Revolutionary Marxist Group (Canada)
1970s Trotskyist political organization in Canada
The Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG) was a Trotskyist political organization in English-speaking Canada in the 1970s. It was formed in 1973 and dissolved in 1977 when it fused with the League for Socialist Action/Ligue Socialiste Ouvrière, the Quebec-based Groupe Marxiste Révolutionnaire and the Young Socialists/Ligue des Jeunes Socialistes to form the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire.
Origins
The RMG emerged from the Canadian New Left and from debates following the decline of the Waffle, a left-wing current in and around the New Democratic Party. Historian David Blocker writes that Bret Smiley and Barry Weisleder joined with "Old Mole" student activists at the University of Toronto to form the Revolutionary Marxist Group. A document collection hosted by the Socialist History Project similarly describes the RMG as combining the Old Mole group with activists from the Waffle left.
The McMaster University Library finding aid for the Revolutionary Marxist Group fonds dates the records of the organization mainly to 1973–1978 and lists national office, branch, internal bulletin, press, convention and political committee files.
Politics and publications
The RMG published The Old Mole. An archived 1974 issue identifies the newspaper as the paper of the Revolutionary Marxist Group and describes the RMG as a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International. McMaster's RMG fonds includes files for The Old Mole, RMG bulletins, internal discussion bulletins and press materials.
John Riddell, a former member of the Canadian Trotskyist movement who belonged to the League for Socialist Action, describes the RMG as a sympathizing group of the Fourth International in English Canada.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Revolutionary Marxist Group (Canada)” is 1970s Trotskyist political organization in Canada. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Revolutionary, Marxist and Group, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1970s Trotskyist political organization in Canada” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7318815. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1977, 1978 and 1974.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Revolutionary Marxist Group (Canada)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.