International Committee of The Fourth International - Foundation

Foundation

The International Committee originated as a public faction of the Fourth International. It was formed in 1953 by a number of national sections of the FI that disagreed with the course of the International Secretariat of the Fourth International led at that time by Michel Pablo (Raptis) and Ernest Mandel (Germain). The Committee was co-ordinated by the American section, the Socialist Workers Party, and included the British section led by Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert's Parti Communiste Internationaliste (PCI) in France. Trotskyist groups in various other countries, notably in Austria, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and Nahuel Moreno's group in Argentina, also joined.

The grouping's founding statement was an open letter of the National Committee of the SWP which outlined the disputes it had with Pablo's faction within the International Secretariat of the Fourth International. It reiterated what it saw as the basic principles of Trotskyism and described the direction of the "Pabloite" faction as "revisionist", claiming that this threatened the survival of the Fourth International, the liquidation of the Trotskyist program and definite steps taken towards its organisational liquidation. As an example, the letter explained that Pablo expelled a majority of the French section of the International, because they disagreed with the International's policy of working within the Stalinist Communist Party of France. This policy was described as one of entrism sui generis, entryism of a special kind, in which the Trotskyists were to join the Stalinist or Socialist mass parties with a long term perspective of working within them.

Some critics of the Open Letter counter that the SWP and their co-thinkers in The Club had failed to defend the French majority against Pablo, and that they had shared the 1951 perspectives of International on war-revolutions and the need for deep entryism in the Communist Parties. The Club's entryism into the Labour Party in Britain resembled entrism sui generis. However, Pablo aimed for the FI to implement entryism more deeply than the leaders of the ICFI felt wise: They were also concerned by Pablo preparedness to enforce entrism, if necessary by splitting sections or appointing new leadership teams.

The Open Letter went on to explain that, in the SWP's view, what it described as Pabloite Revisionism was the result of a lack of confidence in the revolutionary capabilities of the working class and an impressionistic, overly positive, assessment of the strength and prospects of Stalinism. Pablo had, in 1951, argued that the transition between capitalism and socialism will probably take several centuries. The supporters of the Open Letter read this to suggest there would be "centuries of deformed workers states", and this phrase is often mistaken attributed to Pablo or to his formulation of what was called the war-revolution thesis.

The ICFI saw this as an abandonment of the principles that Trotsky fought for since the rise of Hitler and the consequent establishment of the Fourth International. The founders of the ICFI wanted the International maintain its organizational independence as the world party of the working-class, asserting that Pablo's policies would leave them an adjunct of the Stalinists. His faction's heavy-handed tactics of removing members who disagreed with his radical revisions made compromise appear impossible.

An excerpt from the concluding part of the "Open Letter" reads:

"To sum up: The lines of cleavage between Pablo’s revisionism and orthodox Trotskyism are so deep that no compromise is possible either politically or organizationally. The Pablo faction has demonstrated that it will not permit democratic decisions truly reflecting majority opinion to be reached. They demand complete submission to their criminal policy. They are determined to drive all orthodox Trotskyists out of the Fourth International or to muzzle and handcuff them."

"Their scheme has been to inject their Stalinist conciliationism piecemeal and likewise in piecemeal fashion, get rid of those who come to see what is happening and raise objections."

Linked below is a history of the founding of the ICFI and the "Open Letter".