Fourth International
The Fourth International was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
In the Transitional Program, which was drafted in 1938 during the founding congress of the Fourth International, Trotsky reiterated the need for the legalization of the Soviet parties and worker's control of production.
There is no longer a single, centralized cohesive Fourth International. Throughout most of its existence and history, the Fourth International was hunted by agents of the NKVD, subjected to political repression by countries such as France and the United States, and by supporters of the Soviet Union. The Fourth International struggled to maintain contact under these conditions of crackdowns and repression during World War II due to the fact that subsequent proletarian uprisings were often under the influence of Soviet-aligned pro-Stalin parties and militant nationalist groups, leading to defeats for the Fourth International and the Trotskyists, who subsequently never managed to obtain meaningful influence.
Despite this, many parts of the world, including Latin America, Europe and Asia, continue to have large Trotskyist groupings who are attracted to its anti-Stalinist positions and its defense of proletarian internationalism. Several of these groups carry the label "Fourth Internationalist" either in their organization's name, important political position documents, or both. In line with Trotskyist theory and thought, the Fourth International tended to view the Soviet Union as a degenerated workers' state. However, although it regarded its own ideas as more advanced and thus superior to those of the Third International, it did not actively push for the Comintern's destruction. The current incarnation of the Fourth International does not operate as a cohesive entity in the manner of its predecessors.
The Fourth International suffered a major split in 1940 and an even more significant schism in 1953. A partial reunification of the schismatic factions occurred in 1963, but the organization never recovered sufficiently, and it failed to re-emerge as a single transnational grouping. The response of Trotskyists to such a situation has been in the form of forming multiple Internationals across the world, with some divided over which particular organization represents the true legacy and political continuity of the historical Fourth International.
Trotskyism
Trotskyists regard themselves as working in opposition to both capitalism and Stalinism. Trotsky advocated proletarian revolution as set out in his theory of "permanent revolution", and believed that a workers' state would not be able to hold out against the pressures of a hostile capitalist world unless socialist revolutions quickly took hold in other countries as well. This theory was advanced in opposition to the view held by the Stalinists that "Socialism in One Country" could be built in the Soviet Union alone. Furthermore, Trotsky and his supporters harshly criticized the increasingly totalitarian nature of Joseph Stalin's rule. They argued that socialism without democracy is impossible. Thus, faced with the increasing lack of democracy in the Soviet Union, they concluded that it was no longer a socialist workers' state, but a degenerated workers' state.In the Transitional Program, which was drafted during the founding congress of the Fourth International, Trotsky called for the legalization of the Soviet parties and worker's control of production.
Trotsky and his supporters had been organised since 1923 as the Left Opposition. They opposed the bureaucratization of the Soviet Union, which they analysed as being partly caused by the poverty and isolation of the Soviet economy. Stalin's theory of socialism in one country was developed in 1924 as an opposition to Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution, which argued that capitalism was a world system and required a world revolution to replace it with socialism. Prior to 1924, the Bolsheviks' international perspective had been guided by Trotsky's position. Trotsky argued that Stalin's theory represented the interests of bureaucratic elements in direct opposition to the working class.
Eventually, Trotsky was sent into internal exile and his supporters were jailed. However, the Left Opposition continued to work in secret within the Soviet Union. Trotsky was exiled to Turkey in 1928. He moved from there to France, Norway and finally to Mexico. He was assassinated on Stalin's orders in Mexico in August 1940.
Political internationals
A political international is an organisation of political parties or activists with the aim of co-ordinating their activity for a common purpose. There had been a long tradition of socialists organising on an international basis, and Karl Marx had led the International Workingmen's Association, which later became known as the "first international".After the International Workingmen's Association disbanded in 1876, several attempts were made to revive the organisation, culminating in the formation of the Socialist International in 1889. This was disbanded in 1916 following disagreements over World War I. Although the organisation reformed in 1923 as the Labour and Socialist International, supporters of the October Revolution and the Bolsheviks had already set up the Communist International, which they regarded as the Third International. This was organised on a democratic centralist basis, with component parties required to fight for policies adopted by the body as a whole.
By declaring themselves the Fourth International, the "World Party of Socialist Revolution", the Trotskyists were publicly asserting their continuity with the Comintern, and with its predecessors. Their recognition of the importance of these earlier Internationals was coupled with a belief that they eventually degenerated. Although the Socialist International and Comintern were still in existence, the Trotskyists did not believe those organisations were capable of supporting revolutionary socialism and internationalism.
The foundation of the Fourth International was therefore spurred in part by a desire to form a stronger political current, rather than being seen as the communist opposition to the Comintern and the Soviet Union. Trotsky believed that its formation was all the more urgent for the role he saw it playing in the impending World War.
Decision to form the International
In the early 1930s, Trotsky and his supporters believed that Stalin's influence over the Third International could still be fought from within and slowly rolled back. They organised themselves into the International Left Opposition in 1930, which was intended to be a group of anti-Stalinist dissenters within the Third International. Stalin's supporters, who dominated the International, would no longer tolerate dissent. All Trotskyists, and those suspected of being influenced by Trotskyism, were expelled.Trotsky claimed that the Third Period policies of the Comintern had contributed to the rise of Adolf Hitler in Germany, and that its turn to a popular front policy sowed illusions in reformism and pacifism and "clear the road for a fascist overturn". By 1935 he claimed that the Comintern had fallen irredeemably into the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy. He and his supporters, expelled from the Third International, participated in a conference of the London Bureau of socialist parties outside both the Socialist International and the Comintern. Three of those parties joined the Left Opposition in signing a document written by Trotsky calling for a Fourth International, which became known as the "Declaration of Four". Of those, two soon distanced themselves from the agreement, but the Dutch Revolutionary Socialist Party worked with the International Left Opposition to declare the International Communist League.
This position was contested by Andrés Nin and some other members of the League who did not support the call for a new International. This group prioritised regroupment with other communist oppositions, principally the International Communist Opposition, linked to the Right Opposition in the Soviet Party, a regroupment which eventually led to the formation of the International Bureau for Revolutionary Socialist Unity. Trotsky considered those organisations to be centrist. Despite Trotsky, the Spanish section merged with the Spanish section of ICO, forming the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification. Trotsky claimed the merger was to be a capitulation to centrism. The Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, a left split from the Social Democratic Party of Germany founded in 1931, co-operated with the International Left Opposition briefly in 1933 but soon abandoned the call for a new International.
In 1935, Trotsky wrote an Open Letter for the Fourth International, reaffirming the Declaration of Four, while documenting the recent course of the Comintern and the Socialist International. In the letter, he called for the urgent formation of a Fourth International. The "First International Conference for the Fourth International" was held in Paris in June 1936, reports giving its location as Geneva for security reasons. This meeting dissolved the International Communist League, founding in its place the Movement for the Fourth International on Trotsky's perspectives.
The foundation of the Fourth International was seen as more than just the simple renaming of an international tendency that was already in existence. It was argued that the Third International had now degenerated completely and was therefore to be seen as a counter-revolutionary organisation that would in time of crisis defend capitalism. Trotsky believed that the coming World War would produce a revolutionary wave of class and national struggles, rather as World War I had done.
Stalin reacted to the growing strength of Trotsky's supporters with a major political massacre of people within the Soviet Union, and the assassination of Trotsky's supporters and family abroad. He had agents go through historical documents and photos to attempt to erase Trotsky's memory from the history books. According to the historian Mario Keßler, Stalin's supporters turned to antisemitism to whip up sentiment against Trotsky. Stalin's daughter later claimed that his fight with Trotsky laid the foundations for his later antisemitic campaigns.