In Defense of Bolshevism (Leninist League). Vol. 2 No. 2. February-March, 1939.

Contents: The Work of the Popular Front Government by Harry Millen, The Spanish Betrayal by George Marlen.

‘In Defense of Bolshevism’ was the monthly organ of the the Leninist League, a tiny group associated with gadfly George Spiro, also known as Marlen (Marx-Lenin, get it?), that emerged as part of the 1937 three-way rupture of the Revolutionary Workers League led by Hugo Oehler and Tom Stamm. The split left two reduced groups both claiming to be “Revolutionary Workers League”, and both publishing a paper called ‘Fighting Worker’ in Chicago. While Spiro and half a dozen members formed the Leninist League. In late 1939, IDOM changed its name to ‘The Bulletin of the Leninist League.’ This tendency emerged from opposition within the Trotskyist movement to the ‘French Turn,’ a change in orientation of the Fourth Internationalists to left developing Socialist Parties. They split with American Trotskyists in late 1935, and at first positioned themselves as oppositional Trotskyists, but by 1937 refuted Trotsky and his international movement as ‘degenerate’, and ‘centrist,’ eventually rejecting Trotskyism altogether. Renamed the ‘Workers League for a Revolutionary Party,’ by around 1950 all of these groups had ceased to exist. With one lasting impact. Noam Chomsky, was introduced to politics in the 1940s, in part, by LL supporter, the professor Ellis Rivkin.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/in-defense-bolshevism/v02n02-feb-mar-1939-In-Defense-Leninist-L-Spiro.pdf