- Revolutionary Workers League (Oehlerite)
The Revolutionary Workers League (RWL) was a
radical left group in theUnited States . It was led byHugo Oehler and published "The Fighting Worker" newspaper.The group's origins lay in the
Trotskyist Communist League of America . This group became theWorkers Party of the United States in 1934 after a fusion with theAmerican Workers Party , and later entered theSocialist Party of America as part ofTrotsky 'sFrench Turn . Oehler objected to thisentrism as a tactic, believing that it would lead to the group becoming influenced byreformism , although once the group had entered, he argued that it should not leave, as this would be unprincipled. As a result, he formed an opposition tendency and split from the Workers Party in November 1935 to form the RWL.Initially a significant size, the RWL also attracted
Tom Stamm and unionistSidney Lens . Intending to keep the group free of reformism, Oehler expelled several small groupings, the first being the Marxist Workers' League in 1936, which soon rejoined theWorkers Party of the United States , while later groupings included another Marxist Workers League, the Leninist League, which held that Trotsky was an agent ofStalin , and theRevolutionary Communist Vanguard .In 1937, the group renounced Trotskyism, but while Oehler concluded that Trotsky had split with
Marxism in 1934, Stamm held that Trotsky had degenerated in 1928, and the two split. Oehler retained the majority of the group, but Stamm set up a rival organisation of the same name.In the
Spanish Civil War , the RWL supported only thePOUM , althoughMax Shachtman and Trotsky claimed that the group opposed all military action against the fascists. Both Oehler and Russel Blackwell travelled to Spain and were involved in the events of July 1937 that saw the POUM repressed. On returning to the USA Oehler wrote an account of his experiences in Spain entitled Spain At The barricades. The group also came to see theSoviet Union as a kind ofstate capitalist society, in contrast to Trotsky's description of it as adegenerated workers' state .With the declaration of the Trotskyist
Fourth International , the RWL instead founded theProvisional International Contact Commission for the New Communist (Fourth) International . Besides themselves, this included theLeninist League (UK) and theRevolutionary Communist Organisation (Austria) , both groups close to Oehler.The outbreak of
World War II saw a severe decline in the group. Its youth section, the "Young Workers League" appears to have been wound up in about 1940, the international disbanded in 1946, and "The Fighting Worker" ceased publication in 1947, although an attempt at a relaunch was made in 1950.References
* [http://www.marxmail.org/archives/July99/who_was_georg_scheuer.htm Who was Georg Scheuer; what was the Revolutionary Workers League?]
* [http://www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1938/12/footnote.htm Footnote for Historians] ,Max Shachtman
* [http://www.ilab.org/services/catalogues.php?membernr=1435&catnr=36&pg=14&br= International League of Antiquarian Booksellers]
* [http://www.marxfaq.org/history/etol/research/hi.htm Hoover Institution holdings]
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