The Militant Group was an early British Trotskyist group, formed in 1935 by Denzil Dean Harber, former leader of the Marxist Group, as an entrist group inside the Labour Party.
Over the next couple of years, the group was strengthened by an influx of South African Trotskyists, including Ted Grant and Ralph Lee. However, rumours concerning the activity of Lee prompted around ten members, including Grant, Lee, Jock Haston and Gerry Healy to split in 1937 and form the Workers International League.
In 1938, the Militant Group merged with the Revolutionary Socialist League, Revolutionary Socialist Party and the Marxist Group to form a new Revolutionary Socialist League, the official section of the Fourth International in Britain.
Famous quotes containing the words militant and/or group:
“We find the most terrible form of atheism, not in the militant and passionate struggle against the idea of God himself, but in the practical atheism of everyday living, in indifference and torpor. We often encounter these forms of atheism among those who are formally Christians.”
—Nicolai A. Berdyaev (1874–1948)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)