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Revolutionary Communist International | |
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Abbreviation | RCI |
Leader | Alan Woods |
Founder | Ted Grant (of CMI/IMT) |
Founded | 1992 (as Committee for a Marxist International), 2024 (as Revolutionary Communist International) |
Split from | Committee for a Workers' International |
Ideology | |
Political position | Far-left |
Colors | Red |
Website | |
www |
Part of a series on |
Trotskyism |
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The Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) is a Trotskyist political international. It was founded as the Committee for a Marxist International by British-based South African political theorist Ted Grant and his supporters after they broke with the Committee for a Workers' International in 1992, and was subsequently renamed the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) in 2004 before adopting its current name in June 2024. The organization's website, Marxist.com or In Defence of Marxism, is edited by Alan Woods. The site is multilingual, and publishes international current affairs articles written from a Marxist perspective, as well as many historical and theoretical articles.
Militant (also known as the Militant tendency) was an entryist group within the British Labour Party based around the Militant newspaper that was founded in 1964. In 1974, Militant and its allies in Sweden, Ireland, and other countries formed the Committee for a Workers' International. The organisation gained more members during the 1970s and early 1980s and dominated the Labour Party in Liverpool. It became the largest Trotskyist group in Europe. In 1983, the five members of the Militant newspaper's editorial board were expelled for contravening the Labour Party constitution and expulsions of Militant members continued throughout the rest of the decade. [1] [2] [3] Ted Grant was a longtime leader of Militant until it split in early 1992 over a number of issues and he was expelled. But he and his supporters were expelled from the tendency and formed Socialist Appeal in Britain. [4]
At its World Congress in 2004, the organisation was renamed the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). [5]
In late 2009 a dispute developed between the IMT leadership and the leaderships of its sections in Spain (El Militante), Venezuela (Corriente Marxista Revolucionaria) and Mexico. In January 2010, these organisations, together with the group in Colombia and part of the section in Mexico, broke with the IMT and established a new international body, the Izquierda Revolucionaria (Revolutionary Left). [6] [7] Minorities in Venezuela and Spain chose to remain with the IMT and set up new sections. [8] The new IMT Venezuelan section launched their newspaper, Lucha de Clases, in April 2010. [9] In the same year, another smaller split occurred. The majority of the Swedish section, factions in Poland and Britain and individuals from several other sections left the IMT to form a new group called Towards a New International Tendency. [10] The Iranian section of the IMT also split away over the international's position on Venezuela's friendly relations with the Iranian government and in 2011 launched Marxist Revival. [11]
As part of a wider reorganisation of its sections, the International Marxist Tendency renamed itself the Revolutionary Communist International in June 2024. The British, Swiss, Canadian, Swedish and U.S. Sections of the international all relaunched themselves as the revolutionary communist parties of their respective countries with multiple other sections planning to do the same. The launching of these parties coincidences with many organizational and strategical changes, notably including a break with entryism on their part. [12] [13] [14]
In 2024, two former members of the Swedish section of the international, Revolutionära kommunistiska partiet (RKP), made various allegations in the newspaper ETC, including that they had been sexually abused by a member of the party's executive committee. The former members also accused the party of encouraging them to "give away their savings, distance themselves from their families, drop out of education and engage in sexual relationships with older party comrades." [15] A Malmö-based publication, Magasinet Konkret, while critical of the RKP, noted that the alleged abuser was asked to resign, while the party denied the other claims. Magasinet Konkret also disagreed with some of the characterisations made in the ETC report, such as the RKP having internal disciplinary processes being unusual for a political organisation, as well as noting the lack of substantiation of some of the more serious allegations. [16]
The RCI website maintains a list of claimed national sections. [17] The table below contains those, as of August 2024, that are active:
Country | Name |
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Argentina | Revolución |
Austria | Der Funke |
Belgium | Vonk (Flemish) Révolution (French) |
Bosnia and Herzegovina Croatia North Macedonia Serbia Slovenia | Liga Revolucionarnih Komunista Лига револуционарних комуниста |
Brazil | Organização Comunista Internacionalista |
Canada | Revolutionary Communist Party
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Colombia | Colombia Marxista |
Czech Republic Slovakia | Komunistická Avantgarda |
Denmark | Revolutionært Kommunistisk Parti |
El Salvador | Revolución Comunista |
Finland | Vallankumous |
France | Parti Communiste Révolutionnaire |
Germany | Revolutionäre Kommunistische Partei |
Greece | Epanastasi (Communist Tendency) |
Ireland (incl. Northern Ireland) | Revolutionary Communists of Ireland |
Italy | Partito Comunista Rivoluzionario |
Mexico | Organización Comunista Revolucionaria |
Netherlands | Revolutie |
Nigeria | Marxist Alternative |
Pakistan | Lal Salam |
Poland | Czerwony Front |
Portugal | Coletivo Comunista Revolucionário |
South Africa | Revolution |
Spain | Organización Comunista Revolucionaria
|
Sweden | Revolutionära Kommunistiska Partiet |
Switzerland | Revolutionäre Kommunistische Partei (German) Parti communiste révolutionnaire (French) |
Taiwan | The Spark (火花) |
Ukraine | Комуна |
United Kingdom (excl. Northern Ireland) | Revolutionary Communist Party |
United States | Revolutionary Communists of America |
Venezuela | Lucha de Clases |
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an orthodox Marxist, a revolutionary Marxist, and a Bolshevik–Leninist as well as a follower of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Karl Liebknecht, and Rosa Luxemburg. His relations with Lenin have been a source of intense historical debate. However, on balance, scholarly opinion among a range of prominent historians and political scientists such as E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, Moshe Lewin, Ronald Suny, Richard B. Day and W. Bruce Lincoln was that Lenin’s desired “heir” would have been a collective responsibility in which Trotsky was placed in "an important role and within which Stalin would be dramatically demoted ".
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Socialist Appeal was the British section of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT), founded in 1992 alongside the IMT by supporters of Ted Grant and Alan Woods after they were expelled from the Militant tendency of the Labour Party. In 2024 the Great Britain-based elements of the IMT were relaunched as the Revolutionary Communist Party.
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The International Marxist Group (IMG) was a Trotskyist group in Britain between 1968 and 1982. It was the British Section of the Fourth International. It had around 1,000 members and supporters in the late 1970s. In 1980, it had 682 members; by 1982, when it changed its name to the Socialist League, membership had fallen to 534.
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The Committee for a Workers' International (CWI) was an international association of Trotskyist political parties and organisations. Today, two groups claim to be the continuation of the CWI, the refounded Committee for a Workers' International and International Socialist Alternative.
Edward Grant was a South African Trotskyist who spent most of his adult life in Britain. He was a founding member of the group Militant and later Socialist Appeal.
Alan Woods is a British Trotskyist political theorist and author. He is one of the leading members of the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) and was a founder of Socialist Appeal. He is political editor of the RCI's In Defence of Marxism website. Woods was a leading supporter within the Militant tendency within the Labour Party and its parent group the Committee for a Workers' International until the early 1990s. A series of disagreements on tactics and theory led to Woods and Ted Grant leaving the CWI, to found the Committee for a Marxist International in 1992. They continued with the policy of entryism into the Labour Party. Woods has expressed particularly vocal support for the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, and repeatedly met with the Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, leading to speculation that he was a close political adviser to the president.
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Media related to International Marxist Tendency at Wikimedia Commons