The World Socialist Web Site is published by the International Committee of the Fourth International, the World Party of Socialist Revolution founded by Leon Trotsky. Its aim is to unite the international working class, on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program, to put an end to the capitalist system and establish socialism on a world scale.
The International Committee of the Fourth International is the sole representative of the historical continuity of the struggle waged by Trotsky, dating back to 1923, to defend the principles, program and heritage of the 1917 October Revolution.
The Fourth International was founded in 1938 in response to catastrophic defeats of the working class caused by the crimes and betrayals of the Stalinist and social democratic parties and organizations. In the founding document of the Fourth International, Trotsky declared that the crisis of mankind is the crisis of revolutionary leadership. The International Committee was founded 15 years later, in November 1953, to defend the Fourth International against an opportunist and revisionist current, known as Pabloism, that sought to liquidate the Fourth International into the parties and organizations controlled by Stalinism, social democracy and bourgeois nationalism. The struggle against Pabloism within the Fourth International spanned more than three decades. It was brought to a conclusion in 1986 with the defeat of the opportunists by the orthodox Trotskyists of the International Committee.
Still, the resolution of the crisis of revolutionary leadership remains the central task that must be overcome by the International Committee of the Fourth International through the building of sections of the world party in every region and country.
The documents, lectures, political reports, essays, statements and videos posted below will introduce readers to this history, program, present-day policies and activities of the International Committee.
The following report was delivered by David North, national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US) and chairman of the World Socialist Web Site, to the opening session of the SEP summer school last week.
This lecture on the origins of the Fourth International was delivered by Clara Weiss and Johannes Stern at the 2023 SEP (US) international Summer School.
This lecture was delivered by Joseph Kishore, the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
Last June marked 60 years since the infamous congress of reunification between the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), alongside its supporters in Latin America and Asia, and the Pabloite International Secretariat.
The following lecture was delivered by Samuel Tissot, a member of the Parti de l’égalité socialiste (PES), the French section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), and Peter Schwarz, a leading member of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP), the German section of the ICFI. It was delivered to the Socialist Equality Party (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
This lecture was delivered by Max Boddy, assistant national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
The break with Wohlforth is among the most significant events in the history of the ICFI, involving fundamental issues of historical perspective, political principle, organizational security and the defense of dialectical materialism.
The following lecture was delivered by Eric London, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party (US), to the SEP (US) International Summer School, held between July 30 and August 4, 2023.
This lecture was delivered by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the WSWS, at the opening of the Socialist Equality Party (US) Summer School on July 21, 2019.
The World Socialist Web Site is publishing 1) The report delivered by David North 25 years ago, on February 1, 1997, motivating the proposal to end publication of the SEP’s printed newspaper and replace it with an international website; and 2) North’s reply to the National Committee ‘s discussion of the proposal.
This is a preface by David North to a new Turkish translation of North’s essay, Leon Trotsky and the Development of Marxism, written in 1982 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the political assassination of Tom Henehan.
Cliff Slaughter died on May 3, 2021, in Leeds, England, at the age of 92. His enduring contribution in the 1960s to the defense of Trotskyism stands in tragic contrast with his subsequent political opportunism and repudiation of revolutionary Marxism.
The ICFI is composed of Socialist Equality Party national sections around the world. Use these links to find out more about the SEPs, including their history, political leaderships, statements of principles, ongoing campaigns, program and resolutions.
In 1985, after a protracted process of political degeneration, the Workers Revolutionary Party, the British section of the ICFI, broke decisively from Trotskyism. This work demonstrates that the crisis in the WRP was bound up with its retreat from the principles that the British Trotskyists had previously defended.
This volume—first published in Autumn 1986 as Volume 13, No. 2 of the ICFI’s quarterly journal, Fourth International—is composed of original documents from the struggle by the ICFI from 1982 to defend Trotskyist principles and oppose the betrayal of Trotskyism by the WRP.
The Heritage was published in book form in 1988. Its origins lie in the political struggle waged by the ICFI and the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party (US), from 1982-1986, to defend Trotskyism against the nationalist opportunism of the ICFI’s former British section. It establishes the continuity of orthodox Trotskyism in the 20th Century.
In January 1998, the ICFI held its first-ever International Summer School. Their central premise is that an answer to the burning issues of the day—growing social inequality, deepening economic crisis, the decline in the cultural level of society and the prevailing political paralysis in the workers’ movement—is bound up with examining and assimilating the lessons of the 20th century.
These speeches addressed critical problems of the 20th century. Lecturers addressed the foundations of Marxism, the science of perspective and the defense of objective truth; the origins of WWI; the rise of fascism in Germany; the origins of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, Leon Trotsky’s Theory of Permanent Revolution, and problems of art and culture in the Soviet Union.
The reports at this meeting constituted a worked-out Marxist analysis of the state of world affairs at the beginning of 2006 and a perspective to guide the struggles of the working class in the period ahead.
These lectures address critical political and historical issues related to the struggle by the Trotskyist Left Opposition, founded by Trotsky in 1923, against the nationalist policies of the Stalinist bureaucracy and its usurpation of political power inside the Soviet Union and the Communist International.
In 1917, the Russian working class, acting under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party led by Lenin and Trotsky, overthrew the bourgeois provisional government and established the first workers’ state in world history. The ICFI commemorated the centenary in 2017 with an online lecture series.
These lectures address the history of the ICFI from 1982-1995: from the initial formulation of a detailed critique of the Workers Revolutionary Party’s revisions of the theory and program of Trotskyism, to the decision to transform the leagues of the ICFI into parties.
