Michel Pablo (August 24, 1911 - February 17, 1996 ) was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis, a Greek Trotskyist leader. August 24 is the 236th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (237th in leap years), with 129 days remaining. ... 1911 (MCMXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (click on link for calendar). ... February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ...

Leadership of the Fourth International

He began a lifetime involvement with revolutionary politics in the late 1930s in Greece. Drawn into the "Spartacus" faction, he represented Greek Trotskyists at the founding conference of the Fourth International in Paris in 1938. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, Raptis graduated from the Athens Polytechnic and continued his studies in urban planning at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he was to spend much of the following decades. Raptis was ill in Paris when the Second World War began. The same ill health meant that until 1944 he played little part in the activities of the French Trotskyists although he was reported to have given educational classes to David Korner's Union Communiste. By 1944 he was fully involved with the movement', and was elected the organizational secretary of its European Bureau, which had re-established contact with between the Trotskyist parties. Emblem of the Fourth International The Fourth International has been the international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: Université de Paris) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganized as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... Combatants Allies: Poland, British Commonwealth, France/Free France, Soviet Union, United States, China, and others Axis Powers: Germany, Italy, Japan, and others Casualties Military dead: 17 million Civilian dead: 33 million Total dead: 50 million Military dead: 8 million Civilian dead: 4 million Total dead: 12 million World War II... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... David Korner, also known as Barta, was a Romanian Trotskyist militant. ...

After the war, Raptis became the central leader of the Fourth International with the support of the SWP of America and James P. Cannon. Pablo played a key role in re-unifying, re-centralising and re-orienting the International. In 1946 Pablo visiting Greece to successfully reunify the four separate Trotskyist parties. Raptis and Ernest Mandel were instrumental in these years in winning the Fourth International to a position that asserted that the Eastern European states conquered by the Soviet Armed Forces in 1944-45 had by 1948 become what they described as deformed workers' states. Emblem of the Fourth International The Fourth International has been the international organisation of Trotskyist communists. ... The Socialist Workers Party is a small communist political party in the United States. ... James Cannon in Moscow (1922) James Patrick Cannon (1890-1974) was an American Communist and Trotskyist leader. ... Ernest Mandel Ernest Ezra Mandel, also known by various pseudonyms such as Ernest Germain, Pierre Gousset, Henri Vallin, Walter etc. ... 1948 (MCMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday (the link is to a full 1948 calendar). ... In Trotskyist political theory, deformed workers states are states where the bourgeoisie has been overthrown through social revolution, the industrial means of production have been largely nationalized, but where the working class has never held political power (as it did in Russia shortly after the Russian Revolution). ...

In the uncertain aftermath of the second world war, when the Trotskyists were numerically dwarfed by the mass Communist Parties and their hopes for a revolutionary breakthrough were dashed, Raptis also advanced a new tactic for the FI from about 1951 onwards. He argued that a Third World War, which was believed by many people to be imminent, would be characterised by revolutionary outbreaks during the actual war. Splits of revolutionary dissenters were likely to develop in the Communist Parties. To gain influence, win members and avoid becoming small sectarian cliques just talking to each other, the Trotskyists should - where possible - join, or in Trotskyist terminology enter, the mass Communist or Social Democratic (Labour) parties. This was known as entrism sui generis or long-term entry. It was understood by all that the FI would retain its political identity, and its own press. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... A Communist party is a party which promotes Communism. ... 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... Nuclear arms may play a large role in the hypothetical war. ... 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. ... In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical philosophy based on Marxism. ... 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. ...

It was believed at the time that the international "centre" should be able to impose democratic centralist discipline by directing intervening in the politics of local parties. Pablo also used the weight of the international secretariat to back tendencies that were closest to mainsteam views inside the International. For example, Pablo and Cannon jointly sponsored an entryist faction within the British movement that opposed the leadership of Jock Haston in the RCP, contributing to the collapse of the RCP as an open organisation. Democratic centralism is a political concept referring to the governance of political parties and groups. ... Jock Haston (1913-1986) was a Trotskyist politician and General Secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party in Great Britain. ... The Revolutionary Communist Party was a British Trotskyist political party, formed in 1944 and active until 1949, and publishing the Socialist Appeal fortnightly newspaper, a theoretical journal Workers International News and an entrist paper for its Labour Party fraction The Militant. ...

"Pabloism"

In 1953 the American, British and part of the French Trotskyists declared themselves in opposition to this course of action, and withdrew from the FI to form a public faction, the International Committee of the Fourth International. 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is a Trotskyist international. ...

The subsequent hostility of the ICFI to what became known as "Pabloism" became legendary. Raptis was demonised, and made into the exemplar for everything that had gone wrong in the Trotskyist movement. Decades later, a few small Trotskyist sects are still writing "anti-Pabloist" tracts. A sect is a small religious group that has branched off of a larger established religion. ...

Raptis himself continued with the European International Secretariat of the Fourth International, operating from Amsterdam and Paris. In reality, though, the entryist tactic he proposed could not be implemented in many countries and succeeded only to some extent in countries where a large social-democratic party could be 'entered'. 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. ...

None of the various Trotskyist splinter groups gained large numbers of new members in the Cold War years, whether 'independent party-builders' or 'entryists'. After the invasion of Hungary in 1956, many intellectuals split from the Communist Parties, and there was further political fragmentation resulting from the Sino-Soviet split, but the Trotskyists gained almost no new adherents from them. The Sino-Soviet split was a major diplomatic conflict between the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), beginning in the late 1950s, reaching a peak in 1969 and continuing in various ways until the late 1980s. ...

As the 1950s became the 1960s, Raptis was convinced that the best revolutionary prospects were now in what was to become known as the Third World of Africa, Latin America and Asia. He also wrote a prophetic essay anticipating the women's liberation movement. For the Jamaican reggae band, see Third World (band). ... A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... Asia is the largest and most populous region or continent depending on the definition. ... Feminism is a body of social theory and a political movement primarily based on, and motivated by, the experiences of women. ...

He was personally closely involved in supporting the Algerian national liberation struggle against France, which led to imprisonment in Holland in connection with counterfeit money and gun-smuggling activities. A campaign for his release was launched by Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1961 Raptis was finally sentenced to 15 months imprisonment, and liberated at the end of his trial. He took refuge in Morocco. After the victory of the Algerian revolution, he became a minister in the FLN government. The Algerian War of Independence (1954–62) was a period of guerrilla strikes, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians on both sides, and riots between the French army and colonists in Algeria and the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) and other pro-independence Algerians. ... A counterfeit is an imitation that is made with the intent to deceptively represent its content or origins. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist and critic. ... 1961 (MCMLXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (the link is to a full 1961 calendar). ...

By 1963, inspired by common positions towards the Cuban revolution, the ICFI forces around the SWP of the USA were moving back towards unity with the ISFI. Pablo was regarded as a barrier to that unification. The reunification that was achieved in 1963 and formed the United Secretariat of the Fourth International. Pablo moved a counter-resolution at the 1963 reunification congress, as well as the main resolution on Algeria, and was elected to the international executive committee. Tensions grew, and Pablo and his African Bureau were outside the USFI in 1964 by the end of 1965 for partly disputed reasons: in the view of Pablo's supporters, reunification rapidly led the new majority to oust Pablo; in the USFI's view, Pablo's tendency broke with the International publicly and placed itself outside the FI. What is not disputed is that by then Pablo had key political differences with the FI. 1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (the link is to a full 1963 calendar). ... The United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) is the largest Trotskyist international organisation. ... For the Nintendo 64 emulator, see 1964 (Emulator). ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ...

Outside the Fourth International

Raptis's influence through this period then was mainly through his writings. The central theme of Raptis's thought in the later 1960s and 1970s was that of autogestion or "workers' self-management" (Arbeiter-selbstverwaltung). Possibly, this reaffirmation of the principle of the self-emancipation of the working class was in reaction to his earlier politically pessimistic outlook, according to which bureaucratically-deformed communism would be a long-lasting phenomenon. At the beginning of the 1970s, he was politically active in Chile, under Allende's socialist government. After the fall of the Junta, he returned to Greece. In the 1980s, however Raptis receded into political obscurity. The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Workers self-management is a form of workplace management in which the employees themselves make decisions on issues like hours, production, scheduling, division of labour etc. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... Dr. Salvador Allende Gossens1 (July 26, 1908 - September 11, 1973) was president of Chile from 1970 until 1973, when he was overthrown in a military coup détat (see Chilean coup of 1973), during which he died. ... In modern usage, junta (pronounced as in Spanish HUN-ta or HOON-ta) typically refers to a military dictatorship, especially in Latin America, which is officially run by a committee of high-ranking military officers. ...

Pablo continued with his revolutionary politics, and organised the Revolutionary Marxist Tendency and the International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency based in France. These were never serious competitors to the larger Trotskyist groups. The IRMT rejoined the USFI in the mid-1990s, although the agreement was not applied in Pablo's individual case. The International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency was the international Trotskyist current led by Michel Pablo. ...

Unusually for a revolutionary, his funeral was a state event in his native Greece. This is explained by his personal friendship from the 1930s with Andreas Papandreou who had been a Trotskyist in his youth. Raptis's motto was: "The meaning of life is life itself, to live as much as you can". Andreas Georgios Papandreou, Ανδρέας Γ. Παπανδρέου (5 February 1919 - 23 June 1996) was a Greek economist and politician. ...

References

• Michel Raptis, Socialism, Democracy & Self-Management.
• Michel Raptis, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Chile.
• Michel Raptis, Étude pour une politique agraire en Algerie.
• Pierre Frank, The Fourth International: The Long March of the Trotskyists.
• Francois Moreau, Combats et debats de la Quatrieme Internationale.
• Klaus Leggewie, Koffertrager. Das Algerienprojekt der Deutsche Linken in Adenauer Deutschland.
• Lena Hoff, Resistance in Exile. A study of the political correspondence between Nicolas Callas and Michel Raptis 1967-72
• Robert J. Alexander, International Trotskyism, 1929-1985: A Documented Analysis of the Movement.

External links

• Obituaryby Livio Maitan
• Genesis of Pabloism by the Spartacist League
• Marxist Internet Archive on Pablo
• The Lubitz TrotskyanaNet provides a bio-bibliographical sketch of Michel Pablo
• Panandreou's comment on Pablo's death
• Resistance in exile – a study of the political correspondence between Nicolas Calas and Michalis Raptis (Pablo) 1967-72