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124-596: Intercontinental Press ( IP ) was a weekly news magazine produced on behalf of the Fourth International (FI) between 1963 and 1986. The magazine was founded in Paris as World Outlook in 1963 under the editorial direction of Joseph Hansen , Pierre Frank and Reba Hansen as a "labor press service". A parallel edition in French was named Perspective mondiale . World Outlook and Intercontinental Press produced

248-419: A Rex Rotary mimeograph to offset printing, and reflected on the circulation and changing role of their publication: As for circulation, this continues to surprise us in view of the cost of a subscription. (We rely wholly on subscriptions to keep going.) The reputation of World Outlook has been spread almost solely by word of mouth. When we began, our primary intention was to supply various publications in

372-807: A common weekly supplement to their newspapers, common electoral work and other common campaigning. After the Lambert's current left the ICFI in 1971, its Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (OCRFI) opened discussion with the International. In May 1973, Lambert's tendency unsuccessfully requested to take part in the discussions for the 1974 congress, but the United Secretariat did not take

496-724: A counter-resolution, but only won minority support along with some places on the International Executive Committee: it publicly broke with the International a year later, claiming that Pablo had been ousted. Lambert's Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) in France and the Socialist Labour League (SLL) in Britain did not take part in the reunification congress, and continued the ICFI banner under their own leadership, opposing key elements in

620-584: A large majority of the world's Trotskyists in its ranks. Among ICFI and ISFI groups, only the PCI and the SLL refused to attend; the supporters of Posadas had left in 1962. The congress elected a new leadership team including Ernest Mandel , Pierre Frank , Livio Maitan and Joseph Hansen , who moved to Paris to co-edit World Outlook with Pierre Frank. It also adopted a strategic resolution drafted by Mandel and Hansen, Dynamics of World Revolution Today which became

744-731: A leader of the Latin American Secretariat, found themselves in agreement with the supporters of Michel Pablo in stressing the primacy of the anti-colonial revolution: the majority in the ISFI placed a greater emphasis on developing activity in Europe. However, Posadas and Pablo developed different reactions to the split in Stalinism: Posadas tended towards Mao Zedong , while Pablo was closer to Nikita Khrushchev and Josip Broz Tito . A similar development happened on

868-544: A major resolution on the deepening youth radicalisation. Over the following years its sections continued to grow principally through campaigns in opposition to the war in Vietnam, though the student and youth radicalisation. In 1964 the current around Argentine Trotskyist Nahuel Moreno fused his followers into the reunified Fourth International, bringing in hundreds of new members from throughout Latin America. Unification

992-604: 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 the Trotskyists were to join the Stalinist or Socialist mass parties with a long term perspective of working within them. Some critics of

1116-607: A majority of the two sides developed similar approaches to a number of major international problems: opposing Stalinism during the 1956 crises in Poland and Hungary, and supporting the Algerian War of Independence and the 1959 Cuban Revolution . At the same time, parties in the ISFI had retreated from Pablo's orientation to the communist parties. In 1960, the sections of the ICFI and ISFI reunited in Chile, India and Japan. In 1962,

1240-476: A meeting with the OCRFI. However, discussions decelerated after Lambert's Internationalist Communist Organisation made an attack on Ernest Mandel, which it later acknowledged as an error. In 1976 new approaches by the OCRFI met with success, when it wrote with the aim "to strengthen the force of the Fourth International as a single international organisation". However, these discussions decelerated again in 1977 after

1364-416: A number of countries with material on a cooperative basis. We still do this, and some articles which we have supplied have reached huge audiences. Individuals who learned about us began subscribing, however, and this tendency continued until eventually we bowed to the demand and even began servicing a few newsstands. We have thus come to fill a unique niche in several ways. The late Isaac Deutscher , who

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1488-522: 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

1612-535: 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

1736-633: A resolution on "The Sino-Soviet Conflict and the situation in the USSR and the other workers' states". The resolution noted the declining authority of the Kremlin both inside the Communist parties and with anti-imperialist movements such as those in Cuba and Algeria. It viewed 'de-Stalinisation' as a defensive liberalisation by the bureaucracy. The Sino-Soviet split was viewed as reflecting "the different needs of

1860-566: A resolution, "Socialist Revolution and Ecology", which was provisionally approved subject to approval at the fourteenth congress. The congress also approved the general line of a programmatic manifesto, titled "Socialism or barbarism on the eve of the 21st century" and to continue the discussion on it at the January 1992 meeting of the International Executive Committee. It also registered substantial growth through

1984-500: A spoke in your wheel. So we made an effort to convince comrades in our own sections that logically speaking the question of participation in the government should be subordinated to a judgement of the government’s orientations." As time went on, the International became more openly critical of its section's role in government. Members in Brazil were then in two different organisations: a majority group, Socialist Democracy (Brazil) , which

2108-571: A table of contents for the whole year in each year's last issue. Starting with volume 5 of 1967, World Outlook numbered the pages per year from the first to the last issue, with the year index referencing only the thru page number instead of issue and page within the issue. The publication was interrupted after the October 29, 1965 issue (Vol. 3 No 31) because of an illness of editor Joseph Hansen, after which weekly publication resumed in New York with

2232-438: A touch-stone document for the International over the following decades. It argued that "three main forces of world revolution—the colonial revolution, the political revolution in the degenerated and deformed workers' states , and the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries—form a dialectical unity. Each force influences the others and receives in return powerful impulses or brakes on its own development." Reflecting on

2356-588: 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

2480-596: Is a Trotskyist international . Following a ten-year schism, in 1963 the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International , the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), reunited . In 2003, the United Secretariat was replaced by an Executive Bureau and an International Committee, although some other Trotskyists still refer to

2604-528: Is inside the PT; and a minority ENLACE current in the PSOL , which opposes participation in capitalist government. However, Socialist Democracy withdrew from active participation in the Fourth International in 2006, leaving ENLACE as its Brazilian section. Since the 1993 congress, the International has continued to open itself up to the participation of other currents. In 2004, for example, its International Committee

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2728-549: The Cuban Revolution , accomplished without a revolutionary party, is also concluded that "The weakness of the enemy in the backward countries has opened the possibility of coming to power with a blunted instrument." This view was reinforced the following year, through the United Secretariat's resolution On the Character of the Algerian Government drafted by Joseph Hansen. The Reunification Congress also adopted

2852-525: The International Committee of the Fourth International , associated today with the World Socialist Web Site , has objected to this new leadership body using the ICFI name, characterizing it as a "political provocation," "false flag," and "illegal appropriation." Prior to the sixteenth world congress, a major split occurred in the FI's section in Brazil. The International was doubtful from

2976-568: 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 the Trotskyist program and definite steps taken towards its organisational liquidation. As an example, the letter explained that Pablo expelled

3100-547: 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

3224-760: The Workers Socialist League in Britain and the Socialist League in Australia both opened discussions in 1976. Both currents would eventually merge with the sections of the International in their countries; the Socialist League merging in 1977, while the majority of the Workers Socialist League became the Socialist Group , which was to attend the ninth world congress and eventually join in 1987. Resolutions on

3348-682: 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

3472-422: 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

3596-650: 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 was an open letter of the National Committee of the SWP which outlined the disputes it had with Pablo's faction within

3720-664: 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

3844-519: 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

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3968-660: 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

4092-467: The FI to adapt to the growth of the social democratic and communist parties . This led to disagreements between supporters of the ISFI and those parties on how to build revolutionary parties. These tensions developed into a split, leading to the suspension of those parties which had formed the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) late in November 1953. Over the following ten years

4216-527: The February 4, 1966 issue (Vol 4 No 1). In order to avoid costly litigation over the name with another magazine with the same title, the magazine was renamed Intercontinental Press with Vol 6 No 17 of May 6, 1968. This led to the common abbreviation as IP . The editors took the occasion to look back on the magazines evolution technical editorial changes since the first issues published in 1963 which were printed from type-writer produced stencils on

4340-960: The Fifteenth World Congress was held in Belgium , a substantial transformation had taken part in the International. In many countries, sections of the International had reorganised as tendencies of broader political parties, while the International had established friendly relationships with a number of other tendencies. The congress resolutions were debated by more than 200 participants included delegations from sections, sympathising groups and permanent observers from Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada – English Canada and Quebec, Denmark, Ecuador, Euskadi, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Ireland, Japan, Lebanon, Luxemburg, Martinique, Morocco, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, and

4464-651: The Fourth International Historical Historical The International Committee of 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

4588-407: 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

4712-583: 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 ,

4836-472: 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

4960-550: The ICFI side. By 1961 the ICFI had split politically, the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) in France and the Socialist Labour League (SLL) in Britain arguing that a workers' state had not been created in Cuba, putting them at odds with the American SWP and the other organisations in the ICFI. By 1963, the split was also organizational. Each side held a congress at which it claimed to be

5084-643: 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

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5208-548: The International inside the FSLN. This approach was disputed by the tendency of Nahuel Moreno , which split to merge briefly with the tendency led by Pierre Lambert . In May 1982 the Fourth International opened the discussion for the Twelfth World Congress. The period before the Twelfth World Congress coincided with a deep crisis in the SWP (US). The SWP's leaders started to register a number of disagreements with

5332-838: The International's leaders opposed this approach at that time, Peng Shuzi. The Leninist Trotskyist Tendency successfully worked to convince the international majority that it had previously supported guerrilla struggles with a mistaken orientation. In February 1974, votes at the Tenth World Congress divided 45:55 on the question of armed struggle, with a large minority opposing the generalised use of guerrilla tactics in Latin America. The 1974 congress registered further growth, with organizations from 41 countries. According to Pierre Frank, "About 250 delegates and fraternal delegates participated, representing 48 sections and sympathising organisations from 41 countries. Compared to

5456-586: The International, and withdrew from the day-to-day leadership of the International. In 1982 the Political Bureau of the SWP decided against the theory of Permanent Revolution , a key element of Trotskyism. The SWP's evolution was a central discussion at the congress, by which time the SWP's leadership had withdrawn from active participation in the International, prompting the International to launch International Viewpoint in 1982 and International Marxist Review in 1983. The International also supported

5580-595: The Internationalist Communist Organisation leaders stated that it had members inside the Revolutionary Communist League , the International's French section. The period from 1969 to 1976 was the stormiest because of a faction struggle over the centrality of guerrilla warfare in Latin America and elsewhere. The 1969 congress had adopted a sympathetic approach to the tactics of guerrilla warfare; only one of

5704-469: 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

5828-719: The LSSP's central committee. Tampoe and other LSSP dissidents organised the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) , which became the Ceylonese section of the International. At the Eighth World Congress, held in the Taunus Mountains in Germany during December 1965, Samarakkody was also the delegate of a new section in Ceylon, the LSSP (R) , formed by an 'orthodox' tendency in the LSSP. Sixty delegates attended

5952-408: The LSSP's parliamentary tactics in 1960, and the LSSP had been absent from the 1961 congress, but was represented at the 1963 congress by Edmund Samarakkody . By 1964 the LSSP's leadership abandoned the party's longstanding opposition to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), completing a political turn it had attempted in 1960, until the Sixth World Congress condemned the LSSP for offering support to

6076-480: 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

6200-404: 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

6324-475: The MST (Argentina), Dosta (Bosnia and Herzegovina), the PSOL (Brasil), the Labour Party (Pakistan), Kokkino (Greece) and elsewhere. In March 2011, the International announced its support for anti-Gaddafi forces who fought against the government of Muammar Gaddafi during the Libyan Civil War . However, it opposed the NATO -led military intervention which supported rebels against Gaddafi loyalist forces . Three texts were approved in February 2017 to open

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6448-425: 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 the Labour Party in Britain resembled entrism sui generis. However, Pablo aimed for the FI to implement entryism more deeply than

6572-438: 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

6696-529: The RSL left the International soon after, leaving the International Group as the British section. In 1965, the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency led by Michel Pablo split; it rejoined in 1992. The International grew substantially in the 1960s, alongside most other left-wing groups. The April 1969 Ninth World Congress in Italy gathered 100 delegates and observers from 30 countries including new sections in Ireland, Luxembourg and Sweden and rebuilt ones in France, Mexico, Spain and Switzerland. It adopted

6820-399: 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

6944-419: The SLFP. In 1964, the International also opposed the entrance of the LSSP into a coalition government, with Pierre Frank addressing the LSSP's June 1964 conference to explain the United Secretariat's views. The International severed relations with the LSSP; it supported a split at the LSSP conference, supported by around a quarter of its membership and led by Bala Tampoe , a trade union leader, and 14 members of

7068-437: 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

7192-414: 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 ,

7316-409: The SWP leadership to get Robertson's group expelled. The ICFI unsuccessfully repeated its appeal for a deep discussion with the reunified Fourth International ("United Secretariat") at the end of 1963, and on later occasions. Its 1966 conference called for a Fourth International Conference. The ICFI approached the secretariat again in 1970, requesting "a mutual discussion that might open the way to

7440-436: 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

7564-423: The SWP's viewpoint more than the FI's. In 1973 the FI initiated an English-language edition of Inprecor , which merged with IP after the dissolution of the international factions in 1978. The merged magazine got the subtitle combined with Inprecor (which was dropped in 1985). After the summer break in 1982, IP changed to a bi-weekly schedule, which was originally meant to be provisional, but which persisted to

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7688-447: The Socialist Labour League and its French sister organisation, the Organisation Communiste Internationaliste , reunifying with the Fourth International". Similar approaches were rejected in 1973. A further departure was registered in 1964 when the only mass organisation within the International, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party of Ceylon , was expelled after entering a coalition government in that country. The ISFI had sharply criticised

7812-467: 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

7936-430: 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

8060-439: The UK. The International Committee originated as a public faction of 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

8184-454: 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

8308-464: 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

8432-421: 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

8556-474: 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

8680-414: 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

8804-409: The US. The congress was notable for adopting major texts on ecology and on lesbian and gay liberation. The fifteenth congress adopted new statutes which gave the powers of the United Secretariat to two new Fourth International committees: an International Committee, which meets twice a year, and an Executive Bureau. The faction which rejected the 1963 reunification and continued under the banner of

8928-660: The United States." The congress has an especially strong participation from Asia, including the new Russian section Socialist League Vpered , the Labour Party Pakistan , the reunified section in Japan and a reoriented organisation in Hong Kong . The sixteenth World Congress was the subject of a one-hour documentary by Julien Terrie. The film include interviews with participants from the NPA (France), Latit (Mauritius),

9052-506: 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

9176-713: The affiliation of the Nava Sama Samaja Party in Sri Lanka. Generally, however, the period after 1991 was increasingly unfavourable for Marxists. The June 1995 Fourteenth World Congress in Belgium addressed the final collapse of the USSR and the resulting realignment in the Communist Parties and the international workers' movement. The congress was attended by 150 participants from 34 countries: delegates from nine further countries were unable to attend. The main political resolutions were adopted by between 70% and 80% of delegates. The resolutions stressed

9300-572: 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

9424-636: 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

9548-515: The beginning about the participation in Lula's government of a leader of its Brazilian section, later saying that "from the beginning there were different positions about ... participation in the government, in the International as well as in your ranks. But once the DS had decided in favour of participation, without hiding our reservations and doubts, we respected your decision and tried to help rather than put

9672-459: The bureaucracies headed by the two leaderships (...). The search for agreements and above all an over-all agreement with imperialism on the part of the Soviet bureaucracy contradicts the search by the Chinese leaders for more aid and for better defenses against the heavy pressure of imperialism." Pablo's tendency had drawn more optimistic conclusions about the impact of de-Stalinisation. It presented

9796-422: 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

9920-466: 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

10044-495: The congress, which witnessed a growth from an international radicalisation of students and youth. The main resolution on The International Situation and the Tasks of Revolutionary Marxists focussed the sections on solidarity for anti-imperialist struggles, such as that in Vietnam, and intervening into the youth radicalisation and the crisis in international Communism. Other major resolutions were adopted on Africa, Western Europe and

10168-410: The continuing ICFI argued that a deeper political discussion was needed to ensure that Pablo's errors were not deepened. Those within the U.S. Socialist Workers Party (SWP) who broadly shared this view formed a "Revolutionary Tendency" led by Tim Wohlforth and James Robertson in 1962. They argued that the party should have a full discussion of the meaning of Pabloism and the 1953 split. Along with

10292-657: 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

10416-583: The deepening Sino-Soviet split. That congress recognised two sympathising groups in Britain. One, the Revolutionary Socialist League, better known as the Militant tendency , objected to what it regarded as the uncritical way in which the International supported anti-colonial liberation movements and regarded the International's decision to give official recognition to a second, rival, group as undemocratic. Its views had deep roots, and

10540-474: The discussion for the 17th world congress. The Congress itself took place in February 2018 in the same place as the two previous ones. A fourth resolution on The capitalist destruction of the environment and the ecosocialist alternative presented by the Ecology Commission and endorsed by the outgoing Bureau was adopted 112 votes for, 1 against, 2 abstentions. It argues that "The struggle to defend

10664-473: 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

10788-481: The end. In 1983, new disagreements between the SWP and USFI developed. Again, IP favoured the SWP's viewpoint more than the United Secretariat's. This prompted the FI to reestablish the English-language edition of Inprecor , which is called ' International Viewpoint '. After the 1985 World Congress the SWP withdrew more and more from the Fourth International. Intercontinental Press ceased publication in

10912-503: The establishment of the International Institute for Research and Education in 1982. Over 200 delegates and observers attended the twelfth congress in January 1985. The main resolutions were adopted by around three quarters of the delegates. New sections were recognised in Brazil, Uruguay, Ecuador, Senegal and Iceland, as well as a number of sympathising sections, bringing the total to fifty countries. A major resolution

11036-465: 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

11160-496: The historical exhaustion of social democracy and the opportunities for political regroupment. A minority tendency was formed at the congress, supported by members of the International Socialist Group and Socialist Action (US) , which emphasised the building of sections of the Fourth International above regroupment. The Congress resolutions adopted a policy of encouraging realignment and reorganisation on

11284-427: 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 was the result of a lack of confidence in the revolutionary capabilities of the working class and an impressionistic, overly positive, assessment of

11408-518: 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

11532-426: 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

11656-740: The left, along with support for broad class-struggle parties such as the Party for Communist Refoundation in Italy, Gauche Unies in Belgium, the African Party for Democracy and Socialism in Senegal, the Workers' Party in Brazil, parties that also sent representatives to the congress. In a mainly symbolic reunification, Michel Pablo 's small tendency rejoined at the 1995 World Congress. Pablo and Mandel would both die shortly after. By February 2003, when

11780-515: The letter at face value and asked for clarification. In September 1973 the OCRFI responded positively and the United Secretariat agreed a positive reply. However, in the rush of preparations for the world congress the United Secretariat's letter was not sent, leading Lambert's group to repeat its request in September 1974 through an approach to the US SWP. The following month the secretariat organised

11904-534: The majority of the ICFI. On the one hand, the Austrian, Chinese and New Zealand sections met at a congress with the SWP and voted to take part in the reunification congress. On the other hand, Pierre Lambert 's PCI and Gerry Healy 's SLL called an "International Conference of Trotskyists" to continue the work of the ICFI under their own leadership. The June 1963 Reunification Congress, the seventh, in Rome represented

12028-454: 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

12152-507: 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

12276-483: 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,

12400-483: The organisation as the USFI or USec. The ISFI was the leadership body of the Fourth International, established in 1938. In 1953 many prominent members of the International, and supported by the majority of the Austrian, British, Chinese, French, New Zealand and Swiss sections together with the U.S. Socialist Workers Party organized against the views of Michel Pablo , a central leader of the ISFI who successfully argued for

12524-427: The planet and against global warming and climate change requires the broadest possible coalition involving not just the power of the indigenous movements and the labour movement but also the social movements that have strengthened and radicalized in recent years and have played an increasing role in the climate movement in particular." Two resolutions were not adopted at the congress. International Committee of

12648-477: The political convergence between the majorities on both sides was strong enough for the ISFI and ICFI to establish a Parity Commission to prepare a joint World Congress. That congress aimed to reunify the Fourth International. Some groups on both sides did not support the movement towards reunification. In the run-up to the 1961 congress of the ISFI the supporters of the Argentine Juan Posadas ,

12772-548: The previous congress the numerical strength of the Fourth International had increased some tenfold." By the time the eleventh congress arrived, a new level of unity seemed to have developed in the International. The years prior to the Eleventh World Congress reflected declining factional heat in the International: no international factions have been declared since then. Michel Pablo 's tendency raised

12896-490: 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 the Stalinists. His faction's heavy-handed tactics of removing members who disagreed with his radical revisions made compromise appear impossible. An excerpt from

13020-478: The question of unity in 1976, with an ambitious proposal that it and the International could eventually unify in a new organisation comprising tendencies that were, or were evolving towards, revolutionary Marxism. The secretariat felt unable to move ahead with the proposal. Pablo's tendency finally rejoined in 1995. Two currents with roots in Gerry Healy 's ICFI also came towards the International at this time:

13144-507: The remainder of the ICFI, they argued that Cuba's revolution did not prove that the Fourth International was no longer necessary in the colonial countries. However, differences inside the Revolutionary Tendency developed. In 1964, with Wohlforth laying the evidentiary basis for claims of "party disloyalty" against Robertson, the tendency was expelled from the party. In the opinion of Robertson's group, Wohlforth conspired with

13268-585: The reunification documents, including the view that the July 26 Movement had created a workers' state in Cuba. They argued instead that Cuba's revolution did not bring power to the working class; the SLL believed that Cuba had remained a capitalist country. In their view, the International's support for the Cuban and Algerian leaderships reflected a lack of commitment to the building of revolutionary Marxist parties. While not rejecting eventual reunification in principle,

13392-493: 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 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

13516-415: The summer 1986 with Volume 24, Number 16 of August 11, 1986, "merging resources with ' The Militant ' and ' New International '". The subscriptions to the fortnightly IP were transferred to weekly The Militant for the number of weeks remaining, not the number of issues . Fourth International (post-reunification) Historical Historical The Fourth International ( FI ), founded in 1938,

13640-478: 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

13764-409: 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

13888-422: The weakening of the workers' movement. The congress rejected a counter-resolution on the world situation from a tendency supported by members of the International Socialist Group and the Revolutionary Communist League : the tendency was supported by six of the 100 delegates to the congress. In the opinion of the tendency, the crisis of imperialism was set to accelerate. But it was agreed to continue discussion on

14012-523: The world situation, Latin America, women's liberation and Western Europe were adopted by overwhelming percentages. The world congress agreed that the sections should execute a turn to industry . The congress, held in November 1979, gathered 200 delegates from 48 countries. It registered further growth above all in Spain, Mexico, Colombia and in France. The congress also opened a discussion on the place of pluralism in Socialist Democracy, which

14136-419: 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

14260-408: 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

14384-533: Was adopted on The Dictatorship of the proletariat and socialist democracy , which built on the discussion at the 1979 world congress. The SWP (US) and its co-thinkers formally left the International in 1990, following the Socialist Workers Party (Australia) which had developed similar criticisms of Trotskyism to the SWP, but had reached different conclusions by the time of its departure in 1986. The Thirteenth World Congress, in February 1991,

14508-492: Was anticipated by the discussions at the 2009 meeting of the international committee. According to Alan Thornett , "There were over 200 delegates, observers and invited guests from around 40 countries" including representatives of Lutte Ouvrière , Marea Socialista , and the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste . Delegates came "from Australia to Canada, Argentina to Russia, China to Britain, and Congo to

14632-456: Was discussed between the International and the French group Lutte Ouvriere . In 1970, Lutte Ouvriere initiated fusion discussions with the French section, the LCR. After extensive discussions, the two organisations agreed the basis for a fused organisation, but the fusion was not completed. In 1976 discussions between the LCR and Lutte Ouvriere progressed again. The two organisations started to produce

14756-508: 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

14880-830: Was observed by the International Socialist Movement from Scotland, the Democratic Socialist Perspective from Australia, and the International Socialist Organization from the US. In the same year, it organized an International Meeting of Radical Parties at the 4th World Social Forum . The International started to prepare the sixteenth congress in March 2008; the congress took place in February 2010 in West Flanders . The congress agenda

15004-474: Was one of our steady readers and very encouraging to us, told us that he did not know of anything quite like it in the history of the revolutionary movement. Between 1973 and 1978, a factional disagreement between the majority of the FI and the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (US) started to affect IP : the Hansens were leaders of the SWP, which housed and managed the magazine, and IP tended towards

15128-589: Was one of the most ambitious, addressing a systematic change in the global balance of forces. Its resolutions spanned the 'New World Order', European integration, feminism and the crisis of the Latin American left. The resolutions discussed a fundamental reversal of fortune for the anti-capitalist struggle, reflected by defeats in Central America, the 1989 revolutions in the Eastern Bloc , and

15252-641: 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

15376-469: Was to continue until 1985. It also invited contributions from the Workers' Socialist League in Britain, developing a relationship which led to WSL's successor organisation joining the International in 1987. The most contested debate at the congress was on the Nicaraguan revolution. Two views developed inside the United Secretariat, but both supported the FSLN and argued for the building of a section of

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