John GM Lawrence

John Gordon Michael Lawrence (29 September 1915 – 14 November 2002) was a leading far-left activist in a wide variety of groups in Britain.

Born in Sandhurst, Berkshire, Lawrence entered the British Army at the age of fourteen, before discovering his skill as a musician. He left the Army and toured the country in the Great Depression, seeing the suffering endured by people and joining first the unemployed workers' movement, then in 1937 the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). His opposition to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact led him to leave the CPGB and join instead the Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers League in 1939.

A supporter of Isaac Deutscher, Lawrence followed him into the Workers International League (WIL) in 1941 and then left to join the Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL). In that organisation, he became the industrial organiser, and the prime exponent of Trotsky's Proletarian Military Policy. However, this was a policy strongly supported by the WIL, who began paying Lawrence for his activities. As a result, he was expelled from the RSL.

Shortly after his expulsion, Lawrence was contacted by Sam Gordon of the American Socialist Workers Party, and began to work as the SWP and became the Fourth International's representative in Britain. He helped organise a fusion of the assorted Trotskyist groups into the Revolutionary Communist Party. After a spell as South Wales organiser, during which he was active in supporting Jock Haston's candidacy in the 1945 Neath by-election, he became the editor of Socialist Outlook while working as a coal miner in Cannock Chase. He allied himself with Gerry Healy to form The Club, remaining a key member through turmoil in the British Trotskyist movement.

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