Pre-1917 British Marxist organisations had tiny, shrinking memberships

Evidence

Prior to 1917 there were only two Marxist organisations of any consequence. These were the British Socialist Party (B.S.P.) and the Socialist Labour Party (S.L.P.). The B.S.P. was the direct descendant of the Social Democratic Federation (S.D.F.) founded in 1883 under the leadership of Hyndman, having been formed in 1911 as a coalition of the S.D.F., sections of the non-Marxist I.L.P., the Clarion movement and various local socialist societies. The membership of the S.D.F. during the nineteenth century never exceeded 4,000; the B.S.P.’s initial nominal membership of 40,000 declined to no more than a third that number by the outbreak of war, and active membership was considerably less. The S.L.P. had split away from the S.D.F. at the turn of the century. It was purer in doctrine and correspondingly much smaller; the membership never exceeded a thousand, the majority concentrated in Scotland. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1217

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1217