Revolutionary Communist Group
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The Revolutionary Communist Group is a communist group in the United Kingdom. It evolved from the "Revolutionary Opposition" in the International Socialists (forerunners of the Socialist Workers Party) during the 1970s. This current (described by its opponents as the "Right Opposition") had functioned for some time as an internal faction in IS and was strongly influenced by Roy Tearse, who was once the Industrial Organiser of the wartime Revolutionary Communist Party.
When the "Revolutionary Opposition" was expelled from the IS its members met to decide on their course of action, and disagreements between Tearse's allies, many based in Bristol, and the majority of the faction around David Yaffe rapidly surfaced. The result was that Tearse's friends formed the Discussion Group which led a quiet life for a number of years inside the Labour Party before dissolving. Meanwhile Yaffe and his comrades proceeded to found the Revolutionary Communist Group.
In turn a minority in the RCG gave rise to the Revolutionary Communist Tendency led by Frank Richards, a pseudonym for University of Kent sociologist, Frank Furedi. This developed into the Revolutionary Communist Party which published the review The Next Step.
The RCG began by publishing a theoretical journal called Revolutionary Communist in which it espoused an ultra-orthodox view of crisis theory, a theme they had already addressed in the IS when challenging the work of the theoreticians of that group. They developed Marx, Engels and Lenins' analysis of the labour aristocracy, which underlies the fact that they have always called for no vote for the Labour Party.
The RCG rapidly developed a positive view of some of the traditional communist parties such as the South African Communist Party and from that position developed into a more orthodox communist grouping with a particular fondness for Cuba. They continue to publish their paper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! every two months.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s the RCG became heavily involved in support for the Irish national liberation struggle, working with Sinn Fein in Britain in the Troops Out Movement (TOM), and focussing particularly on support for Irish republican prisoners held in British prisons. The analysis which the RCG developed through this work, on the role of national liberation movements in opposing imperialism, laid the foundations for much of its later positions, and its relationship to the rest of the British left. Unlike many other left organisations, the RCG consistently argued that British troops had no progressive role to play in Ireland, and called for total support for the Republican movement. Their involvement with the prisoner support groups established a tradition of outspoken support for prison struggles which has continued to the present, with a page of every issue of their newspaper given over to prison conditions and struggles. In 1990, when prisoners at Srangeways took over the prison in protest at conditions, the RCG was active together with other groups supporting them on the outside, and later published a book, 'Strangeways: A Serious Disturbance', largely written by prisoners and former prisoners.
During the 1980s the RCG's most notable activity was mounting a non-stop picket of the South African embassy in London calling for the release of Nelson Mandela. This was carried out by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group, within which they played a major role. City Group was eventually expelled by the national leadership of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, over differences centring on City Group's insistence on making the link between British support for apartheid South Africa, and racism within Britain.
Another significant campaign during the 1980s was the Viraj Mendis Defence Campaign, against the deportation of one of the group's members to Shri Lanka. This developed into a high profile national campaign involving people from left-wing groups such as the RCG, local residents of Manchester, and extending to church leaders and Labour Party MPs.
In 1995 the RCG set up Rock Around the Blockade (RATB), a solidarity organisation with the Cuban Revolution. As well as campaigning on issues such as the US economic blockade and the Cuban Five/Miami Five, and sending political solidarity brigades to Cuba, RATB raised funds to take sound systems out to Cuba for use with young people in cultural and political work, donating five sound systems over the next ten years.
By the end of the 1990s three members of the RCG who had alleged that the leadership was bureaucratic and failing to train the membership in Marxism-Leninism were asked to leave/resign because of what were described as their reactionary ultra-left views. One example of the division was over the September 11th attacks in 2001, which the three people who left viewed as a victory against imperialism. They left to form Communist Forum, often known the name of their newsletter, Fightback.
Following the start of the second intifada in Palestine in September 2000, in October the RCG joined a group which had begun to picket Marks and Spencer in Manchester over their alleged support for Israel, and helped to spread this to other cities. Over the next six years pickets of Marks and Spencer took place in places including Glasgow, Edinburgh, Newcastle, Stockton, Middlesbrough, Durham, Manchester, Rochdale, Nottingham, Leicester, across London, Stratford, and Brighton. Throughout this period the flagship store on Oxford Street in London was picketed weekly, and in many other places pickets were sustained on a regular basis.
In 2005 and 2006 the RCG stepped up their work in support of asylum seekers, supporting the setting up of UNITY, an asylum seekers' union, in Glasgow, and helping to establish Tyneside Community Action for Refugees (TCAR) in Newcastle and Gateshead.
The newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Group, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! commemorated 25 years of publication with issue Number 182 December 2004/January 2005.