Papers of Ken Tarbuck (1930-1995), Trotskyist writer and activist

Revolutionary Socialist League: Duplicated leaflets, discussion bulletins, etc, including some items from Militant Labour League, 1937-42.
Workers' International League: Duplicated leaflets, discussion bulletins, etc, especially on industrial, military and organisational matters, 1941-44; documents relating to Reconstitution Conference of RSL and Fusion Conference of RSL and WIL, 1943-44; 'Youth for Socialism', 1938-41; 'Socialist Appeal', 1941-49 (publication continued by RCP); 'Workers' International News', 1943-49 (publication continued by RCP).
Revolutionary Communist Party: Duplicated leaflets, discussion bulletins, etc, 1944-49; photographs and press cuttings, including information on RCP candidate in Neath by-election, 1945 (MSS.75/7/1); publicity leaflets of WIL and RCP; 'Party Organiser', 1946-48; papers of Left Fraction within RSL and RCP.
Socialist Review Group: National Committee minutes, 1950-53; Birmingham Branch minutes, 1950-53; correspondence between Ken Tarbuck and SRG members; 'Socialist Review', 1950-61 (incomplete series).
Press cuttings relating to apprentices' strike, 1944; youth papers, including 'Young Guard', 1940s-1960s; publications of other left-wing organisations, especially from North America, 1960s.

Records received as accession 1378 include general political correspondence, correspondence with individual correspondents, subject files, writings by Tarbuck, scrapbooks, audio recordings of interviews, talks and meetings, and miscellaneous pamphlets, journals and other publications.

Ken Tarbuck joined the Revolutionary Communist Party in Birmingham in 1947. He was expelled from 'The Club' in 1950 and was a founding member of the Socialist Review Group, serving on the SRG National Committee. Tarbuck was briefly involved with the Socialist Workers Federation in the mid-1950s, but joined the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1957, after he attended the founding conference as a SWF observer. He joined the International Group in 1961 (later known as the International Marxist Group).

The British Section of the International Left Opposition emerged during the period from 1929 to 1932. The movement was always hampered by disunity and between 1934 and 1938 a series of splits occurred, mainly relating to relations with the Labour Party, resulting in the existence of three distinct groups in the London area by September 1938, although a variety of other groups had appeared and disappeared and there were also various groups in other regions of the country. The Marxist League, led by Harry Wicks and Hugo Dewar, had recently joined with the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) and were operating independently of the Labour Party. The Militant group, led by D. D. Harber and Jackson, advocated continuing to work as an entryist group inside the Labour Party, and they too eventually joined the RSL, as did the Revolutionary Socialist Party of Edinburgh. The Workers' International League (WIL), led by Lee, Grant, Haston and Healy, also advocated an entryist policy, but remained autonomous of the RSL.

On the initiative of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International, discussions on unification took place between the RSL and the WIL in the early 1940s and at a Fusion Conference in March 1944 the two groups merged to form the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). The RCP only remained in existence until 1949 and the 'unity' was always highly precarious, the party being split by continued disagreements on the question of the relationship of its members to the Labour Party. When the RCP disintegrated in 1949 its members formed a variety of smaller groups, including the Socialist Review Group, which was distinguished by its analysis of the Soviet Union as "State Capitalist", embodied in its slogan "Neither Washington nor Moscow, but International Socialism!".

This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See https://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/

Items with references beginning MSS.75 were purchased by the Centre from Ken Tarbuck in 1974; items with references beginning 1378 were donated by his widow in 2021.

Link to full catalogue: https://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/TAR