The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is a political international initially founded as a public faction of the Fourth International in 1953. The faction withdrew from the Fourth International (referred to by the ICFI as the International Secretariat) to hold their own separate congresses.
The ICFI split in 1961 with the French Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) and British Socialist Labour League (SLL) continuing the ICFI after some sections of the organisation reunified in 1963. Further splits occurred in 1971 between the SLL and PCI, and then again in the late-1980s when the SLL (by then called the Workers Revolutionary Party, WRP) collapsed.
Currently, two Trotskyist internationals claim to be organisers of the ICFI. That being the Orthodox Trotskyist Socialist Equality Party (SEP), a splinter group of the WRP founded in 1986, and Sheila Torrance's Workers Revolutionary Party formed after the collapse of the original WRP.
Contents
History
1938-61: The Fourth International and the formation of the ICFI
The Fourth International (FI) was founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his followers. The FI had previously been organised as the International Left Opposition since 1923 within the Communist International. Its American section was the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), led by James P. Cannon. Its British section was the Revolutionary Socialist League, which merged with the smaller Workers' International League (WIL) in 1944 to form the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). One of the leaders of the WIL was Gerry Healy, who would later split from the RCP to form "the Club", which became the Socialist Labour League, later (from 1973) called Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Cannon and Healy were close politically.
On 3-4 October 1953, representatives from The Club, the Internationalist Communist Party, the Swiss section of the FI and a member of the SWP met to form a faction opposing Pabloism and liquidationism. At a meeting on 7-8 November 1953, the US SWP came into conflict with the FI's leadership for expelling a faction within their party, and was criticised in a letter written on 16 November for undermining the unity and principles of the FI.
In the same meeting, the SWP adopted A Letter to Trotskyists Throughout the World. which was then published in The Militant on 16 November 1953. The SWP's letter, which criticised Michel Pablo's leadership and urged sections to demand the removal of him and his allies, was backed by the "Resolution Forming the International Committee" published on 23 November 1953. The resolution had been signed by the sections whom had met in October, along with a member from a New Zealand section whom was allegedly Farrell Dobbs of the US SWP. The resolution officially organised the faction into the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), claiming to represent the majority of Trotskyists in the Fourth International.
In response, the International Executive Committee (IEC) of the Fourth International suspended members in the IEC whom signed either declaration or were in leadership roles of supporting organisations. This meeting, held on 26-28 December, also recognised the expelled minorities of the US and UK sections as the legitimate sections and replaced Gerry Healy from his positions in favour of John Lawrence.
1962-1985: The reunified International and the split on ICFI
In 1962 the International Committee and International Secretariat (the term that the ICFI used to refer to the Fourth International Secretariat led by Michel Pablo) formed a Parity Commission to organise a common World Congress.
At the June 1963 reunification congress held in Italy, the two sections reunified, electing the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) to replace the former groups. The British and French parties in the ICFI did not join this reunified congress, as they believed that Michel Pablo's ideas should be completely rejected before reunification could occur.
The remainder of the ICFI held a conference opposing the USFI in April 1966, hosted in London.
By 1971, the ICFI began collapsing due to disagreements between Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert. The group met seven times between the early 1970s and 1985, and affiliates numbered maximum 10–12. In 1971/1972, the IC split in two. The Socialist Labour League under Gerry Healy kept the name while the Internationalist Communist Organisation under Pierre Lambert left to create the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (CORQI).
1985: after Healy
In 1985, Healy was expelled from the WRP. This had come as a result of several allegations of sexual assault made against him.
The WRP collapsed into ten smaller organisations One faction, under the leadership of Sheila Torrance, retained the name WRP and daily newspaper The News Line. A further split from this, in 1987, was the Healy-loyal Marxist Party, including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave. Both groupuscules maintained small international organisations claiming the name ICFI, the former still extant, the latter moribund by the late 1990s.
In 1986 Dave Hyland broke away from the WRP to form the International Communist Party, which he led until his death in 2013. This group maintained itself as Orthodox Trotskyist, and was backed by the US Workers League National Secretary, David North. This group created their own ICFI, with groups in Australia, Germany, Sri Lanka, the UK, and the USA. In 2016, the group also expanded to France and New Zealand.
This group supported the perspective advanced by ICFI and won the support of a majority of sections of the ICFI to expel the WRP from the organization, deciding that any supporters of theirs among the WRP would have to undergo a reregistration of membership based on recognizing the ICFI's political authority to be readmitted. They argued that “the WRP tended to view the international organization as little more than an adjunct to its own British-based organization”.
In 1995, the International Communist Party renamed itself to the Socialist Equality Party. In 1998, the ICFI launched the World Socialist Web Site. ICFI runs the publishing house Mehring Books, formerly named Labor Publications. In 2006, the Socialist Equality Party relaunched its student movement (the Students for Social Equality) as the International Students for Social Equality (ISSE). In 2012, the SEP renamed the ISSE as the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE).
Sections of the ICFI
The Socialist Equality Party's led ICFI has recognized sections in at least seven countries: the United States, Australia, Germany, Britain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and France. It claims a number of additional sympathizing groups in New Zealand, Ireland, Pakistan, and India.
USA
In January 1957, the US SWP adopted a policy of "regroupment": pursuit of former members of the CPUSA who had left the party due to the events of 1956 (including Nikita Khrushchev's Secret Speech and the Hungarian Revolution). In 1961, Tim Wohlforth, James Robertson, and other SWP members who opposed regroupment created a tendency within the SWP, the Revolutionary Tendency (RT). RT saw the SWP as shifting toward the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI), led by Michel Pablo. In 1962, the RT split into two groups led by Robertson and Wohlforth respectively. Both groups ended up being expelled from the SWP with the former creating the Spartacist League, and the latter creating the American Committee for the Fourth International.
At the ICFI's third conference in April 1966, the ACFI was recognised as the United States section while the Spartacist League was excluded, which led to the League setting up the International Spartacist Tendency in the 1970s. In that same year, the ACFI renamed itself to the Workers League (WL).
In 1973, the WL entered serious organizational crisis. About 150 members and most of its founding leaders left. At Healey's insistence, Wohlforth was forced out of leadership.