Fourth International (ICR)

The Fourth International - International Centre of Reconstruction is a "tendency" within the Fourth International, a conglomeration of Trotskyist Communists. It was established as an "International Centre (or Center) of Reconstruction" by co-thinkers of Pierre Lambert, who argued that the post-war political evolution of the Fourth International—especially the organisation known as the reunified Fourth International —had taken the FI away from the ideas of its founder, Leon Trotsky. In the opinion of Lambert and his co-thinkers, the FI needed to be reconstructed. In 1993, they formed a new International, which they describe as the Fourth International.

The ICR's roots lie in the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International (OCRFI), which was established in 1972. It formed a short-lived bloc with Nahuel Moreno's tendency. A Parity Committee which operated in 1979 1980 produced Forty Theses of agreements between the tendencies led by Moreno and Lambert. On that basis, the Fourth International (International Committee) (FI [IC] ) was founded in 1980. However, the convergence decelerated because of Lambert's support for the government of François Mitterrand. Moreno's supporters boycotted a General Council of the FI(IC) in the Autumn of 1981 whereupon Lambert declared a split: Moreno's supporters formed the International Workers League; at a meeting on 21-23 December 1981 Lambert's supporters formed the "Fourth International - International Centre of Reconstruction", or ICR.

The ICR underwent a period of re-orientation, during which Lambert proposed that the ICR should announce itself as the Fourth International. In 1986-87 Luis Favre became critical of Pierre Lambert within the PCI/OCRFI, but Lambert's position was adopted.

In June 1993, a world conference of 44 sections of the ICR was held in Paris. It re-proclaimed the Fourth International on the basis of one of its founding document: the Transitional Program. The resulting international organization, linked closely with the International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International, is known among its adherents and national sections simply as the Fourth International. Since it is not the only group to refer to itself in this way, others refer to it as the "Lambertist" Fourth International (after Pierre Lambert, one of its most prominent members), as the Fourth International (La Vérité) (after its international theoretical journal "La Vérité"), or as SIQI (for the French "Secrétariat International de la Quatrième Internationale" (International Secretariat of the Fourth International), the name of its leading body) [http://www.broadleft.org/abbr.htm] ).

External links

* [http://www.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=19&Itemid=53 The Manifesto of the Fourth World Congress of the Fourth International (1999).]
* [http://www.socialistorganizer.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=53 The Fourth International and the United Front (Excerpts from a report by Pierre Lambert presented to the Fifth World Congress of the Fourth International, Berlin, 2002).]
* [http://www.eit-ilc.org/ International Liaison Committee for a Workers' International]
* [http://www.socialistorganizer.org Socialist Organizer]
* [http://www.parti-des-travailleurs.org/ Parti des Travailleurs (France)]
* [http://www.eltrabajo.org.mx/ Partido de Trabajadores Democrático Independiente (Mexico)]
* [http://www.jornalotrabalho.com.br/ Corrente O Trabalho do Partido dos Trabalhdores (Brazil)]
* [http://membres.lycos.fr/tribune/ Unoffical site concerning the Parti des Travailleurs (Algeria)]
* [http://www.posicuarta.org/ Partido Obrero Socialista Internacionalista (Spain)]
* [http://www.tribunasociala.org/ Tribuna Socială (Romania)]
* [http://www.ucpo.ch/ L’Union des Cercles pour une Politique Ouvrière (Switzerland)]
* [http://www.msu-borotba.ukrbiz.net/ України "Боротьба" (Ukraine)]

ee also

*List of Trotskyist internationals