Mehring Books

1938-61: The Fourth International and USFI vs ICFI

The Fourth International (FI) was founded in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his followers. The FI had previously been organised as the International Left Opposition since 1923 within the Communist International. its American section was the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), led by James P. Cannon. Its British section was the Revolutionary Socialist League, which merged with the smaller Workers' International League (WIL) in 1944 to form the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP). One of the leaders of the WIL was Gerry Healy, who would later split from the RCP to form "the Club", which became the Socialist Labour League, later (from 1973) called Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP). Cannon and Healy were close politically.

In 1953, the US SWP's national committee issued an Open Letter to Trotskyists Throughout the World^[3] and organised the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). This was a public faction which initially included, in addition to the SWP, Healy's British section The Club, the Internationalist Communist Party in France (then led by Pierre Lambert), Nahuel Moreno's party in Argentina and the Austrian and Chinese sections of the FI. The sections of the ICFI withdrew from the FI's International Secretariat, which suspended their voting rights. Both sides claimed they constituted a majority of the former International.^[4][5]

Over the following decade, the ICFI referred to the rest of the International as the "International Secretariat of the Fourth International", emphasising its view that the Secretariat did not speak for the International as a whole.^[6]

In 1958, the US SWP adopted a policy of "regroupment": pursuit of former members of Stalinist Communist parties, who had been disillusioned by the Secret Speech.^{[7]: 844–845} In 1961, Tim Wohlforth, James Robertson, and other SWP members who opposed regroupment created a tendency within the SWP, the Revolutionary Tendency (RT). RT saw the SWP as shifting toward the International Secretariat of the Fourth International (ISFI), led by Michel Pablo. In 1962, the RT in turn split: Robertson's majority kept the name. Wohlforth's minority renamed itself the Reorganized Minority Tendency (RMT).^[7]: 866

By 1961 the ICFI had split politically: Lambert’s Internationalist Communist Party (PCI) in France and Healy’s Socialist Labour League (SLL) in Britain arguing that a workers' state had not been created in Cuba, putting them at odds with the American SWP and the other organisations in the ICFI.^[8] By 1963, the split was also organizational. Each side held a congress at which it claimed to be the majority of the ICFI.^[9] On the one hand, the remaining Austrian, Chinese and New Zealand IC groups, which had not already unified, met at a congress with the SWP and voted to take part in the reunification congress. On the other hand, the PCI and SLL called an "International Conference of Trotskyists" to continue the work of the ICFI under their own leadership.^[10]

1962-1985: The reunified International and the split on ICFI

In 1962 the International Committee and International Secretariat (the term that the ICFI used to refer to the Fourth International Secretariat led by Michel Pablo) formed a Parity Commission to organise a common World Congress.

At the June 1963 reunification congress held in Italy, the two sections reunified, electing the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI) to replace the former groups.^[11] The British and French parties in the ICFI did not join this reunified congress, as they believed that Michel Pablo's ideas should be completely rejected before reunification could occur.^[12]

In September 1964, the SWP expelled Wohlforth and the RMT, who created the American Committee for the Fourth International (ACFI) and launched the biweekly Bulletin of International Socialism.^{[7]: 866, 917–918, 924  [13]} ACFI maintained connections with Healy and the rump ICFI, which they considered the legitimate Trotskyist movement. ACFI became the American section of the ICFI.

In 1966, ACFI renamed itself to the Workers League (WL).^[7]: 866 In 1973, WL entered serious organizational crisis. About 150 members and most of its founding leaders left. At Healey's insistence, Wohlforth was forced out of leadership.^[7]: 927

By 1971, the ICFI began collapsing due to disagreements between Gerry Healy and Pierre Lambert. The group met seven times between the early 1970s and 1985, and affiliates numbered maximum 10-12.^[14]

1985-: After Healy

In 1985, Healy was expelled from the WRP.^[15] By then, concern as to Healy's financial, political and intelligence links with the Libyan and Iraqi governments had risen within the party to the point at which it imploded. The final straw was an allegation by Aileen Jennings, Healy's former secretary and "close personal companion" over 19 years, that Healy had sexually abused female members of the WRP.^[16]

The WRP collapsed into eight or nine competing groupuscules.^[17] One faction, under the leadership of Sheila Torrence, retained the name WRP and daily newspaper The News Line. A further split from this, in 1987, was the Healy-loyal Marxist Party, including Vanessa and Corin Redgrave.^[18] Both groupuscules maintained small international organisations claiming the name ICFI, the former still extant, the latter moribund by the late 1990s.

Another faction supported the perspective advanced by ICFI and Workers League National Secretary David North who won the support of a majority of sections of the ICFI to expel the WRP from the organization, deciding that any supporters of theirs among the WRP would have to undergo a new application process to be readmitted.^[19] They formed the WRP (Internationalist), later renamed the International Communist Party. They argued that “the WRP tended to view the international organization as little more than an adjunct to its own British-based organization”.^[20]

In 1995, parties affiliated with ICFI each renamed themselves as Socialist Equality Party. In 1998, the ICFI launched the World Socialist Web Site.^[21] ICFI runs the publishing house Mehring Books, formerly named Labor Publications.^[22] In 2006, the Socialist Equality Party relaunched its student movement (the Students for Social Equality) as the International Students for Social Equality (ISSE). In 2012, the SEP renamed the ISSE as the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE).^[23]