Fourth International (ICR)

The Fourth International (identified here by its major theoretical magazine "La Verite") was established as an "International Centre (or Center) 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. It is, by the number of sections, the Trotskyist tendency in the second largest number of countries.

The Fourth International's (La Verite) roots lie in the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (OCRFI), which was established in 1972. It formed a short-lived bloc with Nahuel Moreno's tendency. A Parity Committee which operated in 1979 1980 produced Forty Theses of agreements between the tendencies led by Moreno and Lambert. On that basis, the Fourth International (International Committee) (FI[IC]) was founded in 1980. However, the convergence decelerated because of Lambert's support for the government of Socialist Party (France) and French Communist Party without capitalist ministers, a traditional position of French Trotskyism going back before the death of Trotsky. Moreno's supporters boycotted a General Council of the FI(IC) in the Autumn of 1981 whereupon Lambert declared a split: Moreno's supporters formed the International Workers League; at a meeting on 21–23 December 1981 Lambert's supporters formed the "Fourth International - International Centre of Reconstruction", or ICR.

The ICR underwent a period of re-orientation, during which Lambert proposed that the ICR should announce itself as the Fourth International. In 1986-87 Brazilian member Luis Favre became critical of Pierre Lambert within the PCI/OCRFI, but Lambert's position was adopted.

In June 1993, a world conference of 44 sections of the ICR was held in Paris. It re-proclaimed the Fourth International on the basis of one of its founding document: the Transitional Program. The resulting international organization, linked closely with the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International, is known among its adherents and national sections simply as the Fourth International. Since it is not the only group to refer to itself in this way, others refer to it as the "Lambertist" Fourth International (after Pierre Lambert, one of its most prominent members), as the Fourth International (La Vérité) (after its international theoretical journal La Vérité), or as SIQI (for the French Secrétariat International de la Quatrième Internationale (International Secretariat of the Fourth International), the name of its leading body) ).

Countries the reproclaimed Fourth International has sections or groups of Supporters

[Notes: as of February 2010]

• Algeria—Socialist Workers Organization works inside the larger mass-based Workers Party
• Bangladesh—Democratic Workers Party (works as a tendency within it)
• Belgium—International Socialist Organisation (OSI)
• Benin—Benin Section of the Fourth International
• Bolivia—The Spark
• Brazil—The Work
• Britain—British Section of the Fourth International works inside the British Labour Party
• Burundi—Workers Political Circle
• Chad—Chad Section of the Fourth International
• Chile—Socialist Workers Organization
• China—Chinese supporters of the Fourth International
• Corte d'Ivoire—Corte d'Ivoire Section of the Fourth International
• Croatia—Section of the Fourth International in ex-Yugoslavia
• Dominican Republic—Dominican Supporters of the Fourth International
• Ecuador—Socialist Workers Organization
• France—Internationalist Communist Current (works inside the larger Independent Workers Party
• Gabon—Gabon supporters of the Fourth International
• Germany—Internationalistische Sozialistische Arbeiterorganisation (now works inside Social Democracy).
• Greece—Greek Section of the Fourth International
• Guadeloupe—Guadeloupe Section of the Fourth International
• Haiti—Socialist Workers Party of Haiti (works inside the larger Parti Oeuvre Socialist)
• Italy—Italian supporters of the Fourth International
• India—Indians supporters of the FI (Kolkata and Mumbai)
• Korea—Korean supporters of the Fourth International
• Martinique—supporters of the Fourth International
• Mexico—Socialist Workers Organization
• Nicaragua—Trotskyist Circle of Nicaragua
• Palestine—Section of the Fourth International
• Peru—Peruvian Section of the Fourth International (Works inside the broader Partido Trabajodores del Campo y Ciudad)
• Portugal—Internationalist Socialist Party
• Romania—Workers Politics
• Russia—Russian Section of the Fourth International
• Rwanda—Workers Political Circle
• Senegal—Socialist Workers Organization
• Serbia—Section of the Fourth International in ex-Yugoslavia
• South Africa/Azania—Azanian Section of the Fourth International works and leads the larger Socialist Party of Azania
• Spain—Internationalist Socialist Workers Party
• Sweden—Swedish Supporter of the Fourth International
• Switzerland—Union of Workers Political Circles
• Togo—Togo Section of the Fourth International
• Tunisia—supporters of the Fourth International
• Turkey—Revolutionary Workers League
• Ukraine—Ukraine Section of the Fourth International
• Uruguay—Section of the Fourth International in Uruguay
• United States—Socialist Organizer
• Venezuela—Venezuelan Section of the Fourth International

External links

• Website of the Fourth International
• The Manifesto of the Fourth World Congress of the Fourth International (1999).
• The Fourth International and the United Front (Excerpts from a report by Pierre Lambert presented to the Fifth World Congress of the Fourth International, Berlin, 2002).

Members

• International Socialist Organization, OSI-SIO (Belgium)
• Parti Ouvrier Indépendant (France)
• Organización Socialista de Trabajadores (Mexico)
• Corrente O Trabalho do Partido dos Trabalhdores (Brazil)
• Unofficial site concerning the Parti des Travailleurs (Algeria)
• Partido Obrero Socialista Internacionalista (Spain)
• Tribuna Socială (Romania)
• L’Union des Cercles pour une Politique Ouvrière (Switzerland)
• України "Боротьба" (Ukraine)

See also

• List of Trotskyist internationals