Splits and Reunification of the Fourth International

Background

The Fourth International was founded by Trotsky and his supporters in September 1938, but during World War II its European affiliates were destroyed by the Nazis and its Asian affiliates by the Empire of Japan; Trotsky was assassinated in 1940 and the survivors were largely cut off from each other and from the International Secretariat.

In the postwar reconstruction, Michel Pablo argued at the 1951 Third World Congress that the Eastern European states and their Stalinist parties could survive for centuries, and advocated long-term entryism (entrism sui generis) into the mass communist and social-democratic parties. The French section's majority opposed this; the International leadership had its leaders replaced, producing a permanent split in the French section.

The 1953 split

On 3–4 October 1953 representatives of The Club, the Internationalist Communist Party (PCI), the Swiss section and a member of the US SWP met to form a faction against Pabloism; the resolution of 23 November 1953 organised it as the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), which claimed to represent the majority of Trotskyists. Ceylon's Lanka Sama Samaja Party kept a middle position, staying in the ISFI while arguing for a joint congress and reunification.

Reunification and after

Sections of the ICFI and ISFI reunited in Chile, India and Japan in 1960, and in 1962 a Parity Commission was set up to prepare a joint world congress. The June 1963 Seventh World Congress in Rome reunited the majorities, electing a United Secretariat (USFI) and adopting Ernest Mandel and Joseph Hansen's resolution Dynamics of World Revolution Today, which reflected on the Cuban Revolution.

Lambert's PCI in France and Healy's SLL in Britain refused to attend and continued the ICFI banner, opposing key elements of the reunification documents, including the view that the 26th of July Movement had created a workers' state in Cuba. Posadas's supporters had already left in 1962. Pablo's tendency presented a counter-resolution, won only minority support, and publicly broke with the International a year later, claiming Pablo had been ousted.

Sources and assessment

In 1964 the International severed relations with Ceylon's Lanka Sama Samaja Party over its entry into a coalition government; Bala Tampoe's dissident wing became the Ceylonese section. The International Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (Pablo) split in 1965 and rejoined in 1992. Nahuel Moreno's tendency split in 1979, founding the International Workers League – Fourth International, and the US SWP formally left in 1990. In 2003 the United Secretariat was replaced by an Executive Bureau and an International Committee. Historians and rival currents note that the split and partial reunion left several internationals each claiming the legacy and political continuity of the historical Fourth International.