Jimmy Deane - Revolutionary Socialist League

Revolutionary Socialist League

He was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1956 and was appointed as its first General Secretary.

He was to go on several international missions of behalf of the international during this period including going to Morocco to help the Algerian FLN break through the electrified Algerian/Moroccan border as well as attempting to unite Indian Trotskyists in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras into a single all-India organisation.

After attempting to bring about an unsuccessful fusion between the RSL and the International Group as well as joint work with the International Socialists in a magazine Young Guard, Jimmy Deane suggested Peter Taaffe as his successor as General Secretary and editor of the soon to be launched Militant. He left Britain for India in 1965 and subsequently spent a few years in Fiji.

Although he returned to Britain he did not resume his active role in the Trotskyist movement: he remained loyal to his political beliefs, speaking at a meeting in Wigan against the witch-hunt of Militant supporters in the Labour Party At the end of his life he declared his support for the Socialist Appeal tendency in the UK in a letter and emphasised that "A Marxist tendency must combat any traces of ultra-leftism that arise out of impatience". Jimmy Deane died of pneumonia in August 2002.

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