Letters from Tomis

Introduction

The Fourth International was founded in 1938 as a revolutionary socialist international dedicated to the principles of Marxism as interpreted by Leon Trotsky. It emerged in opposition to the Communist International (Comintern) under Stalin, which Trotskyists believed had degenerated and betrayed the cause of world revolution. From its inception, the Fourth International aspired to be the “World Party of Socialist Revolution,” rallying Marxist militants globally under the banner of permanent revolution and proletarian internationalism. This essay examines the historical trajectory of the Fourth International from a pro-communist, Trotskyist perspective. It provides a global overview of its development and activities across different regions, analyzes the reasons for its historical failure through Marxist theoretical concepts such as dialectical materialism and the role of the vanguard party, and evaluates its contemporary legacy, including the current Trotskyist groups that trace their lineage to this tradition. The tone is academic and analytical, grounded in Marxist theory, and the discussion is organized into clear sections for clarity.

Origins and Founding of the Fourth International

The Fourth International’s formation must be understood against the backdrop of the late 1920s and 1930s, a period of profound turmoil and ideological conflict in the communist movement. Trotsky and his followers, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Comintern, constituted the Left Opposition in exile. They argued that Joseph Stalin’s leadership had led the Soviet Union and the world communist movement onto a bureaucratic and nationally limited path (summarized in Stalin’s doctrine of “socialism in one country”) that was inimical to the goal of world socialism. Trotsky, adhering to Lenin’s vision of international revolution, developed his theory of permanent revolution, which posited that in the epoch of imperialism the tasks of democratic and socialist revolution must be carried out in unison and must spread internationally or face defeat. By the early 1930s, Trotsky had concluded that the Comintern was no longer a fit vehicle for revolution after it disastrously failed to prevent the rise of fascism (most notably, Hitler’s seizure of power in Germany in 1933 was blamed in part on the Comintern’s sectarian policies). He declared that the Third International was “dead” for the purposes of revolution and called for a Fourth International to replace it.

In September 1938, Trotsky’s supporters convened a clandestine founding conference near Paris, officially launching the Fourth International. Although only a few dozen delegates attended (hailing from Europe and North America primarily, with communication from supporters in Latin America and Asia), they proclaimed a new world organization committed to authentic Leninist politics. The Transitional Program was adopted as the core document of the congress. This program, formally titled “The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International,” outlined the International’s strategy: it put forward transitional demands bridging the immediate struggles of the working class (for jobs, wages, rights, etc.) to the ultimate goal of socialist revolution. The Transitional Program’s underlying thesis was that capitalism was mired in a terminal crisis (a “death agony”), and only the conquest of power by the working class under revolutionary leadership could resolve humanity’s crises. At the same time, the program insisted on political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy in the USSR – restoring workers’ democracy and revitalizing the Soviet state as part of the world revolutionary process.

The foundation of the Fourth International was thus an audacious and optimistic move on the eve of World War II. Trotsky believed that the approaching war would replicate the dynamics of World War I, which had triggered revolutionary uprisings including the Russian Revolution. In this dialectical vision of history, the coming conflagration was expected to sharpen the contradictions of capitalism to the breaking point, producing a wave of proletarian revolutions. The Fourth International saw itself as the necessary subjective factor – the vanguard party on a global scale – that would guide the insurgent working masses to victory, in contrast to the discredited Stalinist and reformist leaders. The early Trotskyist movement, though small, was ideologically hardened and globally dispersed, and Trotsky asserted that it was stronger in ideas and cadre than the nucleus Lenin had started with before the 1917 revolution. With this perspective, the Fourth International marched into the tumultuous 1940s proclaiming that it alone upheld the unadulterated banner of Marxism-Leninism after the betrayals of the Second and Third Internationals.

World War II and Postwar Challenges for the Fourth International

The outbreak of World War II in 1939 put the newly formed Fourth International under severe strain. Repression intensified as Trotskyists were targeted by multiple forces: Stalinist agents pursued them abroad, capitalist governments treated them as subversives, and the fascist powers hunted down known communists (including Trotskyists) in occupied countries. Communication between the International’s sections was nearly severed. Tragedy struck early – in August 1940 Trotsky himself was assassinated in Mexico by a Stalinist agent, robbing the movement of its principal leader and theoretician. Many European Trotskyist militants were killed or imprisoned during the war, and groups in Asia suffered similar fates under Japanese occupation. Despite these blows, Trotskyist cadres attempted to maintain their organizations underground. For instance, in France and Vietnam, Trotskyists participated in anti-fascist resistance, albeit often in competition or conflict with larger Stalinist-led groups. The dialectical materialist view of history stresses that conditions produce unexpected turns: the war, which the Fourth International hoped would spur revolution, initially instead brought immense hardships and isolation for its forces.

As the war ended in the mid-1940s, the Fourth International faced a dramatically changed world situation. Contrary to Trotsky’s expectations, the immediate postwar period did not witness successful socialist revolutions in the advanced capitalist countries. Instead, Western Europe saw a stabilization of capitalism (aided by U.S. economic intervention and the rebuilding process), and mass communist parties in countries like France and Italy entered or supported postwar democratic governments rather than leading insurrections. In the East, however, revolution did spread – but under Stalinist or nationalist leaderships rather than under Trotskyist guidance. The Soviet Red Army’s presence in Eastern Europe facilitated the emergence of pro-Soviet deformed workers’ states in that region. In Asia, the Chinese Revolution of 1949 brought Mao’s Communist Party to power – another instance of a successful revolution that Trotskyists did not lead (and one which followed a peasant-guerrilla strategy quite different from Trotsky’s urban proletarian emphasis). Likewise, the Vietnamese anti-colonial struggle was victorious under Ho Chi Minh’s Stalin-aligned party, which in fact suppressed the indigenous Trotskyist movement in Vietnam. These outcomes posed theoretical and practical dilemmas for the Fourth International: they had to explain how socialist (or at least anti-capitalist) revolutions were occurring without their leadership and often under forces they had characterized as bureaucratic or petit-bourgeois. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution had warned that non-proletarian leaderships would ultimately betray or limit revolutions; yet in China and Yugoslavia, such forces came to power and abolished capitalism (establishing what Trotskyists defined as deformed workers’ states).

In the context of these events, the late 1940s and early 1950s brought intense internal debates within the Fourth International. A new generation of leaders, such as Michel Pablo (a Greek Trotskyist based in France) and Ernest Mandel (a Belgian), emerged in the International Secretariat. They tried to analyze the unexpected developments. Pablo in particular put forward a perspective that the world had entered an extended period of “cold war” in which the Soviet bureaucracy and communist parties, despite their deformations, might be pressured by circumstance into leading struggles against imperialism. He controversially suggested that Trotskyists should practice “entrism sui generis” – deep entry into the mass Communist and nationalist parties – working within them for extended periods rather than insisting on immediate organizational independence. The logic was to intersect with mass movements wherever they were happening (even under Stalinist leadership), to push them further toward genuine socialist outcomes. This perspective was seen by some Trotskyists as a revision or dilution of the Fourth International’s mission to build independent revolutionary parties. Would immersing themselves within Stalinist organizations risk losing their distinct programmatic clarity?

The dispute came to a head around 1952–53. On one side, Pablo and his collaborators advocated adapting to the reality of powerful Stalinist-led movements (for example, considering that a third world war might force the Soviet bureaucracy to champion world revolution for its own survival). On the other side, prominent leaders like James P. Cannon of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party, along with figures such as Gerry Healy in Britain and Pierre Lambert in France, resisted what they saw as Pablo’s “liquidationist” approach. They insisted that the Fourth International must continue forging its own vanguard parties and that the Stalinist bureaucracies, far from being vehicles of progress, would ultimately strangle workers’ revolution. This fundamental disagreement over strategy and the class nature of Stalinist movements led to a major split in 1953. The Fourth International effectively broke into two factions: the International Secretariat (IS) centered around Pablo and Mandel, and the International Committee (IC) composed of those parties (the SWP, Healy’s group, etc.) who rejected Pabloism. Each side claimed to be the true guardian of Trotsky’s legacy.

Globally, this schism weakened the Trotskyist movement just as it was trying to capitalize on postwar opportunities. In South Asia, for example, the Fourth International had one of its few mass parties, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) in Sri Lanka (then Ceylon). The LSSP had significant influence among workers and even led the opposition in parliament. During the faction fight, the LSSP took a middle stance, hoping for reunification of the International, but by the early 1960s it too faced its own crisis: in 1964 the LSSP majority entered a coalition government with a bourgeois nationalist party. This was viewed by Trotskyists as a gross betrayal of proletarian independence, and the LSSP was disaffiliated from the Trotskyist movement. That incident underscored how objective pressures could push even a formally Trotskyist party into opportunist choices when isolated in a broader political landscape.

In Latin America, Trotskyism found footholds but also encountered immense challenges. During Bolivia’s 1952 revolution, a Trotskyist group (the POR – Revolutionary Workers’ Party) had significant influence among miners and pressed for socialist policies. However, lacking the power to take leadership, they ultimately tailed a nationalist government and the revolutionary moment ebbed – a case often cited in Trotskyist analyses as evidence of the “crisis of leadership” (i.e., without a resolute vanguard party, even radicalized workers can end up following reformist leaders, leading to defeats). Meanwhile, Argentine and Cuban Trotskyists grappled with the rise of Fidel Castro’s movement; the Cuban Revolution of 1959 again was a socialist revolution that did not fit the Trotskyist script neatly. The Fourth International largely hailed Cuba’s revolution as a positive development (seeing it as confirmation that capitalism could be overthrown in the Western Hemisphere), but it had to assess Castro, who was not a Trotskyist and established a one-party state aligned with the Soviet Union. Some Trotskyist currents enthusiastically embraced Cuba, considering Castro an unconscious revolutionary socialist, while others were more critical and warned of emerging bureaucratism. These differing responses to Cuba would later provoke further splits within the Trotskyist camp.

Despite these trials, the Fourth International (or rather its competing factions) persisted in the 1950s with organizing efforts on all continents. There were Trotskyist groups active in Europe (France, Britain, Belgium, etc.), North America, Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, and others), Asia (notably in countries like Vietnam, Ceylon, and India), and pockets in Africa. However, almost everywhere they remained minorities, often persecuted and operating on the margins of larger political upheavals dominated by either bourgeois-nationalist or Stalinist forces. The grand revolutionary wave that Trotsky had predicted did not materialize in the straightforward way expected. Instead, a more contradictory dialectic unfolded: capitalism in the West experienced a period of relative stabilization and growth (the postwar boom), while in the East revolutions produced regimes that Trotskyists deemed bureaucratic and politically degenerated despite their socialistic measures. In this complex environment, the Fourth International’s initial perspective seemed out of sync, and internal dissensions reflected the difficulty of reconciling theory with reality.

The Cold War Era and the Splintering of Trotskyism

By the early 1960s, the Trotskyist movement took steps toward healing its post-1953 fracture. The 1960s were marked by global upheavals – anti-colonial struggles, the rise of the New Left, student revolts, and the Vietnam War – which created new openings for revolutionary politics. Sensing the need for unity, a reunification congress was held in 1963, where a majority of the two main factions (the International Secretariat and a significant part of the International Committee) merged to reconstitute the Fourth International as a single organization. This reunified Fourth International is often referred to as the United Secretariat of the Fourth International (USFI), named after its leadership body. Key figures in this reunited International included Ernest Mandel, Joseph Hansen (from the American SWP), and Pierre Frank, among others. Notably, two prominent holdouts refused to join: the British group led by Gerry Healy and the French group led by Pierre Lambert remained outside, each insisting the reunited body was revisionist. Those organizations continued their own separate “Fourth International” efforts (Healy’s tendency kept the name International Committee of the Fourth International, while Lambert’s tendency eventually formed its own international in the 1970s). Thus, even reunification did not eliminate all splits – Trotskyism would henceforth be marked by multiple competing “Fourth Internationals.”

The reunited Fourth International of 1963 adopted a perspective that tried to integrate the lessons of the past decade. For example, it gave strong support to the Cuban Revolution, considering it a dynamic new road to socialism in the developing world. The FI characterized Cuba as a deformed workers’ state (because it had abolished capitalism and achieved social gains, but without a workers’ democracy or soviet power) and stood for its defense against U.S. imperialism while advocating political revolution to democratize the regime. This positive attitude towards Cuba, and later solidarity with the Vietnamese National Liberation Front, showed that the Fourth International was aligning itself with the militant anti-imperialist currents of the day, albeit with critical support. The FI’s 1960s analyses (such as the document “The Dynamics of World Revolution Today”) distinguished between different arenas of struggle: advanced capitalist countries (where they foresaw a resurgence of class struggle, as in the events of May 1968 in France), the bureaucratized “workers’ states” (USSR, Eastern Europe, China, etc., where they still called for political revolution against the ruling bureaucracies), and the colonial or semi-colonial countries (where they expected ongoing national liberation struggles that could be pushed toward socialist outcomes under revolutionary leadership).

During the late 1960s and 1970s, Trotskyist groups did experience a modest revival in influence amid the global wave of radicalism. In France, for example, Trotskyists were active in the May 1968 student-worker uprising; the French section (the Jeunesse Communiste Révolutionnaire, later reorganized as the Ligue Communiste and then the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire or LCR) gained a new generation of adherents and public visibility as part of the revolutionary left. In the United States, the SWP grew during the anti-Vietnam War movement and engaged in mass protest organizing. New Trotskyist currents also sprang up or expanded in Latin America, where some young radicals saw Trotskyism as an alternative to both Soviet-line communism and the mere nationalism of some guerrilla movements. For instance, in Argentina the Trotskyist movement produced influential leaders like Nahuel Moreno and Juan Posadas, each of whom led their own international tendencies (Moreno’s tendency would form the Latin American Coordination that evolved into the International Workers League, while Posadas led an idiosyncratic wing that even speculated about nuclear war and extraterrestrial socialism). In Britain, a section of the reunited FI eventually broke away to pursue entry work in the Labour Party (this was Ted Grant’s group, which became the Militant tendency and later the Committee for a Workers’ International). Meanwhile, Healy’s ICFI (which had not reunited in 1963) built the Workers Revolutionary Party in the UK and had some growth in the 1970s before imploding in the 1980s amid scandals. These details illustrate that by the 1970s, Trotskyism had proliferated into a number of organizations worldwide, each claiming to be true to Trotsky’s program even as they diverged on strategy and analysis.

This fragmentation was fueled by several factors. One was the continued pressure of differing national conditions: Trotskyist groups in, say, France or the U.S. operated in pluralist political environments and could work openly, whereas in Latin American dictatorships or African countries, some opted for clandestine or armed struggle methods. These differences sometimes led to disputes within the International about which tactics were correct, leading some national sections to break away. Another factor was the theoretical complexity of new phenomena: the emergence of guerrilla warfare strategies (inspired by Cuba and Che Guevara) appealed to some Trotskyists, while others warned that foquismo (foco theory) was an adventurist detour from organizing the urban working class. The Fourth International itself was split in the late 1960s when a faction led by Posadas left, and further divided in the 1970s over how to relate to guerrilla movements and leftist nationalist governments. For example, the Argentine Revolution of the early 1970s and the rise of leftist populist regimes like the Chilean government of Salvador Allende forced Trotskyists to debate their approach: should they join broader coalitions and armed struggles or maintain independent working-class politics at all costs? The results were not always favorable – in Chile, Trotskyists were too weak to significantly influence Allende’s process before it was crushed by a coup in 1973, and many were killed or exiled.

By the 1980s, the Trotskyist milieu was highly fragmented. The Fourth International (USFI) still functioned, but it suffered its own splits (for instance, the American SWP drifted away from Trotskyism and quit the FI by the early 1980s as it embraced Castroism more fully; concurrently, a faction in the FI led by Moreno also split off to form a separate international). The International Committee (ICFI) continued under new leadership (notably the American section led by David North after Gerry Healy’s expulsion and the collapse of the WRP). Other notable Trotskyist currents included the International Socialists (associated with Tony Cliff in Britain, who had broken from orthodox Trotskyism by arguing that the USSR was “state capitalist” rather than a degenerated workers’ state) – although they did not call themselves a Fourth International, they represent another branch of the Trotskyist tradition. In sum, the latter half of the 20th century saw Trotskyism spread in a political diaspora: present in many countries and active in various movements, but divided into numerous small internationals rather than one unified world party. Each claimed to uphold the true continuity of the 1938 Fourth International, while often denouncing others as sectarians or revisionists. This outcome was far from Trotsky’s bold prediction that, by its first decade, the Fourth International would become the decisive revolutionary force on the planet.

Reasons for the Fourth International’s Historical Failure

From a Marxist and Trotskyist perspective, the historical failure of the Fourth International to achieve its ultimate goal (leading successful socialist revolutions internationally) can be attributed to a combination of objective and subjective factors. These can be analyzed using the tools of historical materialism, examining how material conditions and class forces interacted with the agency of the revolutionary vanguard. Several key reasons stand out:

1. Unfavorable Objective Conditions After World War II: The post-1945 world did not match the catastrophically revolutionary scenario that Trotsky had foreseen. Instead of collapsing under war’s strain, capitalism entered a period of stabilization and expansion (especially in the Western economies during the long postwar boom). This economic growth allowed significant reforms (rising living standards, welfare states, etc.), which undercut the appeal of revolutionary politics among the working classes in advanced countries. According to dialectical materialism, material conditions shape consciousness; the relative prosperity and democratic concessions of the 1950s–60s in the West fostered more reformist consciousness, making it harder for a small revolutionary movement to win the masses. At the same time, in the colonial world, many struggles for independence were channeled into nationalist and Stalinist-led directions rather than proletarian internationalism. The Fourth International found itself operating in a world where the expected “final crisis” of capitalism was delayed, and where its primary competition on the Left – the Stalinist Communist parties – enjoyed prestige due to their role in wartime resistance and postwar reforms. These objective conditions were not of the FI’s choosing, but they constrained its growth severely.

2. Repression and the Destruction of Cadres: The Fourth International’s militants faced brutal repression globally, especially in its early decades. Many of Trotsky’s followers were physically eliminated – from Stalin’s purges and assassination campaigns to victimization by fascists and right-wing dictators. In countries like the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, and Vietnam, Trotskyists were jailed or executed as “counter-revolutionaries.” This meant that in several key revolutionary situations, the Trotskyist tendency was decapitated or unable to operate. For example, the potential for a Trotskyist influence in the Chinese Revolution or the Vietnamese independence struggle was nullified by early repression (the Chinese Trotskyist leader Zheng Chaolin spent decades in prison; Vietnamese Trotskyist leaders like Tạ Thu Thâu were executed by rivals). This decimation of experienced cadres meant the FI often had to rebuild from scratch post-factum. Unlike the Bolshevik party which survived the Tsar’s repression and grew, the Trotskyists as a nascent vanguard in mid-century were repeatedly crushed before they could blossom. Thus, the physical and political elimination of Trotskyist leadership in many regions contributed greatly to the International’s inability to lead revolutions.

3. The “Crisis of Leadership” in the Workers’ Movement: Trotskyists have long argued that the chief obstacle to socialist revolution is not the unwillingness of workers to fight, but the lack of a revolutionary leadership to guide those struggles to victory. This idea, expressed by Trotsky in the Transitional Program as “the crisis of humanity is reduced to the crisis of the proletarian leadership,” was vividly confirmed (in Trotskyist eyes) by many 20th-century events. Time and again, mass working-class upsurges were betrayed or misdirected by reformist social-democratic leaders or Stalinist communist leaders. The Fourth International was too small or internally conflicted to replace those leaderships. For instance, in the immediate postwar revolutionary wave in countries like France and Italy, the local Communist Parties – following Stalin’s directives – entered coalitions to rebuild capitalism rather than push for socialism, thus defusing revolution. Trotskyists were marginal and could not dislodge those well-entrenched parties. Similarly, in countries where peasant-based or nationalist guerrilla movements took power, the absence of a Marxist proletarian leadership led to regimes that Trotskyists saw as bureaucratically deformed (Cuba, China, etc.). The Fourth International failed to become the vanguard in these moments, which Trotskyists attribute to the legacy of Stalinism and reformism holding the allegiance of the masses. In essence, other organizations filled the leadership void (even if in a treacherous way from a Trotskyist viewpoint), leaving the FI as a prophetic but impotent voice on the sidelines. This persistent problem perpetuated the Fourth International’s isolation and is a core reason for its historical failure: the proletariat’s revolutionary energy was harnessed by other parties, not by Trotsky’s movement.

4. Internal Divisions and Theoretical Missteps: The Fourth International also suffered from subjective weaknesses that compounded its problems. After Trotsky’s assassination, the International lost its unifying figure and the theoretical clarity he provided. The cadres who remained had honest commitment but often differed on how to apply Marxism to new events. The result was a pattern of splits and schisms whenever challenges arose. The 1940 split (e.g. the departure of Shachtman’s faction in the U.S. over the class nature of the USSR), the 1953 split over Pablo’s strategy, and subsequent fragmentations all drained energy and credibility. Each split meant a further shrinkage of resources and often bitter feuds that distracted from external work. In Marxist terms, one could analyze that the sectarian dynamic itself was rooted in material conditions: tiny groups under great pressure tend toward factionalism (as there was no mass base to test ideas, debates became theoretical and personal, sometimes detached from practice). Moreover, some perspectives adopted by FI leaders proved mistaken, which hurt the movement’s cause. For example, the initial FI expectation that World War II would lead directly to mass revolutionary outcomes was an overestimation – capitalism proved more resilient, and Stalinism more stabilizing, than thought. Later, the eagerness of parts of the FI to embrace phenomena like guerrilla warfare or student radicalism sometimes led them into adventurist tactics or dilution of working-class orientation, causing backlash and further splits. These strategic zigzags can be seen as inevitable attempts to grapple with reality, but in hindsight they contributed to a perception that the Fourth International lacked a consistent, effective practice. In short, internal problems – whether you label them errors in leadership, theoretical confusion, or simply the difficulty of keeping an organization together across continents – played a role in preventing the FI from consolidating into the guiding force Trotsky envisioned.

5. The Strength of the Stalinist and Reformist Apparatuses: Finally, a materialist analysis recognizes the sheer weight of the institutions that Trotskyism was up against. In the mid-20th century, the Communist Parties aligned with the Soviet Union constituted mass parties with hundreds of thousands or even millions of members worldwide; they had extensive resources, legitimacy from the USSR’s wartime victory, and, in many cases, control of trade unions and civil society organizations. Likewise, social-democratic (labour) parties retained the loyalty of big sections of workers in Europe, offering gradual improvements within capitalism. The Fourth International, by contrast, was an upstart with neither state power nor mass support. In class terms, the Stalinist bureaucracy and allied leaderships had a material base (a layer of officials and a state economy to defend), which made them tenacious and not simply prone to collapse as Trotsky had predicted. Trotsky expected that World War II’s aftermath would shatter these apparatuses, but instead they entrenched themselves (the Stalinist apparatus actually expanded into Eastern Europe and China). With these entrenched non-revolutionary leaderships dominating the labor movement, the FI’s task became herculean – effectively a long-term fight to win a minority of workers away from both capitalist and Stalinist influence, something that could not be done overnight. By the time the crisis of those bureaucratic apparatuses did come (e.g., the gradual eurocommunist decline of Western Communist parties in the 1970s, or the ultimate collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989-91), the Trotskyist movement was still too fragmented and weak to capitalize fully. Instead of being seen as the obvious alternative, Trotskyist groups were just one of many small left tendencies, and new problems (the triumph of neoliberal capitalism and the ideological ebb of socialism) arose to challenge them.

In summary, the failure of the Fourth International to lead a world revolutionary transformation can be understood as the result of a dialectical interplay between objective conditions and subjective agency. Objectively, historical developments did not provide the straightforward revolutionary openings that Trotsky had anticipated; instead, a complex realignment of world forces marginalized the Trotskyists. Subjectively, the FI was unable to surmount its own divisions and weaknesses to become the effective vanguard party of the global working class. A Trotskyist perspective maintains that these failures do not invalidate Marxist theory or the revolutionary program – rather, they underscore the difficulty of the revolutionary project in an adverse epoch. The Fourth International’s collapse as a single organization by the 1950s is often likened by sympathizers to a temporary retreat under fire: a necessary regrouping until conditions once again favor the convergence of the revolutionary vanguard and the mass movement. In Marxist terms, the contradiction between the objective ripeness for socialism and the subjective unpreparedness of leadership has persisted, and resolving this contradiction remains the central challenge for revolutionary socialists.

Contemporary Legacy of the Fourth International and Trotskyist Currents Today

Although the Fourth International as a unified world party did not survive intact, its legacy endures in a myriad of Trotskyist groups and tendencies active today. The ideas and program developed by Trotsky and his comrades have been kept alive through these organizations, which span many countries and continue to influence left-wing politics on a modest scale. In the contemporary period, one can observe both the continuity of the Fourth International’s core principles and the divergent political trajectories that Trotskyist-derived groups have taken.

The Reunified Fourth International (FI) – the direct organizational descendant of the 1963 reunification – still exists as an international center. Headquartered in Europe, it functions more as a network or federation of affiliated parties rather than a tightly disciplined “world party.” Its member groups, present in over 50 countries, include organizations such as the New Anti-capitalist Party (NPA) in France (successor to the historic LCR), sections in Latin America (e.g. in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico), in South Asia, and in other regions. This Fourth International current has generally pursued a strategy of building broad anti-capitalist or socialist parties that can participate in mass struggles and elections, rather than keeping a narrow “sect” profile. For example, in Brazil the FI-affiliated group helped found the Party of Socialism and Liberty (PSOL) after breaking from the Workers’ Party; in the Philippines and Pakistan, FI groups have engaged with broader popular movements. Ideologically, the Fourth International today remains committed to Trotsky’s basic tenets – anti-Stalinism, permanent revolution, and internationalism – but it often emphasizes issues like feminism, environmental justice, and anti-racism in a way that resonates with modern social movements. This indicates an evolution in political trajectory: from a strictly doctrinaire propaganda group mid-century to a more pluralist, movement-oriented left tendency. The FI still publishes analyses (for instance, via its International Viewpoint magazine) and holds world congresses. However, it openly acknowledges that it is not a “world leadership of the proletariat” at present, but rather an ideological tendency seeking to regroup revolutionary socialists worldwide for future struggles.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) represents another strand of the legacy. This is the grouping that emerged from the 1953 split and later reconstituted under the leadership of figures like Gerry Healy and, after the 1980s, by David North. Today, the ICFI is much smaller than the FI, but it is notable for its highly disciplined structure and its prolific ideological output (particularly through the World Socialist Web Site, an online publication that provides Marxist analysis of daily events). The ICFI, whose sections are named Socialist Equality Parties in various countries, prides itself on its orthodox Trotskyist stance. It views itself as the political continuity of Trotsky’s original organization – essentially, they argue that the FI was fatally compromised by Pabloism and needed to be rebuilt from 1953 onward, which is the tradition they carry. Their trajectory has been one of strict programmatic rigor and relative isolation; they generally do not engage in united fronts or broad parties, believing such approaches lead to opportunism. Instead, the ICFI focuses on theoretical training and intervening in working-class struggles with a pure revolutionary program. While their numbers are small, they consider their survival and consistency a vindication of the vanguard party principle: they aim to be ready with correct leadership when large-scale class battles erupt. In sum, the ICFI’s legacy is one of intransigent revolutionary continuity, albeit without major influence in the labor movement to date.

Beyond these two, there are multiple Trotskyist Internationals that claim inspiration from the Fourth International. Over time, prominent ones have included:

• The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI): Founded in 1974 by Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe, this tendency originated from Trotskyist entry work in social-democratic parties (notably the Militant tendency in Britain). The CWI built a presence in several countries by focusing on grassroots labor and youth organizing. It achieved some successes, such as electing Trotskyist local officials in Britain in the 1980s and playing a role in mass movements (for instance, members of its Irish section were elected to parliament, and its Sri Lankan section led militant union actions). The CWI later split (in 2019, dividing into a faction around Taaffe and a breakaway called International Socialist Alternative). Both factions continue with the basic methodology of participatory struggle and often running in elections as a socialist alternative. They diverged somewhat from the older FI in that they did not participate in the Fourth International’s reunified structure, forming their own international network. Their ideology remains Trotskyist, but they might be considered more pragmatic in orientation, often emphasizing immediate campaigns (anti-austerity, workers’ rights, etc.) with the long-term goal of revolution.

• The International Marxist Tendency (IMT): Led by Alan Woods (and originally by Ted Grant before his death), the IMT split from the CWI in the early 1990s and bases itself on a similar Trotskyist program. The IMT has grown in recent years among students and youth in various countries, including significant groups in Pakistan, parts of Latin America, and Europe. It champions Trotsky’s ideas openly and works within mass organizations where possible (for example, it had supporters within the British Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership). The IMT’s trajectory shows an attempt to connect Trotskyist theory with contemporary issues – for instance, they have written on Marxist approaches to climate change or the COVID-19 crisis – insisting that the core analysis of capitalism’s contradictions is still highly relevant. Like others, they claim they are working to rebuild the Fourth International from what they consider the healthy roots of Trotskyism.

• Various regional or smaller Trotskyist alliances: For example, in Latin America there’s the Trotskyist Fraction – Fourth International (FT-CI) associated with the Argentine Socialist Workers Party (PTS), which has a presence in several Latin American countries and in Europe. They are known for a more militant worker-centered approach and for successfully running worker candidates in Argentina’s elections as part of a Left Front coalition (securing a few seats in the national legislature). This indicates that in some contexts (notably Argentina), Trotskyist parties have carved out a space in mainstream politics, keeping the FI’s banner visible to a wider public. There are also Spartacist-derived groups (International Communist League) which adhere to a strict interpretation of Trotskyism and insist the FI was lost after WWII, thus requiring a fresh refoundation. Meanwhile, longstanding groups like Lutte Ouvrière in France continue to espouse Trotskyist politics (with emphasis on workplace cells and rank-and-file organizing) without attaching themselves to any international, even though their theory is rooted in the Fourth International tradition.

The ideological trajectories of these groups vary, but all draw on key Trotskyist concepts. For instance, they uniformly reject Stalinism and uphold the necessity of international revolution rather than national roads to socialism. They champion the idea of the vanguard party and democratic centralism, though in practice some have adapted it to looser networks. The theory of permanent revolution is frequently cited in contemporary analyses of geopolitical events – for example, Trotskyist groups argue that in countries with ongoing democratic struggles (say in parts of the Middle East or Africa), any real liberation cannot stop at the capitalist stage but must proceed to socialism led by the working class, connecting to international revolution. This perspective influences how they relate to movements today: Trotskyists tend to support uprisings against authoritarian regimes or imperialism, but they warn against settling for liberal capitalism or Islamist leaderships, etc., instead advocating independent working-class leadership.

Today’s Trotskyist organizations also wrestle with new issues that Trotsky himself did not explicitly address, such as climate change, gender and sexuality politics, and digital-age capitalism. They typically do so by extending Marxist analysis: for example, addressing climate change as a result of capitalism’s anarchic production, which only global planning by workers could solve – a modern echo of the internationalism that the Fourth International always stressed. On gender issues, many Trotskyist groups incorporate feminist Marxist analysis, linking women’s liberation to socialist revolution and often being involved in campaigns against oppression. These evolutions show that the legacy of the Fourth International is a living one, adapting Marxist theory to contemporary conditions while maintaining the original spirit of uncompromising struggle against capitalism and bureaucratic repression.

It is also worth noting that the idea of a “Fifth International” has been floated periodically (for instance, by some left-wing leaders in Latin America or by anarchist and socialist groupings seeking broader unity). Trotskyist responses to such calls are shaped by their experience: most argue that any new international must be rooted in clear revolutionary Marxist principles, otherwise it would repeat the failure of past internationals that went astray. In this sense, most Trotskyists remain committed to rebuilding or regenerating the Fourth International’s programmatic integrity rather than abandoning it for an amorphous Fifth International. The proliferation of groups means, ironically, that there are several “Fourth Internationals” operating in parallel – a situation that underscores the fragmentation of the movement. However, in practice, Trotskyist groups sometimes collaborate in coalitions or campaigns on specific issues, even if they do not organizationally unite. For example, different Trotskyist factions may all participate in an anti-war demonstration or a general strike effort, each bringing their publications and slogans but marching on the same picket lines.

In terms of influence, Trotskyist parties remain generally small, yet they have had a significant footprint in certain contexts. In France, Trotskyist presidential candidates (from two rival Trotskyist parties) famously scored surprising votes around the turn of the millennium (e.g., over 10% combined in 2002’s first round). In Argentina, the Trotskyist Left Front has become a noteworthy electoral alliance. In Sri Lanka, despite the LSSP’s old betrayal, newer Trotskyist groups continue to champion workers’ struggles. In South Africa, a Trotskyist grouping helped form a new socialist party in the 2010s. These instances show that while not mainstream, Trotskyist organizations can play active roles in labor movements, student protests, and even legislatures, injecting the ideas of class struggle and socialism into public discourse. They also often serve as historians of the workers’ movement – keeping alive the lessons of past revolutions and defeats (the heritage of 1917, the critiques of Stalinism, etc.), which is an intellectual legacy that influences left academia and militant education.

The ideological continuity is evident: terms like “degenerated workers’ state,” “political revolution,” “transitional demands,” and “proletarian internationalism” are still part of the lexicon of all these groups. At the same time, one can observe how each has interpreted the last century’s events to refine their outlook. For instance, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Trotskyists were arguably vindicated in their prediction that a bureaucratically ruled workers’ state could eventually fall back to capitalism if no political revolution intervened. However, this historic moment also left Trotskyist groups with the task of arguing for socialism at a time when many proclaimed the “end of communism.” Most Trotskyist currents doubled down on explaining Stalinism as a perversion of socialism, distinguishing it from genuine Marxism, and continued to target global capitalism – now unopposed by a Soviet bloc – as the main enemy. The decades since have seen capitalism enter new crises (financial crashes, rising inequality, etc.), giving Trotskyist narratives renewed relevance about capitalism’s unsolvable contradictions. Yet the organizational question – how to unite revolutionaries internationally – remains unresolved in practice.

Conclusion

The history of the Fourth International is a rich, complex saga of revolutionary aspiration confronted by harsh reality. Founded with high hopes on the eve of World War II, the Fourth International carried forward the flame of Marxist internationalism at a time when that flame was nearly extinguished by Stalinist reaction and imperialist war. From a pro-communist and Trotskyist perspective, the Fourth International’s legacy is honorable despite its failure to achieve its ultimate goal. The FI and its militants stood for the highest principles of communist democracy and workers’ power – refusing to capitulate to fascism, to the false “socialism” of Stalin’s bureaucracy, or to the blandishments of class collaboration. They kept alive the idea that the working class must emancipate itself through its own revolutionary agency, and that the struggle against capitalism must be worldwide or it will be in vain. The theoretical contributions of Trotsky and the Fourth International, from the Theory of Permanent Revolution to the Transitional Program, continue to serve as analytical tools for understanding the world and guiding action.

Analyzing its historical failure yields crucial lessons in Marxist theory: the interplay of objective conditions and subjective leadership, the perils of sectarianism versus opportunism, and the need for a dialectical understanding of social change. The Fourth International’s story illustrates how a revolutionary vanguard can be thwarted by conditions beyond its control – yet also how important strategic clarity and unity are, since even under unfavorable conditions a larger, more cohesive movement might have made a bigger impact. In Marxist terms, history is not predetermined: human agency (the revolutionary party) can in certain moments alter the course of events, but if that agency is too weak or divided, even ripe opportunities can be lost. The mid-20th century was a complicated, contradictory period in which the Fourth International strove to intervene but often found itself outpaced by rivals or events. Trotskyists view this not with fatalism but with a resolve to study those contradictions and prepare better for future revolutionary moments.

Today, the fragmented Trotskyist currents around the world testify both to the enduring appeal of the Fourth International’s ideals and to the unresolved challenges of revolutionary organization. They are the inheritors of a tradition that has been politically on the margins, yet intellectually and morally influential in championing international socialism from below. Their presence in contemporary struggles – whether opposing capitalist austerity, supporting workers’ strikes, or fighting oppression in all its forms – keeps alive the proposition that another world is not only necessary but possible, through the conscious action of the working class guided by a revolutionary program. In an era of recurrent economic crises, rising inequalities, and resurgent authoritarianism, the analyses originally advanced by the Fourth International remain strikingly relevant. Trotsky’s insistence that socialism must be global or it will fail resonates in a world of globalized capital, just as his warning that without socialist revolution, humanity faces barbarism, finds echoes in the threats of war and ecological collapse today.

In conclusion, the Fourth International’s history is one of heroic efforts, profound insights, but also sobering setbacks. From a Trotskyist perspective, its failure was not the failure of Marxism or the working class, but a temporary defeat attributable to specific historical conditions – a defeat from which revolutionaries must draw lessons to fight anew. Its contemporary legacy, visible in diverse Trotskyist groups, suggests that while the forms of organization have changed, the essential struggle continues. The banner of the Fourth International – emblazoned with the call for workers of all countries to unite under revolutionary leadership – still waves in the hands of dedicated activists around the world. They carry forward the hope that in the next great upsurge of the working class, the lessons of the past will help forge a more effective, united international, capable of finally realizing the historic mission that the Fourth International set out to accomplish: the overthrow of global capitalism and the inauguration of a truly socialist world.