United Socialist Movement | |
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Abbreviation | USM |
Leader | Guy Aldred |
Founded | July 1934 |
Dissolved | 1965 |
Split from | Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation |
Headquarters | Glasgow |
Newspaper | The Word |
Ideology | Anarcho-communism Abstentionism |
Political position | Far-left |
Part of a series on |
Anarchist communism |
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The United Socialist Movement (USM) was an anarcho-communist political organisation based in Glasgow. Founded in 1934 after splitting from the Anti-Parliamentary Communist Federation, the USM initially aimed to unite revolutionary socialists into an anti-fascist alliance and played a role in the early discussions on the founding of a "Fourth International". During the Spanish Civil War, it shifted its policies away from unconditional anti-fascism towards a revolutionary anti-militarism, which going into World War II led the USM into attempting to form a "Socialist-Pacifist alliance" and even collaborating with some reactionary elements in their opposition to the war. After the war, left with only a small old guard of anarchists and anti-parliamentarists, the USM again shifted its focus towards abstentionism, running unsuccessfully in a number of elections before its eventual dissolution in 1965.