International Committee of The Fourth International - 1985 To Present

1985 To Present

By the end of the 1970s, the revolutionary upsurge of the 60s and 70s had subsided. Membership of the ICFI fell, and the WRP leadership was not prepared for this. It entered into alliances with nationalist leaders in the under-developed countries.

This aroused the consternation of some members throughout the ICFI. The WRP had gained members and prominence in Great Britain, but the leadership increasingly went its own way against the ICFI as a whole.

This conflict erupted in the mid-80s and ended with the disintegration of the WRP. The various currents of the WRP attempted to found their own ICFIs each claiming to be the official one, yet they did not break with their old policies systematically and won no new international support. They disintegrated, and as of 2006, only two active ICFIs survives, one led by David North of what was then known as the Workers' League in the United States. North and his supporters gained the allegiance of half of the remaining national sections, with the Greek, Spanish and Peruvian sections splitting and the German, Australian, and Sri Lankan sections, as well as a fraternal grouping in Ecuador, supporting North. The other ICFI is based on the surviving group that still holds the name of WRP and refers to itself as the British section of an ICFI, with another sections in Russia/Ukraine, Sri Lanka and Greece. The Russian section is called the Workers Revolutionary League which is the Soviet section of the ICFI and has members in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. (Source 'Marxist Review' September 2008 Volume 23 Issue Number 8)

Anticipating an outbreak of US militarism after the collapse of the USSR, the ICFI associated with the SEP prepared for a new radicalization of the working class. For this reason, its sections reorganised into Socialist Equality Parties throughout the world.

After a year of internal consultation, in 1998 the American section of the ICFI launched the World Socialist Web Site.