“Fighting Worker” was the “central organ” of the
Revolutionary Workers League, a Marxist group active in the United States
during the 1930's and 1940's. The RWL originally had hundreds of supporters,
organized a few union locals, and participated in strikes. After a series of
devastating splits, the membership of the RWL dwindled and the group became one
of many small sects on the leftist fringe. RWL's leader, Hugo Oehler, is
rumored to have been an excellent speaker but a lousy writer. He actually
visited Barcelona during the Spanish Civil War and was detained by the
Stalinists, but somehow managed to survive. Oehler's politics sound like a more
sectarian (or even more sectarian!) version of Trotskyism.
This issue of “Fighting Worker” contains several letters and articles on Jim Crow, exposing discrimination and violence against Black conscripts at a military training facility in Arkansas. While the RWL's support for the Black struggle is commendable, their political conclusions are not: “Turn the imperialist war into a civil war”. The “imperialist war” in question is, of course, World War II. The RWL opposed the United States as much as Nazi Germany, while the Black soldiers in Arkansas they had corresponded with – interestingly enough – supported defense of the United States!
Although the RWL aren't that important, in and of themselves, I admit that I find their publications fascinating, since the same phenomenon (small Trotskyist-derived sects) still exists, and nothing escapes my attention…
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