The organisation was formed in early 1938 with the merger of two different parties, one led by Harry Wicks and the other by C. L. R. James.
In August 1938, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman came to London in an attempt to unite all four British Trotskyist groups. The RSL, the Militant Group and the Revolutionary Socialist Party merged to form a new Revolutionary Socialist League, but the Workers International League refused, claiming their agreement on the Transitional Programme was insufficient and that the new group represented a dilution of democratic centralism.
The new RSL became the British affiliate of the newly formed Fourth International. They maintained the Militant Labour League as an united front for those members who were involved in Labour Party entryism and published The Militant.
The group adopted a defeatist policy during World War II, and had some initial successes, as the Shop Assistants' Union (later USDAW) adopted their position in 1940. This led the Labour Party to ban the Militant Labour League. As, in addition, many younger members joined the British Army, the group became increasingly inactive.
The Revolutionary Socialist Party group left, most of the leadership joining the Indepdent Labour Party while many other members joined the Workers International League (WIL). In 1939, some RSL members split to form the Revolutionary Workers League, which Isaac Deutscher soon joined. The majority of the RWL joined the WIL in 1940, the remainder rejoining the RSL in 1941. A third split produced the Socialist Workers Group, which published Socialist Fight and entered the ILP, but eventually joined the Trotskyist Opposition, a fourth group, expelled in 1942. This group advocated adoption of the American Military Policy of the Socialist Workers Party. Finally, in 1943, the Left Fraction who were opposed to that policy were expelled.
The leadership of the RSL refused to enter into any unity negotiations, despite the party's drastic reduction from 300 to 20 members, until in 1944 the Fourth International held a two-day conference. On the first day, the Trotskyist Opposition and the Left Fraction were reunited with the RSL. Despite the objections of the Left Opposition, the second day saw the reformed RSL unified with the WIL – on the WIL's terms – to form the new Revolutionary Communist Party.
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Another Revolutionary Socialist League existed in the mid-1950s consisting of Ted Grant's supporters.