 | |
| Type | Fortnighlynewspaper |
|---|---|
| Format | A4 |
| Owner | EPSR Supporters |
| Editor | Don Hoskins |
| Founded | 1979 |
| Political alignment | Marxism–Leninism |
| Headquarters | London |
| Price | £0.25 |
| Website | EPSR website |
TheEconomic and Philosophic Science Review (EPSR) is a BritishMarxist–Leninist newspaper founded by Royston Bull, formerly a leading member of theWorkers Revolutionary Party and industrial correspondent forThe Scotsman newspaper.
Bull split from the WRP in 1979 and with a number of supporters to form theWorkers Party. The group, upon formally repudiatingTrotskyism, renamed themselves theInternational Leninist Workers Party and later theEconomic and Philosophic Science Review. Although Royston Bull died aged 69 on 2 January 2005, the EPSR continues to be published fortnightly, by its supporters.
The ILWP/EPSR are avowedlyMarxist-Leninist and supportive of theSoviet Union model but critical ofits party'srevisionism which they attribute toJoseph Stalin's political errors. They are also very strongly supportive ofSinn Féin (and until its dissolution, of theIrish Republican Army) and manyThird World national liberation movements.
During the 1970s Eurocommunists outside the group (adopting ideology of theNew Left) attempted to promote a panoply ofLGBT rights on the far-left. This gathered steam such that by the 1990s it was mainstream policy among far-left publications; the EPSR rejected the stance in 1999 outright as anti-social, sayinghomosexuality had"obvious disadvantages for any species in evolutionary terms".[1] John Pearson, a member of the revisionistCommunist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee) in theirWeekly Worker said this washomophobia.[2]
With the foundation of theSocialist Labour Party by the leader of theNational Union of Mineworkers,Arthur Scargill in 1996, the EPSR dissolved itself into the SLP where they operated as a faction around their paper, the EPSR. Royston Bull was elected vice-president of the SLP in 1998, but was then almost immediately expelled (or 'voided') from party membership. Arthur Scargill, who had supported Bull's candidacy, used it to strengthen his position within the SLP. The election caused a significant rift within the SLP, with one member, Brian Heron, calling Bull's election "a disaster". Whilst some of Bull's supporters stayed within the SLP, most left to rejoin Bull and organised themselves as "EPSR supporters".