Revolutionary Socialist League | |
|---|---|
| Leader | Sy Landy Ron Tabor |
| Founded | 1973 (1973) |
| Dissolved | 1989 (1989) |
| Split from | International Socialists |
| Succeeded by | Love and Rage Network |
| Ideology | Orthodox Trotskyism Later: Anarchism |
| Political position | Far-left |
TheRevolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was aTrotskyist group in the United States established in 1973 and disbanded in 1989.[1]
The RSL originated in the Revolutionary Tendency within theInternational Socialists (U.S.) (IS) led bySy Landy andRon Tabor. They had three principal differences with the IS: they believed that the IS had abandoned strict adherence toTrotskyism; they felt that the emphasis on the day-to-day work within the trade unions diminished propagating the revolutionary objectives outlined in theFourth International's transitional program; and they felt that the USSR and the other Communist states werestate capitalist, rather thanbureaucratic collectivist.[1]
While the RT at first seemed to have the upper hand, with Landy elected national secretary in 1972, by the next year Landy and his faction had been expelled. At the time of the split, the RSL took 100 of the IS's 300 members. The expelled group, now styling itself the Revolutionary Socialist League, adopted generallyorthodox Trotskyist positions based on the transitional program includingpermanent revolution, opposition topopular fronts and the need for aFourth International. This last position cost them unity with theClass Struggle League, who advocated aFifth International. Landy wrote "To preserve the program is to preserve the number and out right to it". Despite this the RSL never joined any existing Trotskyist international or attempted to organize a new one. Its sole international organizational tie was with theRevolutionary Marxist League of Jamaica.[1]
The RSL was active within a few unions, particularlyUnited Auto Workers (UAW) andUSW and among Hispanic workers in the Los AngelesILGWU. Within the UAW they organized a "Revolutionary Action Caucus". Outside of organized labor they participated inanti-apartheid andanti-racist movements and developed aprisoner support network.[2]
The RSL was one of the left groups most active in the pre-AIDS gay movement. Rick Miles considered this area "particularly important" because he believed that much of the left suffered from the samehomophobia as the rest of society, and because the "gay question" had a direct bearing on their concept of socialism as a "free society" run directly by workers and oppressed people, rather than an authoritarian society run by a state capitalist class. It also emphasized the oppressive nature of the Stalinist countries where homosexuals were repressed. The RSL recruited a minority tendency of theRed Flag Union, a gay socialist collective, to its state capitalist characterization, and they merged into the League in 1977. (A majority of the RFU joined theSpartacist League.[2]) In New York, the RSL was active in theGay Activists Alliance, its members and sympathizers participating in a polarizing split that proved the end of that organization. RSL members also participated in gay coalitions such asLavender Left andChristopher Street Liberation Day Committee.[3]
The RSL had its share of organizational difficulties. In early 1974, it suffered its first split. The origins of this split went back to a group called the Communist faction within theSocialist Workers Party that left to SWP to enter IS, and subsequently the RSL. Within the RSL it formed the "Soviet Defensist Minority" before leaving to form theTrotskyist Organization of the United States.[4] Another tendency had left in 1975 to form theRevolutionary Marxist Caucus, which later fused with theSocialist Workers Party.[5] Finally a group led by Sy Landy left in 1976 to form theLeague for the Revolutionary Party, in part because they disagreed with the RSL's call for the formation of aLabor Party in the US. They also alleged that the leadership of the RSL was acting in a bureaucratic fashion.[citation needed]
Over time, the RSL moved closer toanarchism. In 1985 they released a statementWhat we stand for that proclaimed their adherence to the ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky but emphasized the theoretical contributions of Marx and Engels, Trotsky's fight against Stalinism and Lenin's "conception of the party, stress on the importance of national liberation struggles and theanti-statism shown in theState and Revolution". It also identified "with the best of anarchism, particularly its libertarian spirit".[1] Their move away from Leninism is documented in a book by RSL leader Ron Tabor titledA Look at Leninism (ISBN 0-939073-36-6), which collected together a series of articles questioning the fundamentals of Leninism that had appeared as a serial series inThe Torch newspaper.[citation needed]
The RSL disbanded in 1989, with about twenty of its remaining members helping in the formation ofLove and Rage Network, a revolutionary anarchist newspaper and organization. The RSL met to disband the day before the founding conference of Love and Rage. When Love and Rage disbanded in 1998, the remaining former RSL members, including Ron Tabor, began publishingThe Utopian.[6] Some time later they entered theplatformist anarchist federationNorth Eastern Federation of Anarchist Communists.[citation needed]
TheLeague for the Revolutionary Party is a Trotskyist organisation in the United States.[citation needed]
The group was founded by a faction of the now defunctRevolutionary Socialist League in 1976. The RSL had in turn split from theInternational Socialists in 1973.[citation needed]
The LRP took from the RSL a strong stress on the need for aLeninist party and coupled this with an emphasis on thegeneral strike tactic. They also developed their own version of what is called "state capitalist theory" to explain the class nature of theUSSR and similar states. In later years they abandoned use of the term "state capitalist" in favor of the term "statified capitalism, arguing the difference betweenStalinist and traditional capitalist countries is in the form that the ruling class holds its property, and that theproletariat is still exploited andsurplus value created in the same way. The LRP views the state in Stalinist countries as a weaker form of the capitalist state, less capable of exploiting the workers but still ruling in the interest of the bureaucracy. This form of state is seen as a compromise by the ruling class, sacrificing a portion of profits to pacify the workers and prevent proletarian revolutions. As such, the LRP viewed the collapse of the Soviet Union as a defeat for the workers not because the workers lost control of the state, as many Trotskyists believe, but because of the increased rate of exploitation and destruction of social welfare programs that accompanied the collapse.[5]
The group is based inNew York City with a branch inChicago. It also organizes a group of international co-thinkers called the Communist Organisation for a Fourth International. They publish a journal calledProletarian Revolution, formerlySocialist Voice, to which the lateSy Landy and Walter Daum have been notable contributors.[citation needed]
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