Socialist League (UK, 1885)

The Socialist League was an early revolutionary socialist organisation in the United Kingdom. The organisation began as a dissident offshoot of the Social Democratic Federation of Henry Hyndman at the end of 1884. Never an ideologically harmonious group, by the 1890s the group had turned from socialism to anarchism. The group was finally disbanded in 1901.

Until March 1884, the members of the Democratic Federation, forerunner of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) worked together in harmony. The new organization had expected to make rapid headway with existing radical workingmen's organisations, but few had chosen to join with the SDF and early enthusiasm gave away to disappointment and introspection. Personal relationships began to loom large among the small group's leading members, with the personal vanity and domineering attitude of organizational founder Henry Hyndman and his nationalism fixation on parliamentary politics the leading causes of the internal acrimony.

The personal distaste of many prominent members of the SDF for Hyndman was palpable. William Morris wrote:

"Hyndman can accept only one position in such a body as the SDF, that of master.... [He] has been acting throughout...as a politician determined to push his own advantage,... always on the look out for anything which could advertise the party he is supposed to lead: his aim has been to make the movement seem big; to frighten the powers that be with a turnip bogie... [A]ll that insane talk of immediate forcible revolution, when we know that the workers of England are not even touched by the movement."

By the end of 1884, the a group of members of the SDF sought to remove Hyndman from his position as party leader. The decisive meeting of the SDF Executive Council was held 16 December 1884, followed by additional meetings on the 23rd and 27th of that month. Finally, a vote was taken on a resolution of censure of Hyndman, which passed by a vote of 10 to 8.

Immediately after winning their victory in the SDF Executive, the anti-Hyndman dissidents handed in their prepared letter of resignation, which declared:

"Since discord has arisen in this Council owing to the attempt to substitute arbitrary rule therein for fraternal co-operation contrary to the principles of Socialism, and since it seems to us impossible to heal this discord, we the undersigned think it better in the interests of Socialism to cease to belong to this Council and accordingly hand in our resignation."

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