Founded 1979 | ||
Leader National Leader:Chris ColemanGeneral Secretary:Michael ChantCollective Leadership:(Central Committee) Newspaper Workers Daily [online]Workers Weekly [online] Ideology CommunismAnti-RevisionismHoxhaismMarxism-Leninism | ||
The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist–Leninist) (RCPB-ML) is a small British Communist political party. It was named the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) on initial formation in 1972, until it was reorganised in 1979 after rejecting Maoism and aligning with Albania. The party's thinking is based on the politics of Hardial Bains, who travelled the world founding anti-revisionist communist parties.
Contents
History
Like other Bains-inspired parties, the then CPE(ML) took the Chinese side in the Sino-Soviet split, thus being endorsed by Albania, allied at the time with Maoist China, and opposing both the capitalist West and the Soviet bloc in accordance with the Three Worlds Theory promoted by Beijing. However, during the deterioration in Sino-Albanian relations, it increasingly sided with Hoxha. The CPE(ML) developed party to party relations with the Party of Labour of Albania and renounced China as revisionist.
In 1973 the CPE(ML) put forward 2 candidates in parliamentary by-elections, and in 1974 stood in 6 constituencies in the February general election and 8 seats in the October general election. Their highest recorded vote was 612 (1.2%) in Portsmouth South during the second 1974 general election.
In 1974 the CPE(ML) lost around a tenth of its membership following the expulsion of Aravindan Balakrishnan and an associated group accused of "conspiratorial and splittist activities and.. social fascist slanders against the Party and the proletarian movement"; the group became the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.
The party had links with the progressive music milieu in the 1970s, avant-garde composers such as Cornelius Cardew and Michael Chant having been leading members.
The RCPML is closely related to the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and has good relations with the New Communist Party of Britain. It produces an internet newspaper called Workers' Daily Internet Edition (WDIE), and has a bookshop in south London named John Buckle Books (named after the RCPB(ML) founding general secretary). It has been active in promoting solidarity with North Korea. In 2004, the party declared electoral support for the Respect Coalition, but now calls for an end to the system that brings parties to power and calls on workers' and peoples' collectives to intervene directly in the political process. The party has a system of collective leadership; its National Leader is Chris Coleman and its General Secretary is Michael Chant. The party's logo is a black hammer and sickle within a yellow star on a red background.
RCPBML official Roger Nettleship has stood in several general elections under his own name, including Jarrow in 2005 and South Shields in 2001 and 2010.
By-elections, 1974-1979
Rowe stood as "East London Peoples Front", and Munro stood as "South London Peoples Front".