Militant

A militant is a person engaged in fighting, warfare or combat outside the aegis of a recognized state (e.g. a revolutionary or insurgent, not a member of a regular army).

Militant may also refer to:

See also

Militant (word)

The English word militant is both an adjective and a noun, and is usually used to mean vigorously active, combative and aggressive, especially in support of a cause, as in 'militant reformers'. It comes from the 15th century Latin "militare" meaning "to serve as a soldier". The related modern concept of the militia as a defensive organization against invaders grew out of the Anglo-Saxon fyrd. In times of crisis, the militiaman left his civilian duties and became a soldier until the emergency was over, when he returned to his civilian occupation.

The current meaning of militant does not usually refer to a registered soldier: it can be anyone who subscribes to the idea of using vigorous, sometimes extreme, activity to achieve an objective, usually political. A "militant [political] activist" would be expected to be more confrontational and aggressive than an activist not described as militant.

Militance may or may not include physical violence, armed combat, terrorism, and the like. The Trotskyist Militant group in the United Kingdom published a newspaper, was active in labour disputes, moved resolutions in political meetings, but was not based on violence, although some confrontations might lead to unarmed fighting. The purpose of the Christian Church Militant is to struggle against sin, the devil and "..the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Ephesians 6:12), but it is not a violent movement.

Militant (Trotskyist group)

Militant, officially the Revolutionary Socialist League, and commonly called the Militant tendency, was a Trotskyist entryist group in the British Labour Party, based around the Militant newspaper launched in 1964. According to Michael Crick, its politics were influenced by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and Leon Trotsky and "virtually nobody else".

In 1975, there was widespread press coverage of a Labour Party report into the entryist tactics of Militant. Between 1975 and 1980, attempts by Reg Underhill and others in the leadership of the Labour Party to expel Militant were rejected by its National Executive Committee, which appointed a Militant member to the position of National Youth Organiser in 1976 after Militant had won control of the party's youth section, the Labour Party Young Socialists.

In 1982, after the Liverpool Labour Party adopted Militant's strategy to set an illegal deficit budget, a Labour Party commission found Militant in contravention of clause II, section 3 of the party's constitution which made political groups with their own "Programme, Principles and Policy for separate and distinctive propaganda" ineligible for affiliation. Militant was proscribed by the Labour Party's National Executive Committee in December 1982, and the following year five members of the Editorial Board of the Militant newspaper were expelled from the Labour Party. At this point, the group claimed to have 4,300 members. Further expulsions of Militant activists followed. Militant policies dominated Liverpool City Council between 1983 and 1987 and the council organised mass opposition to government cuts to the rate support grant. 47 councillors were banned and surcharged. The conduct of the Liverpool council led Neil Kinnock, Labour's then leader, to denounce Militant at the 1985 Party Conference. Eventually Militant's two remaining Labour MPs were prevented from being Labour candidates at the 1992 general election.