Fourth International
The Fourth International was founded in 1938 in Paris by Leon Trotsky as an alternative to the Stalinist Comintern. Its rationale was to advance Trotskyism and in particular Trotsky's Permanent Revolution thesis.
After the founding conference
At the outbreak of World War II, in 1939, the International secretariat moved to New York, where it came further under the influence of the Socialist Workers Party.
In 1940, the SWP split with Max Shachtman’s group which formed the Workers Party, almost the same size as the remaining SWP, because they disagreed with Trotsky’s degenerated workers state analysis of the Soviet Union and over objections to the party’s internal regime. Secretariat members who supported Shachtman were deposed, with support of Trotsky. A new secretary, Jean Van Heijenoort (a.k.a. Gerland), was appointed.
Gerland, Albert Goldman and Sam Morrow foresaw the revival of Stalinism and social democracy after the war, but otherwise stuck with the line of the SWP. The SWP under James P. Cannon adhered rigidly to their interpretation of Trotsky’s works, refusing to acknowledge new perspectives, holding that capitalism would suffer a major crisis after the war, resulting in a revolutionary situation. The British Revolutionary Communist Party and the French Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI), at the time the most significant other groups in the International, disagreed and held that capitalism was due to boom.
The SWP viewed this as revisionism, to be countered by rebuilding the International Secretariat of the International with Michel Raptis (also known as Pablo), a Greek resident in France, and Ernest Mandel (a.k.a. Germain), a Belgian. They were chosen because they were not prominent in large parties, but were utterly loyal to the SWP. Pablo became the new secretary of the International, while Mandel became its chief theoretician.
Pablo and Mandel aimed to counter the perceived revisionism of the RCP and PCI, initially by replacing their leaderships. They encouraged Gerry Healy’s opposition in the RCP, and in France got Pierre Lambert to ally with various other opponents of the leadership (although with very different views themselves) to overthrow the leadership.
The Stalinist invasion of Eastern Europe was the issue requiring most immediate theoretical investigation. At first, the International held that the USSR was still a degenerated workers’ state, but that the recently invaded East European states were bourgeois entities, because revolution from above was not possible.
The Second World Congress
At the Second World Congress in 1948, Pablo and Mandel, in line with the position of Grant and Jock Haston in the RCP, who had rejected the state capitalist theory, supported Tito in Yugoslavia against Stalin’s attacks. This forced them to revise their position and hold instead that the East European states were deformed workers states. The SWP followed, for the first time led by the International rather than leading it.
The Congress was also notable for bringing the International into much closer contact with Trotskyist groups from across the globe. The largest groups were the Bolivian Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party in what then was Ceylon, while the previously large Vietnamese Trotskyist groups had largely been killed by Ho Chi Minh.
Another change of line was caused by the Korean War. Tito felt unable to side against the United States and to support North Korea, while the International were happy to support Kim Il-Sung, claiming that the Stalinists had gone further than they had hoped, and had broken with the bourgeoise.
The Third World Congress
The Third World Congress in 1951, following logically from this, predicted an imminent Third World War, in which the anti-imperialist Stalinists would represent the workers of the world against the imperialist camp.
This was opposed by Lambert’s group, which now controlled the French section. The International leadership had them replaced by a minority, leading to a major split, while the majority of Bolivian section disagreed, so the International recognised a splinter group instead.
All of this was becoming too much for the forces which had initially controlled and benefited from the International. In 1953 Healy, Cannon, Lambert and many others left to set up the rival International Committee of the Fourth International.
The Fourth World Congress
The parts of the International loyal to the secretariat claimed still to be the Fourth International, while groups outside called them the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. They held a Fourth World Congress in 1954 to regroup, built new sections in Britain (the International Marxist Group), France and the US.
They took a relentlessly optimistic view of the immediate possibilities for the International and undertook entryism into Communist Parties where these were in power, pressing for democratic reforms, ostensibly to encourage the left-wing they perceived to exist in the bureaucracy to join with them in a revolution.
The Fifth World Congress
By the Fifth World Congress was held in 1957, Michel Raptis had less influence within the organisation. Instead, Mandel and Pierre Frank took the Algerian revolution and surmised that it was essential to orient toward guerrilla revolutions in former colonial states. This, they held, was confirmed by the Cuban revolution. This led to a reunification with the Socialist Workers Party, who agreed on this, and left the ICFI. The fused organisation, formed in 1963, was known as the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
See also: List of Trotskyist internationals
