International Committee of The Fourth International - 1971 To 1985

1971 To 1985

The OCI and its supporters around the ICFI left the ICFI in 1971. This reflected growing differences, primarily over the OCI's support for the Partido Obrero Revolucionario (POR) and the SLL's emphasis on Marxist philosophy in the training of its newer members.

Both the SLL and OCI were at this point developing connection to Trotskyists in other countries, but in different ways.

• The OCI had sought to bring the Bolivian POR into the ICFI. In addition to these groups the OCI was cultivating the exiled Hungarian League of Revolutionary Socialists (LRSH) led by Michel Varga, a former leader of the students during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and of the German Socialist Workers League (BSA). Moreover the Argentine Workers' Policy group led by Jorge Altamira was close to the OCI. In general, the OCI rejected the point of view of the SLL important to educate the newer members on the philosophical underpinnings of Marxism. More importantly, differences over the actual development of the revolution, especially in Latin America forced the break between the OCI and SLL. It should be noted that almost all of the ICFI in Latin America went to the new pro-OCI international tendency leaving the SLL supporters there with only a handful of members, notably in Bolivia and Peru. The SLL took the majority of the ICFI in Greece which went on to build a very influential organization in that country under the Colonels.

• The SLL claims, on the other hand were looking to bring newer forces into the ICFI that shared its approach: in the shape of the League for a Workers Republic in Ireland and the Revolutionary Communist League of Ceylon, in addition to the Workers League in the USA. The SLL fought to make dialectical materialism the cornerstone of its political approach.

The contest between the two political lines could not last and in 1971 the OCI and its allies would leave the ICFI to form their own international tendency, which later became known as the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International. In 1979 it fused with a grouping led by Nahuel Moreno. The ICFI later considered this a major tragedy, stemming from the relative inexperience of the majority of the members entering into revolutionary politics during a revolutionary upsurge of the international working class. The OCI and the OCRFI considered the ICFI to be an ossicifed political sect incapable of growing beyond their 'mother' section in the UK. The OCRFI in fact outpaced the ICFI in growth from then on. Some members of OCI continued to support the ICFI, however, which allowed the ICFI to regain a very small foothold in French politics. Some members of the SLL continuued to support the OCI, later the PCI as it became known and set up the Socialist Labour Group in Britain, affiliated with the OCRFI and defending their positions. It was joined shortly afterward by the above mentioned League for a Workers Republic in Ireland, further depleting the ICFI ranks.

Delegates from eight countries attended the fourth world conference of the IC in April 1972. In conjunction with a massive growth in membership and preparations for what they believed would be "mass influence", the SLL renamed itself the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1974 and remained a part of the ICFI along with affiliated sections in Ireland, Greece, Germany, Spain, Australia, the USA, Ceylon and Peru.