What is the 4th International?
1988 1988-07Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 8 →
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1982 and 1988 PRT presidential candidate (Mexico), Former president AZAPO: chairman. National Forum of South Africa: close associate of Steve Biko Former Nicaraguan Consul in San Francisco Zbigniew Kowalewski Author, "Give Us Back Our Factories: Solidarnosc and the Struggle for Workers' Self-Management in Poland Veteran of 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike:
Mexico: imprisoned under the Smith Act in 1944 Socialist Action candidate for S.F. Board of Education Sponsored by: Socialist Action and International Viewpoint SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1988 9 first woman to run for president Saths Cooper Aura Beteta Speakers:
and Jake Cooper personal guard for Leon Trotsky in Coyoacan. Claudio Mangani Representative. United Secretariat of the Fourth International National Secretary Socialist Action with special presentations by:
Leon Trotsky's grandson and Co-chairperson, Moscow Trials Campaign Committee Rosario Ibarra Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Lenin and the Bolsheviks built a new organization, the Third (Communist) International, to inspire and lead the struggles of oppressed people around the world. But the failure of the revolution in the advanced capitalist countries and the ensuing period of demoralization allowed a bureaucratic clique headed by Joseph Stalin to consolidate control in the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the Third International became an instrument of Stalin's self-serving policies.
Following the collapse of the German Communist Party in 1933 (when Hitler was permitted to take power without a struggle), Leon Trotsky concluded that it was necessary to create a new international revolutionary leadership. "The Third International is dead," Trotsky wrote. "Long Live the Fourth International!"
The Fourth International was founded in 1938 by Trotsky and a small number of his co-thinkers. Their purpose in proclaiming the Fourth International was to build revolutionary Marxist vanguard parties in their own countries—and in every country of the world.
The goal of each section of the Fourth International was to win the allegiance of the working class and its allies, leading them in the overthrow of the rule of the international capitalist class and its agents, and in establishing the proletarian dictatorship as a tool for the creation of an international socialist society. The Fourth International's basic programmatic foundations-which continue the revolutionary perspectives of Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, V.I. Lenin, and Leon Trotsky-have been proven valid with every major development of the international class struggle.
These principles remain the only expression of a rounded and complete perspective for the world revolution. They reject all theories of "building socialism" in a single country, as well as all forms of class collaboration.
Although the Fourth International remains a relatively small propaganda nucleus, its forces and influence in some countries have reached a stage where they can play a direct role in the living class struggle. This is the case of the Mexican Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT), for example, which is supporting the presidential campaign of Rosario Ibarra de Piedra.
The Fourth International, despite its size, is the only tendency of the international revolutionary movement that functions as an international organization in more than 50 countries. This is not accidental. It is the product of education and training in internationalism from the very inception of the Trotskyist movement.
Socialist Action is in political solidarity with the Fourth International. It stands firmly on the program and traditions of the Fourth International and of the American Trotskyist movement, which was founded and led by James P. Cannon.
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An evening with leaders of the world revolutionary movement revolucionaro