International Workers League – Fourth International

Last updated
International Workers League (Fourth International)
Liga Internacional de los Trabajadores (Cuarta Internacional)
AbbreviationLITci
Predecessor International Committee of the Fourth International
TypeTrotskyist International
Website litci.org

The International Workers League (Fourth International), also known as IWLfi (Spanish : Liga Internacional de los Trabajadores (Cuarta Internacional) and LITci; Portuguese : Liga Internacional dos Trabalhadores - Quarta Internacional or LIT-QI) is a Morenist Trotskyist international organisation.

Contents

Overview

The group's origins lie in the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). Moreno's supporters followed the American Socialist Workers Party in leaving the ICFI in 1963 to form the reunified Fourth International (USFI). [1] In 1969, the USFI voted to support guerrilla war in Latin America. Moreno's group opposed this. [1] It was reduced to sympathiser status.[ citation needed ]

While critical of the Sandinistas, Moreno's group sent a Simon Bolivar Brigade to Nicaragua to aid the Civil War, [2] with the aim of building a revolutionary party there. This brigade was opposed by the reunified Fourth International [3] because it operated outside the discipline of the FSLN; [2] the only other Trotskyists to participate were Pierre Lamberts' Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. Forty non-Nicaraguan members of the Brigade were expelled from the country by the FSLN. [2] Almost immediately, Moreno's and Lambert's tendencies joined to form the Parity Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. [4] However, Moreno's supporters withdrew in 1981 [4] complaining that Lambert had links to trade union bureaucrats, and in 1982 formed the "International Workers League (Fourth International)". In addition to their former supporters, this also attracted groups in Peru and Venezuela which split from the Lambertist currents.

The group campaigned for the victory of Argentina in the Falklands War, for the non-payment of foreign debt, and for the "defeat of imperialism in the Gulf War." In the mid-1990s, it helped launch Workers' Aid to Bosnia and began working with the Workers International to Rebuild the Fourth International, although that group is now inactive.

Disagreements following the death of Moreno led several sections to leave the international, while others split. Those who left founded the International Centre of Orthodox Trotskyism (CITO in Spanish). The majority of this group rejoined the International Workers League in 2005, the minority forming the International Socialist League.

In 2021 the Chilean section of the IWLfi elected a member to the constitutional convention. María Rivera was elected in district 8 (Santiago West) as part of The List of the People. [5] [6]

The LITci publishes the bulletin International Courier (Correo Internacional) and the journal Marxism Alive (Marxismo Vivo or Le Marxisme Vivant), both in various languages, principally Spanish.

Sections

Official Sections

CountrySection Name
Flag of Argentina.svg  Argentina United Socialist Workers' Party (Argentina)
Flag of Brazil.svg  Brazil United Socialist Workers' Party
Flag of Chile.svg  Chile International Workers' Movement (Chile)
Flag of Colombia.svg  Colombia Socialist Workers Party (Colombia)
Flag of Costa Rica.svg  Costa Rica Workers' Party (Costa Rica)
Flag of El Salvador.svg  El Salvador Socialist Unity of Workers (El Salvador)
Flag of Colombia.svg  Colombia Socialist Workers Party (Colombia)
Flag of Honduras.svg  Honduras Socialist Workers Party (Honduras)
Flag of Italy.svg  Italy Communist Alternative Party
Flag of Paraguay.svg  Paraguay Workers' Party (Paraguay)
Flag of Peru.svg  Peru Socialist Workers Party (Peru)
Flag of Portugal.svg  Portugal In Struggle (Portugal)
Flag of Spain.svg  Spain Corriente Roja

Sympathizing Sections

CountrySection Name
Flag of Belgium (civil).svg  Belgium Communist Workers' League (Belgium)
Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg  Bolivia Socialist Struggle (Bolivia)
Flag of Ecuador.svg  Ecuador Movement for Socialism (Ecuador)
Flag of Mexico.svg  Mexico Workers Socialist Group
Flag of Panama.svg  Panama Workers For Socialism League
Flag of Senegal.svg  Senegal Senegal Popular League
Flag of the United Kingdom.svg  United Kingdom International Socialist League (UK)
Flag of the United States.svg  United States Workers' Voice/La Voz de los Trabajadores (United States)
Flag of the United States.svg  United States Corriente Obrera (United States)
Flag of Uruguay.svg  Uruguay Socialist Left of the Workers (Uruguay)
Flag of Venezuela.svg  Venezuela Socialist Unity of Workers (Venezuela)

Notes

  1. 1 2 Alexander 1991, p. 554.
  2. 1 2 3 Alexander 1991, p. 555.
  3. Alexander 1991, p. 225.
  4. 1 2 Alexander 1991, p. 556.
  5. International Workers’ Movement (MIT) (May 17, 2021). "Chile | A political earthquake: Victory for the working class and youth, María Rivera to the Constituent Assembly! - IWL-FI". IWL-FI (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-05.
  6. Chile, M. I. T. (2020-11-30). "María Rivera, una candidata independiente y revolucionaria a la Constituyente". MIT (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-06-05.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fourth International</span> Revolutionary socialist international organization

The Fourth International (FI) is a revolutionary socialist international organization consisting of followers of Leon Trotsky, also known as Trotskyists, whose declared goal is the overthrowing of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution. The Fourth International was established in France in 1938, as Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union, considered the Communist International as effectively puppets of Stalinism and thus incapable of leading the international working class to political power. Thus, Trotskyists founded their own competing Fourth International.

The Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International is a political international of Trotskyist political organizations that claim to adhere to the political legacy of the Fourth International. It was formed by groups which arose as the "Internationalist Bolshevik Faction" within the International Workers League (IWL-FI) in 1989. Regarded at first as an "external fraction" who had been wrongly expelled, from 1988 to 1990 the Argentinian Socialist Workers' Party (PTS) had three splits: first when a number of militants returned to the Argentinian Movement for Socialism (MAS) party, then when another group of militants sympathized with the British Workers Revolutionary Party and the third when supporters of León Pérez decided to follow a mass party perspective.

The League for Socialist Action (LSA) was the premier Trotskyist organization in Canada for much of the 20th Century. Throughout its history the LSA went through many different names and iterations. In chronological order it was known as: the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) of Canada, the Workers Party of Canada, the Socialist Policy Group, the Socialist Workers League, the Revolutionary Workers Party, The Club, the Socialist Education League, and the League for Socialist Action.

For information about the British Marxist newspaper named Socialist Challenge see International Marxist Group.

The International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency was an international Marxist group based in France led by Michel Pablo, also known as Michael Raptis, the former secretary of the Trotskyist Fourth International. It resulted as a regroupment of activists expelled from the Fourth International over their opposition to the 1962 re-unification process with the so-called "International Committee of the Fourth International"(ICFI) which had split from the Fourth International in 1953 over the question of entrism sui generis, a form of entryism which involved eschewing overt organisation building efforts in favour of long term participation in social democratic and communist parties. The re-unification process was rushed while Pablo was imprisoned in the Netherlands for illegal activities in support of the Algerian revolution.

The International League for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International, usually known as the Fourth International, was a Trotskyist political international led by Michel Varga.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) is the name of two Trotskyist internationals; one with sections named Socialist Equality Party which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, and another linked to the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK.

The Fourth International (FI), founded in 1938, is a Trotskyist international. In 1963, following a ten-year schism, the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International, the International Secretariat and the International Committee, reunited, electing a United Secretariat of the Fourth International. In 2003, the United Secretariat was replaced by an Executive Bureau and an International Committee, although some other Trotskyists still refer to the organisation as the USFI or USec.

The French Turn was the name given to the entry between 1934 and 1936 of the French Trotskyists into the French Section of the Workers' International. The French Turn was repeated by Trotskyists in other countries during the 1930s.

The International Socialist League is a small Trotskyist organisation in the UK.

The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), earlier known as the International Spartacist tendency is a Trotskyist international. Its largest constituent party is the Spartacist League (US). There are smaller sections of the ICL (FI) in Mexico, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Australia, Greece and the United Kingdom.

Michel Pablo was the pseudonym of Michalis N. Raptis, a Trotskyist leader of Greek origin.

The Fourth International was established as an "International Centre of Reconstruction" by co-thinkers of Pierre Lambert, in 1981 who argued that the post-war political evolution of the Fourth International under the leadership of Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel had taken the FI away from the ideas of its founder, Leon Trotsky. In the opinion of Lambert and his co-thinkers, the FI needed to be reconstructed. In 1993, they formed a new International, which they describe as the Fourth International.

The Internationalist Communist Organisation was a Trotskyist political party in France. Its successor was the Internationalist Communist Current of the Workers Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nahuel Moreno</span>

Nahuel Moreno was a Trotskyist leader from Argentina. Moreno was active in the Trotskyist movement from 1942 until his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre Lambert</span>

Pierre Lambert was a French Trotskyist leader, who for many years acted as the central leader of the French Courant Communiste Internationaliste (CCI) which founded the Parti des Travailleurs.

Orthodox Trotskyism is a branch of Trotskyism which aims to adhere more closely to the philosophy, methods and positions of Leon Trotsky and the early Fourth International, Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx than other avowed Trotskyists.

Michael Banda, born Michael Alexander Van Der Poorten, was a Sri Lankan communist activist best known as the General Secretary of the British Workers Revolutionary Party.

References