The Proletarian Military Policy was a policy adopted by the Fourth International in response to World War II . It was an attempt to apply transitional demands such as trade union control of military training and the election of officers to transform what it characterised as an imperialist war into a revolutionary struggle against Nazism .
18-414: Revolutionary Socialist League may refer to: Revolutionary Socialist League (UK) Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938) Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1957) Revolutionary Socialist League (US) (1972–1989) Revolutionary Socialist League (Germany) (1994–2016) Revolutionary Socialist League (Kenya) Topics referred to by
36-601: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1938) The first Revolutionary Socialist League ( RSL ) was formed in early 1938 by the merger of the Marxist League led by Harry Wicks and the Marxist Group led by C. L. R. James . In August 1938, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman came to London in an attempt to unite all four British Trotskyist groups. The RSL,
54-684: The Militant Group , and the Revolutionary Socialist Party merged to form a new Revolutionary Socialist League, but the Workers International League (WIL) refused, claiming that agreement on perspectives was insufficient and that the new group represented a dilution of democratic centralism . The new RSL became the British affiliate of the newly formed Fourth International . It maintained
72-873: The Trotskyist Opposition which had been expelled from the RSL in 1942. This group, led by John Lawrence , advocated adoption of the PMP of the Socialist Workers Party and was in favour of fusing with the WIL. Collaboration between the Trotskyist Opposition and the WIL was so close that Lawrence was employed by the latter on technical tasks. In 1943, the Left Fraction who were opposed to that policy were expelled. The leadership of
90-609: The Labour Party to ban the Militant Labour League. In addition, the group became increasingly inactive as many younger members were conscripted into the British Army . The group's opposition to the war became a major cause of factional strife both within the group and between it and the WIL. Three major positions developed, with ensuing factional divisions. Firstly, a Left Fraction formed, which opposed
108-634: The Militant Labour League for those members who were involved in Labour Party entryism , and published The Militant . The group adopted a defeatist policy during the Second World War , which it modelled on Lenin 's revolutionary defeatist tactics of the 1914–1918 war. This was seen by its rivals in the WIL as pacifism. However, it had some initial successes when the Shop Assistants' Union adopted its position in 1940. This led
126-421: The PMP into their programme. The majority of workers supported the war because they had a genuine fear of an invasion by Nazi Germany and a desire to defeat Nazism. At the same time, the British ruling class could not be trusted to fight a war that would decisively defeat Hitler since they had supported and helped Hitler before the war. Only the working class could successfully carry out such a struggle. Therefore,
144-562: The Revolutionary Socialist League refused to enter into any unity negotiations, despite the party's drastic reduction from 300 to 20 members, until in 1944 the Fourth International held a two-day conference. This conference was required to reunite the group so that it could fuse with the WIL into a single organization which could then affiliate to the Fourth International. As planned on the first day,
162-505: The Trotskyist Opposition and the Left Fraction were reunited with the RSL. Despite the objections of the Left Fraction, the second day saw the reformed RSL unified with the WIL – on the WIL's terms – to form the new Revolutionary Communist Party . Proletarian Military Policy Alongside his call for an unconditional defence of the Soviet Union , Trotsky outlined the approach to be adopted by Marxists who were conscripted into
180-458: The WIL conducted revolutionary work in the armed forces upon conscription and agitated for a revolutionary war against fascism and for socialism. It was reflected in the slogan 'First Hitler, then Churchill'. The military establishment organised the Army Bureau of Current Affairs , which was intended to educate soldiers about current events. Where WIL members were based, they took control of
198-655: The capitalist state which abuses the army for the advantage of the exploiting class." The policy provoked controversy within the Trotskyist movement with some seeing it as a concession to social patriotism . In the American SWP , Max Shachtman and James Burnham characterised the Soviet Union as 'state capitalist' and disagreed with the policy. In Britain, the Workers' International League (WIL) adopted
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#1732781171950216-488: The classes and used them to promote revolutionary ideas. In the case of WIL member Frank Ward, his revolutionary work was so successful that the military was compelled to give him an "honourable discharge" from the air force and sent him home in order to prevent him from conducting revolutionary activity. In a similar incident, the Cairo Forces Parliament was shut down because of the growing support for
234-604: The inaction of the RSL leadership when the war began. Initially, they used the RSL name and only changed the name later. However, the majority of the RWL joined the WIL in 1940, with the remainder returning to the RSL in 1941. Another split produced the Socialist Workers Group which published Socialist Fight and entered the Independent Labour Party , some of its former members eventually joining
252-522: The military, "We are absolutely in favor of compulsory military training and in the same way for conscription . Conscription? Yes. By the bourgeois state? No. We cannot entrust this work, as any other, to the state of the exploiters. In our propaganda and agitation we must very strongly differentiate these two questions. That is, not to fight against the necessity of the workers being good soldiers and of building up an army based on discipline, science, strong bodies and so on, including conscription, but against
270-500: The revolutionary ideas promoted by WIL members. They were elected to the positions of Prime Minister and Home Secretary. Their revolutionary work was successful in winning the support of many soldiers, as described by Ted Grant , "From the reports of our soldier comrades, the Eighth Army soldiers were saying that after the war they would refuse to disarm, and return to Britain with their guns to ensure that things would change. This
288-457: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Revolutionary Socialist League . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Revolutionary_Socialist_League&oldid=1163276729 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
306-645: The war on a basis all other factions described as pacifist. Secondly, the leadership faction around Denzil Dean Harber held a position that opposed the Proletarian Military Policy (PMP) of the WIL and was described by its opponents as semi-pacifist. Third, the WIL and tendencies leaving the RSL at different times adhered to the aforementioned PMP. In 1939, some RSL members split to form the Revolutionary Workers League (RWL), which Isaac Deutscher soon joined, due to
324-489: Was the mutinous mood that was developing amongst these troops. At the 1943 conference of our tendency, I made the point, to illustrate the thing graphically, that the military establishment though it their army, but in fact, the soldiers of the Eighth Army were in rebellion. This reflected the revolutionary developments in the army. It was our Eighth Army in that it was being transformed. It was becoming revolutionary and in
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