The roots and history of British Trotskyism and of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty: London study course 2008-9

A study course, led by Sean Matgamna.

• The Marxist movement in Britain before World War 1. Click here to hear the talk (mp3).
• The Communist Party, the Labour Party, and the trade union movement: World War One to the 1930s.
  Click here to hear the introduction (mp3) and here to hear the summing-up (mp3)
  Reading: Brian Pearce: Early Years of the CPGB
  Brian Pearce: Some Past Rank and File Movements
  Sean Matgamna: The Labour Party in Perspective
  Brian Pearce: Marxism in Britain 1881-1920 is also worth reading for dates, and the brief summary at the end of how the CP was formed, though in the first session we discussed reasons for questioning Pearce's judgement on the SDF.
• Trotskyism, 1931 to 1943
  Click here to hear the introduction (mp3).
  Reading (for narrative facts, not for political analysis): Martin Upham: History of British Trotskyism to 1949. Or this short summary.
• The bifurcation of Trotskyism in the 1940s
  Click here to hear the talk (mp3).
  Read the Introduction to the book "The Fate of the Russian Revolution. Also read Workers' Liberty 3/8, for another outline of the great division in Trotskyism from the early 1940s. For narrative facts on the British movement: Martin Upham: History of British Trotskyism to 1949. Or this short summary.
• From the RCP (1944) to the Third World Congress (1951)
  Reading (for narrative facts, not for political analysis): Martin Upham: History of British Trotskyism to 1949. Or this short summary.
  Also read Workers' Liberty 3/8, for an outline of the great division in Trotskyism from the early 1940s.
• The history of British Trotskyism, 1949 to 1970
  Reading: The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s, by Sean Matgamna
  Seedbed of the left: the origins of today's far-left groups, by Sean Matgamna
  The life and times of Bob Pennington, part 1, and part 2, by Patrick Avaakum.
• The formation of the AWL tendency ("Workers' Fight")
  Reading: The RSL (Militant) in the 1960s, by Sean Matgamna
  What We Are And What We Must Become (the founding document of our tendency).
• The Irish Workers' Group
• IS (forerunner of the SWP) before our fusion with them in 1968
• Our fusion with IS (forerunner of the SWP), 1968-71
• Workers' Fight, 1972-5
• The International-Communist League, 1975-6
• Towards a new beginning, 1976-9
• "Third Camp" politics: the revaluation of values, and a new political turn, 1979-81
• The split with the Labour Party lefts (early 1980s)
• Fusion with the Thornettites, 1981-4