The Revolutionary Workers League was a Canadian Trotskyist group, formed in 1977 by a merger of four other organizations.
The RWL had a number of members active in the New Democratic Party (NDP), while also maintaining a separate public organization and newspaper (therefore they did not consider themselves to be entrists). The party generally endorsed NDP candidates in elections, but ran their own on some occasions, generally in ridings which the NDP did not contest, or had very little chance of winning.
Larry Johnston was the sole candidate of the Manitoba branch of the Revolutionary Workers League in the 1977 provincial election, campaigning in the Winnipeg riding of Osborne. He received 47 votes.
This appears to have been the only time that the Manitoba RWL endorsed one of its own candidates in a provincial election. It is not clear how long Johnston remained in the RWL after this.
During the 1980s, the RWL became divided between Trotskyist supporters of permanent revolution and followers of the American Socialist Workers Party, which after 1982 supported Fidel Castro's Cuba as the vanguard of world revolution. It is unclear if the Manitoba RWL still existed by the time of this division.
Famous quotes containing the words workers and/or league:
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesn’t know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the “idle” workers who just won’t get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“We’re the victims of a disease called social prejudice, my child. These dear ladies of the law and order league are scouring out the dregs of the town. C’mon be a glorified wreck like me.”
—Dudley Nichols (1895–1960)