MIA: History: ETOL: Revolutionary Workers League

Encyclodedia of Trotskyism On-Line

Notes on RWL (Publications)

Composed February 15, 2014, revised August 15, 2014 by Marty Goodman Riazanov Library

Hugo Ohler's Revolutionary Workers League (RWL) published between 1935 and 1950 a journal, or journals.

It also produced a newspaper (Fighting Worker). And a two local Chicago newsletter-like publications titled Labor Views and Chicago Organizer. And a run of internal bulletins, and quite a few pamphlets.

[NOTE that when Stamm and his group split out of Ohler’s RWL, they named THEIR group the “RWL”. The Stammite’s journal was titled “Revolt”. Published in 1938 and 1939, Revolt first appeared as a letter sized journal March 1938 - Aug 1939 v1n1-v2n10, then became a tabloid newspaper September 1939 - March 1941 v2n11-v4n2. We have fairly complete runs of both of those.]

Journals:

(1) International News [Ohlerite] 1935 Volume 1

This consists of a SINGLE volume of 10 issues published in October and November of 1935, and was in part devoted to international matters.

A complete digital archive of all 10 issues of this journal is included here in the Riazanov Library archive (though there are two or three pages out of the 200+ pages of that archive which involve marginal scanning of more than marginal original mimeographing such that a paragraph or two on those pages cannot, for the most part, be discerned... and there is an issue or two where a physical page (that is, two sequential pages of text, for the pages were mimeographed on both sides) is missing. This archive was created by scanning originals of these journals held by Tamiment Library. We are grateful for being given the opportunity to do this!

This "International News / Volume 1 1935" also contained active discussion of the events surrounding the departure of Hugo Ohler and those who became the RWL from the Workers Party – USA over strong criticism of the “French Turn”... the decision to enter the US's Socialist Party. This entry was consumated in June of 1936... and lasted until the end of 1937, when the Trotskyists who had entered were kicked out by the SP, and founded the organization with the name Socialist Workers Party on January 1, 1938.



(2) Fourth International [Ohlerite] Volumes 2,3, and 4 June 1936 – Feb 1939

In June of 1936, the RWL began publishing a similar format journal that, given the numbering they used, can be assumed to have been considered by THEM to be the continuation of "International News" of 1935.

But this journal was now called Fourth International and was more of a general theoretical journal.

Here is a list of the inventory of issues of this journal (as original paper) held by Tamiment Library, scanned there by me on their overhead book scanner:

--- = one or more missing issues in the run

Volume 2:

Then, for the next 14 or so issues, the address for the organization was changed to: 2159 W. Division St., Chicago, IL

Volume 3

Volume 4
Starting Volume 4, the address given changes (slightly) to: 1904 W. Division St., Chicago, IL v4n01 sep-oct 1938 [Red ink on White cover]



(3) The Marxist [Ohlerite] Volume 5

There exist seven issues, published April – October 1939, of The Marxist, which appears to be the continuation of the RWL (Ohlerite) journal “Fourth International”.



(4) RWL International News [Ohlerite] (second incarnation under this name)

1939 - November 1950. In September of 1939 The RWL started publication of another theoretical journal titled International News.

This BEGAN with Volume 1 Number 1 in September of 1939, so must be considered a different series from the "volume 1" of "International News" published by Ohler and associates back in 1935.

I have some representative issues of this in the archive at this time.

I have a reel of microfilm produced by the New York Public Library of 1939-1950 International News that has nearly all of the many issues missing from this archive on it. It will eventually be scanned, and the issues added to this arcuive.



Newspaper: Fighting Worker 1935 - 1950

We currently have a relatively robust run of Fighting Worker, 1935 - 1950, the Ohlerite RWL’s newspaper. Created in part from scans of original issues I hold, and in part from microfilm made by Wisconsin Historical Society, scanned by them on commission for this project. There are still a number of missing issues, but all (or very nearly all) such missing issues will be added to the digital archive here when we get to scanning our microfilm of Fighting Worker created by the New York Public Library, which we currently have a print of.

Chicago Organizer and Labor Views May-Dec 1946:

Local newsletters produced in Chicago in May – December 1946 (approximately 36 issues produced) We have here a very robust run of this publication, scanned from microfilm held by Tamiment Library. Three issues of Chicago Organizer came out in early to mid May 1946, followed by the first issues of Labor Views in late May 1946, numbered “number 4”. So one may consider these two to be a continuing run of more or less the same publication.

Pamphlets:

The RWL put out quite a large number of pamphlets. We have a robust, though not complete, collection of these in our digital archive. Mostly scanned from pamphlets in my personal collection and held by Holt Labor Library, though some scanned from holdings of Tamiment Library, and some additional pamphlets obtained from other digital archives on the Internet are included as well.

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