[1] In August 1938, James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman came to London in an attempt to unite all four British Trotskyist groups.
Secondly, the leadership faction around Denzil Dean Harber held a position that opposed the Proletarian Military Policy (PMP) of the WIL and was described by its opponents as semi-pacifist.
This group, led by John Lawrence, advocated adoption of the PMP of the Socialist Workers Party and was in favour of fusing with the WIL.
[citation needed] The leadership of the Revolutionary Socialist League 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.
This conference was required to reunite the group so that it could fuse with the WIL into a single organization which could then affiliate to the Fourth International.