International Revolutionary Marxist Centre
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The International Revolutionary Marxist Centre was an international association of left-socialist parties. The member-parties rejected both mainstream social democracy and the Third International. The International was formed in 1932, following a fringe meeting at the Socialist International conference in Vienna in 1931. The IRMC underwent a variety of names. It was initially called the Committee of Independent Revolutionary Socialist Parties and later the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Unity, but throughout the period it was generally known simply as the London Bureau (and nicknamed by some the 3½ International, in an analogy with the so-called 2½ International), although its headquarters were transferred from London to Paris in 1939 (on the grounds that in addition to the French affiliate, five parties-in-exile had their central committees there). Its youth wing was the International Bureau of Revolutionary Youth Organizations.
The secretariat of the International Centre remained with the British Independent Labour Party for all but one of the eight years 1932-1940. Fenner Brockway, ILP leader, was chairman of the Bureau for most of this period, while in 1939, Julian Gorkin of the POUM became its secretary. By this time, the Bureau had member parties in more than 20 countries, including the Netherlands, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the USA, and Palestine.
[edit] Member-parties
- Austria - Red Front within the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Austria
- France - Party of Proletarian Unity (PUP)
- France - Workers and Peasants Socialist Party (PSOP) (from 1939?)
- Germany - Socialist Workers Party (SAPD) (until mid-1930s: split from the Centre over the question of its support for Popular Fronts, which the ILP opposed)
- Germany - Communist opposition (Observer only, unaffiliated)
- Germany - Neue Weg (opposition faction within SAPD) (from the mid-1930s)
- Great Britain - Independent Labour Party (ILP)
- Netherlands - Independent Socialist Party (OSP) (until 1935)
- Netherlands - Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party (RSAP) (from 1935)
- Norway - Norwegian Labour Party (DNA) (until 1933?)
- Palestine - Labour Party (then known as Mapai, the Workers Party)
- Palestine - Hashomer Hatzair
- Poland - the General Jewish Labor Union (Bund)
- Poland - the Independent Labour Party
- Romania - Independent Socialist Party
- Spain - the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM)
- Sweden - the Socialist Party (from 1933)
- United States - Independent Labor League of America (from 1939?)
