Revolutionary Communist League (Mandatory Palestine)
Revolutionary Communist League | |
|---|---|
| Founded | late 1930s |
| Dissolved | 1940s |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism Trotskyism |
| Political position | Far left |
The Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) or 'Brit Kommunistim Mahapchanin' was a Trotskyist party in Mandatory Palestine in the late 1930s and 1940s.
It was built out of three components: exiled German Jewish members of Heinrich Brandler’s KPO (Communist Party Opposition – which emerged from the Right Opposition within the Comintern) who became supporters of the International Left Opposition; youth in the Hugim Marxistiim (Marxist Circles), the youth section of a wing of Left Poale Zion, which at the time was linked to the 'centrist' London Bureau; and elements coming from the left Zionist kibbutz movement, Hashomer Hatzair, which was also linked to the London Bureau. Later, in the 1940s, they were joined by Jabra Nicola, an Arab Communist who broke with the Palestine Communist Party over the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.
The Brit Kommunistim Mahapchanin published a newspaper, Kol Hama’amad (Voice of the Class).[1]
Tony Cliff was a member, before moving to Britain and joining the RCL's sister party in the Fourth International, the Revolutionary Communist Party (UK) and later leading the International Socialists.
References
- ^ A long extract from a 1948 edition, republished in Fourth International, can be found in "Arab-Jewish workers' joint struggles prior to the partition of Palestine" In Defence of Marxism. 2003. Citing The Reds: the Communist Party in Israel by S. Dotan 1991 p.498
Further reading
- The Reds: the Communist Party in Israel by S. Dotan 1991 p. 498
- Michel Warschawski Response: The Israeli Communist Party and the Radical Anti-Zionist Left, MERIP Reports, No. 66 (Apr., 1978), pp. 24–25
External links
Texts by the Revolutionary Communist League (Palestine)
- "Against Partition", text by the RCL(P) 1947
- "Against the Stream", text by the RCL(P) 1948
- "On the Irresponsible Handling of the Palestine Question" by Tony Cliff of the RCL(P) 1948
- "Palestine Strike: Arabs and Jews Unite" by T. Cliff, Socialist Appeal, Mid-May 1946, p3.