Revolutionary Socialist League (U.S.)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in 1973 by a group of International Socialists members who developed a theory that the USSR and similar societies were not, as the IS held, bureaucratic collectivist but were state capitalist. Although influenced by the British International Socialists group, they differentiated their theory from that of Tony Cliff. They also emphasized the need for a Leninist revolutionary party and stressed the need for a transitional program.

One group left in 1976 to form the League for the Revolutionary Party, in part because they disagreed with the RSL's call for the formation of a Labor Party in the US. They also alleged that the leadership of the RSL was acting in a bureaucratic fashion. Another tendency had left in 1975 to form the Revolutionary Marxist Committee, which later fused with the Socialist Workers Party.

The RSL published a newspaper called The Torch (in Spanish: la Antorcha). Its sole international organizational tie was with the Revolutionary Marxist League of Jamaica.

The RSL was known for its activism in the anti-racist anti-Klan movement (where it earned a reputation for adventurism) and in the Gay Liberation Movement. The RSL was one of the left groups most active in the pre-AIDS gay movement. It recruited a minority tendency of the Red Flag Union, a gay socialist collective, in the late 1970s. (A majority of the RFU joined the Spartacist League). In New York, the RSL was active in the Gay Activists Alliance, its members and sympathizers participating in a polarizing split that proved the end of that organization. RSL members also participated in gay coalitions such as Lavender Left and Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee. A number of key gay cadre of the RSL succumbed to AIDS in the 1980s effectively ending its role in gay activism.

Over time, the rump RSL moved closer to anarchism. Their move away from Leninism is documented in a book by RSL leader Ron Tabor titled A Look at Leninism (ISBN 0-939073-36-6). This book collected together a series of articles questioning the fundamentals of Leninism that had appeared as a serial series in The Torch newspaper.

The RSL disbanded in 1989, with about twenty of its remaining members helping in the formation of Love and Rage, a revolutionary anarchist newspaper and organization. The RSL met to disband the day before the founding conference of Love and Rage.