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29-827: In mid-1937 the Joerger and Salemme group held initial discussions on fusing with the Marxist Policy Committee (which itself later joined the Revolutionary Workers League ). These discussions failed. Later that year, in the lead-up to the founding of the Socialist Workers Party , and while Salemme and Joerger were still with the Trotskyists around James Cannon, a debate arose in American Trotskyism on

58-818: A "juridical cretin" for insisting that nationalized property meant that Stalinist Russia remained a workers state. When the Socialist Workers Party was founded in January 1938 with a platform that still considered the Soviet Union to be a degenerated workers' state , Salemme immediately quit the party. Sometime thereafter the Revolutionary Marxist League was founded. The RML published a mimeographed organ called Revolutionary Action . It apparently ran from Vol. I #1 1938 to Vol. II #1 February 1939. Around 1940 they merged with

87-617: A final warning to cease their violations of " organizational discipline ". Oehler and his faction then withdrew to form the Revolutionary Workers League. By this time a majority of the National Committee come around to support the French turn. The RWL originally thought of itself as an "opposition" within the official Trotskyist movement, in the same manner as Trotskyism originally conceived of itself as

116-672: A group headed by David Atkins that merged into the Bordigists , and the Revolutionary Communist Vanguard . The Revolutionary Workers League was active inside a number of trade unions, particularly the United Auto Workers . They succeeded in having one of their members Zygmount "Ziggy" Dobrycinski elected as head of Local 205. However, when the RWL began to make demands for the "politicalization" of

145-839: A tendency within the Workers Party of the United States , which had been formed by the merger of the Trotskyist Communist League of America (CLA) and A. J. Muste 's American Workers Party in December 1934. Some within the new party were advocating an application of Leon Trotsky 's French Turn by having the enter in the Socialist Party of America . The issue was first raised at the "Active Workers Conference" at Pittsburgh in March 1935. Though

174-644: The Communist Party USA , declaring its so-called "united front from below" tactics had "been proven to be disruptive of the development of a revolutionary labor movement." To oppose this, it postulated that the Socialist Party take the lead in "counteracting these tactics" by "promoting united fronts of all working class organizations for struggle on specific political issues such as: political prisoners, race discrimination, impending war, dangers of fascism, etc." The April 1934 Appeal also hailed

203-638: The Marxist Workers League , led by K. Mienov , to form a group called the Workers Party, which nevertheless seems to have been disbanded soon thereafter. The Revolutionary Marxist league's ideological position consisted of a rejection of both Stalinism and Trotskyism, which it regarded as an inverted form of Stalinism . It was equally harsh in its denunciation of the various splinters from official Trotskyism : We cannot emphasize too much our position that we have nothing in common with

232-644: The Revolutionary Communist Organisation (Austria) , both groups close to Oehler. The outbreak of World War II led to a severe decline in the group. Its youth section, the Young Workers League appears to have been wound up in about 1940, the international disbanded in 1946, and The Fighting Worker ceased publication in 1947, although an attempt at a relaunch was made in 1950. Revolutionary Policy Committee (U.S.) The Revolutionary Policy Committee (RPC)

261-527: The "Left Opposition" within the Comintern. They focused, in their early years, to recruiting within the Trotskyist ranks, and may have created the "Marxist Policy Committee" within the Trotskyists' Socialist Appeal Association for that purpose. The group went through a number of splits, both of organized factions and individuals. A small Marxist Workers League left early in 1936 and quickly rejoined

290-552: The 1934 appeal to the membership included Roy Reuther of Detroit , as well as Franz Daniel, Mary Hillyer and J. B. Matthews of New York City, in addition to the National Industrial Organizer of the Young People's Socialist League , Joseph Zameres. According to James Oneal, Frances A. Henson acted as secretary of the faction during its initial phase. According to historian Constance Ashton Myers,

319-647: The Revolutionary Policy Committee was spearheaded by a " Lovestoneite infiltrator," Irving Brown. Chairman of the group was J.B. Matthews, a former Methodist missionary who would later become chief investigator for the House Committee on Un-American Activities headed by Martin Dies, Jr. The RPC's Appeal was intended to reorient the Socialist Party towards revolutionary socialism from its previous parliamentary tradition. Capitalism

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348-675: The Revolutionary Workers League, sometimes called RWL (Revolt) after its periodical. They had small groups in New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago and elsewhere. After an attempted merger with the Fieldites and some Socialist Labor Party dissidents failed, the Stammites disbanded in 1941. Other groups to split from the RWL included the Leninist League , led by George Marlen, a second Marxist Workers League led by Karl Mienov,

377-611: The Socialist, with Cannon and Shachtman favoring the proposal. The group led by Oehler and Tom Stamm were not entirely opposed to work among the left wing members of the Socialist party, but wanted to bring them into the WP as a group, rather than have the Workers Party dissolve into the Socialist Party. To that end they began negotiations with the Revolutionary Policy Committee . When they reported their talks to

406-548: The Soviet Union as the "land of proletarian dictatorship" and demanded that "the Socialist Party must pledge itself to defend the victories for Socialism which have been achieved in the USSR." The 1934 Appeal was influential in steering the June 1934 Detroit Convention of the Socialist Party towards a radical new Declaration of Principles, a document ultimately written by Norman Thomas ' associate Devere Allen . The RPC proved to be

435-543: The Trotskyists. Joseph Zack then renounced Marxism completely, and founded a new group called the One Big Union Club . The majority of the group apparently renounced Trotskyism at its third Plenum in October–November 1938. However this caused a spit between Oehler, who believed that Trotsky had degenerated from Marxism in 1934, and Stamm who felt that Trotsky had degenerated in 1928. Others reasons given for

464-529: The Trotskyite brand of Stalinism or any other inverted form of Stalinism. The various types of Trotskyites ( Oehler , Field , Marlen , et al.) ... Marxist Policy Committee The Revolutionary Workers League (RWL) was a radical left group in the United States , lasting from 1935 through 1946. It was led by Hugo Oehler and published The Fighting Worker newspaper. The RWL originated as

493-768: The anti-Stalinist Left. Oehler and Negrete were both imprisoned by the Loyalist regime, and only returned to the US after the intervention of the US embassy. With the declaration of the Trotskyist Fourth International , the RWL instead founded the Provisional International Contact Commission for the New Communist (Fourth) International . Besides themselves, this included the Leninist League (UK) and

522-630: The idea was favored by James Cannon and Max Shachtman , the two former leaders of the CLA, it was opposed by Joseph Zack Kornfeder and Muste. The issue was again brought up at the WPUS June National Committee Plenum. Though the party issued a declaration denouncing "false rumors" of factionalism and moves toward merger with the socialists, a struggle did apparent take place, Muste, Oehler, and Martin Abern against joining

551-572: The members, including a six-hour day and workers management of the industry, "Ziggy" quit the RWL. The group sent a man named Russel Blackwell (using the pseudonym Rosalio Negrete) to Spain during the early part of the Spanish Civil War , who made contacts to the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( POUM ) left wing. Later they sent Oehler, who was present during the May 1937 suppression of

580-662: The name and basic objectives of a similar faction in Great Britain established in 1931, the American RPC seems to have been launched only in April 1934. The RPC made itself known with the publication of a thin 12-page pamphlet entitled An Appeal to the Membership of the Socialist Party, a document which prominently featured the names and party positions of about 80 members of the Socialist Party. Prominent sponsors of

609-530: The nature of the Soviet Union. Salemme and Joerger offered "the most damning alternative analyses that had yet been advanced within the ranks of the Trotskyist movement. The Salemme-Joerger document, entitled 'The U.S.S.R. and Stalinism', declared that the 'victory of Stalin in the party, the adoption of the theory of 'Socialism in One Country', the expulsion of the Left Opposition and the crushing of

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638-536: The party's Political Committee, they set up their own negotiating committee without any members of the Oehler-Stamm group on it. When Oehler-Stamm group continued their talks with RPC they were censured by the party's Control Commission. Things came to a head at the October 4–9, 1935 Plenum of the party's National Committee, at which the Oehler-Stamm group was forbidden to issue a factional periodical and were given

667-653: The program and policies of the Party are not adequate. More important, however, the failure of social democracy to take power in Germany , where the Socialists had gained the support of large numbers of the working people, raises grave questions as to its theoretical soundness." The RPC provocatively declared that it made "no fetish of legality" in exercising its desire to establish a "Workers' Republic." The April 1934 Appeal asserted: "Once socialists are in possession of

696-796: The proverbial "red flag" to the SP's social democratic "Old Guard" faction , with James Oneal declaring its April 1934 Appeal to be "more definitely Communist than the Left wing manifesto which split the Socialist Party and out of which came two Communist parties." At the same time when the Old Guard was itself organizing itself as the Committee for the Preservation of the Socialist Party with an Executive Secretary, office, "Provisional Executive Committee," and mailing list, Oneal rather hysterically charged

725-409: The split included questions over democratic centralism as well as a supposed tendency to focus too much on European events, but Sidney Lens stated that Stamm's motivation was more personal: he simply did not wish to relocate from New York to Chicago, where the RWL's headquarters was being transferred to become closer to the heart of America industry. The Stammites set up another organization, also called

754-507: The state machinery by the mandate of the workers, their task is to secure and insure the governmental power for the victorious revolution by arming the workers for its defense against all possibility of a counter-revolutionary resistance, and to proceed to transform the economic and social basis of society." The RPC demanded that the Socialist Party make "ceaseless efforts toward united action against common enemies" through " united fronts on specific issues." It was, however, highly critical of

783-476: The workers' democracy and workers' control, signified that at the head of the U.S.S.R. there ruled a counter-revolutionary group which ruled in the interests of a new Russian bourgeoisie.'" The document went on to declare that the Soviet Union was "capitalist and fascist" and that revolutionaries must "stand for no 'material aid' to the Russian regime in time of war nor to its allies." They also attacked Trotsky as

812-405: Was an offshoot of the so-called "Militant" faction in the Socialist Party of America during the middle-1930s. The group sought to transform the SP into a revolutionary socialist organization from its origins as a social democratic political party. The Revolutionary Policy Committee (RPC) was an organized far left faction in the Socialist Party's factional war of 1934 to 1937. While it shared

841-472: Was portrayed as a "collapsing structure," all efforts at disarmament "abortive," fascism victorious in Europe, and a "certainty of world catastrophe" imminent. The appeal declared "The Socialist Party can become the effective instrument for bringing about Socialism only if it changes its present principles and tactics. The small growth in membership and the poor showing at the polls are objective evidence that

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