{{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 The Revolutionary Policy Committee (RPC) was a faction within the former British

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

, the

Independent Labour Party The Independent Labour Party (ILP) was a British political party of the left, established in 1893 at a conference in Bradford, after local and national dissatisfaction with the Liberal Party (UK), Liberals' apparent reluctance to endorse work ...

(ILP). The RPC was formed in 1931 by members of the ILP who were especially unhappy with the gradualist policies of the Second Labour Government (1929-1931). The RPC was founded by Jack Gaster, a lawyer and son of

Moses Gaster Moses Gaster (17 September 1856 – 5 March 1939) was a Romanian, later British scholar, the ''Hakham'' of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation, London, and a Hebrew and Romanian linguist. Moses Gaster was an active Zionist in Rom ...

, the

Sephardic Sephardic Jews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the historic Jewish communities of the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and their descendant ...

Chief Rabbi of England, and Dr C.K. Cullen, a medical inspector from Poplar. The RPC was particularly active in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and its initial focus was on advocating the disaffiliation of the ILP from the Labour Party. After it achieved this aim, in 1932, the RPC sought to bring about closer cooperation between the ILP and the

Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...

, and advocated affiliation to the

Comintern The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was a political international which existed from 1919 to 1943 and advocated world communism. Emerging from the collapse of the Second Internatio ...

. In 1933 the RPC successfully persuaded the ILP to adopt the policy of merging with the Communist Party, although this was never followed through. Within the ILP the RPC increasingly came to be seen as a vehicle for Communist entryists and aroused strong feelings of hostility. In 1934 there was a split in the ILP as some opponents of the RPC, led by

John Middleton Murry John Middleton Murry (6 August 1889 – 12 March 1957) was an English writer. He was a prolific author, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime. ...

and Elijah Sandham, left to form the Independent Socialist Party. By 1935 the RPC's influence was waning and, following internal divisions about the appropriate response to the

Abyssinian Crisis The Abyssinia Crisis, also known in Italy as the Walwal incident, was an international crisis in 1935 that originated in a dispute over the town of Walwal, which then turned into a conflict between Fascist Italy and the Ethiopian Empire (then com ...

in 1935, the leading members of the RPC decided to wind it up, leave the ILP and join the Communist Party.

References

*Gidon Cohen (2000). "The Independent Labour Party, Disaffiliation, Revolution and Standing Orders". History, 86:282. *Gidon Cohen (2001). "From Insufferable Petty Bourgeois to Trusted Communist: Jack Gaster, the RPC and the Communist Party". McIlroy et al. (eds) Party People, Communist Lives. *David Howell (2002). "MacDonald's Party: Labour Identities and Crisis". 1922-31, Oxford. Defunct communist parties in the United Kingdom Independent Labour Party Political party factions in the United Kingdom