We publish this text because some comrades who founded the Communist Vanguard previously spent a brief period in the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG). We have chosen to share our perspective openly because we value critique and self-critique, and because we firmly believe Advancing the communist movement in Britain requires an honest assessment of our previous and erroneous experiences. While we focus on the RCG, we do not consider it the worst organisation in Britain – on the contrary, for a time, we saw it as the closest to our political line and strategic approach.
The RCG can appear highly attractive to young leftists and communists. Having consistently attacked the Labour Party, it avoided the post-Corbyn decline that weakened British communists. In its recent years, it has also focused on the most oppressed social groups and, at times, developed correct positions on imperialism. Because of these merits, we initially overlooked its weaknesses, trusting in its ability to evolve. However, with the rise of the Palestine movement in autumn 2023, it became clear that the RCG would never develop into a Marxist-Leninist organisation capable of leading Britain to socialism.
We have condensed our criticism of the RCG into six points.
1. An incorrect understanding of imperialism
The RCG’s understanding of imperialism remains rooted in analyses written from the late 1970s, centred on an outdated binary of oppressed and oppressor nations while ignoring developments in international financial capital. This approach leads to several problems:
- An inability to coherently assess countries with conflicting interests against the NATO bloc, such as China, the BRICS, or Latin America.
- A failure to situate otherwise correct positions – e.g., on Russia or Palestine—within a coherent analysis of the global imperialist system, ultimately undermining their validity.
- An idealisation of Latin America, where every new progressive government or spontaneous movement is met with jubilant enthusiasm; this attitude culminates in Venezuela, a country where no socialist revolution has occurred, yet one that the RCG frequently equates with Cuba.
Most critically, these misconceptions result in a flawed theoretical framework for domestic politics. In Britain, the RCG fights for ‘building an anti-imperialist movement’ to align with the spontaneous global upheavals – a position in which the RCG’s Trotskyist origins merge with the Third-Worldist outlook popular among 1970s petty bourgeois leftists. Yet in 2025, it remains unclear what such a movement would be, who would comprise it, and, above all, what it should achieve if not socialism.
2. An incoherent application of the concept of labour aristocracy
While the RCG elaborates extensively on this key Leninist principle, its near-mystical repetition serves only to alienate the organisation from all sections of the working-class movement – both those in opportunist trade unions and those outside of them. Following Lenin, the RCG rightly identifies the existence of a labour aristocracy and its opportunist role within imperialist countries. However, it fails to recognise that, while a division between the labour aristocracy and the rest of the working class does exist, it coexists with numerous other divisions that capitalism deliberately fosters to undermine working-class unity – such as those between men and women, and between white and black workers. The RCG frames the working class as fundamentally split into antagonistic factions, implicitly suggesting that the primary enemy of the oppressed sections of the working class is not the bourgeoisie, but the labour aristocracy. In doing so, it effectively takes the bourgeois bait – reversing the class antagonism and turning workers against each other rather than against capital. This position not only deeply undermines the revolutionary potential of the working class, but more critically, it contradicts a fundamental principle of both Marx’s and Lenin’s teachings: that under capitalism, the entire working class is exploited, and the entire working class has a shared, objective interest in the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. Structurally isolated from the working class, the RCG’s work cannot but revolve around engaging with spontaneous movements – whether anti-racist, feminist, pro-environment, or any other. While tactical engagement with such movements can be justified in certain cases, the RCG attends all of them indiscriminately, or worse, treats them as central to working-class organisation. Deliberately ignoring the fundamental conflict between capital and labour, and idealistically seeking the ‘lower and deeper’ sections of the working class, the RCG inevitably becomes captive to bourgeois or petty-bourgeois politics. It is therefore incapable of acting as a vanguard for the working class as a whole – or even for its most oppressed layers.
3. The rejection of building a Communist Party
When confronted with its failure to found a Communist Party, the RCG typically responds with two excuses: the absence of an anti-imperialist movement in Britain and a lack of available comrades. Yet Lenin never cited such preconditions; instead, he stressed the necessity of party-building as the most pressing task for the vanguard of the working class. This process is, of course, not instantaneous. But after over 50 years of existence, apparently for the RCG the conditions for creating a party were never favourable – a fact that proves the issue is not circumstantial but political. RCG comrades are often relentless in their efforts, but their energy is misdirected – chasing the fluctuations of the British and international left rather than developing a solid political theory or embedding themselves in the working class. Establishing a party, or even a ‘cadre organisation’ as at times this is weirdly rephrased within the RCG, remains indefinitely postponed. Yet without this process, comrades never develop as cadres; they either conform entirely to the organisation’s direction or leave, leading to a crisis of membership and leadership. In response, the organisation is constantly seeking new members and supporters to expand its ranks. To recruit, existing members are expected to devote their time to attending all kinds of events, setting up endless stalls, chasing passersby, or pressuring potential contacts – mostly at the expense of political education. Even more critically, the immediate need to involve recruits in the organisation’s demanding activities takes precedence over assessing their political alignment and fostering their development – resulting in a continual decline in the RCG’s overall political level. For this and many more reasons, the RCG will never become a party – let alone a Marxist-Leninist one.
4. The belief in the organisation’s self-sufficiency
The RCG has no real interest in engaging with other organisations or forming peer-to-peer alliances within the British or international communist movement. In theory, the RCG claims to reject sectarianism but, in practice, this only means attending protests of every spontaneous movement in Britain. Yet, while it complains that opportunist organisations refuse to let its members speak, it neglects to mention that its presence at such events is purely parasitic – attending only to promote the RCG or criticise the organisers. This does not happen occasionally for tactical reasons, instead defines all of the RCG’s public activity. Events are attended primarily to sell papers, collect contacts, and sometimes heckle speakers. In recent years, the organisation has rarely never taken responsibility – or not even intended to do so – for contributing to collective campaigns or movements. Instead of developing a long-term strategic analysis of the most revolutionary struggles to prioritise, its focus remains on what yields the highest short-term gains in newspaper sales and contact numbers. When no movement exists, discussions revolve around how to sell more papers; when a movement emerges, success is measured by how many papers were sold and supporters attended. Normally, this self-referential approach ensures mere survival, rarely produces growth, and never leads to a leadership role within the working-class movement.
5. The fetishisation of the newspaper
In the RCG, the newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is the end rather than the means of political activity. Writing the paper plays a key role in shaping the organisation’s political line, while selling it dictates the RCG’s activity calendar and is generally seen as the primary tool for engaging with the outside world. Yet, paradoxically, the paper neither agitates nor develops theory; it is largely a compilation of news curated to appeal to either ‘the poorer section of the working class’ or, at times, the well-meaning bourgeoisie concerned with issues like global warming or the refugee crisis. Newspapers are mostly sold in street markets of deprived areas or national events called by leftist, opportunist organisations. This approach fails to distinguish between bourgeois, working-class, and lumpenproletarian shoppers and protesters, diluting the class component of the RCG’s political activity and ultimately its capacity to have a serious impact on British politics. The fact that very few buyers actually read the paper, or that even fewer are members of the working class, is of little concern; as long as donations are received under the banner of anti-racism and anti-imperialism, the main goal is deemed achieved. Equating newspaper sales with building a working-class movement is yet another sign of the RCG’s rear-guard role, trailing behind Britain’s spontaneous movements rather than fighting to transform it.
6. The nominal application of democratic centralism
While the RCG formally adopts certain structures of democratic centralism, concretely, these neither create genuine space for free discussion nor ensure unity in action. Decisions are made on an ad-hoc basis without addressing underlying issues; exceptions are granted selectively based on personal connections, effectively creating a two-tier system within the organisation. While the ageing leadership has some expertise in Marxist-Leninist principles, educating new recruits is constantly deprioritised, further widening the gap between empowered and disempowered members. Political conflict is routinely softened or postponed, both within the leadership and between leadership and membership, with most disagreements dismissed as misunderstandings. This approach has serious consequences for the organisation’s planning and operations. At every level, justified and detailed self-criticism is met with the same response: ‘We’ve always done it this way’. This dogmatic stance blocks any meaningful development, trapping the RCG in a past that is not only outdated but entirely devoid of success.
Communist Vanguard 2025