Socialist Party of Great Britain - History and Influence

History and Influence

The Socialist Party of Great Britain was founded in 1904 as a split from the Social Democratic Federation (SDF). It was formed to oppose the SDF's reformism and as part of a response to that organisation's domination by H. M. Hyndman (which also led to the SPGB's aversion to leadership). This split was also partly a reaction to the SDF's involvement in the Labour Representation Committee which went on to found the Labour Party. It mirrored the split that led to the foundation of the Socialist League, stemming from an ongoing dispute within the socialist movement over tactics and the question of reform or revolution. The founders of the SPGB considered themselves to be part of a wider impossibilist revolt within the Second International. When in 1903 most of SDF members in Scotland broke away to form the Socialist Labour Party, without contacting their fellow impossibilists in London those impossibilists, chiefly in Battersea branch, decided to break away and form their own organisation, which they did the following year. Unlike the Socialist League, however, the SPGB advocated the revolutionary use of the ballot box and parliament.