Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1957)

Revolutionary Socialist League
General Secretary	Jimmy Deane
Founded	1957
Dissolved	1964
Split from	The Club
Succeeded by	Militant tendency
Ideology	Socialism Trotskyism
Political position	Far-left
International affiliation	Fourth International
Politics of the United Kingdom Political parties Elections

The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in Britain which existed from 1956 to 1964. It later became the Militant tendency, an entryist group within the Labour Party.

Formation

After the dissolution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, Ted Grant and his supporters were expelled from the RCP's successor The Club in 1950 and formed the International Socialist Group. They went on to fuse with supporters of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International in Britain as the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1956 and were recognised as the official British section at its fifth world congress in 1957. The RSL held its first congress in 1957.

It was an entryist group within the Labour Party that published Socialist Fight. In 1958 the group was recognised as the British section of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International and, after the reunification in 1963, the British section of the Fourth International. However, the League registered substantial political differences at the 1965 World Congress, and failed to integrate other supporters of the International in Britain. The Congress recognised two sympathising sections in Britain: both the RSL and what became the International Marxist Group, prompting the RSL to turn its back on the International. In 1964 the RSL founded a newspaper called Militant and the group itself soon became known as Militant or the Militant tendency although the official designation of the RSL was still used internally after this time.

External links

• Catalogue of the RSL archives, held at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwickru:Революционная социалистическая лига (Великобритания)