Welcome to the home page of the Revolutionary Democratic Group (RDG). We are a group of political activists in the United Kingdom that have a distinctive republican and democratic platform.


We are an organisation based on the ideas of Karl Marx and the tradition of scientific socialism.
Who are we?
The RDG began life as an external faction of the SWP (UK). Discussion of the national question in the early 1980s was difficult within the SWP and a number of members of the SWP were excluded or expelled. The RDG grew from these ex-members and published a short news letter for several years, Republican Marxist. The RDG began to develop a coherent analysis of the way revolutionaries should relate to constitutional questions. In particular the RDG developed a draft programme of its own and argued for the adoption of a political programme by the SWP.

We are not simply a discussion group and we have been active in a variety of larger organisations for over 20 years. We have a longstanding relationship with the Communist Party of Great Britain and our views can regularly be found in their paper Weekly Worker.

In the late 1990s we joined the Socialist Labour Party and campaigned as members of that party for a republican programme. Our members were active at all levels and we stood as SLP candidates in the 1997 election. We left the SLP when it became clear that political opposition to the personal leadership and policies of Arthur Scargill would not be tolerated.

Currently we are members of the Socialist Alliance and we have supporters in the Scottish Socialist Party. The Socialist Alliances in England and Wales and the SSP in Scotland stood candidates in the 2001 general election and they will be a growing force bringing together socialists and communist from a variety of traditions.

Our members come largely from the tradition of the International Socialist Tendency and the SWP (UK) in particular. We disagree with the IST and SWP on the place of high politics in a revolutionary programme. The SWP have no political programme and generally ignore issues of political reform such as the national question, the monarchy and constitutional change. The RDG argue that fighting for reforms now is one part of the fight to build a revolutionary party. We believe that the issues of political change have to be taken seriously by revolutionaries and that in the working class we need to develop our own distinctive answers to these questions.

The RDG are convinced that the working class can only recover from the defeats of the recent past by becoming a political class. We are helping to build national and international political organisations in the working class with the long term aim of building a new international revolutionary democratic communist party in the future.

If you would like to comment on the site or contact the RDG please fill out the form below or you can write to us at:

RDG, PO Box 6773, Dundee DD1 1YL or email RDG@lycos.co.uk

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