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Socialist League (UK)

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This article is about the Socialist League groups which have existed in the United Kingdom. See also Socialist League (Finland)

The Socialist League was a socialist political party in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1885 by former members of the Social Democratic Federation unhappy with the leadership of H. M. Hyndman.

The initial manifesto of the organisation was composed by William Morris and Ernest Belfort Bax. It advocated revolutionary internationalism, but was not purely Marxist, encompassing Morris' emerging guild socialism. The party published a journal, Commonweal.

Notable members of the party included Eleanor Marx and Edward Carpenter. The party also attracted many anarchists, who gained control by the early 1890s. This led some of the founders to leave and rejoin the SDF, or the Independent Labour Party. Nonetheless, the party remained active until it was disbanded in 1901.

A second, entirely unconnected Socialist League was formed in the 1932 as a split from the Independent Labour Party, opposed to that organisation disaffiliating from the Labour Party. It was led by Stafford Cripps and was dissolved in 1937.

A third, again unconnected Socialist League was formed in 1981 by the International Marxist Group when it entered the Labour Party. It soon became universally known by the name of its publication, Socialist Action.

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