A Trotskyist's Tale

Abstract

Trotskyism has rarely achieved significant influence in labour movements: Bolivia, France, Sri Lanka, Vietnam are limited but typically ephemeral exceptions. Since it emerged from the Communist Party (CPGB) in 1932 Trotskyism has remained marginal to British politics. In the 1930s tiny, persecuted, mutually hostile groups of Trotskyists provided compelling critiques of Stalinism. Centred on revolutionary opposition to the ideology and practice of ‘socialism in one country’ and the consolidation of a ruling elite in Russia, such critiques were accessible to few and palatable to fewer on the British left, given the CPGB’s resources, its monopoly of Soviet Communism and its patent on ‘anti-fascism’. At the end of World War Two the unified Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) promised greater influence. By 1949 it had collapsed. It was only from the 1960s that British Trotskyism re-emerged in the context of the youth radicalization, trade-union militancy and, later, Labour Party entrism. Its brief florescence was facilitated by the weakness of Maoism and of autonomism, the belief that workers could force change through direct action without resorting to trade unions or political parties, which blossomed in other countries. Trotskyism became a small but visible and voluble aspect of the left in the shape of the Socialist Labour League/Workers Revolutionary Party; (SLL/WRP); the International Socialists/Socialist Workers’ Party (IS/SWP); the Revolutionary Socialist League/Militant; and more briefly, the International Marxist Group. The leaders of the biggest groups, Gerry Healy, Tony Cliff and Ted Grant, were veterans of the RCP and irreconcilably antagonistic. At their zenith none of these organizations enrolled more than 5,000 active members, and the numerous splinter groups considerably less. Prominence was purchased by hyperactivism; influence in the labour movement has always been restricted.