The Socialist League (or Forward Group) was a Canadian Trotskyist group formed in 1974 by Ross Dowson and approximately twenty other former members of the League for Socialist Action after their faction was defeated at the 1973 LSA national convention. Dowson had previously been the leader of the LSA. The group published a newspaper, Forward and soon became better known as the "Forward Readers Group" or the "Forward Group".
Dowson and his followers differed with the rest of the Trotskyist movement in Canada through their adoption of a Canadian economic nationalist perspective, influenced by the views of the Waffle, a Marxist tendency within the New Democratic Party (NDP) within which the LSA was active.
They argued that Canada was an economic colony of the United States and thus an oppressed nation where other Marxists viewed Canada as a fully capitalist nation, if only a "junior partner" participating in the oppression of the developing world.
The Socialist League viewed its competitors on the left as extremists and ultra-leftists and was especially critical of their views on the New Democratic Party. The Socialist League was an entrist formation and supported full participation by socialists in the NDP where the LSA and particularly the Revolutionary Marxist Group were increasingly critical of the NDP and came to support running their own candidates against NDP nominees in some ridings during provincial and federal elections. Instead, the Socialist League formed the Left Caucus within the NDP and worked to build a leftist tendency within the party. The Caucus' strategy was to ally with "centrists" within the NDP such as, in the mid-1980s, Judy Rebick with whom it participated in the Committee for an Activist Party. For a time Forward had influence in a few NDP riding associations such as in the suburban Toronto riding of Oriole where it helped Rebick win the NDP nomination for the 1987 Ontario election and nearby York Mills where Socialist League member Gord Doctorow was the NDP candidate in the 1985 Ontario election.
The Socialist League remained aloof in 1977 when the RWL and LSA and its Quebec counterparts fused to form the Revolutionary Workers League. The group grew initially through the 1970s and was able to recruit a number of student youth, particularly at York University but it declined through the 1980s and became largely inactive after Dowson suffered a stroke in 1989. Forward ceased publication in the mid-1980s, although the Left Caucus Bulletin continued to appear until the mid-1990s.
The Communist League in Canada was founded as the "Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire" (RWL) in 1977 as the result of a merger of the League for Socialist Action (LSA), the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG) and the Groupe Marxiste Revolutionaire.
The League for Socialist Action (LSA) was the premier Trotskyist organization in Canada for much of the 20th century. Throughout its history the LSA went through many different names and iterations. In chronological order it was known as: the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) of Canada, the Workers Party of Canada, the Socialist Policy Group, the Socialist Workers League, the Revolutionary Workers Party, The Club, the Socialist Education League, and the League for Socialist Action.
Ross Jewitt Dowson was a Canadian Trotskyist political figure and perennial candidate.
The Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) was a Trotskyist group in the United States established in 1973 and disbanded in 1989.
The New Democratic Party Socialist Caucus is an unofficial left-wing faction within Canada's New Democratic Party.
The New Politics Initiative (NPI) was a faction of Canada's New Democratic Party. It was generally viewed to be further left than Alexa McDonough's leadership, but not as far left as the Socialist Caucus.
Judy Rebick is a Canadian writer, journalist, political activist, and feminist.
The Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG) was a Trotskyist political organization in Canada in the 1970s. Though not a registered political party it did field small numbers of candidates in several elections.
Socialist Challenge was a Trotskyist group in English Canada formed by former members of the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire who were expelled or resigned when the RWL moved away from Trotskyism in the early 1980s.
Ernie Tate was a long-standing supporter and leading member of Trotskyist groups in Canada and the United Kingdom and a founder in the 1960s of the International Marxist Group and Vietnam Solidarity Campaign in Britain.
Joe Flexer was a trade unionist and communist activist in Canada. Born in Brooklyn, Flexer was politicized in the mid-1940s through contacts with the American Communist Party in New York City. He left the United States, a Zionist, in 1950 at the age of 17 with the Habonim Zionist youth movement and immigrated to Israel where he lived in Kibbutz Urim.
Murray Dowson was a Canadian Trotskyist politician.
The Spartacist League/U.S. is a Trotskyist political grouping which is the United States section of the International Communist League, formerly the International Spartacist Tendency. This Spartacist League named themselves after the original Spartacus League of Weimar Republic in Germany, but has no formal descent from it. The League self-identifies as a "revolutionary communist" organization.
The Left Caucus was an Ontario-based left-wing pressure group within the New Democratic Party of Canada and the Ontario New Democratic Party from the late 1970s to early 1990s.
Socialist Action is a democratic socialist political organization in Canada. Its members write for and distribute the North American monthly newspaper, Socialist Action, published in San Francisco. It has a youth affiliate called Youth for Socialist Action (YSA),.
The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) abbreviated as ICL(FI), earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency (iSt) is a Trotskyist international. Its largest constituent party is the Spartacist League (US). There are smaller sections of the ICL (FI) in Mexico, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Greece and the United Kingdom.
John Riddell is a Canadian Marxist essayist, historian, editor, translator and activist. He is best known as editor of The Communist International in Lenin’s Time, an eight-volume series of books of Communist International documents, many of which have been translated into English for the first time.
The International Bolshevik Tendency is a Trotskyist International organisation.
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