Revolutionary Socialist League collection

The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist organization from 1972-1989 that originated as a tendency within International Socialists (IS) led by Sy Landy and Ron Tabor. The organization believed in Leon Trotsky’s theory of Permanent Revolution, which championed achieving an international socialist revolution, instead of iterations of socialism within individual countries, by way of organizing the working class. As explained in the organization’s political resolution from its founding convention in 1973, independent political institutions that advocated for the working class were not created in the United States because the labor movement in the 20th century was successful at meeting their needs. Additionally, the rank-and-file within the labor movement had begun to increasingly mistrust trade union leadership, and younger workers were becoming “increasingly revolutionary” as they became dismayed by Castroism and Maoism veering towards the right. These factors led to an “opportunity to fill a vacuum of leadership” in trade unions by a Trotskyist organization.

The RSL was interested in replacing union leadership with their own revolutionary, Trotskyist leadership, and creating a “conscious working class” through “constant interaction and joint struggle” and the dissemination of propaganda. To take the place of union leadership, the RSL promoted agitation in workplaces as well as “industrialization,” which was a “strategy of getting mainly university and counter-culture youth activists to commit to point-of-production organizing in factories as part of the working class.” This was demonstrated by the RSL integrating into various unions including United Auto Workers (UAW) with the intention of organizing and recruiting workers. Industrialization and agitation were micro-level actions that could contribute to the RSL’s general goals of reconstructing the Fourth International to unify and strengthen the working class, which also depended on establishing itself as the United States section of the Fourth International and working with other Trotskyist organizations in order to be able to present itself as an internationally recognized tendency. The RSL advocated for other causes too, including women’s liberation, black power, and opposition to apartheid, and published The Torch newspaper. The organization dissolved in 1989, with many of its former members founding the Love and Rage Network, an anarchist group.

Bibliography:

Revolutionary Socialist League (September, 1973). Political Resolution of the Founding Convention: World Crisis and the Fight for Revolutionary Leadership. A Revolutionary Socialist League Publication.

Conatz, Juan (Feburary 21, 2015). Sharing the pains, indignities and anger: the New Left’s strategy of “industrialization.” Libcom.org. https://libcom.org/article/sharing-pains-indignities-and-anger-new-lefts-strategy-industrialization