The group began in the late 1980s among small circles of students influenced by Trotskyism. Adopting the current name by April 1995, the RS grew from a few active members, when the Egyptian left was very much underground, to a couple of hundred by the Second Palestinian Intifada. Despite not being able to freely organise under President Hosni Mubarak, the group's membership still increased due to their participation in the Palestinian solidarity movement. The intifada was seen to have a radicalising effect on Egyptian youth, which in turn helped to re-establish grassroots activism, which had long been repressed under the Mubarak regime.