscription, WIN, Dec. 1938, 1-3).

15. The communists had been agitating for deep shelters in London since 1936, and with some success, (P. Piratin, Our Flag Stays Red, 1978 edit., 64-7).

16. “It must be remembered that on the outbreak of imperialist war we, as revolutionaries, will at first be politically isolated from the masses who will turn to ‘National Defence’ and class collaboration”, (Draft Resolution on the Policy of the RSL on the Outbreak of Imperialist War, 12 Jan. 1939, H.P., D.J.H./391, 4.)

17. Chamberlain announced conscription for twenty and twenty one year olds on 26 April 1939. It was extended on the outbreak of war.

18. “Give us our ideals to serve, give us a policy worth serving, give us the means to fitness, and we will show what latent strength there is in our democracy, and how unitedly we can shoulder our responsibilities to defend it:” (J. Gollan, Youth Will Serve For Freedom, [1938], 11). WIL predicted that communists would support conscription once Chamberlain was out of power.

19. It later regretted its involvement with the Socialist Anti-War Front and, on 11 March 1940, its executive rescinded the decision on conscientious objectors. For the SAWF, see Chapter X.

20. J.R. Strachan, The War Crisis – The Way Out For Workers (1939). “J.R. Strachan” was a pseudonym, possibly for Ralph Lee and Grant.

21. For Groves and the SAWF see Chapter X.

22. For some time before the war the RSL had devoted time and space to “special” (i.e. illegal) work.

23. In an obscure episode Haston and Healy with seven others moved on the outbreak of war to Ireland, (Interview with J. Haston, July 1973). James Maxton fought a parallel tendency in the ILP, (J. McNair, James Maxton: Beloved Rebel, 1955, 286-7). R. Barltrop, The Monument, 1975, 101-22, contains an interesting account of how the S.P.G.B. reacted.

24. A Mass Observation Survey of 2 September 1939 unearthed 2% of those interviewed who would be glad if there was a war, 34% who preferred anything to war, and 43% who would rather get it over with (Mass Observation, War Begains at home, 1940, 35). The predominant feeling seems to have been sullen acquiescence. “The declaration of war brought none of the excitement, none of the ‘ebullitions’ as the Observer put it, which had marked the August days of 1914: no rounds of cheers, no dancing in the streets yet ‘the sense of moral release’ was inexpressible” (A. Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War, 1968, 257). See also the comparison of public perceptions of the two wars in H. Pelling, Britain and the Second World War, 1970, 325-6.

25. “But for the ordinary men who fought it, was this war much different from the first? If there was perhaps less passionate dedication there was probably a greater feeling of inescapable purpose: war resistance was a negligible factor this time “ (A. Marwick, The Explosion of British Society, 1914-62, 1963, 105). Gallup found a majority behind Chamberlain from October 1938, which grew from the outbreak of war (H. Pelling, ibid., 38).

26. In 1914 Lenin had described this as “the only correct proletarian slogan” (The War and Russian Social Democracy, Collected Works, 21, Moscow 1964, 32-3). But Lenin was seeking to draw a definitive line between revolutionaries and social patriots which by 1939 was well established.

27. Trotsky argued that the true meaning of revolutionary defeatism was that defeat of one’s own imperialist government was a lesser evil than political prostration of the proletariat within national unity. It may have been significant that it was WIL which published this argument (Learn to Think, WIN, Aug. 1938, 4).

28. The war was “not a people’s war, but a war in the interests of the big capitalists against the people”, The Trade Unions and The War [1939?], (This was a resolution of the party central committee). For the period 1939-41 see H. Pelling, The British Communist Party, 108-119.

29. London district committee (of the CPGB), Workers Against The War, [1939?], 9-10.

30. W. Gallacher, The War and the Workers, [1939?], 16.

31. Gollancz wrote that the CPGB had adopted the policy consistently held by the ILP (Where Are You Going?, in V. Gollancz (ed.), The Betrayal of the Left, 1940, especially 6-7). The Russian invasion of Finland sundered the close observation of communist policy by Tribune (W. Jones, The Russia Complex, 1977, 50).

32. Trotskyism, with pacifism, belonged among those political tendencies “which confuse and disrupt the growth of working class opposition to the war” (Workers Against The War, [1939?], 7).

33. Rationing, for example, began only after four months of war and then limited to sugar, butter and bacon. Nor had conscription reached beyond the twenty five year olds by April 1940. At that date there were still more than a million unemployed (H. Pelling, Modern Britain: 1885-1914, 1974, 164).

34. The Ballot Box Test, WIN, March 1940, 6. But WIL also believed that “sober discussions” about state repression had taken place in ruling circles immediately before the war. It deployed the evidence of army manoeuvres and the text of insurance policies (which excluded civil war from the list of covered hazards) in support (Slump, WIN, June 1938, 8).

35. See the results for 1940 By-elections in C. Cook and J. Ramsden (4), By-Elections in British Politics, 1973, 372.

36. On 7 July 1940 the People’s Convention movement, an initiative of the CPGB, first met in public to open a six-month campaign. D. Childs, The British Communist Party and the War, 1939-41, J.C.H., Vol.12, 1977, 237-53, leans too heavily on D. Hyde, I Believed, 1953, to explore communist policy with any thoroughness. R. Black, Stalinists in Britain, 1970, 131-59, is a Trotskyist account.

37. “B. Farnborough” (Brian Pearce) dates WIL’s Military Policy from the Fall of France, (Marxists in the Second World War, Labour Review, April-May 1959, 25-8). The RSL believed adoption of such a policy at such a time was proof that it was a defencist concession.

38. A government call for the suspension of holidays, an end to absenteeism, and long working hours received wide backing, but only temporarily, (A. Marwick, Britain in the Century of Total War, 1968, 295). Pelling concurs but stretches national unity into 1941 (Britain and the Second World War, 1970, 29).

39. In June 1940 WIL spoke ambiguously of an imminent threat to workers’ rights (Workers’ Fight, WIN, June 1940, 8); in July it thought the bourgeoisie would not “pounce” but that the main threat would come from “the Stalinist machine and the Labour bureaucracy”, both more politically astute and the latter now in government (The Lesson of France, WIN, July 1940, 12).

40. The Electoral Tactics of the Workers’ Vanguard, 1940, H.P.

41. Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution, Documents, 311-50. Although this was a manifesto Trotsky had warned before the war that a binding policy could not be imposed on all sections of the Fourth International because of national differences (Learn to Think, WIN, Aug. 1938, 5).

42. See appendix to Imperialist War and the Proletarian World Revolution, in Marxist Discussion Bulletin, Aug. 1940, 2 (H.P., D.J.H. 6/5). The RSL remarked that the section entitled “workers must learn the military arts” might be opportunistically misconstrued. When consciousness was low, calling for arms for the workers had a reactionary effect. The League wrote to the IEC asking for clarification.

43. This included demands for the election of workers’ officers, full trade union and political rights for soldiers, etc.

44. J.P. Cannon, Military Policy of the Proletariat, WIN, Jan. 1941, 4.

45. J.P. Cannon, Our Military Policy, WIN, March 1941, 10.

46. WIL published his evidence as Smash Fascism – End War. The case for socialist revolution. An A.B.C. of Trotskyism. The testimony of J.P. Cannon in the U.S. Labour frame-up Trial, WIN (special volume), 1942, 1-40.

47. “If he is draftable, let him be drafted. I do not think he should try to avoid the draft – he must go with his generation and participate in its life” (Some Thoughts on American Problems, WIN, March 1941, 1).

48 Another Thought on Conscription, 17 Aug, 1940, Writings (1939-40), 119

49. Leon Trotsky’s Last Article, WIN, Feb. 1941, 9. The RSL later attempted, somewhat unconvincingly, to counter this argument. “This is not to say that the masses can be won to the banner of the Fourth International on the slogans of “turn the imperialist war into civil war”, etc., “but slogans which are evasive and ambiguous with regard to the proletarian attitude to the war are a betrayal of Socialist International” (Attitude of the Proletariat towards Imperialist War, H.P., D.J.H. 6/12, 3 ).

50. An uncritical account of WIL’s opposition to the war is W. Hunter, Marxists in the Second World War, Labour Review, Dec. 1958, 139-146. “B. Farnborough” (Brian Pearce) tried to put right the omission from this article of any treatment of Military Policy (Marxists in the Second World War, Labour Review, April-May 1959, 25-8), but did not cover the dispute between the RSL and WIL. D. Parkin, British Trotskyists and the Class Struggle in World War 2, Trotskyism Today, No.2, March 1978, 27-30, criticises both Leagues.

51. The Lesson of France, WIN, July 1940, 12.

52. The Electoral Tactics of the Workers’ Vanguard, 1940, 1-2.

53. [NOTE MISSING]

54. ibid., 7.

55. By 1941 the RSL had concluded that the FI was in the hands of “defencist” tendencies, brought to the fore by the fear of the proletariat in Britain and America of losing their privileged position.

56. Attitude of the Proletariat Towards Imperialist War, H.P., D.J.H., 6/12, 1.

57. A. Calder (The People’s War, 60) doubts that ideological motivation against Nazism was common. One atypical exception was George Orwell (W. Steinhoff, The Road to 1984, 1975, 102). Orwell thought socialist renewal the only policy likely to bring Britain victory.

58. WIL, Reply to the Political Statement of the Revolutionary Socialist League, 1941, 2.

59. Bolshevism and Defencism, May 1941, 10

60. “A revolutionary class in an imperial war desires the defeat of its national army in order to utilize the situation of humbling of its masters to overthrow them irrespective of the nature of the enemy” (Brief Notes on the History of the Left Faction, [1960?], 2; interview with J. Goffe, July 1974).

61. Bolshevism and Defencism, 11. Youth Militant was also singled out for criticism by the Leicester branch. While making an international onslaught the Left Faction (as it soon became) had some ideological companions elsewhere, notably Grandizo Munis of the Spanish section, currently in Mexican exile, who protested against Cannon’s exposition of the Military Policy at the Minneapolis Trial.

62. “J.H.”, A Step Towards Capitulation, Internal Bulletin, 21 March 1941, 5, H.P., D.J.H. 14a/3.

63. Military Policy or Confusion, Internal Bulletin, 20 March 1941, H.P., D.J.H. 14a/2.

64. His argument was that Trotsky’s advice to the Americans had been offered in the context of a dynamic and developing labour movement confronted by the prospect of universal militarization: his ideas should not be used as an alternative to an anti-war struggle.

65. Shortly after this exchange, Haston protested against the emasculation of an article he had written for Socialist Appeal and suggested that the formation of the Home Guard proved that the bourgeoisie was not in fact fearful of arming the workers (The Military Policy as applied to the Home Guard, Internal Bulletin, 21 April 1941, 1-7, H.P., D.J.H., 140/4).

66. ibid., 20.

67. G.H., The Home Guard – An Approach, Internal Bulletin, 19 May 1941, H.P., D.J.H., 14A/5.

68. The views of Burnham and Shachtman found no echo in Britain at the time of the Russo-Finnish war and the RSL disowned C.L.R. James when he defected to Shachtman’s side early in 1940. Nor did Trotskyists reject Soviet manoeuvres between the Great Powers, only the argument that socialist principles should be jettisoned in allied countries.

69. The Trotskyist view was that the USSR had been weakened by diplomatic bungling and purges of the Red Army. See A. Scott, Stalin’s Diplomacy Leads to Defeats, WIN, Dec. 1941, 1-6 and Trotsky’s earlier article The Decapitation of the Red Army, 5 July 1937, Writings (1937-38), 55-60.

70. “The urgent need now is the fullest mobilisation and active energy of all sections of the people for the fulfillment of the tasks of the common struggle with the Soviet people for the defeat of Hitler. We strive for the united national front of all sections of the people (not only of the left anti-imperialist or pro-Soviet elements, but of all opposed to Hitler and supporting the Pact) to drive forward the maximum effort in the joint war with the Soviet Union for the defeat of Hitler” (R.P. Dutt, Notes of the Month, Labour Monthly, Aug. 1941, 356).

71. “But the same class is in control. They are still fighting for the same interests – their profits, markets, colonies, etc. And they can fight for no other interests. They are still fighting to keep India under their own subjection and to keep Africa enslaved.” (A. Scott, Britain’s War Remains Imperialist. It is not altered by the alliance with the Soviet Union, WIN, Nov. 1941, 7. This article was also published separately as a pamphlet.

72. Preparing For Power, WIN, Sept. 1942, 5.

73. RSL, A Criticism of the WIL Pamphlet Preparing For Power in WIL, Policy and Perspectives of the British Trotskyists, 1943, 2.

74. The example given was workers’ control of production to increase production for the war, (RSL, loc. cit., 5).

75. Reply of WIL to the RSL Criticisms of Preparing For Power, in WIL, Policy and Perspectives of the British Trotskyists, 1943, 16.

76. WIL, loc. cit., 17.

77. Bonapartism, Fascism and War, [Aug. 1940], Writings (1939-40), 121. WIL Published this as Leon Trotsky’s Last Article in WIN for February 1941.

X
THE RSL IN UNITY AND DISUNITY
(SEPTEMBER 1938 – MARCH 1944)

The Revolutionary Socialist League was a failure. It did not hold together and it proved unable to capitalise on wartime opportunities. The Marxist League cadre drifted away from it to joint activities against military measures with dissidents inside and outside the Labour Party. The RSP refused any kind of Labour Party work, tried independence and later entered the ILP. The Militant Labour League was left in control of the RSL with official backing from the International. But from 1940 it stagnated within the Labour Party and fell out with the International over the correct line to be advocated against the war. These two factors added to a third, the contrast presented by the growth of the WIL, gave rise to intense factionalism and the effective separation of the RSL into three parts. It drew together at the end of 1943 but only as a preliminary to dissolution in the much larger WIL to form the Revolutionary Communist Party.

The new Revolutionary Socialist League was formed on the eve of the war scare associated with the Munich crisis. This was a test which exposed the fragility of the union forged in July 1938 as each faction reacted in its own way. The MLL argued that the crisis underlined the need for it as the only pole of revolutionary Marxism in the Labour Party. [1] In October, sales of Militant reached a peak figure of 3,000. On 6 November 1938 its conference met. [2] As the public face of the Revolutionary Socialist League, the MLL spent the post-Munich months trying to dig itself in. But until a conference of the RSL was held to establish a firm policy on Labour Party work the energy of the whole organisation could not be concentrated on the MLL What was the reaction of those signatories of the Peace and Unity agreement with a clear preference for “open” work?
 

(i) The Revolutionary Socialist Party

But while Militant continued to appear regularly during these turbulent months all was not well with other commitments made by the fusion. The RSP had surrendered its paper, Revolutionary Socialist, for the promise of a revamped Fight, rechristened Workers Fight, for “open” sales. To a tiny party whose mode was street meetings and outdoor sales, regular appearance of the outside paper was vital. The paper came out in October 1938, marking C.L.R. James’s last connection with the British Trotskyist movement. [3] It firmly opposed ILP reaffiliation to the Labour Party [4] and continued Fight’s tradition as an open Fourth International journal. [5] There was no change in the political line in November. Both these issues appeared late however, and that intended for December failed to come out at all. [6]

This caused disquiet in the RSP as well as among other devotees of outside work. The RSP leaders had signed the Peace and Unity agreement as individuals and were meant, within a week, to have won the assent of the party as a whole. Failing to manage this, they were allowed time to hold a referendum. This was completed late in October 1938, and indicated unanimous backing for joining the RSL. But Maitland and Willie Tait told the RSL central committee the next month that conditions were attached to the union: a guaranteed continuation of open work and an open paper, and the placing of the editorial and business control of Workers Fight in the hands of the RSP! This ultimatum was refused on the grounds that a revolutionary organisation must centrally control all its publications and that the overall tactics of the RSL could be changed only by a national conference.

RSP suspicions of a lack of interest in London in activities outside the Labour Party continued to fester. It formally joined the RSL on 15 December 1938, but presented the League’s executive with a lengthy critique. [7] The RSL central committee, under fire also from London apostles of the independent life, pleaded that as well as the perennial dearth of funds the League lacked able and willing organisers for outside work. [8] There had to be, it argued, a period of common experience on the part of all signatories to the Peace and Unity agreement. The RSP, however, was making its own experience by outdoor rallies on the Munich issue [9] and an intervention in the West Perthshire by-election. [10] It was never really integrated in the RSL.
 

(ii) The Socialist Anti-War Front

Meanwhile the centre of the RSL was under pressure from the other independent strand of thought within it. The entire leading cadre of the old Marxist League was involved in September 1938 in launching the Socialist Anti-War Front. A London conference to found the SAWF brought together members of a wide spectrum of organisations, though none of them lacked Trotskyist participation. [11]

It elected Hugo Dewar secretary, formed a provisional committee and issued a “call to action” in view of the Munich crisis. [12] On 1 October a youth section was set up [13] and the next day a demonstration in Hyde Park was held. At this stage the SAWF was mainly a London organisation. [14] The SAWF was formed to organise working class opposition to war and to achieve unity among socialists. Its general analysis did not differ from the accepted Trotskyist view and the MLL joined the provisional committee in mid-October. But the truth was that SAWF appeal was couched in terms sufficiently ambiguous to carry support from the ILP as well. Indeed, it was ILP interest which made the SAWF as broad as it was. [15] Later both the MLL, and the WIL, which had also participated, were to condemn the SAWF for pacifism. [16]

Within the RSL ways began to part, first of all over the SAWF thesis that a block of socialist parties could prevent war, expounded in its pamphlet War and the Workers (1939). Workers Fight commented that while unity was a progressive step, only a revolutionary party could overthrow capitalism, the cause of war. [17] In November, the Front declared the National Register part of a dress rehearsal for military and police dictatorship. In Resist the Register, [18] Hugo Dewar argued for non-cooperation, rejecting the government argument that conscription was defensive and voluntary. [19] When the Military Training Bill was introduced without strenuous opposition, a new organisation, the No-Conscription League, was launched, which gained important support and in which the SAWF functioned as a militant working-class wing. [20] At the Bermondsey convention of the N-CL, on 4 June 1939, Groves [21] moved an SAWF amendment to the main policy resolution. With support from Wicks he secured a pledge for agitation against the Military Training Act, for trade union assistance to victimised objectors and help for shop stewards resisting industrial conscription. [22]

The outbreak of war itself geared up the SAWF an extra notch. Its manifesto, issued on the day of declaration of war, called on trades councils to make themselves the centres of opposition to encroachment on civil liberties, and condemned Labour and the CPGB for their willingness to stand with exploiters behind rhetoric about an anti-fascist war. The Front launched its own journal, The Call, in November 1939, and showed signs of gathering round it substantial numbers of dissident Labour candidates [23] and trades councils. There was some encouragement in the declaration of the Home Counties Labour Parties for socialist peace terms and against the political truce, and The Call claimed resolutions on these matters were “pouring” into Transport House. [24]

On 12 November 1939, the N-CL held an all-London convention against war and conscription, where Alex Sloan MP moved and C.A. Smith seconded a resolution opposing the war, urging repeal of the National Service Act, calling for the maintenance of civil liberties and an end to the truce, and demanding an immediate Labour Party conference to formulate Socialist Peace proposals. An SAWF amendment was carried with support from the N-CL executive. [25]

It seems that the SAWF now carried the hopes of the former Marxist League in much the same way as the earlier SLF had. To Groves, and perhaps now to the others as well, a gathering of anti-war Labour dissidents in a convention “would mark an end to the division, the fractionisation, the hole-in-the-corner groupings that in the past have ruined all effort to secure a large left-wing movement”. [26] The Front was militant, anti-capitalist and anti-Stalinist. [27] It was also, by the meagre standards of these years, a success. Against this it mattered little that it did not call for a Fourth International whose hour had not struck. [28] The Front rejected a purely pacifist appeal which it considered would not rally the working class, but it did demand peace on “socialist principles”. This was what divided it from WIL and – after initial hesitation – from the MLL. It built up a significant movement against the anticipated demise of civil liberty and the militarisation of life [29] and even occasionally moved out of the realm of propaganda into direct intervention in events. [30] When confronted by the Call-up, however, it had only negative individual resistance to suggest. [31] An attempt was made to transcend this limit [32], but the Front was not a political party and when the end of the Phoney War made military resistance irrelevant, it also died. The Front disappeared after April 1940, despite ambitious plans [33], and a broadening of its interests to embrace problems of working class life. It had for once provided a genuine movement in which many of Trotskyist origins might work, but the new phase of the war [34], together with increased Transport House vigilance against party dissidents, now finished it off.

To Wicks and Sara, executive members of the RSL, from the time of the July 1938 fusion, the SAWF was a way of tapping the kind of revival in the movement anticipated in the Transitional Programme. They expected they might build as they had in the months following their expulsion from the CPGB [35]: the issue and – for them – the geographical location was similar. It also offered a forum for unity with Groves and Dewar, the one in the Labour Party, the other in the ILP. Sara and Wicks were similarly divided. But on the pacifist appeal of the SAWF itself, they parted with the RSL early in 1939. [36]

The first RSL conference, convened just outside the six month schedule set when the League was formed, did not reveal a healthy state of affairs. The centre was in conflict with three distinct groups: the former Marxist League, dissidents within the first RSL, and the RSP The proceedings opened acrimoniously when the expulsion of Lane and Duncan, of Islington, was upheld. [37] This led to a walk-out of at least [38] ten members who were to attempt to found a new organisation. Jackson, the RSL secretary, then had to report the aborting of attempts to fuse with the WIL. [39] Finally it was announced that fusion with the RSP remained unconsummated and new ground rules were laid down for bringing the moment of it near. [40] Conference then approved an uncontroversial – if lengthy – constitution [41] and returned an executive with strong Militant influence. [42]

Conference endorsed the executive position on Air Raid Precautions, which rejected a distinction between offence and defence and called for a boycott, but not before dissent had been voiced, an anticipation of the factionalism which shook the whole League in 1942. [43] It went on to affirm the split perspective, an inevitable development which it believed might benefit centrism (the ILP) or the Fourth International. It also still believed in an open centre, the MLL: all outside work was subordinate to that. The major controversy of 1938 was thus resolved in the Militant’s favour. Finally conference recognised that it would not gain support before war broke out, that hostilities would delay the swing to the left (though they would also intensify it), and that the organisation would have to act in collective prudence in order to avoid provoking physical obliteration by a stark, presentation of policy. [44]

The MLL, focus for the Militant Group before the Peace and Unity conference became, by fission, the hub around which the whole RSL turned. On its behalf Matlow and Wood made speeches to Labour’s 1939 conference, the first it had held for a year and a half. [45] Youth Militant reappeared, (after a lapse), in February 1939 as the paper of the youth section of the MLL. [46] It reviewed the attempt of earlier years to rally delegates for a socialist policy and advanced a positive and detailed youth programme stimulated by the TUC Youth Charter. It retained the distinctive stamp of appealing for a Third Labour Government and autonomy for the Leagues of Youth. But the LLOY was now in decline, debilitated by a repressive party apparatus and peacetime conscription. [47] The MLL had fifteen delegates at its annual conference [48] but there was now no future for youth work.

In November 1939 London executive members of the RSL had advanced a proposal to their central committee that an open Fourth International paper should be published. The provinces’ representatives voted them down, thus ensuring continued dependence on a Labour Party presence. J. Middleton and G. Shepherd, secretary and national agent respectively, warned local Labour Parties in January 1940 against pacifist attacks on party policy and candidates. By February early talk in Labour’s propaganda of a German revolution had ceased. Harold Laski’s pamphlet, Is it an imperialist war? appeared, intended to assuage the more “ideologically minded”. He argued that the war might be imperialist but distinguished the contracting (Anglo-French) strain from the aggressive (German) kind. [49] Reg Groves wrote a forceful reply which was to lead later to conflict with Shepherd and the NEC. [50] Van Gelderen tackled the same job in a review for Militant. [51] At this point early in the year, however, party conference had not pronounced on the war.

Lack of constitutionally decided policy did not protect the MLL from the Labour Party apparatus. In early March 1940 it resolved that the League was “a communist organisation for the promotion of Leon Trotsky’s views and policy” [52], and that membership of it was not compatible with party membership. The League protested that no reason had been given for the ban, that it was “a denial of democracy and political freedom within the workers’ organisation”, “a Gestapo-like attempt ... to crush honest political criticism”. [53] Jackson anticipated the Fourth International itself in his attempt to put a brave face on the ban. Labour leaders, he suggested, were less secure as awareness of the reactionary nature of the war began to spread:

“It is not accidental that the MLL is banned at the period when British Imperialism plans to extend the war and talk of further sacrifices in blood and money is in the air.” [54]

Jackson threatened Labour with continued activity after the MLL itself disappeared. On 16 March 1940 the RSL executive had in fact recommended MLL dissolution. Later that month, on 23 March, an RSL conference met followed by a conference of the doomed MLL. It was resolved to follow the RSL recommendation, although the leaders were faced with Our Present Tasks, a “document of the fourteen”, whose authors thought the main political developments would, as in 1915-18, take place in the factories, workshops and streets. They flatly denied that there would be a swing to the left within the Labour Party [55], but the meaning of acquiescence in the ban had to be that retention of Labour Party membership was an overriding RSL objective. The executive and J.L. Robinson’s Leicester branch came together to reject the call to launch an openly Fourth International paper, and suspend Militant and the MLL in favour of open work. [56] On 9 April 1940, MLL branches were urged to agitate about the ban but to stop short of provoking expulsion. They were promised a monthly Militant and the services of a full-time organiser. The promise was fulfilled when Jackson moved from a voluntary to a professional basis on 15 April at a weekly wage of £2 a week. [57] Transport House was told that the NEC action threatened to turn it into “a hardened bureaucracy”; the MLL was informed in its turn that it was committed to policies of which party conference would not approve and that an attempt was being made by it to build an organisation within the party. [58] The MLL might express surprise that conference decisions could be anticipated in this way [59], but the Bournemouth conference easily endorsed Labour’s entry into coalition as well as the war itself. MLL speakers there received some support but the emergency motion for Labour joining the government was easily carried. [60]

The drive against Labour dissidents was the very thing the MLL had always feared and tried to avoid. Expulsions and proscriptions would inhibit it from taking advantage of a swing to the left in Labour’s ranks. [61] The RSL drew the opposite conclusion from the proscriptions and isolation revealed at Bournemouth to that drawn around this time by the WIL. Late in May 1940 even the continuation of Militant itself was thought risky and it was dropped for a proposed theoretical journal. [62] Rather than pull out, the RSL concluded that Labour’s debilitated condition would permit an increase in its influence. In a tidying up operation, whatever MLL members who were amenable were recruited into the RSL, but that organisation kept an even lower public profile. [63]

This retreat afforded few encouraging signs to any with a sense of proportion. This quality was never prominent among the governing bodies of the Fourth International. In 1940 the International was faced with a double crisis. War made it impossible for Europe to function as any kind of international centre. Worse yet, the Shachtmanite schism of 1939-40 [64] had disrupted the International Executive Committee, with four of its seven members supporting Shachtman’s new party and his view of Russia. [65] Among them was C.L.R. James, now working in the SWP under the pseudonym J.R. Johnson. Faced with this crisis an Emergency Conference of the Fourth International was convened on 19-26 May in New York by the United States, Canadian and Mexican Sections. [66] Harber, an orthodox IEC member, did not attend, but the British Section did disown James who was its other representative. [67]When the conference looked at the situation in Britain it came up with a surrealistic resolution [68], inspired perhaps from only one source. It declared “a rapid revolutionary movement” was maturing in Britain, that a broad unorganised Trotskyist sentiment existed, and that the fractions British were in four groups. Only the third point was factually correct, but the International Conference made two inferences: that the ban on the MLL was motivated by the “substantial progress” it was making, and that unity might now come about in Britain. Such a call was never likely to be efficacious, even when sweetened with a nudge to the MLL to make what organisational concessions it could. [69]

Those who had walked out of the February 1939 conference attempted for a time to maintain that they were the true RSL and entitled to recognition. By October of that year they had to recognise that the International would not transfer its allegiance and changed their name to the Revolutionary Workers’ League. [70] The RWL maintained a tiny independent existence [71] publishing a duplicated paper, Workers Fight, which at Christmas changed to a printed format with ambitions of appearing fortnightly. [72] They published a manifesto [73] and a pamphlet [74], held meetings in London and reported a following in the provinces. But disorganisation led to them losing control of the Pioneer Press outlet which they had held at the time of the walk-out. [75] In summer 1940 a majority entered WIL on a critical basis. [76] Leading figures like Lane and Duncan remained aloof. In July or August 1941 twelve former RWL members, among them some who had joined the WIL, rejoined the RSL. [77]

After the Fall of France, the RSL slogan remained “For a Third Labour Government, with full power”. [78] Like WIL the RSL thought the experience of struggling round such a slogan would be the best education for the masses. [79] The masses had to see that a struggle against bourgeois methods meant a struggle against war. [80] The sign of a revolutionary temper was opposition to war. The “Third Labour Government” was considered by the RSL an elementary slogan of the kind which would break the mass from illusions [81], but it had a revolutionary significance only in the right context: “The demand for the ending of the Party truce may be progressive or reactionary. Progressive if counterposed to the bourgeois task of winning the war, reactionary if advanced as a mean to the better prosecution of the war”. [82]

Militant appeared for the last time in its pre-war series in May 1940. An enlarged RSL executive resolved on 25 May that there was no basis for a semi-agitational paper and suspended it with the initial intention of launching a theoretical journal. This was never published. The effective immediate replacement for Militant was The Bulletin of the Fourth International which first appeared in June. [83]

Though commended by the Emergency Conference, the RSL’s prospects were bleak. To general torpor within its chosen theatre of operations it had to add the practical difficulty of sustaining any kind of activity at all in London from mid-1940 on because of the blitz. [84] At the beginning of winter the London organisation, its heart, was reduced to a very weak state. [85] It believed it could provide no more than 150 sales for a theoretical journal. [86] This was somewhat academic, since no such journal ever appeared, Militant had lapsed, and its intended replacement, the Bulletin of the BSFI [87] did not appear on a regular monthly basis.

The suspension of publications landed the EC in further trouble on left and right. “The fourteen” were in defiance of an executive directive of 25 May 1940 towards Labour Party activity. In July they registered vigorous opposition to the suspension of Militant even if it were to be substituted. [88] The central committee delivered an ultimatum which, on pain of expulsion, demanded that the fourteen produce a definite alternative programme to Labour Party activities they scorned. [89] Further exchanges led to the expulsion of “F” on 5 February 1941 [90], and the decision by the three prime movers among the fourteen to launch a new faction, the Socialist Workers Group, in April. [91] It flirted with WIL, now independent itself [92], but five members of it applied to return to the RSL on 3 May 1942.

While wrangling with exponents of independence the central committee and the executive found itself in growing conflict with the Leicester RSL branch which, under the uncompromising leadership of J.L. Robinson, also challenged the suspension of Militant and the appearance of The Bulletin. Leicester was further incensed to find, in The Bulletin for November 1940, a call by Starkey Jackson for support to be given to deep air raid shelters, which policy was also followed by Youth Militant for the same month. [93] It considered the step a risk to the Labour Party tactic by its open identification of the RSL with the Fourth International, and the other a contravention of 1940 conference decisions. [94] Leicester pressurised the Centre for the next five months to clarify its position on ARP. In the absence of a statement [95], Leicester issued a document, Bolshevism or Defencism, which indicted the Centre for capitulation and a long and tedious polemic began. [96]

The breeding ground of factionalism was inactivity which was itself the product not only of a false perspective, but also of organisational incompetence. [97] The December 1940 central committee resolved to begin publication of Militant anew in a duplicated format. [98] This occurred only in March 1941 however. Again, a July 1941 decision to begin printing became operative only in September. This compares poorly with the contemporary publishing record of WIL. In fairness it must be also added that by March 1941 most RSL central committee members and alternates were in the forces. [99]

The new Militant appeared from Glasgow in September 1941 [100] published in the changed political environment arising from Hitler’s June invasion of Soviet Russia. It appeared with a strong supplement calling for Soviet defence, though differing from the CPGB in its belief that an independent factory movement was the key to achieving it. Like other Trotskyists, the RSL considered Russia unlikely to survive in view of “Russia’s complete incapacity to resist the armies of Hitler, which can only be defeated by superior military strength, which thanks to the bureaucracy and its incompetence the Soviet Union does not possess; or by propagandising the proletarian revolution”. But though such forecasts reflect part of the baggage carried from the Founding Conference [101], this Militant series was more impressive than its predecessors, not least in its ability to reflect living industrial struggles. [102]

The RSL convened its national conference on 20/21 September 1941. [103] This gathering revealed growing uncertainty in the RSL about its international standing [104] and lifted a veil from new factional lines: Conference clearly revealed a Left Fraction, around Robinson, which was intractably wedded to the Labour Party tactic, but vigilant against any concessions to chauvinism [105]; a Right which favoured a Military Policy on the war and worked for fusion with the WIL; and a Centre of Harber and the traditional MLL leaders which controlled the apparatus. Conference discussed Military Policy and concluded that it might not be binding on a section of the International. It decided to seek clarification of this point upon receipt of which a special conference would be held. [106] This gave freedom to the Right to develop its activities. Jackson, the RSL organiser, had been called up [107] and John Lawrence became organiser responsible for industrial affairs. At central committee meetings he and Harber clashed over [108] possible fusion with WIL. [109] Until the end of the year, it was possible that the RSL would be knocked off its course not only on the war but on the Labour Party tactic too. [110]

The RSL was vulnerable because the Military Policy it perceived as a concession to chauvinism had been embraced by WIL. From August 1941, under international pressure, the two organisations exchanged documents. [111] The RSL stood by its 1937 position that WIL had had no political right to exist when it was first formed. WIL claimed British Section status since it and not the RSL adhered to Fourth International policy. It had launched its paper Socialist Appeal as an avowedly Fourth International journal, but the RSL found its documents vague and saw them as confirmation that WIL was a clique. The RSL retained international backing but the door was now noticeably left open to the WIL. [112] On 12 December 1941 the RSL resolved to bring negotiations to an end.

To WIL, now outside all parties, the “Third Labour Government” slogan was “completely incorrect and opportunist”, a demand associated with the bad experiences of the past. WIL argued for advancing a Fourth International programme for Labour, in power, to implement. The RSL, it charged, had become Labour Party members on principle, not qualitatively different from the Marxist Group or the Communist League:

“Like the sectarians who attempt to place the so-called ‘independence of the organisation’ above time and place, the late adherents of the Militant Labour League turn the Labour Party tactic into a panacea.” [113]

WIL did not drop its demand for Labour to take power just because it was outside the Labour Party. Throughout the war, and after, its leaders rejected a long term presence in the Labour Party. [114] But to surrender the advantages of independence for “a problematical future possibility” of fecund Labour Party work was, in its view, futile.

From 1942 it became impossible to disentangle the wrangles within the RSL from that body’s relations with WIL and the International Secretariat. [115] The RSL Centre, supported by the Left, made three charges against WIL: it lacked internal democracy; it had abandoned revolutionary defeatism; it had rejected entrism for party building methods “basically opposed to those of Bolshevism”. [116] The central committee as a whole broadened its sights on 11 January 1942 when it declared the Chicago (Military) Policy of J.P. Cannon to be reactionary. This was not enough for the Left, which in April 1942 launched its own duplicated internal journal, The Leninist. For the Left it was in the end all one: any concessions made to Military Policy must ruin everything. If Military Policy was rejected then fusion with WIL was out of the question. [117]

When, on 21 June 1942, the IS wrote to the RSL again advancing the need for Military Policy and urging unity with WIL, Lawrence and thirteen others seized their opportunity. They circulated a statement [118] among the membership backing the IS, reserving their right to participate freely in fusion discussions unbound by RSL policy and demanding an emergency conference. It seems that the Right at this point was about to break away and join WIL. [119] On 18 July, however, an International representative, J.B. Stuart [120], visited London. He met WIL leaders, Margaret Johns and, crucially, some members of the Right, whom he persuaded to stay in the RSL and fight for a majority. The next day the RSL central committee met and suspended the fourteen signatories to the statement of dissociation, including Carson, Lawrence, Lane and Goffe [121] but the Right, which earlier might have welcomed a rupture, now submitted to being disciplined. On 26 July 1942 Stuart met Harber and Lawrence and a compromise plan was agreed to cover the conduct of the Right during negotiations for fusion. [122] This collapsed a few weeks later when it was discovered that Lawrence and others of the Right were involved in an elaborate subterfuge, that their conciliation screened concerted action with WIL. [123] In October and November nearly all members of the Right were expelled from the RSL

Meanwhile a special conference of the RSL had been held as requested by the Right. The Left was itself growing in alienation from the RSL and from the Fourth International, but it united with the Centre to vote down Military Policy and reluctantly advanced a panel for the central committee. The Left and Right captured three seats each and the Centre held four. Following the conference the League heard from the IS which condemned it for severing negotiations with WIL [124] and for the ultra-leftism of Robinson. Following the expulsion of the Right, however, a new central committee was returned, composed of six followers of the Centre and four from the Left. [125] The Right, also now known as the Trotskyist Opposition, was playing its own game, with international encouragement. [126] There was a feeling that simple adherence to WIL would mean that that body had too easily surmounted the 1938 declaration of the International. [127] From 1942 the idea took root that WIL was anti-internationalist, and that its support for the FI programme was only for the record. So the Trotskyist Opposition bobbed about independently in 1943, some of its members uneasy at a policy which had turned them back towards struggling for a majority in the RSL.

By 1942 WIL was even more convinced that the place for Trotskyists was in the open [128], seizing the opportunity to recruit directly to the Fourth International. It was now visibly beginning to derive benefit from an existence outside parties, unlike the RSL which remained immersed in the Labour Party. It would take a mass influx into the Labour Party to make it change its mind. [129] The RSL always challenged WIL’s presentation of conditions for entry. WIL had argued that Labour must be in a state of flux, at a high level of political life, and moving left. The RSL countered that political life in the Labour Party had never been on a high level and that this was not in any case material in determining Trotskyist behaviour. .Trotskyism, it insisted, had to prepare the turn to the Labour Party, a task WIL was manifestly failing to carry out. [130]

The RSL suggested that WIL was preparing to argue that workers would skip the Labour Party stage and join it directly. [131] Finally, it argued that WIL’s false attitude to the Labour Party sprang from its erroneous policy on war. WIL did not recognise present chauvinism, it charged, and it exaggerated class conflict so that it might reject the Labour Party. [132]

But the already tottering RSL was now lop-sided. Indeed the Centre now had twenty-three members on paper to the Left’s thirty six. [133] The Left believed Harber to be a liquidationist who would dissolve the revolutionary party in the centrist WIL. The Centre was deeply suspicious of an organised faction within the League, and one, moreover, which had effective control of its paper from December 1942. [134] On 9 January 1943 the Lefts were suspended for factionalism. When the charges against them were confirmed they were expelled on 23 January for refusing to divulge the names of their Fraction. [135] The Left boasted that it took with it the true industrial base of the British Section of the Fourth International [136] and the early months of 1943 passed in an ugly wrangle over the status of its paper. [137] On 4 June the Left Fraction appealed to the IS against its expulsion and received a reply to the effect that this act was indeed a violation of the RSL constitution. [138]

In July 1943 WIL made a new offer on unification. It refused to devote itself to nothing else but proposed a six month discussion at the end of which a fusion conference would vote for one tactic in a majority vote. WIL demanded for itself either recognition as the official British Section or, failing that, sympathetic status – the very request it had made in 1938. [139] WIL also had grown tired of being lectured by American representatives on splits:

The elements which began the work of the Opposition, even in the majority, were not of the best material. The difficulties of growth and the milieu in which they had to work; the composition of the Opposition itself, the different stages of development through which the organisation passed; the necessity at various stages of making sharp changes if the movement was even to survive; all these factors led necessarily and inevitably to splits. [140]

On 7 September 1943, WIL wrote to the IS about the mode of unification. On 26 September the IS passed a resolution on British Unification which identified acceptance of the FI programme principles and statutes as the sole conditions for it. Under the circumstances the door was open to WIL. Yet WIL had within its own ranks a challenge to its behaviour since 1938, a minority which, like the Right Opposition of the RSL, accused it of being anti-Internationalist in method. [141] This minority led by Healy, a party to WIL’s abstention from the Peace and Unity agreement, now condemned this aloofness in a critical resolution. [142] It reminded the WIL leaders of the need to observe majorities and warned, presciently, that such majorities had international