It has been suggested that Orthodox Trotskyism be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Part of the Politics series on Trotskyism

Leon Trotsky Fourth International Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into ICFI. (Discuss) Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the methods and positions of Trotsky and the early Fourth International than other Trotskyists. ... Politics is a process by which decisions are made within groups. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (919x1134, 8 KB) Logo Vierte Internationale (Fourth International) Vectorized and exported version in PNG format of Image:Logo of the Fourth International. ... (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... The Fourth International (FI) is Trotskyisms international organization. ...

Marxism Leninism Russian Revolution Marxism refers to the philosophy and social theory based on Karl Marxs work on one hand, and to the political practice based on Marxist theory on the other hand (namely, parts of the First International during Marxs time, communist parties and later states). ... Vladimir Lenin in 1920 Leninism is a political and economic theory which builds upon Marxism; it is therefore a branch of Marxism. ... The October Revolution, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution or November Revolution, was the second phase of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the first having been instigated by the events around the February Revolution. ... Prominent Trotskyists James P. Cannon Tony Cliff Ted Grant Joseph Hansen Gerry Healy C. L. R. James Pierre Lambert Livio Maitan Ernest Mandel Nahuel Moreno Max Shachtman This is a list of notable Trotskyists, ordered by surname. ... James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ... Tony Cliff (May 20, 1917 – May 9, 2000) was a Trotskyist revolutionary activist. ... Edward (Ted) Grant (born July 9, 1913) is a Trotskyist politician. ... Joseph Hansen (1910-1979), was an American Communist and leading figure in the Socialist Workers Party. ... Gerry Healy (December 3, 1913 - December 14, 1989) was a Trotskyist activist. ... Cyril Lionel Robert James (4 January 1901–19 May 1989) was a journalist, and a prominent socialist theorist and writer. ... Pierre Lambert (born June 9, 1920) (real name Pierre Boussel) is a French Trotskyist leader. ... Livio Maitan was an Italian Trotskyist, leader of Assoziazione Bandiera Rossa. ... Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter etc. ... Nahuel Moreno (April 24, 1924 - January 25, 1987) (real name Hugo Bressano) was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. ... Max Shachtman (September 10, 1904 - November 4, 1972) was an American Marxist theorist. ... Trotskyist groups CWI · ICFI · ICU IMT · IST · IWL reunified FI This is a list of the many Trotskyist international tendencies. ... The Committee for a Workers International (CWI) is an international association of Trotskyist Parties. ... The Internationalist Communist Union (in French, Union Communiste Internationaliste) is an international grouping of Trotskyist political parties, centred on Lutte Ouvrière in France. ... The International Marxist Tendency (IMT) is a Trotskyist tendency based on the ideas of Ted Grant. ... The International Socialist Tendency is an international grouping of organisations around the ideas of Tony Cliff, founder of the Socialist Workers Party in the UK. It has sections across the world, however its strongest presence is in Europe, especially in the UK, Greece and Ireland. ... See also the Workers International League. ... The reunified Fourth International was created in 1963 by the reunification of the majorities of two public factions of the Fourth International: the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI) and the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). ... Branches Orthodox Trotskyism Third camp It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into ICFI. (Discuss) Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the methods and positions of Trotsky and the early Fourth International than other Trotskyists. ... The third camp, also known as third camp socialism or third camp Trotskyism, is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to oppose both capitalism and Stalinism by supporting the organised working class as a third camp. This approach was developed by Max Shachtman and is one of the major components...

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The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is a Trotskyist international. Its affiliated parties are called the Socialist Equality Party and have sections and supporters throughout the world. It is well known for its publication of the World Socialist Web Site. Published in 13 different languages, Alexa rankings show the World Socialist Web Site is the most widely read international socialist news source on the internet. Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... This is a list of the many Trotskyist international tendencies. ... The Socialist Equality Party is the name of several branches of the Trotskyist International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the largest being in the United States. ... The World Socialist Web Site is the Internet center of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). ... Alexa Internet is a California-based subsidiary company of Amazon. ...

Foundation

The International Committee was a public faction of the Fourth International 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. The Committee was co-ordinated by the American section, the Socialist Workers Party, and included the British section led by Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert's Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI) in France. Trotskyist groups in various other countries, notably in Austria, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and Nahuel Moreno's group in Argentina, also joined. The Fourth International (FI) is Trotskyisms international organization. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... Initially the title International Secretariat of the Fourth International was the name given to the executive committee responsible for the regular operation of the Fourth International (FI) founded in 1938. ... Michel Pablo (August 24, 1911 - February 17, 1996 ) was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis, a Greek Trotskyist leader. ... Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter etc. ... The Socialist Workers Party is a small communist political party in the United States. ... Gerry Healy (December 3, 1913 - December 14, 1989) was a Trotskyist activist. ... The Internationalist Communist Party (French: Parti Communiste Internationaliste, PCI) was the name of the French Section of the Fourth International from 1944 until the late 1960s. ... Nahuel Moreno (April 24, 1924 - January 25, 1987) (real name Hugo Bressano) was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. ...

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 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 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. In addition, Pablo's supporters in Britain, although they were the minority, attempted to control the party press and refused to leave their positions although the majority voted them out. 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 and giving advice to their leaders. An open letter is a letter that is intended to be read by a wide audience. ... Initially the title International Secretariat of the Fourth International was the name given to the executive committee responsible for the regular operation of the Fourth International (FI) founded in 1938. ... Entryism (or entrism or enterism) is a political tactic by which an organisation encourages members to infiltrate another organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, or take over entirely. ...

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 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 Club is a play by Australian playwright David Williamson, that follows the fortunes of a football club over the course of a season. ...

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 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 that Pablo said there would be "centuries of deformed workers states". They believed that the ISFI under Pablo would turn the Fourth International from the vanguard world party of the working-class into advisors to nationalist movements and supposed "Left" members of the Stalinist bureaucracy. They point as justification for this position to the ISFI's support of Castroism and guerillism in South America, the ISFI's support of Lula's government in Brazil, the ISFI's support of the Sandinistas, the government of Algeria, and other nationalist movements, as well as their numerous words of advice to leaders of the French and other European Stalinists. The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... In Trotskyist political theory, deformed workers states are states where capitalism has been overthrown through social revolution and the property forms have changed into a collectivized planned economy, but where the working class has never held political power (as it did in Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution). ...

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 the Stalinists and "petty-bourgeious nationalists". His faction's heavy-handed tactics of removing members who disagreed with his radical revisions made compromise appear impossible. The Fourth International (FI) is Trotskyisms international organization. ...

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 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".

1953 to 1963

In the eyes of the ICFI, Pabloite liquidationism meant 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 the 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 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 the SWP officially only acted as observers at the event, being prevented from affiliating to the ICFI by US law. 1958 (MCMLVIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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, the American affiliate of the ISFI, removed one such barrier to 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. In 1960, the Indian and Japanese sections of the IC reunified with the ISFI sections. 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. 1956 (MCMLVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... There have been a number of Hungarian Revolutions: 1848 Hungarian Revolution 1919 Hungarian Revolution 1956 Hungarian Revolution This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same title. ... Logo of the Fourth International The Fourth International was an international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... Combatants FLN MNA France Pieds-noirs Harkis OAS The Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) was one of the most important colonial wars. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... SWP is a TLA which may stand for: Star Wars Perú Shaun Wright-Phillips, an English association football player. ... Pablo is a common Spanish given name: Pablo Ibañez (known commonly as simply Pablo) is a footballer at Atletico Madrid It could also refer to: Pablo, Montana, a town in the U.S. state of Montana This is a disambiguation page: a list of articles associated with the same...

ISFI and 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 the basic Leninist principle of inner-party democracy.

In 1963 the SWP and the smaller Austrian, Canadian, Chinese and New Zealand sections of the ICFI agreed to reunite with the ISFI at the World Congress, to form the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. The United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) is the largest Trotskyist international organisation. ...

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 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 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.

1963 to 1971

Within the SWP, as well as within the rest of the ICFI, an opposition to the reunification came together. Some of 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 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 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. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born on August 13, 1926) is the current President of Cuba. ...

Wohlforth now led a Reorganized Minority Tendency until it too was expelled from the SWP and went on to found the American Committee for the Fourth International.

When the Fourth International had split in 1953 the LSSP of Sri Lanka 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, 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 was formed out of the left wing which split from the LSSP to form the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary). The Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Sri Lanka Equal Society Party) is a trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka. ... The Socialist Equality Party is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka. ... Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary) was a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka. ...

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 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 from USFI sections in the Ceylon and Denmark. Non-voting observers came from Voix Ouvrière and a state capitalist tendency in Japan. Timothy Andrew Wohlforth is a former Trotskyist politician. ... This article is about James Robertson the Trotskyist political figure. ...

One result of this Congress was the expulsion of the Spartacist tendency: after the failure of Robertson to attend a conference. 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. The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) (formerly the International Spartacist Tendency) is a Trotskyist international organisation. ...

If the Sparticists did not desire to break off into their own organization, the ICFI 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 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 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 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 the ICFI, was able to grow in Sri Lanka. New sections appeared in Germany, in 1971, and Ireland.

1971 to 1985

The OCI 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. The OCI considered dialectical materialism a personal choice, irrelevant to the building of a revolutionary movement. The ICFI pointed out that Lenin and Trotsky argued repeatedly that dialectical materialism was the basis for the education of a revolutionary party. The Revolutionary Workers Party (Spanish: Partido Obrero Revolucionario, POR) is a Trotskyist political party in Bolivia. ...

Both the SLL and OCI were at this point developing connection to Trotskyists in other countries, but in different ways.

• The OCI had sought to bring the Bolivian POR into the ICFI. In addition to these groups the OCI was cultivating the exiled Hungarian League of Revolutionary Socialists (LRSH) led by Michel Varga, a former leader of the students during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and of the German Socialist Workers League (BSA). Moreover the Argentine Workers Power group led by Altamirano was close to the OCI. In general, the OCI found it unimportant to educate the newer members on the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism or to explain the history of the Fourth International.
• The SLL on the other hand were looking to bring newer forces into the ICFI that shared its approach: in the shape of the League for a Workers Republic in Ireland and the Revolutionary Communist League of Ceylon, in addition to the Workers League in the USA. The SLL fought to make dialectical materialism the corner-stone of its political approach.

The contest between 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 the members entering into revolutionary politics during a revolutionary upsurge of the international working class. Some members of OCI continued to support the ICFI, however, which allowed the ICFI to regain a foothold in French politics. The League for a Workers Republic was a small Trotskyist organisation in Ireland. ... The Socialist Equality Party is a Trotskyist political party in Sri Lanka. ... The Socialist Equality Party is a Trotskyist political party in the United States, one of the many Socialist Equality Parties around the world affiliated to the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), well known for its publication of the World Socialist Web Site. ... 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1971 calendar). ... The Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (1972-1979) was set up by various Trotskyist groups formerly affiliated to the ICFI which were allied to Pierre Lamberts OCI. In 1979 the OCR joined forces with the Bolshevik faction led by Nahuel Moreno to form the short lived... Nahuel Moreno (April 24, 1924 - January 25, 1987) (real name Hugo Bressano) was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. ...

Delegates from eight countries attended the fourth world conference of the IC in April 1972. In conjunction with a massive growth in membership and preparations for 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. Logo of the current Workers Revolutionary Party The Workers Revolutionary Party is a small Trotskyist political party in the United Kingdom. ...

'Security and the Fourth International'

In the middle of the 1970's, two leaders of 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 explusions animated by Fields. When the Workers' League's Central Committee found out that Fields' uncle had worked for the CIA's computer division, gathering databases on dissidents the US government wanted eliminated, they criticized the fact that Fields and Wohlforth had not revealed this history to the party. Fields and Wohlforth had denied that Fields had connections with state agencies. In August 1974, the League's central committee, in a unanimous vote that included Wohlforth's own vote, suspended Fields from membership and removed Wohlforth as national secretary pending a commission of inquiry. Timothy Andrew Wohlforth is a former Trotskyist politician. ...

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. Both left the party and soon joined the SWP for a few years. During this short membership, their main task was to write attacks in against the Workers' League. Wohlforth wrote an extended attack on the International Committee in Intercontinental Press. Intercontinental Press began a campaign denouncing the ICFI for 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 the US government's Cointelpro program, in which the FBI illegally infiltrated many groups and political parties and conducted provacations against opponents of the war in Vietnam. Hundreds of informants, it was revealed, were working within the Socialist Workers Party. In December of 1974 and January of 1975, Seymour Hersh published articles in the New York Times detailing an illegal government program of infiltrating and disrupting the work of dissident and radical groups. Intercontinental Press was a weekly news magazine produced on behalf of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International between 1963 and 1986. ... COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) is a program of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. ...

In May 1975, the ICFI started a "Security and the Fourth International" investigation into government infiltration of the Fourth International, leading them to the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Trotsky and other leaders of the Fourth International. By mid-1977, after the Security campaign's investigation of publicly available government documents and public admissions during the trials of Soviet agents tried in the United States, they made the allegation 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 in 1940 numerous times over a number of months, supposedly to give them information about Stalinists in the US alleged to have participated in the assassination of Trotsky. Although Hansen wrote numerous accounts of Trotsky's final days, he never wrote about these meetings. He only admitted to them after the Workers' League published government documents revealing these connections. Hansen then claimed that this contact had been agreed by the SWP. Felix Morrow, a leading SWP figure during Trotsky's time, said that the SWP political committee did not and would not have agreed to those meetings. The ICFI later concluded that the documents, along with Hansen's admission that he met with the Stalinist GPU numerous times in 1938, his lax position on party security, and his refusal to answer questions put before him showed that Hansen was a government agent. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Stalinism is a brand of political theory, and the political and economic system implemented by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union. ...

The investigation intensified after the decision by the SWP leadership to expel Alan Gelfand, a lawyer who had joined the SWP late in 1975, just after the start of the 'Security' Campaign. In 1977 and 1978 Gelfand asked the SWP leadership to respond to the Workers' League's charges. 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 that he would be disciplined if he continued to request answers. Gelfand was then expelled in one of a series of expulsions from the SWP that occurred during this period, carried out against anyone questioning the actions of the party's leadership. Alan Gelfand (born 1963, New York) is the inventor of the ollie, a skateboarding move. ...

A letter Gelfand wrote to the SWP national leadership prior to his expulsion outlining his unanswered questions can be found here: "Gelfand's Letter".

Gelfand's expulsion compelled him 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 defense and, in 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 Leon Sedov, Leon Trotsky, along with hundreds of other Trotskyists. It had been known that the murderer of Trotsky had been a boyfriend of one of his secretaries, introduced to her in Paris by a later exposed GPU agent. 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. The judge in the Gelfand case only released the grand jury testimony after the case had been closed. Sylvia Callen Franklin, also known as Sylvia Lorraine Callen, and Sylvia Caldwell, was a young Chicago Communist recruited by Louis Budenz into the CPUSA secret appartus about 1937. ... The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) is one of several Marxist-Leninist groups in the United States. ...

The ICFI's investigation into the SWP and defense of Alan Gelfand was opposed by some groups. 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, 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, who played a major role in the Security campaign, also repudiated the investigation along with Trotskyism, and went to work for the Kurdish nationalist movement. The United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) is the largest Trotskyist international organisation. ... Pierre Lambert (born June 9, 1920) (real name Pierre Boussel) is a French Trotskyist leader. ... Nahuel Moreno (April 24, 1924 - January 25, 1987) (real name Hugo Bressano) was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. ... The Spartacist League (Spartakusbund in German) was a left-wing Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during and just after the politically volatile years of World War I. It was founded by Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (nicknamed Red Rosa) along with others such as Clara Zetkin. ... Workers Struggle (Lutte Ouvrière) is the usual name under which the Communist Union (Trotskyist) (Union Communiste (Trotskyste)), a French Trotskyist political party, is known (technically, it is the name of the weekly paper edited by the party). ... The International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) of Canada, the Workers Party of Canada, Socialist Policy Group, Socialist Workers League, Revolutionary Workers Party, League for Socialist Action and Revolutionary Workers League were names of successive Trotskyist organisations in Canada. ... Cliff Slaughter is a British Trotskyist. ...

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 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, an SWP member did) and that the ICFI's charge that the SWP was controlled by agents of the US and Soviet states to be groundless. They opposed any investigation into infiltration by state forces, arguing that it was better to have spies in the movement than to sow distrust. The ICFI published briefs, courtroom transcripts and exhibits of this lawsuit in The Gelfand Case. Gelfand's case was rejected by the federal court in 1983, although the ICFI considers its support of Gelfand successful since SWP leaders who refused to answer the questions of its members were finally subpeonaed and forced to testify. It also turned this testimony into public record.

1985 to the present

By the end of the 1970s, the revolutionary upsurge of the 60s and 70s had subsided. Membership of the ICFI fell, and the WRP leadership was not prepared for this. It entered into opportunist 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 the leadership increasingly went its own way against the ICFI as a whole.

This conflict erupted in the mid-80s 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 one active ICFI survives, that led by David North of what was then known as the Workers' League in the United States. North and his supporters gained the allegiance of most of the remaining national sections, partly through their analysis of the split.^{[citation needed]} The surviving WRP still refers to itself as the British section of an ICFI, but does not name any other sections are named. 2006 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The have been several parties named the Workers League: Workers League (UK), a split from the International Socialists (UK). ...

Anticipating an outbreak of US militarism after the collapse of the USSR^{[citation needed]}, the ICFI prepared for a new radicalization of the working class. For this reason, its sections reorganised into Socialist Equality Parties throughout the world.

External links

• The 'Open Letter' to Trotskyists Throughout the World SWP resolution, 1953
• For Early Reunification of the World Trotskyist Movement SWP resolution, 1963
• David North, The Founding of the ICFI
• David North, About Cannon's Open Letter
• David North, The 1985 Split
• David North, The Workers' League becomes the Socialist Equality Party