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The Pathfinder tendency is the unofficial name of a group of historically Trotskyist organizations that cooperate politically and organizationally with the Socialist Workers Party of the United States and support its solidarity with the Cuban Revolution and the Communist Party of Cuba.
The group operates Pathfinder Bookstores, which sell the products of the SWP's publishing arm, Pathfinder Press. It is also known as the International Communist League, although this term is not widely used, and can cause confusion with other organizations of the same name. The Communist Leagues, even those in non-English-speaking countries, sell the SWP publication The Militant .
In the 1980s, the Socialist Workers Party and its international supporters within the Fourth International (FI) broke from many of Trotskyism's traditional positions, including the theory of Permanent Revolution, and embraced positions that marked a political convergence with the Cuban Communist Party and the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. Upon adopting these new positions, the SWP expelled FI supporters from the party, and SWP supporters abroad split from or attempted to take over sections of the FI in various countries. By the late 1980s, this process was completed and national sections of the FI had either been taken over with supporters of the international's mainstream being expelled—this happened with the Revolutionary Workers League in Canada, the Socialist Action League in New Zealand and the SWP in the US—or supporters of the US SWP had split from FI sections and founded their own organisations, as occurred in Australia, Sweden and Britain.
In 1990, the SWP and its supporters formally left the FI. Supporters of the SWP internationally renamed their organisations the Communist League in each country. Since the creation of the Pathfinder tendency, new Communist Leagues have formed to organise previously existing groups of supporters in Iceland and France.
The Youth sections of the Pathfinder Tendency are increasingly active in the World Federation of Democratic Youth. The Young Socialists of USA, Britain and New Zealand became members of the Federation in 1999. [1]
In recent years, the Pathfinder tendency has attempted to consolidate its sections by moving members from smaller sections to central locations, including across national boundaries. In 2022, Communist League members in Australia folded their branches and moved to Sydney, Australia to consolidate themselves there and later that year members of the Communist League in New Zealand also relocated to Sydney to consolidate CL members from the Pacific region into that location. Similarly, the Communist League of Sweden dissolved itself in 2011 to relocate to London, as did the Communist League of Iceland in 2007, in order to consolidate the Communist League in London, England. [2]
The Fourth International (FI) was established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
The Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) was an Australian socialist political group. It was founded in 1972 as the Socialist Workers League (SWL), changing its name to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) a few years later. In the early 1990s it was once again renamed, as the Democratic Socialist Party, and in 2003 it became the Democratic Socialist Perspective.
The Communist League in Canada was founded as the "Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire" (RWL) in 1977 as the result of a merger of the League for Socialist Action (LSA), the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG) and the Groupe Marxiste Revolutionaire.
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.
James Robertson (1928–2019) was the long-time and founding National Chairman of the Spartacist League (US), the original national section of the International Communist League. In his later years, Robertson was consultative member of the ICL's international executive committee.
The Communist League is a New Zealand communist party.
Socialist Challenge was a Trotskyist group in English Canada formed by former members of the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire who were expelled or resigned when the RWL moved away from Trotskyism in the early 1980s.
George Breitman was an American communist political activist and newspaper editor. He is best remembered as a founding member of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and as a long-time editor of that organization's weekly paper, The Militant. Breitman also supervised and edited several important publishing projects as the head of the SWP's publishing house in the 1960s and 1970s.
The history of the Socialist Workers Party begins with the formation of the Socialist Review Group in 1950, followed by the creation of the International Socialists in 1962 and continues through to the present day with the formation of the Socialist Workers Party in 1977.
The Spartacist League is a Trotskyist political grouping which is the United States section of the International Communist League, formerly the International Spartacist Tendency. This Spartacist League named themselves after the original Spartacus League of Weimar Republic in Germany, but has no formal descent from it. The League self-identifies as a "revolutionary communist" organization.
The Revolutionary Tendency within the American Socialist Workers Party was an internal faction that disagreed with the direction the leadership was taking the party on several important issues. Many groups and movements would have their roots in the RT, both in the United States and internationally, including the Socialist Equality Party and the world Spartacist and LaRouche movements and their various splinters.
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 (ISFI) and the International Committee (ICFI), reunited, electing a United Secretariat of the Fourth International.
The Workers Party (WP) was a Third Camp Trotskyist group in the United States. It was founded in April 1940 by members of the Socialist Workers Party who opposed the Soviet invasion of Finland and Leon Trotsky's belief that the USSR under Joseph Stalin was still innately proletarian, a "degenerated workers' state." They included Max Shachtman, who became the new group's leader, Hal Draper, C. L. R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, Martin Abern, Joseph Carter, Julius Jacobson, Phyllis Jacobson, Albert Glotzer, Stan Weir, B. J. Widick, James Robertson, and Irving Howe. The party's politics are often referred to as "Shachtmanite."
Entryism is a political strategy in which an organization or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger, organization in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program. If the organization being "entered" is hostile to entryism, the entryists may engage in a degree of subterfuge and subversion to hide the fact that they are an organization in their own right.
The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency (iSt) 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.
James Patrick Cannon was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party.
The Militant is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Pathfinder Press. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Sweden, Iceland, and New Zealand.
The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is a Trotskyist communist party in the United States. The SWP began as a group that was expelled from the Communist Party USA for supporting Leon Trotsky over Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
The International Socialist Tendency (IST) is an international grouping of unorthodox Trotskyist organisations espousing the ideas of Tony Cliff (1917–2000), founder of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in Britain. IST supporters are sometimes called "Cliffites". It has sections across 27 countries; however, its strongest presence is in Europe, especially in Britain.