Revolutionary Communist Party

[robbo203]

I was under the impression that this entity was a trot outfit. It certainly seems to draw inspiration from people like Trotsky and Lenin. Having come across them on the internet and not knowing much about them, I was surprised to learn they don’t advocate for a workers’ state or state capitalism. Does anybody know more precisely where they stand in relation to the SPGB?

I typed in a question in my chatbot, and this is the answer I got:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

what does the Revolutuionary Communist Party mean by communism

Here’s a clear, text‑grounded explanation of what the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) means by communism, based strictly on the content of the Facebook page you have open and the language they use there.

Because your current tab contains the RCP’s own description of its aims, that is the authoritative source for this answer. I’ll base my explanation on that material .

⭐ What the Revolutionary Communist Party means by communism
From the RCP’s own statements in your open tab, communism is defined not as a system of nationalisation or state ownership, but as a classless, stateless society in which:

private ownership of the means of production is abolished, and

nation‑states themselves are abolished.

This is explicit in the party’s description of its goals, which emphasises:

the overthrow of capitalism,

the abolition of private property, and

the abolition of nation‑states.

This is a vision of communism that aligns with the end‑state described by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology and The Communist Manifesto: a society where the state “withers away” because class antagonisms have been overcome.

It is not the Leninist transitional model of a workers’ state or dictatorship of the proletariat. The RCP’s own language points directly to the final communist form—stateless, classless, and without national borders.

⭐ Key features of communism as the RCP presents it
Based on the page you have open, the RCP’s conception includes:

1. No private property
All productive resources are held in common, not by individuals, corporations, or the state.

2. No nation‑states
The RCP explicitly calls for the abolition of nation‑states, which places it outside the tradition of parties that aim to seize state power and use it as a transitional instrument.

3. No wage labour or exploitation
Communism is framed as the end of capitalist social relations, not their management by a different ruling class.

4. Directly social production
Production is organised collectively and democratically, not through markets or state bureaucracies.

5. Internationalism
The abolition of nation‑states implies a global or transnational conception of communism, not socialism in one country.

⭐ How this differs from other communist traditions
Because the RCP rejects the idea of a transitional workers’ state, its conception of communism is closer to:

left‑communism,

council communism, or

anarchist‑communism,

than to orthodox Marxism‑Leninism.

Where Leninists argue for a workers’ state as a necessary transitional phase, the RCP’s own language points directly to the stateless phase.

[ALB]

There is something wrong with that chatbox response. Given that the RCP, like all Leninist groups, is committed to communism (what we call socialism) as a long term goal, it is understandable why the chatbot should come up with that description it has.

It’s the concluding section that this means they reject a so-called workers state based on a state-capitalist economy as a necessary stage towards this that is wrong. They don’t reject this but are ultra-orthodox Trots, descended from the old Militant Tendency, the wing that stayed in the Labour Party when the others left to form SPEW until they too were expelled.

I’ve been to a couple of their meetings. At one the audience was told that the RCP was in the Marxist tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Ted Grant. Grant will be turning in his grave at the suggestion that he was not an orthodox Marxist-Leninist but some sort of council communist.

Here is their website: https://communist.red/

Which all goes to show that you can’t trust a chatbox.

[Bijou Drains]

RCP is the rump of the Malignant Tendency who in the 1990s decided that they didn’t want to stop being boring inside the Labour Party. They originally called themselves “Socialist Appeal”. Ted Grant and Alan Woods became their guru. Peter Taffe became the guru for the members of Militant that decided to be openly boring, they became SPEW.

It all happened when Militant had a big party meeting following the expulsion of a couple of hundred members of Militant. The discussion at the meeting was about coming out as a fully independent political party or to remain a clandestine organisation within the Labour Party. The Majority became SPEW. The Minority became Socialist Appeal. (“Those in the Majority”, “Those in the minority”, I’m sure I’ve heard this somewhere before?)

In reality the dispute was between Grant and Taffe about whose turn it was to play Lenin in their ongoing cosplay Russian Revolution historical reenactment society.

Socialist Appeal were eventually expelled from the Labour Party in 2021, but they took their time to take the hint and tried to remain within the Labour Party. In 2024 they decided to start an open “party” and, presumably based on the fact that the original group of Trotskyists in the UK called themselves the RCP, they called themselves the RCP.

This was despite the fact that there was also a 1980-90s group who called themselves the RCP (lots of whom ended up bizarrely became right wing libertarians with their top boy, Frank Furedi appearing to be a devotee of Victor Orban and one of their illustrious “revolutionary leaders” now in the House of Lords) and that there is also another group called the Revolutionary Communist Party (Britain – Marxist Leninist), which was/is a group who are heavily influenced by Hardial Bains. Bains had more political positions than you could shake a stick at, Stalinist, Tankie, Maoist, Hoxharist, Castroist, etc.

I put all of this info as an attempt to provide an explanation as to why:

a) Your poor chatbot, when trying to explain the RCP, doesn’t know whether it’s Pancake Tuesday or Sheffield Wednesday.

b) Why AI is actually a bit shit (As an experiment I asked one AI system why Spider-Man always has a big smile, and I was told it’s because Spider-Man has a happy and cheerful disposition, which is odd, because Spider-Man, hasn’t even got a mouth!!)

[h.moss@swansea.ac.uk]

Yes, Their newspaper called the’The Communist’, which I picked up a copy of recently, has a hammer and sickle emblazoned over the front and advertises 3 volumes of ‘Trotsky’s Writings on Britain’ inside. On page 2, it has their ’10-point programme’ which includes such things as nationalisation of big business without compensation, free education and ‘living grants’, repeal of anti-trade union laws, ‘don’t simply tax the rich but seize their wealth’. It’s obviously trying to be very young person focused, which of course isn’t a bad thing in itself, but leads it to advocate meaningless campaigns like ‘Kick capitalism out of universities’. I seem to remember it changed its name and the name of its newspaper some time in 2024 but can’t remember what these were called before then.

[robbo203]

Thanks, Bijou and Howard,

Seems I will have to sack my chatbot and replace it with another. Or do without. Just can’t get the staff these days….

I am distrustful of these things and routinely ask for a link and a quote when I ask any question. It tends to have the effect of making the little buggers think a little harder.

On the RCP, I got into an altercation with some of their people on FB. I questioned why they called themselves communists when they did appear to be remotely interested in promoting the idea of a moneyless, wageless, classless and stateless alternative to all forms of capitalism. The people who responded to me insisted that that was exactly what they do.

Since I am about 1500 miles from one of their nearest paper sellers, I couldn’t really determine that for myself.

If they are what they claim to be, then they should be queuing up to join the SPGB, but alas…

[Mike Foster]

Thanks for the interesting information. I was only familiar with the Frank Furedi RCP, so it was useful to learn about the other RCP! It’s a side point, really, but Howard’s mention of their use of the hammer and sickle design made me roll my eyes. It’s worrying that there are still people out there who adhere to what this design represents, given the grim results when the ideas behind it have been tried to be put into practice.

[Bijou Drains]

I have a couple of mates who are in the RCP. Got to know them from being in political circles back in the early 80s. They’re fine to meet up with for a couple of pints as long as you talk about music, football, the weather, etc. Like most left wingers they are pretty thoughtful, kind and compassionate people. Whenever you try and talk to them about politics above a base level they can become really doctrinaire, fixed and seem to be only communicate their politics through a series of stock phrases. A lot of research into cults shows that they use fixed terminology and ideas which not only creates group cohesion, they all know the terminology and can only really discuss things with fellow adherents, but also provides a barrier for them to communicate with others who don’t use the proscribed phraseology. I think this happens in left wing groups. I am pretty sure (but cannot be certain) that we do this far less than the leftist groups. The Standard is always very readable and accessible, our leaflets are usually well developed and accessible as is most of our literature. If you read the red topped newspapers of the leftist groups they are usually very simplistic and based on phrase mongering and rabble rousing. They often produce a monthly “Theoretical Journal”, which is badly written as it is impenetrable.

The 1980’s version of the RCP was an even more extreme version of that presentation, even the leftists thought that they were a bunch of headcases. I think the 80s RCP’s place as the complete fruit loops of the left wing spectrum has been taken on by the Revolutionary Communist Group (they publish Fight Racism/Fight Imperialism), which was the party from which the 1980s RCP emerged. The Revolutionary Communist Group was a split from the IS/SWP who left the SWP in the early 70s. Their Guru was David Yaffe, who interestingly recently resigned from the RCG alongside another member saying they had “lost confidence in the current RCG leadership. It is intransigent, dogmatic, formalistic and bureaucratic.” they “had been ignored”.. You would have thought that being in the RCG for 45 years would have got them used to being ignored.

[ALB]

There was an article in the Standard last year on a breakaway from the RCG. Maybe they are even nuttier.

Vanguards, get lost

[Ciudadano Del Mundo]

All the Vanguard parties dogmatically follow Lenin’s pamphlet titled: What is to be done ? ( The SP responded with an article titled What Not to do ) The concept became universal even though Lenin said it was only a concept temporarily applicable to Russia, and he was not planning to edit the book ( The Russian Machiavelli ). They have not read or do not care about Marx self emancipation of the working class.

The left is a real mess

Profits of doom — capitalism’s left wing

[Author]

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