Trotsky study group launched

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The formation of Group for the Study of Leon Trotsky and the Revolutionary Movement' has been announced.

A great deal of material has recently become available for the study of the development of the Trotskyist movement in Britain. New material has appeared in the Americanpublished Writings of Leon Trotsky for the 30s and in the Ecrits being brought out by the Institut Leon Trotsky in France.

The newly available "closed' archive of Trotsky in the University of Harvard will reveal a little more on the development of the British movement, and much more on the working of the Fourth International in its early period, as well as the movement in Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union.

Here in Britain, work on the history of the Trotskyist movement, based in particular on the materials now held in Warwick and Hull universities has only just begun. I The leaflet announcing the formation of the group puts it as follows. 'Introductory studies of these materials, which have already been done throw much light on traditional conceptions of the left in Britain. They tend, also, to correct the belief that Trotskyist activity has to be written off, as having been, at best, a waste of time.' It has already been possible to show that there was a revolutionary alternative to the popular front policies of the Stalinists and centrists in the 1930s,, that there was real opposition to imperialist war after 1939, that there was a struggle for revolutionary policies in the working class during the boom after 1945.

A proper study of this history will not only help to rescue traditions that have often been deliberately buried. It will also serve to cast light on the current problems of building a revolutionary movement in Britain and internationally.

It is for these reasons that the Group has been set up. It proposed to hold an inaugural conference in London in September. 1980 based on research into the history of the Left in Britain and the participation of Trotskyists in it.' A journal entitled Historical Studies of Leon Trotsky and the Revolutionary Movement is also due to appear early in 1981, which will be the fiftieth anniversary of the work that led to the formation of the British section of the International Left Opposition.

Those interested in participating in this work and joining the group (annual subscription £5, students and unwaged £1) are invited to contact John Archer, 65 Dunbar Road, London N22 5BG (01-889 7637), convenor. of the Provisional Steering Committee.

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