Revolutionary Marxist Group was a Trotskyist organisation in Ireland during the 1970s.[1]
Its origins lay in the 1971 split of United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) supporters from the League for a Workers Republic. Many of the initial group had formerly been in the Young Socialists, along with some others who attended discussion meetings (such as Charlie Bird and Butch Roche) but who tended to drop off later when the RMG name was adopted and democratic centralism set in.
In 1972, they joined with a loose grouping in Belfast to form the Revolutionary Marxist Group, mainly under the influence of D.R. O'Connor Lysaght (known as Rayner Lysaght)[2] and Anne Speed, Brendan Kelly, Betty Purcell. In 1974, the organisation affiliated to the USFI.[3] The RMG campaigned against internment in Northern Ireland and took part inseveral public protests against it.[4]
The theoretical journal of the group was Marxist Review.[5] The group focused on supporting a united Ireland and on gaining influence in the student movement. The RMG rejected the Éire Nua plan put forward by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill, arguing EN was "too tied to the bourgeoisie".[6] Marxist Review also criticised the ideas advocated by the conservative Irish writer Desmond Fennell, arguing that "Fennellism" is essentially idealistic and ultra-clerical".[7] They also accused Fennell of being anti-feminist and anti-trade union.
The RMG was strongly pro-feminist,[8] and RMG members took part in the "Irishwomen United" group in 1976, along with members of People's Democracy and the Irish Republican Socialist Party. "Irishwomen United" was a left-wing, anti-clerical, radical feminist group that called for the legalisation of contraception and abortion, equal pay for Irish women, and secular community-controlled schools.[9]
In 1976, the group changed its name to the Movement for a Socialist Republic. Between 1977 and 1978 the MSR began fusion talks with People's Democracy. In November 1978 the two groups fused, adopting the name People's Democracy. In 1981 People's Democracy was recognised as the Irish Section of the Fourth International.
Dublin; Revolutionary Marxist Group.
Revolutionary Marxist Group.
Dublin; Revolutionary Marxist Group.
Dublin; Plough Book Service for Revolutionary Marxist Group.
Dublin, Plough Books (Movement for a Socialist Republic), [1976].
Jan Kavan. Dublin : Movement for a Socialist Republic [1975?].
Dublin : Movement for a Socialist Republic, [1976].
Norman Gamboa. [Dublin?] : Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1976.
Belfast : Peoples Democracy with the Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1977.
Dublin, Women's Commission, Movement for a Socialist Republic, 1977.