International Marxist Group

International Marxist Group (Germany)

The International Marxist Group was a Trotskyist group in West Germany. The GIM served as the German section of the reunified Fourth International....

The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It and its youth organisation had had around 1,000 members and supporters in the late 1970s. In February 1980 it had 682 members and by December 1982, when it changed its name to the Socialist League, its membership was fallen to 534.

Origins

The IMG emerged from the International Group

International Group

The International Group was the name taken by two groups of British supporters of the Fourth International.In both cases, the Group was formed as a public faction by members loyal to the International who felt that the then-current leadership of the British section of the Fourth International had...

, a sympathising organisation of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International

Fourth International

The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...

(IS). Its founders, Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan was a British Trotskyist who was central to founding the International Marxist Group. He had been a full time organiser of the Communist Party of Great Britain in Nottingham who had left the party with Ken Coates after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary...

and Ken Coates

Ken Coates

Kenneth Sidney Coates was a British politician and writer. He chaired the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and edited The Spokesman, the BRPF magazine launched in March 1970. He was a Labour Party Member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 1999...

, had broken with the CPGB in Nottingham in 1956. They were members of the Revolutionary Socialist League

Revolutionary Socialist League (UK, 1957)

The Revolutionary Socialist League was a Trotskyist group in Britain which existed from 1956 to 1964.-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...

in the late 1950s, Jordan becoming organising secretary. In 1961, they split to form the Internationalist Group in support of the IS against the leadership of the RSL, its British section.

In 1963, the ISFI reunited with the majority of the International Committee of the Fourth International

International Committee of the Fourth International

The International Committee of the Fourth International is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in Britain.-Foundation:The International...

as the United Secretariat which advised the RSL and Internationalist Group to unite. A unity conference in September 1964, brokered partly by Pierre Frank

Pierre Frank

Pierre Frank was a French Trotskyist leader. He served on the secretariat of the Fourth International from 1948 to 1979....

and Jimmy Deane

Jimmy Deane

Jimmy Deane was a British Trotskyist who played a significant role in building the Revolutionary Socialist League...

, voted for unity but the fusion was not accepted: RSL member Peter Taaffe

Peter Taaffe

Peter Taaffe is the general secretary of the Socialist Party of England and Wales SPEW and member of the International Executive Committee of the Committee for a Workers International , which claims sections in over 35 countries around the world.Taaffe was founding editor of the Marxist Militant...

recalls that he "led a walk-out of the Liverpool delegation, with the majority in Liverpool in support". Very soon the former Internationalist Group members left to form a new organisation, the International Group, together with some former members of the SLL who had opposed that organisation's refusal to take party in the 1963 reunification of the majorities of the Fourth International

Fourth International

The Fourth International is the communist international organisation consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky , with the declared dedicated goal of helping the working class bring about socialism...

, including Charlie van Gelderen

Charlie van Gelderen

Charlie van Gelderen was a South African Trotskyist active in the British Labour movement from the 1930s. He attended the founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938, and towards the end of his life he was the last survivor of that conference.In the 1940s, he played the leading role...

. The Group played a major role in raising Vietnam solidarity at the 1965 Labour party conference.

The 1965 World Congress of the International demoted the RSL to a "sympathising" group: the International Group was granted the same status. In the words of the RSL's Peter Taaffe

Peter Taaffe

"We decided that the time had arrived when we must turn our backs on this organisation." The RSL left the FI and ultimately became the Militant tendency

Militant Tendency

The Militant tendency was an entrist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was first published in 1964...

.

The International Group continued the production of a cyclostyled

Cyclostyle (copier)

The Cyclostyle duplicating process is a form of stencil copying invented by David Gestetner in London in 1890. A stencil is cut with the help of small toothed wheels on a special paper underlaid with carbon paper which serves as a printing form. Gestetner named the Cyclostyle after a drawing tool...

bulletin known as The Week

The Week

The Week, styled as THE WEEK, is a weekly news magazine.-History:It was founded in the United Kingdom by Jolyon Connell in 1995. In April 2001, the magazine began publishing an American edition; an Australian edition followed in October 2008. Dennis Publishing publishes the U.K. and Australian...

. As it was engaged in entrism inside the Labour Party, this journal gained various sponsors including Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, whose Russell Tribunal

Russell Tribunal

The Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal or Russell-Sartre Tribunal, was a public body organized by British philosopher Bertrand Russell and hosted by French philosopher and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre...

employed two members of the Canadian section of the FI, Ernie Tate

Ernie Tate

Ernest Tate, known as Ernie Tate, is a long-standing supporter of the reunified Fourth International, based in Canada.Born in Northern Ireland, Tate was recruited by Ross Dowson into the Canadian section of the Fourth International...

and Pat Brain. In early 1968, the International Group renamed itself as the International Marxist Group.

The IMG's activists published International, which was launched in May 1968 with IMG secretary Pat Jordan as editor and incorporated The Week. It was published with varying formats and frequencies throughout the organisation's life. Socialist Woman magazine was published from 1969 to 1980.

The evolving orientations taken by the IMG were reflected in the sequence of newspapers it supported: The Black Dwarf

The Black Dwarf (Ali)

The Black Dwarf was a political and cultural newspaper published between May 1968 and 1972 by a collective of socialists in the United Kingdom...

; Red Mole, Red Weekly, Socialist Challenge and Socialist Action.

The Black Dwarf

The Black Dwarf was launched in June 1968 under Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

's editorship, with several other IMG members on its editorial board. Its creative and pluralist nature attracted a number of new activists to the group: John Lennon

John Lennon

John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

was friendly to the organisation.

While IMG members largely remained in the Labour party, including Charlie van Gelderen

Charlie van Gelderen

, International marked a break from 'deep entrism'. Its first issue claimed that "The Week was brought out in the expectation that a mass left would arise in the Labour party once labour was in power. [Its] main function was that of an organiser and co-ordinator [...] but this will be a by-product of the main function of International: the creation of a firm marxist core in the labour movement." Its campaigning was focussed on broader initiatives such as the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign

Vietnam Solidarity Campaign

The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign was originally set up in 1966 by activists around the International Group with the personal and financial support of Bertrand Russell....

and Russell Tribunal

Russell Tribunal

, in which Ernie Tate

Ernie Tate

was prominent and in which the RSL and Socialist Labour League did not work, the Institute for Workers' Control

Institute for Workers' Control

The Institute for Workers' Control was founded in 1968 by Tony Topham and Ken Coates, the latter then a leader of the International Marxist Group and subsequently professor at the University of Nottingham and a member of the European Parliament from 1989 until 1999.The Institute drew together shop...

and the Revolutionary Socialist Students Front, in which Peter Gowan

Peter Gowan

Peter Gowan was a Professor of International Relations at London Metropolitan University, activist, published author and public speaker...

and Murray Smith were active. The agitational work of The Week

The Week

was carried on in the The Black Dwarf and in Socialist Woman, launched in 1969. The Group gained some public prominence when Tariq Ali, who had joined in April 1968, was widely publicised in the media as a leader of protests against the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

.

After the IMG became the British section of the Fourth International in May 1969, International started to be formally presented as the publication of the IMG. The group began to focus on work in the student movement and trade unions. It abandoned its earlier systematic entryist work within the Labour Party, although the IMG continuously operated a "fraction" to organise its members within the Party. This turn out from the party led to a small number of members, including Al Richardson, being marginalised: they went on to form the Revolutionary Communist League

Revolutionary Communist League (UK)

The Revolutionary Communist League was a small Trotskyist political group in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1969 by two groups, one expelled from the International Marxist Group for wanting focus on entryist work in the Labour Party, and one from the Militant Tendency.The League promoted...

, better known as the Chartists.

The IMG was quickly noted for its energetic support for international solidarity campaigns concerning Vietnam, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, South Africa, and its support for socialists facing repression in France, Bolivia and Mexico, support for which was organised through the Black Dwarf. Internationals May 1969 famous headline "Permanent Revolution

Permanent Revolution

Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...

Reaches UK" reflected its support for armed self defence against the British state's forces in Northern Ireland in the Red Weekly and in its propaganda activity. It also supported, in orthodox Trotskyist fashion, the Communist-influenced struggles of the MPLA in Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

, FRELIMO in Mozambique

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

and the ANC

African National Congress

The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...

in South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

despite the complete contempt of the Communist parties for Trotskyists: some opponents nicknamed them 'MIGs', after the Soviet military MiG

Mig

-Industry:*MiG, now Mikoyan, a Russian aircraft corporation, formerly the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau*Metal inert gas welding or MIG welding, a type of welding using an electric arc and a shielding gas-Business and finance:...

.

In domestic politics the early 1970s saw the IMG completely reject parliamentary politics. In 1970, the group used the general election as an opportunity to make revolutionary propaganda rather than canvassing for the return of a Labour government.

Red Mole

In March 1970, The Black Dwarfs editorial board split over questions of Leninism

Leninism

In Marxist philosophy, Leninism is the body of political theory for the democratic organisation of a revolutionary vanguard party, and the achievement of a direct-democracy dictatorship of the proletariat, as political prelude to the establishment of socialism...

. A second newspaper was established, Red Mole, which Tariq Ali edited alongside an editorial board with an IMG majority. Red Mole was a "revolutionary internationalist" paper that carried a broad range of left-wing opinion in its pages, including a famous interview with John Lennon. Chenhanho Chimutengwende

Chenhanho Chimutengwende

Chenhamo "Chen" Chakezha Chimutengwende is the Minister of State for Public and Interactive Affairs for Zimbabwe. and a longstanding supporter of Robert Mugabe...

a Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

exile who later served as a minister under Robert Mugabe

Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the liberation movement against white-minority rule, he was elected into power in 1980...

was one of the non-IMG members on the editorial board. IMG members also took part in New Left Review

New Left Review

New Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...

: Tariq Ali, Robin Blackburn

Robin Blackburn

Robin Blackburn is a British socialist historian, a former editor of New Left Review , an author of essays on Marx, capitalism and socialism, and of books on the history of slavery and on social policy...

, and Quintin Hoare were on its editorial board for much of the 1970s and subsequently.

Because Red Mole was used by the IMG as its main organ, articles were sometimes mistakenly thought to indicate the positions of the IMG. For example, there was confusion after Robin Blackburn

Robin Blackburn

had written an April 1970 article titled "Let it bleed" for Red Mole, in which he argued that Marxists should disrupt the campaigns of the Labour and Tory

Conservative Party (UK)

The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...

parties in the 1970 General Election. IMG secretary Pat Jordan replied a month later to explain why the IMG favoured a Labour victory. The group's general orientation at that time was summarised by Ali's book, The Coming British Revolution (ISBN 0-224-00630-4).

By September 1970, Red Circles had been set up to organise activists who supported the paper. Many went on to join the IMG. The IMG radicalised as it grew: Pat Jordan's leadership gave way to that of John Ross, who anticipated that the rising tide of class struggle could lead to a pre-revolutionary crisis in Britain. In August 1972, the IMG formally assumed control of the Red Mole and prepared to relaunch it as a weekly newspaper.

Red Weekly

In May 1973, the fortnighly Red Mole was replaced by Red Weekly. Internationals editors and editorial board included many of the organisation's leaders, including Tariq Ali, Patrick Camiller, Ann Clafferty, Gus Fagan, Peter Gowan, Quintin Hoare, Michelle Lee, Bob Pennington, John Ross

John Ross (socialist)

John Ross is a British academic, journalist, blogger, advisor to multinationals and economic commentator who previously was a socialist political activist and worked as an economic advisor to Ken Livingstone when he was Mayor of London. He writes regularly for China Daily, Shanghai Daily, and...

, Tony Whelan and Judith White.

During the 1970s the organisation developed a number of fluid, competing factions and tendencies. The IMG's leadership included Alan Jones (John Ross), Brian Grogan, Bob Pennington, Brian Heron and others. A notable minority tendency included Pat Jordan

Pat Jordan

, Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

, Phil Hearse and many of the IMG's supporters on the New Left Review

New Left Review

editorial board. A smaller tendency supported the positions of the American Socialist Workers' Party

Socialist Workers Party (United States)

The Socialist Workers Party is a far-left political organization in the United States. The group places a priority on "solidarity work" to aid strikes and is strongly supportive of Cuba...

. Other tendencies included a small group that eventually left to join the Workers' Socialist League

Workers' Socialist League

The Workers Socialist League was a Trotskyist group in Britain. The group was formed by Alan Thornett and other members of the Workers Revolutionary Party after their expulsion from that group in 1974.- Origins :...

of Alan Thornett

Alan Thornett

Alan Thornett is a British Trotskyist leader, and one of the officers of the left-wing Respect party.Alan Thornett began his career as a car worker in Cowley, Oxford in 1959. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain there in 1960 before being recruited with other shop stewards to Gerry...

. The United Secretariat prepared theses on the situation in Britain and the tasks of the IMG in 1973, and again in 1976, to help orient the organisation. In 1974, its members started to publish South Asia Marxist Review.

The IMG came to the public attention in 1974 during Lord Justice Scarman's Public Judicial Inquiry into the violent disturbances known as the Red Lion Square disorders

Red Lion Square disorders

The Red Lion Square disorders were an event in 1974.On 15 June that year, the National Front marched through London's West End; their march was to finish with a meeting in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square. The London Area Council for Liberation conducted a counter demonstration which consisted of a...

, which led to the death of Kevin Gately

Kevin Gately

Kevin Gately was a second year student of mathematics at the University of Warwick who died as a result of injuries received in the Red Lion Square disorders in London on 15 June 1974...

a University of Warwick

University of Warwick

The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

student who was not an IMG member. Scarman found that the IMG had made a "vicious, violent and unprovoked attack on the Police" who were guarding Conway Hall to try and prevent access to the hall by the National Front

National Front

The name National Front is used by a number of political parties and coalitions.* Albania — National Front * Belarus — Partyja BPF* Belgium — National Front * Botswana — Botswana National Front...

who had booked it for a meeting to protest against the Labour Government's decision to grant an amnesty to illegal immigrants. According to a BBC documentary, the IMG was the only socialist group to play a role in the squatting

Squatting

Squatting consists of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, usually residential, that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have permission to use....

movement.

However, by the time of the 1976 USFI World Congress internal disputes over Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

were becoming more difficult to reconcile as divisions became entrenched between supporters of the International Majority Tendency, led by Ernest Mandel

Ernest Mandel

Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter , was a revolutionary Marxist theorist.-Life:...

, and the Leninist Trotskyist Faction, which was led by the American Socialist Workers Party. Despite a 'truce' reflected by the establishment of Socialist Challenge, these divisions would result in the permanent splintering of the IMG's successor organisation, the Socialist League.

This vigorous internal life did not impede its growth among students and workers. The IMG's growth was reflected when it established Red Books as its publishing house and bookshop. By 1977, when the leadership team around Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

had started the organisation on the road towards Socialist Challenge, both International and Socialist Woman were well-produced quarterly journals. During this period, the small Marxist Worker

Marxist Worker

Marxist Worker was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain, which produced a publication of the same name. It was formed by the Bolton branch of Workers' Fight, who opposed that organisation's merger with Workers' Power in 1976 and refused to enter the new organisation, the International-Communist...

group also joined the IMG.

Socialist Challenge

In June 1977, Socialist Challenge replaced Red Weekly. It raised two slogans.

Build a socialist opposition. The IMG's new leadership team was inspired by the success in France of a united slate of three Trotskyist organisations (the LCR
Revolutionary Communist League (France)
See Revolutionary Communist League for the other Ligue communiste révolutionnaire.The Revolutionary Communist League was a French democratic revolutionary socialist political party. It was the French section of the Fourth International...

, LO
Workers' Struggle
Lutte Ouvrière is the usual name under which the Union Communiste , a French Trotskyist political party, is known, after the name of its weekly paper. Arlette Laguiller has been its spokeswoman since 1973 and has run in each presidential election, but Robert Barcia was its founder and central...

and OCI
Internationalist Communist Organisation
The Internationalist Communist Organisation was a Trotskyist political party in France. Its successor is the Internationalist Communist Current of the Workers Party.-Origins:...

). It started to campaign for united electoral action in Britain, partly to confront the growth of the National Front. The IMG launched the Socialist Unity initiative for the 1979 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1979
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...

, which Big Flame
Big Flame (political group)
Big Flame was "a revolutionary socialist feminist organisation with a working-class orientation" in the United Kingdom. Founded in Liverpool in 1970, the group initially grew rapidly, with branches appearing in some other cities. Its publications emphasised that "a revolutionary party is necessary...

also supported. Socialist Unity stood ten candidates; its highest vote was 477 votes, for Tariq Ali in Southall
Southall
Southall is a large suburban district of west London, England, and part of the London Borough of Ealing. It is situated west of Charing Cross. Neighbouring places include Yeading, Hayes, Hanwell, Heston, Hounslow, Greenford and Northolt...

.

For a united revolutionary organisation. The IMG argued that the forces of the far left should unite in a single organisation. This partly reflected growing openness of the USFI to regroupment, but also addressed the growth of the far left. The IMG proposed unity to the International Socialists (who had unsuccessfully made a similar proposal to the IMG a decade earlier). The IS turned them down flat although the manner of the IMGs approach, which reportedly described the IS as a centrist grouping, may have some relation to this decision on the part of the IS leadership.

Around this time IMG members also published several issues of a magazine called Black Liberation and Socialism. By 1979 the IMG grew to its highpoint of 758 members in good standing, and a total of 1,000 supporters.

In 1980, Tony Benn

Tony Benn

Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...

's campaign led the IMG to increase its focus on the Labour Party. It developed a 'combination tactic' in which its fraction of members in the Labour Party was boosted. By 1981 the IMG-organised youth organisation called Revolution Youth, organised its magazine Revolution, had entered the Labour Party Young Socialists

Labour Party Young Socialists

The Labour Party Young Socialists was the name of the youth section of the British Labour Party from 1965 until 1993. The LPYS was the most successful of the youth sections of the Labour Party in the post war period, at one point having nearly 600 branches and attendances at its national...

in order to build it and won it to the IMG's politics. The IMG was soon to send a second wave of members into the Labour Party, leading it to merge in 1982 with the League for Socialist Action

League for Socialist Action (UK)

The League for Socialist Action was a small Trotskyist organisation in the United Kingdom.It consisted of a group of members of the reunified Fourth International who split from the International Marxist Group in the 1976 in support of the American Socialist Workers Party's tendency in the...

, a small group of Fourth International supporters that had been engaged in entrism in the Labour party for at least five years.

Initially, IMG members in the Labour Party continued to sell Socialist Challenge. They used it to argue that the Bennite left needed to organise together with the trade union left. IMG members, often describing themselves as Socialist Challenge supporters', supported the formation of Bennite organisations such as Labour Briefing and the Labour Committee on Ireland.

In mid-1982 its central committee started to discuss whether to announce that the IMG was dissolved in order to better facilitate its entry.

Socialist Action

In December 1982, the IMG renamed itself as the Socialist League

Socialist Action (UK)

Socialist Action is a small Trotskyist group in the United Kingdom. From the mid-1980s Socialist Action became an entryist organisation, attempting to take over other organisations, with members using code names and not revealing their affiliation....

, while continuing to refer to itself as the IMG in internal documents. The group had fully entered the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

and in 1983 began publishing the Socialist Action

Socialist Action (UK)

newspaper, by which name the League was often known.

Despite initial successes, Socialist Action was established at a time when the Bennite movement has started to suffer defeats. In 1983, the group's membership fell to around 500. Different tendencies developed in the organisation over how to relate to the political evolution of figures like Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone

Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...

and Arthur Scargill

Arthur Scargill

Arthur Scargill is a British politician who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers from 1982 to 2002, leading the union through the 1984–85 miners' strike, a key event in British labour and political history...

. At the same time, the Socialist Workers Party in the US, which influenced many of the group's members, started to withdraw from the International. This opened up the most bitter internal political struggle in the group's history. Under the pressures of the defeat of the 1984–1985 miners strike, the group fragmented into three organisations.

The largest minority, Faction One, led by Phil Hearse, Dave Packer, Davy Jones, and Bob Pennington formed the International Group
International Group
The International Group was the name taken by two groups of British supporters of the Fourth International.In both cases, the Group was formed as a public faction by members loyal to the International who felt that the then-current leadership of the British section of the Fourth International had...

in 1985. They left after the two smaller minorities formed what they regarded as an unprincipled alliance that prevented them from taking over the leadership of the group. In 1987 it merged with the Socialist Group
Socialist Group
The Socialist Group is a primarily social-democratic political grouping in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The group comprises of 180 members from 45 states of the Council of Europe. The Group is chaired by Andreas Gross of Switzerland....

to form the International Socialist Group
International Socialist Group
The International Socialist Group was a Trotskyist organisation in Britain. It was the British section of the Fourth International until July 2009 when it dissolved into Socialist Resistance.- Origin :...

and publish Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook
Socialist Outlook was either of two publications edited by supporters of the Fourth International in Britain.-The first Socialist Outlook:...

. The ISG was recognised as the British Section of the Fourth International at its world congress in 1995.
The remaining majority of the Socialist League consisted of two factions. The smaller faction was led by John Ross, and this dominated the apparatus of the organisation. Ross's current was generally supportive of Livingstone and Scargill. The evolution of this group is discussed under its own entry, Socialist Action (UK)
Socialist Action (UK)
Socialist Action is a small Trotskyist group in the United Kingdom. From the mid-1980s Socialist Action became an entryist organisation, attempting to take over other organisations, with members using code names and not revealing their affiliation....

. It eventually stopped the production of Socialist Action and withdrew from the Fourth International.
The third current was a faction led by Brian Grogan and Jonathan Silberman which supported the Socialist Workers Party (US). According to New International
New International
New International is a magazine of Marxist theory published by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States between 1934 and 1940, and since 1983.The magazine was founded and edited by Martin Abern and Max Shachtman...

11, it was expelled from the Socialist League in January 1988, one week before a conference at which its platform would have had the majority. Those expelled went ahead with the scheduled conference, which Ross's tendency had cancelled, and founded the Communist League
Communist League (UK, 1988)
The Communist League was formed by a group of members expelled in 1988 from Socialist Action. Those members had joined the American Socialist Workers Party's Pathfinder tendency. It maintains a bookshop in London, originally in The Cut but now in Bethnal Green Road.The League's members sell The...

, which is part of the Pathfinder tendency
Pathfinder tendency
The Pathfinder tendency is the unofficial name of a group of historically Trotskyist organizations that are politically and organizationally allied with the Socialist Workers Party of the United States and its perspective of solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban Communist Party.The...

.

Pamphlets

Some of its many pamphlets are listed below.

Leonora Lloyd, comp., Booklist for Women's Liberation (1970)
Tony Whelan, The Credibility Gap: The Politics of the S.L.L. (1970)
Capital: A Readable Introduction to Volume One (1971)
Peter Hampton, The Industrial Relations Bill (1971)
Peter Hampton, Unemployment (1971)
Leonora Lloyd, Women Workers in Britain (1971)
Ernest Mandel, The Leninist Theory of Organization (1971)
Ernest Mandel, The Lessons of May 1968 (1971)
The Struggle in Bengal and the Fourth International (1971)
John Weal, The Post Office Workers v. the State (1971)
Bob Purdie, Ireland Unfree (1972)
Tariq Ali, There Is Only One Road to Socialism and Workers' Power: The Lessons of the Chilean Coup (1973)
Nationalisation or Expropriation? (1973)
Readings on "State Capitalism" (1973)
Max Shachtman, Genesis of Trotskyism (1973)
Jaya Vithana, Ceylon and the Healy School of Falsification (1973)
Tariq Ali and Gerry Hedley, Chile (1974)
Cyprus / Kibris (1974)
Fascism (1974)
The Market and the Multinationals (1975)
Portugal, Spain (1975)
Zambia (1975)
Jim Atkinson, How the Labour Government Supports Apartheid (1976)
Dave Bailey, The Socialist Challenge to Racism (1976)
Fighting for Women's Rights (1977)
Bob Pennington, Revolutionary Socialism (1977)
The Politics of Militant (1977)
Southern Africa in Crisis (1977)
Phil Hearse, On Trotskyism and the Fourth International (1978)
Geoff Bell, British Labour and Ireland, 1969-79 (1979)
Grenada (1980)
Solidarity with Solidarnosc (1981)
From Rebellion to Revolution: A Strategy for Black Liberation (1982)
Revolution in Central America and the Caribbean (1982)

External links

Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali
Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

, "The revolutionary left in Britain", extract from Tariq Ali, The Coming British Revolution (1972).
Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
University of Warwick
The University of Warwick is a public research university located in Coventry, United Kingdom...

Library International Marxist Group papers to 1976.
LSE Library, IMG papers to 1986.
Rob Sewell, to Ted Grant's History of British Trotskyism, giving the RSL's perspective on the failed fusion with the International Group.

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