Fourth International (post-reunification) - The International Today

The International Today

Today, the International is regarded by some other Trotskyist groups, including the IST and CWI, as the largest and most widespread Trotskyist international tendency, including sections and sympathizing groups in over 60 countries. While other substantial international Trotskyist groupings and large national organisations exist, none claim to be larger than the Fourth International.

Since the 1993 congress, the International has continued to open itself up to the participation of other currents. In 2004, for example, its International Committee was observed by the International Socialist Movement from Scotland, the Democratic Socialist Perspective from Australia, and the International Socialist Organization from the USA. It organized an International Meeting of Radical Parties at the 4th World Social Forum.

In March 2011, the International opposed the Western military intervention in Libya.

The International has been criticized as opportunist by some other Trotskyist groups. One reason given for this criticism is that on two occasions sections participated in governments which included capitalist parties. These were the government led by Lula's Workers' Party in Brazil which also involves the Brazilian Republican Party and the Liberal Party, and the 1964 coalition between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Ceylon.

• By 1964 the LSSP's leadership abandoned the party's longstanding opposition to the SLFP, completing a political turn it had attempted in 1960, until the Sixth World Congress condemned the LSSP for offering support to the SLFP. In 1964, the International also opposed the entrance of the LSSP into a coalition government, with Pierre Frank addressing the LSSP's June 1964 conference to explain the United Secretariat's views. The International severed relations with the LSSP; it supported a split at the LSSP conference, supported by around a quarter of its membership and led by Bala Tampoe, a trade union leader, and 14 members of the LSSP's central committee. Tampoe and other LSSP dissidents organised the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary), which became the Ceylonese section of the International.
• In Brazil, the International was doubtful from the beginning about the participation in Lula's government of a leader of its Brazilian section, later saying that "from the beginning there were different positions about... participation in the government, in the International as well as in your ranks. But once the DS had decided in favour of participation, without hiding our reservations and doubts, we respected your decision and tried to help rather than put a spoke in your wheel. So we made an effort to convince comrades in our own sections that logically speaking the question of participation in the government should be subordinated to a judgement of the government’s orientations." As time went on, the International became more openly critical of its section's role in government. Members in Brazil were then in two different organisations: a majority group, Socialist Democracy (Brazil), which is inside the PT; and a minority ENLACE current in the PSOL, which opposes participation in capitalist government. However, Socialist Democracy withdrew from active participation in the Fourth International in 2006, leaving ENLACE as its Brazilian section.