About Socialist Labour League in India

Socialist Labour League in India (SLL-India) was a recognized political party and Trotskyist organization in India, which along with Sri Lankan Socialist Equality Party (SEP-SL) and it's predecessor Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), struggled for more than two decades to establish revolutionary leadership in India. (Thozhilalar Paathai, Volume 487)

In solidarity with the International Committee of the Fourth International, the ‪#‎SLL_India‬ unanimously declared its agreement with the resolutions of the second plenum of the ICFI. However it was not an official section of ICFI. According to the statement of SLL-India, dated December 1986, it was not an Indian section of the ICFI. It wrote: "the main task before us is to win the most class conscious sections of the Indian proletariat to the program of Trotskyism and to prepare the launching of the Indian Section of the ICFI." 

The party fully endorsed the struggle waged by the majority sections of the International Committee against the renegade clique of Healy, Banda and Slaughter.

SLL-India, based itself on Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, struggled to establish the party of the Indian proletariat. Atleast a part of Indian workers in South India, let alone hundreds and thousands of Indian workers, knew that the SLL-India worked for the program of ICFI. It's leaders made revolutionary speeches, summoned to struggles, called for workers government, fought against Stalinist parties and trade unions. Nevertheless it held a section of trade union named as Socialist Workers Group/Trotskyist Workers Group.  

SLL-India held public meetings, which included the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky, a memorial meeting for Comrade Keerthi Balasuriya and R. A. Pitawela and Trotsky memorial day meeting and May day meetings. It took up militaristic struggles in factories.

There were some young revolutionary comrades, lacking in experience, but brimful of energy and readiness to struggle and self-sacrifice, literally felt their hair stand up on their heads when they heard the first critical and admonitory speeches of the SLL-India leaders. Among those young revolutionists, even some lost their jobs in the struggles. Atleast one cadre was arrested and Tamilnadu police filed case against him, against which SLL-India took up a determined struggle.

Undoubtedly, the party contested in 1991 and 1996 general elections in India to win the most class conscious sections of the Indian proletariat to the program of Trotskyism. In 1991 it released its election manifesto. It launched Bengali language Trotskyist magazine in 1993. (Thozhilalar Paathai, Volume 08)

SLL-India, aligning itself in line with Workers League, opposed the Middle East war and US imperialism, and called workers for unification. It held meetings for Sri Lanka-Tamil Eelam Socialist Repulics. With the presence of RCL delegates, ‪#‎SLL_India‬ held preliminary meetings for 1991 Berlin Summit in Chennai and Calcutta respectively on September 26, 1991 and October 5, 1991. To overthrow the Stalinist, reformist leadership and to build revolutionary Trotskyist leadership and advance the socialist program, ‪Socialist Labour League India‬ announced its "All-India workers conference" in April-1992.

Socialist Labour League-India insisted it's Trotskyist tradition with Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI), and hailed the struggles of Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) and explained its strategy. (Thozhilalar Paathai, Volume 34) It's report announced that itself, along with Sri Lanka Revolutionary Communist League, were struggling for United Socialist Soviet States in Indian Sub continent. (Thozhilalar Paathai, Volume 396)

A statement of Revolutionary Communist League, September, 1990 noted that RCL was struggling along with ‪#‎Socialist_Labour_League_India‬, which based on the program of the Fourth International was struggling to unify the millions of working class and oppressed people in India. (Thozhilalar Paathai, Volume 398)

Unmistakably SEP-Sri Lanka and its predecessor RCL worked closely with the ranks of SLL-India. RCL exile group expressed its hope that the struggle initiated by the RCL along with Indian sub-continent ‪#‎Indian_Socialist_Labour_League‬ comrades would renew and enrich the historical traditions. The Young Socialists 10th national summit pledged to fight to build Sri Lankan section Revolutionary Communist League and ‪Indian Socialist Labour League‬ as working class revolutionary leadership. SLL-India leaders also participated in the 25^th anniversary of Revolutionary Communist League.

It seems, almost three decades after the liquidation of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India (BLPI), SLL-India was formed as a Trotskist party in mid of 1980's and after more than two decades of struggles it was unfortunately dissolved. 

Many BLPI veterans joined SLL-India in the end of 1980s and in 1990s. When a group of Kolkata (Calcutta) socialists—most of them BLPI veterans—learnt of the decades-long struggle that the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) had waged against Pabloism, it shed an entirely new light on their political career. After extensive discussions with ICFI representatives, the Calcutta group, including Durbo, Dulal Bose, Ganesh Dutta, Nirmal Samajpathi and Dinesh Sanyal, joined the Socialist Labour League, the Indian organization in political solidarity with the ICFI. The BLPI comrades who rallied to the IC in the early 1990s recalled those four decades after the dissolution of BLPI with bitterness and shame. They played a role in developing the SLL’s work in West Bengal, the principal bastion of the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist). (Reference: 1)

Some of them wrote extensively for the SLL’s Bengali newspaper Anthrajathik Shramik (International Worker) and its predecessor Shramiker Path (Workers’ Path), addressed public meetings of the SLL in Katwa and Kolkata, made many Bengali translations of articles published on the World Socialist Web Site, and collaborated in preparing the Bengali-language edition of David North’s The Heritage We Defend: A Contribution to the History of the Fourth International. (Reference: 2)

The sorrowful history of SLL-India is a must lesson not only for Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi trotskyist supporters, but also for the International working class.

It seems that the party focused on the form than its preparation tasks. It was unprepared for the wave of South Asian workers struggles in 1990s.

However SLL-India proved its bankruptcy, even though it was supported by international socialists, and was dissolved in 2008. The new generation finds itself answer-less about why this happened and what the lessons of this tragic history? and anyone who tries to understand its history will be compelled to ask: which objective situation and political force was responsible for the dissolution of SLL-India?

SLL-India is not an oral history. It had materialistic base and the Indian Trotskyist supporters, even though disoriented, struggled honestly for a workers government.

In brief, it is clear that SLL-India struggled for workers peasants government but did not prepare for it. The ideas expressed itself in practice was proved wrong. In final analysis, as the Indian Trotskyist supporters had already burnt their fingers under the leadership of the Socialist Labour League-India, it needs more study and analysis about this Trotskyist party. 

And the study of this Trotskyist party will inevitably lead to the another question: What happened to Marxist Voice, the other one formed in 2011 in Pakistan, announcing it's solidarity with ICFI?

(Note: This section will be continuously corrected and edited. Last update: 30.08.2016, 10:55 am)