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91-862: The group's origins lie in the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Moreno's supporters followed the American Socialist Workers Party in leaving the ICFI in 1963 to form the reunified Fourth International (USFI). In 1969, the USFI voted to support guerrilla war in Latin America . Moreno's group opposed this. While critical of the Sandinistas , Moreno's group sent

182-581: A Simon Bolivar Brigade to Nicaragua to aid the Civil War , with the aim of building a revolutionary party there. This brigade was opposed by the reunified Fourth International because it operated outside the discipline of the FSLN ; the only other Trotskyists to participate were Pierre Lamberts ' Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International . Forty non-Nicaraguan members of

273-701: A major world depression was not likely in the near future. The central document emphasized the basic role of workers' democracy, not only as political factor, but also as indispensable for economic development. The second document was on "Colonial Revolution since the End of the Second World War", focusing on conflicts between French imperialism and the Vietminh , the Algerian war, and the Suez crisis which led to

364-573: A permanent dissolution into the Communist Party in every country. After the ICFI withdrew from the FI in 1953, many sections of the ISFI entered communist parties. However, it later became clear that the sections of the ISFI did not dissolve, or enter permanently. Nevertheless, the ISFI's political trajectory led its sections to mistakes as well as, in one case, participation in bourgeois governments when

455-595: A political reunion. Ever greater agreement with regard to the Algerian War of Independence , and the Cuban Revolution of 1959 also brought the SWP and the ISFI closer together. Meanwhile, inside the ISFI, Pablo had lost much of his political influence, removing yet another barrier to reunification. In 1962, the ICFI and ISFI formed a Parity Committee to organise a World Congress of the two factions. ISFI and

546-846: A very small foothold in French politics. Some members of the SLL continued to support the OCI, later the PCI as it became known and set up the Socialist Labour Group in Britain, affiliated with the OCRFI and defending their positions. It was joined shortly afterward by the above-mentioned League for a Workers Republic in Ireland, further depleting the ICFI ranks. Delegates from eight countries attended

637-631: A workshop on the Dutch-German border that produced counterfeit passports and cash to support the FLN. In 1960, it was decided to move the headquarters of the Fourth International from Paris to Amsterdam because of the return of Charles de Gaulle to power, which made it less advisable to stay in Paris. In Amsterdam, it was thought, the Trotskyists would be freer to operate, and they would be closer to

728-606: Is often mistaken attributed to Pablo or to his formulation of what was called the war-revolution thesis. The ICFI saw this as an abandonment of the principles that Trotsky fought for since the rise of Hitler and the consequent establishment of the Fourth International . The founders of the ICFI wanted the International to maintain its organizational independence as the world party of the working-class, asserting that Pablo's policies would leave them an adjunct of

819-1090: The Fourth International . It was formed in 1953 by a number of national sections of the FI that disagreed with the course of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International led at that time by Michel Pablo (Raptis) and Ernest Mandel (Germain). The Committee was co-ordinated by the American section, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and included the British section led by Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert's Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) in France. Trotskyist groups in various other countries, notably in Switzerland, China, Canada and Nahuel Moreno 's group in Argentina, also joined. The grouping's founding statement

910-626: The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). The Fourth World-Congress of the Fourth International was entitled "Rise and Decline of Stalinism". Inspired by the Cuban Revolution as well as the Tito–Stalin split demonstrating that the Stalinist Communist Parties may not unalterably subordinate to Stalin, Pablo also started to argue that even the Stalinist parties who were in power in various countries at

1001-517: The Labour Party in Britain resembled entrism sui generis. However, Pablo aimed for the FI to implement entryism more deeply than the leaders of the ICFI felt wise: They were also concerned by Pablo preparedness to enforce entrism, if necessary by splitting sections or appointing new leadership teams. The Open Letter went on to explain that, in the SWP's view, what it described as Pabloite Revisionism

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1092-600: The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) entered the government of Ceylon and was expelled from the International. The ICFI sees similar pressures at work now: describing as "Pabloites" those former Trotskysists who today are enforcing IMF dictates in Brazil as members of the Lula government. Some sections of the ICFI have practiced temporary entryist policies, but continually emphasized to their membership that this

1183-455: The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) were moving back towards unity with the ISFI, sharing common positions towards the Cuban revolution. Pablo was regarded by the SWP as a barrier to that unification. The world congress in 1963 formed the reunified Fourth International . Pablo moved a counter-resolution at the 1963 reunification congress, as well as the main resolution on Algeria, and was elected to

1274-633: The 'Security' Campaign. In 1977 and 1978 Gelfand asked questions concerning the Workers League's charges inside the SWP. In March 1978, Gelfand was warned by the local executive committee against publicly questioning the leadership of the SWP. Rather than attempt to answer Gelfand's concerns, the political committee considered the raising of these questions as a slander against Hansen, and warned Gelfand in April 1978 that he would be disciplined if he continued to seek answers. In December 1978, Gelfand took

1365-422: The 1966 conferences "remained dead letters". It argued: "The SLL has had its own international activity, so has the OCI. Germany and Eastern Europe have remained the 'private hunting-grounds' of the OCI...". By the late 1960s all far left tendencies were growing and the ICFI was no exception. Increased membership, cheaper airflights and phone contact also allowed contacts to become more regular overseas. In this way

1456-581: The Algerian revolution in 1962, he became an adviser in the economic reconstruction in the Government of Ahmed Ben-Bella . Pablo was also part of a four-man committee tasked with drawing up a decree concerned with property that had been seized by the Algerians after the French colonials had fled the country. He served in these positions until the Algerian government was overthrown in the 1965 Algerian coup d'état . Meanwhile, in 1963, ICFI groups around

1547-717: The Brigade were expelled from the country by the FSLN. Almost immediately, Moreno's and Lambert's tendencies joined to form the Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. However, Moreno's supporters withdrew in 1981 complaining that Lambert had links to trade union bureaucrats, and in 1982 formed the "International Workers League (Fourth International)". In addition to their former supporters, this also attracted groups in Peru and Venezuela which split from

1638-715: The British section of an ICFI, with other sections in Russia/Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Greece. The Russian section is called the Workers Revolutionary League which is the Soviet section of the ICFI and has members in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. (Source 'Marxist Review' September 2008 Volume 23 Issue Number 8) Anticipating an outbreak of US militarism after the collapse of the USSR, the ICFI associated with

1729-519: The CIA's computer division, and it criticized the fact that neither Fields nor Wohlforth had revealed that to the League. Fields and Wohlforth had denied that Fields had connections with state agencies. In August 1974, the League's central committee suspended Fields from membership and removed Wohlforth as national secretary pending a commission of inquiry, in a unanimous vote that included Wohlforth's. Both left

1820-660: The Chinese RCP, Lutte Ouvrière , the Revolutionary Workers Party in Sri Lanka and the SWP united to brand it "a Shameless Frame-up". After the Workers' Revolutionary Party left the ICFI in 1985, WRP secretary Cliff Slaughter also repudiated the investigation. Both sides claimed that the other had no factual detail to support its charges: The ICFI argues that the defense of the SWP leadership, and

1911-793: The European headquarters of the Algerian revolution, which was in Cologne . In July 1960, he was arrested in Amsterdam along with Sal Santen . A campaign for his release was launched by Jean-Paul Sartre . After Pablo's arrest, it was decided to move the International Secretariat to Rome, with the reason being that of the members of the Bureau of the Secretariat – Pierre Frank , Ernest Mandel and Livio Maitan – Maitan

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2002-612: The FI's leadership. By then, Pablo had key political differences with the FI. In addition, Pablo was critical on the prospect of re-unification of the Trotskyist movement as advocated by Ernest Mandel , Joseph Hansen and others. Pablo himself declared his differences with the United Secretariat as follows: Publicly defending those positions would lead to Pablo and his supporters to be accused of having violated democratic centralism , thus placing themselves outside

2093-619: The Fourth International ( ICFI ) is a public faction of the Fourth International founded in 1953. Today, two Trotskyist internationals claim to be the continuations of the ICFI; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site , and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK. The International Committee originated as a public faction of

2184-407: The Fourth International or to muzzle and handcuff them." "Their scheme has been to inject their Stalinist conciliationism piecemeal and likewise in piecemeal fashion, get rid of those who come to see what is happening and raise objections." Linked below is a history of the founding of the ICFI and the "Open Letter". In the eyes of the ICFI, Pabloite entryism sui generis meant liquidationism or

2275-674: The Fourth International. This was followed by expulsions of Pablo's supporters from the United Secretariat. During the Colonels' dictatorship in Greece in 1967 Pablo, together with Andreas Papandreou , established a network to assist resistance members' escape abroad. After being expelled, Pablo and his supporters regrouped as the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency of the Fourth International (TMRIQI) Internationally. This group dropped

2366-567: The French Trotskyist movement, which was operating underground into the Provisional European Secretariat of the Fourth International. By 1944, Pablo was fully involved with the movement, and was elected the organizational secretary of its European Bureau, which had re-established contact between the Trotskyist parties. After the war, Pablo became the central leader of the Fourth International (FI) with

2457-583: The Gelfand case only released the grand jury testimony after the case had been closed. The ICFI's investigation into the SWP and defense of Alan Gelfand was opposed by almost all Trotskyist groups: no current outside the ICFI supported it. Most Trotskyist organisations joined forces to defend the SWP leadership, including the United Secretariat of the Fourth International , Pierre Lambert 's OCI, Nahuel Moreno 's PST, Robertson's Spartacist League ,

2548-472: The ICFI group in the United States, Workers' League , developed political differences with the majority: Tim Wohlforth and Nancy Fields, his partner. A number of political and organisational disputes unfolded, which the ICFI described as a series of disruptions and expulsions animated by Fields. It was brought to the attention of the Workers' League's Central Committee that Fields' uncle had worked for

2639-643: The ICFI was able to grow in Sri Lanka. New sections appeared in Germany, in 1971, and Ireland. The OCI and its supporters around the ICFI left the ICFI in 1971. This reflected growing differences, primarily over the OCI's support for the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) and the SLL's emphasis on Marxist philosophy in the training of its newer members. Both the SLL and OCI were at this point developing connection to Trotskyists in other countries, but in different ways. The contest between

2730-553: The LSSP was the notable absence from the ISFI's 1961 World Congress. In 1964, the LSSP joined the bourgeois government of Sri Lanka, which the ICFI and USFI condemned as betraying Trotskyist principles. The ICFI and USFI no longer considered the LSSP a Trotskyist party at that point, and encouraged Sri Lankan Trotskyists to leave that party. Some time later a new organization, the Revolutionary Communist League

2821-656: The Lambertist currents. The group campaigned for the victory of Argentina in the Falklands War , for the non-payment of foreign debt , and for the "defeat of imperialism in the Gulf War ." In the mid-1990s, it helped launch Workers' Aid to Bosnia and began working with the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International , although that group is now inactive. Disagreements following

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2912-544: The Latin American sections of the ICFI also left the ICFI to join the USFI, allowing the SWP and its allies to claim that a majority of the sections of the ICFI had joined the USFI. In the eyes of the ICFI, the Latin American sections had adopted Pabloism and were dependent on their connections to the SWP. Within the SWP, some members who had studied the meaning of the 1953 split opposed the reunification. These were gathered around Tim Wohlforth and James Robertson in

3003-554: The League and eventually joined the SWP for a few years. An investigation conducted by the Workers' League concluded that Fields did not have connections to the CIA and the two were requested to resume their membership. However, they refused. Wohlforth wrote an extended attack on the International Committee in Intercontinental Press . Intercontinental Press began a campaign denouncing the ICFI for

3094-438: The Pabloites had sought to attract during the mass exodus of people from the Stalinist Parties after the revelations of Stalin's atrocities in the 1950s. They called this "opportunism" because it represented what they saw as a revision of Marxism for the sake of attracting new members from the radicalizing middle class. Within the SWP, as well as within the rest of the ICFI, an opposition to the reunification came together. Some of

3185-409: The Revolution, does not alter the internationally counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism, but it is the product of an exceptional combination of circumstances which has imposed the seizure of power either upon the Soviet bureaucracy (in the case of the European buffer zone ) or upon certain Communist Parties ( Yugoslavia , China )". The Fifth World-Congress in 1957 recognized for the first time that

3276-399: The Revolutionary Tendency. They echoed the SWPs Open Letter, arguing that the leaders' turn to Pabloism coincided with the introduction of Stalinist ideas, followed by an expulsion of those members who exposed the leadership's lack of principles. The SWP had supported the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro . However, Robertson's followers embarrassed Wohlforth and the SLL by suggesting that

3367-495: The SEP prepared for a new radicalization of the working class. For this reason, its sections reorganised into Socialist Equality Parties throughout the world. After a year of internal discussion, in 1998 the ICFI launched the World Socialist Web Site . There are also groups working to build SEPs in other countries: Michel Pablo Historical Historical Michel Pablo ( Greek : Μισέλ Πάμπλο ; 24 August 1911, Alexandria , Egypt – 17 February 1996, Athens )

3458-437: The SLL argued that the programme of the IC had to be the basis for further revolutionary organisation. The PCI's differences were reflected in its openness to the Algerian MNA and the Bolivian POR. Early in 1967 the PCI changed its name to Organisation Communiste Internationaliste (OCI), a move that also suggested the OCI's greater modesty. By May 1967, the OCI argued that the IC was not functioning well, and that key decisions of

3549-414: The SWP could not be saved. With Wohlforth laying the evidentiary basis for claims of "party disloyalty" the RT leaders were expelled from the party, forming Spartacist. Wohlforth now led a Reorganized Minority Tendency until the tiny group of 9 people was also expelled from the SWP early in the fall of 1964. Wohlforth and his associates went on to found the American Committee for the Fourth International ,

3640-436: The SWP officially only acted as observers at the event, being prevented from affiliating to the ICFI by US law . As early as the 1956 Hungarian Revolution , the leadership of the American SWP was beginning to show signs of convergence with the developing political line of the organisations grouped in the ISFI . The disappearance of the Socialist Union of America , the American affiliate of the ISFI, removed one such barrier to

3731-425: The Soviet Armed Forces in 1944–45 had by 1948 become what they described as deformed workers' states . In the uncertain aftermath of World War II , when the Trotskyists were numerically dwarfed by the mass communist parties and their hopes for a revolutionary breakthrough were dashed, Pablo also advanced a new tactic for the FI from its third world-congress in 1951 onward. He argued that a Third World War , which

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3822-467: The Spartacist tendency after the failure of Robertson to attend a conference session. Robertson said this was due to exhaustion; the IC argued that Roberton's alleged refusal to apologise reflected a rejection of communist methods, and he was asked to leave. The Spartacists would go on to form the International Spartacist Tendency . The ICFI now claims that the Sparticists were never interested in an agreement, and desired to go off in their own direction. If

3913-430: The Sparticists did not desire to break off into their own organization, the ICFI now argues, a misunderstanding at the conference could have been solved. The ICFI also says the Sparticists are nationalist in their orientation, refusing to be controlled by an international organization, as well as supporting politically affirmative action, black nationalism , Stalinist regimes and denying the existence of globalization. In

4004-631: The Stalinists. His faction's heavy-handed tactics of removing members who disagreed with his radical revisions made compromise appear impossible. An excerpt from the concluding part of the "Open Letter" reads: "To sum up: The lines of cleavage between Pablo’s revisionism and orthodox Trotskyism are so deep that no compromise is possible either politically or organizationally. The Pablo faction has demonstrated that it will not permit democratic decisions truly reflecting majority opinion to be reached. They demand complete submission to their criminal policy. They are determined to drive all orthodox Trotskyists out of

4095-477: The TMRI would send an open letter to members of the Fourth International, calling for the need to "develop new directions, new forms of struggle and of organization" as well as "the elaboration of a transition program based on socialist autogestion". The United Secretariat paid little attention to this letter. A resolution of the Seventh International Conference of the TMRI in 1980 declares the adoption of Christian Rakovsky 's theory of "bureaucratic centrism". After

4186-410: The Trotskyist program and definite steps taken towards its organisational liquidation. As an example, the letter explained that Pablo expelled a majority of the French section of the International, because they disagreed with the International's policy of working within the Stalinist Communist Party of France . This policy was described as one of entrism sui generis, entryism of a special kind, in which

4277-435: The Trotskyists were to join the Stalinist or Socialist mass parties with a long term perspective of working within them. Some critics of the Open Letter counter that the SWP and their co-thinkers in The Club had failed to defend the French majority against Pablo, and that they had shared the 1951 perspectives of International on war-revolutions and the need for deep entryism in the Communist Parties. The Club's entryism into

4368-454: The US Government to court: his brief summarised the Workers League's charges and demanded that the US government name its informers in the SWP. The SWP expelled him the following month, leading Gelfand to take both the US Government and the SWP to court, arguing that since those expelling him were, in his opinion, agents of the US government, his civil liberties were being infringed upon by the US Government. The ICFI came to Gelfand's aid and, in

4459-464: The US alleged to have participated in the assassination of Trotsky, and claimed that this was done without the knowledge of the Trotskyist movement. FBI documents describing these meetings were published by the Workers League. Hansen claimed that this contact had been agreed by the SWP's leadership. Felix Morrow , who had been an SWP leader in 1940, said in 1975 that he thought that the SWP would not have authorised Hansen's meetings. The ICFI concluded that

4550-421: The US and Soviet states to be groundless. By the end of the 1970s, the revolutionary upsurge of the 1960s and 1970s had subsided. Membership of the ICFI fell, and the WRP leadership was not prepared. It entered into alliances with nationalist leaders in the under-developed countries. This aroused the consternation of some members throughout the ICFI. The WRP had gained members and prominence in Great Britain, but

4641-474: The US government's Cointelpro program, in which the FBI illegally infiltrated many groups and political parties and conducted provocations against opponents of the war in Vietnam. From 1961 to 1976, fifty-five FBI informants held SWP offices or committee positions and fifty-one served on executive committees of the party. In May 1975, the sixth congress of the ICFI initiated a "Security and the Fourth International" investigation into "the circumstances surrounding

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4732-414: The US sent delegates: that of Tim Wohlforth and that of James Robertson . Observers came from a group in French-speaking Africa, a small group in Germany later to form the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter, and individuals who had left USFI sections in Ceylon and Denmark. Non-voting observers came from Voix Ouvrière and a state capitalist tendency in Japan. One result of this Congress was the expulsion of

4823-401: The Wohlforth incident, with its editor Joseph Hansen writing that the concern over security indicated "paranoia" on the part of the IC's central leader, Gerry Healy. The ICFI thought this reaction was surprising, given the role that state infiltration had played in the Trotskyist movement, including in the assassination of Trotsky. In addition, this came only a few years after the revelations of

4914-468: The assassination of Leon Trotsky". By mid-1977, the Security campaign used publicly available government documents, and court testimony by Soviet agents tried in the United States, to allege that some leading figures of the American SWP, including a figure close to Leon Trotsky, were agents of the US or USSR governments. They noted that Joseph Hansen had met FBI agents numerous times over a number of months in 1940 to give them information about Stalinists in

5005-442: The basic Leninist principle of inner-party democracy. In 1963 the SWP and the smaller Swiss, Canadian, Chinese and Latin American sections of the ICFI agreed to reunite with the ISFI at the World Congress, to form the United Secretariat of the Fourth International . This was immediately opposed by the Revolutionary Tendency of the SWP, and by the SLL in Britain and the PCI in France, as well as many orthodox Trotskyists throughout

5096-422: The charge that the ICFI's campaign was a 'frame up,' are slanders against Workers' League without factual backing. Those who supported the SWP against the ICFI argued that it was a breach of socialist principals to bring the courts into the labour movement, (although the ICFI did not bring the courts in, a supporter of the ICFI who was in the SWP did) and that the ICFI's charge that the SWP was controlled by agents of

5187-441: The course of the trial, made many claims about US government infiltration into the SWP as part of CoIntelPro and earlier. The ICFI also wanted to investigate infiltration by the USSR, considering the resources that the Stalinists had devoted to infiltrating and physically destroying the Fourth International culminating in the murders of Erwin Wolfe in Spain, Lev Sedov in France, and Leon Trotsky in Mexico. It had been known that

5278-429: The death of Moreno led several sections to leave the international, while others split. Those who left founded the International Centre of Orthodox Trotskyism (CITO in Spanish). The majority of this group rejoined the International Workers League in 2005, the minority forming the International Socialist League . In 2021 the Chilean section of the IWLfi elected a member to the constitutional convention . María Rivera

5369-410: The documents, along with FBI documents suggesting that Hansen had met with a recruiter for the Stalinist GPU two years before Trotsky's assassination, and his refusal to answer questions put, showed that Hansen was a government agent. The investigation intensified in 1978 after the decision by the SWP leadership to warn Alan Gelfand, a lawyer who had joined the SWP late in 1975, just after the start of

5460-414: The fall of the Greek Junta , Pablo returned to Greece , played a role in the founding of the Pan-Hellenic Socialist Party (PASOK) and, from 1981, served as Special Advisor to Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou; The sections of the IRMT rejoined the reunified Fourth International in 1994 and 1995, although the agreement was not applied in Pablo's individual case. Unusually for a revolutionary, his funeral

5551-464: The foundation of the Organisation of International Communists of Greece (OKDE) . During the 1936 military dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas , Pablo was arrested and exiled in the Aegean island of Folegandros . There he was not admitted by the orthodox communists, also in exile, so he joined the company of cattle and horse thieves, who at that time were punished with exile. In Folegandros he met his future wife Elli Dyovounioti. Together they escaped from

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5642-416: The fourth world conference of the IC in April 1972. In conjunction with a massive growth in membership and preparations for what they believed would be "mass influence", the SLL renamed itself the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1974 and remained a part of the ICFI along with affiliated sections in Ireland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Australia, the USA, Ceylon and Peru. In the middle of the 1970s, two leaders of

5733-423: The imperialist countries to devote a large part of its activity to aiding colonial revolution. Pablo was personally engaged in supporting the Algerian national liberation struggle against France. In 1959 he set up and operated a secret munitions factory, hidden within a citrus plantation in the Moroccan city of Kentire, where they manufactured a lightweight version of the Sten submachinegun while also overseeing

5824-494: The international executive committee. Tensions grew, and Pablo and his African Bureau were outside the International by the end of 1965 for partly disputed reasons: in the International's view, Pablo's tendency's orientation on what was commonly portrayed as "Third-World Guerrillaism" broke with the International publicly and placed itself outside the FI. Being busy with the situation in Algeria also made it difficult for him to defend himself against accusations leveraged against him by

5915-430: The island and later from Greece. At the end of 1937, they went to Switzerland and finally to Paris , France, where Pablo represented the Greek Trotskyists at the founding conference of the Fourth International , which was held just outside Paris in 1938. When Nazi-Germany occupied France in 1940, Pablo stayed in Paris where he organized illegal propaganda and was involved in the re-construction and re-unification of

6006-469: The leadership increasingly went its own way against the ICFI as a whole. This conflict erupted in the mid-1980s and ended with the disintegration of the WRP. The various currents of the WRP attempted to found their own ICFIs each claiming to be the official one, yet they did not break with their old policies systematically and won no new international support. They disintegrated, and as of 2006 , only two active ICFIs survives, one led by David North of what

6097-426: The leadership of SWP revised the basic Trotskyist principle that only a conscious Marxist leadership can ensure a successful socialist revolution. Instead they argued that "unconscious Trotskyists" would come to power in colonized countries as well as within the Stalinist bureaucracies. It was no longer necessary to build a mass Trotskyist party. Anyone who opposed these conceptions was silenced or expelled, breaking with

6188-406: The members entering into revolutionary politics during a revolutionary upsurge of the international working class. The OCI and the OCRFI considered the ICFI to be an ossicifed political sect incapable of growing beyond their 'mother' section in the UK. The OCRFI in fact outpaced the ICFI in growth from then on. Some members of OCI continued to support the ICFI, however, which allowed the ICFI to regain

6279-456: The murderer of Trotsky had been a boyfriend of one of his secretaries, who was introduced to her by a Stalinist agent in France. The investigation of the ICFI later revealed that Cannon's secretary, Sylvia Callen , had been a Stalinist informer working through the CPUSA , and had been formerly married to a KGB agent, a fact that was confirmed by Grand Jury testimony. (See External link to FBI file on Jack Soble, at bottom of this page.) The judge in

6370-405: The nationalisation of the Suez Canal . The document argued that since the world revolution had first been successful in the east, instead of—how it was expected by Marxist theoreticians—in the Western countries. Colonial revolution, which could only be victorious as permanent revolution , thus was an integral part of the world revolution , and constituted a link between October and the triumph of

6461-428: The official organ of which was a bimonthly mimeographed publication, the Bulletin of International Socialism, launched on September 24, 1964. When the Fourth International had split in 1953 the Lanka Sama Samaja Party of Sri Lanka (LSSP) refused to take any side and maintained contacts with both the ISFI and ICFI while arguing for a joint congress. After the ISFI criticised the LSSP's parliamentary tactics in 1960,

6552-454: The reference to the Fourth International during its meetings in 1972 and at the same time proclaimed it no longer considered itself Trotskyist nor a party of world revolution. Instead they considered themselves a Marxist tendency fostering self-government on all levels within social movements. This coincided with Pablo being politically active in Chile , under Allende 's government. In 1979,

6643-488: The support of the SWP of the United States and James P. Cannon . Pablo played a key role in re-unifying, re-centralising and re-orienting the International. In 1946, Pablo visited Greece to successfully reunify the four separate Trotskyist parties. Pablo and Ernest Mandel were instrumental in these years in winning the Fourth International to a position that asserted that the Eastern European states conquered by

6734-470: The time could be pushed into taking leadership in revolutionary conflicts by the mass activity of the working class, which caused further controversy and division within the ranks of the FI. Pablo was speculating on a split between the Stalinist regimes in China and the USSR as early as 1951. Pablo writes: "the rise of Communist Parties to power is not the consequence of a capacity of Stalinism to struggle for

6825-420: The traditional mass parties of the working class. To gain influence, win members, establish a Marxist wing and most importantly to avoid becoming isolated sectarian circles with no connection to the working class, the Trotskyists should—where possible—join, or in Trotskyist terminology enter , the mass communist or social democratic (Labour) parties. This form of Entryism was intended to be a long-term tactic. It

6916-478: The two political lines could not last and in 1971 the OCI and its allies would leave the ICFI to form their own international tendency, which later became known as the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International . In 1979 it fused with a grouping led by Nahuel Moreno . The ICFI later considered this a major tragedy, stemming from the relative inexperience of the majority of

7007-457: The wake of the 1966 congress, pressures started to build between the SLL and PCI. The Congress did not attempt to present the ICFI as 'the Fourth International', rather it positioned the IC as a force that defended what it saw as the political continuity of Trotskyism and called for the 'rebuilding and reconstruction of the Fourth International'. The PCI came to feel that the SLL was ultimatistic, because

7098-537: The work of entry". These changes in policy were adopted by the Fourth International in the early months of 1952. Under the weight of the controversy that was caused by the resolutions adopted at the Third World-Congress of the Fourth International, factions in the US-SWP as well as the British section of the FI started to build a faction within the International, which broke away in 1953, constituting

7189-434: The world revolution. The document contained a detailed study of the colonial movements, examined the respective roles of proletariat and peasantry in the colonial countries and emphasised the importance of guerrilla warfare in colonial countries, not only as military factor but as a factor in the organisation and political education of the masses. The congress insisted on the necessity for the Trotskyist movement, especially in

7280-467: The world. Those currents still valued the political lessons learned from the 1953 split. They saw the SWP's decision as an abandonment of the most basic principles of the Fourth International, and of Trotskyism, and as an attempt to ingratiate itself to the growing middle class protest movement in the United States. The RT, SLL and PCI argued that the anti-war movement in the US contained the same types of people

7371-408: Was a short-term move. They maintained, however, the principle that only the Fourth International, as a consciously Marxist organization of the working class can lead the world revolution. The SWP, partly because of McCarthyism and politically repressive laws, found it hard to cooperate on a world scale in a democratic centralist International. The first conference could not take place until 1958, and

7462-527: Was accepted by the Tenth Plenum of the Third World-Congress of the Fourth International was in the approach to the Stalinist parties wherever they were majority working-class party. Due to the extremely bureaucratic leadership of the Stalinist parties, Trotskyists would be prevented from proceeding in the same way as they would with reformist mass-parties, and had to maintain separate independent work, which "must be understood as having its chief aim to assist

7553-477: Was an open letter of the National Committee of the SWP which outlined the disputes it had with Pablo's faction within the International Secretariat of the Fourth International . It reiterated what it saw as the basic principles of Trotskyism and described the direction of the "Pabloite" faction as "revisionist", claiming that this threatened the survival of the Fourth International, the liquidation of

7644-603: Was believed by many people to be imminent. In his document "Where are we going", Pablo writes "such a war would take on, from the very beginning the character of an international civil war, especially in Europe and in Asia. These continents would rapidly pass over under the control of the Soviet bureaucracy, of the Communist Parties, or of the revolutionary masses". Splits of revolutionary dissenters were likely to develop in

7735-712: Was elected in district 8 ( Santiago West) as part of The List of the People . The LITci publishes the bulletin International Courier ( Correo Internacional ) and the journal Marxism Alive ( Marxismo Vivo or Le Marxisme Vivant ), both in various languages, principally Spanish . Historical Historical International Committee of the Fourth International Historical Historical The International Committee of

7826-508: Was formed out of the left wing which split from the LSSP to form the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) . In 1966, a "third world conference" of the ICFI occurred in England. Delegates were present from the SLL, Lambert's PCI and Loukas Karliaftis’s Greek organisation, which had joined the IC in 1964. Michel Varga, a PCI member, represented the exile Hungarian League of Revolutionary Socialists, which he had founded in 1962. Two groups from

7917-557: Was the only one who could devote full-time to work for the IS. Pablo opposed this decision. In 1961, Pablo was finally sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, and liberated at the end of his trial. After his release, he went to Great Britain, where through the intervention of supporters of his in Morocco, he was provided with a Moroccan passport. He took refuge in Morocco . After the victory of

8008-609: Was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis ( Greek : Μιχάλης Ν. Ράπτης ), a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin. Pablo joined the Trotskyist faction of the Group " Archeion marxismou " in 1928, and subsequently followed that faction when it split in 1929. He continued to be deeply involved in the factional struggles, splits and re-unifications of the Greek followers of Leon Trotsky until in 1934, this group joined forces with another Trotskyist group, led by Pandelis Pouliopoulos , resulting in

8099-497: Was the result of a lack of confidence in the revolutionary capabilities of the working class and an impressionistic, overly positive, assessment of the strength and prospects of Stalinism. Pablo had, in 1951, argued that the transition between capitalism and socialism will probably take several centuries. The supporters of the Open Letter read this to suggest there would be "centuries of deformed workers states ", and this phrase

8190-589: Was then known as the Workers' League in the United States. North and his supporters gained the allegiance of half of the remaining national sections, with the Greek, Spanish and Peruvian sections splitting and the German, Australian, and Sri Lankan sections, as well as a fraternal grouping in Ecuador, supporting North. The other ICFI is based on the surviving group that still holds the name of WRP and refers to itself as

8281-505: Was understood by all that the FI would retain its political identity, and its own press. Entry was seldom carried out without splits or even violent conflict within the local propaganda circles, but proved to greatly add to local groups' flexibility where it was put into practice. Independent work should continue in Latin America, Ceylon, the United States, India. The innovative part of Pablo's proposed "Entryism sui generis", which

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