International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist)
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The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), earlier known as the international Spartacist tendency (iSt) is a
The group originated within the Revolutionary Tendency of the
Publications
The central theoretical journal of the ICL(FI) is Spartacist which is published in four languages approximately once a year. Apart from the above the ICL(FI)'s American section, the Spartacist League, operates the
In addition to Spartacist the national sections of the ICL(FI) each publish a regular paper of varying regularity. For example, the U.S. group publishes the newspaper Workers Vanguard, which is known for its acerbic running commentary on the activities of other leftist groups, its sarcastic wit, and its obituaries of leftist figures whose lives often are inadequately analyzed and/or memorialized in the mainstream media, recently including Bill Epton, Richard Fraser, Robert F. Williams, and Myra Tanner Weiss. Since the 1990s Workers Vanguard has also featured original essays on the history of Marxist and pre-Marxist radical ideas written by long-time member Mark Tishman under the name Joseph Seymour[citation needed]. From time to time Workers Vanguard also carries features under the rubrics Women and Revolution and Young Spartacus, these being the titles of once separate publications since discontinued.
Positions
Regarding domestic policy
Since the early 1980s the League and affiliates have also organized mobilizations against Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. They were an early campaigner to save Mumia Abu-Jamal from death row.[2] The Spartacist League regards what they term the "struggle for black liberation" as central to communist revolution in the U.S.; to that end, they promote "revolutionary integrationism"[3] and also prominently support the right to bear arms. The party is radically permissive with regards to sexuality and culture, opposing all the laws which prohibit consensual sexual relations, including "age of consent" laws.[4] In addition they are for the decriminalization of prostitution, drug use, gambling, pornography, homosexual sex which they regard as "crimes without victims" and are "generally illegal or heavily regulated under capitalist law."[5]
Regarding similar groups
The League rejects
The Spartacists also devote much attention to
In a book entitled Death Agony of the Fourth International,
On Islamic states
The
On socialist states
The League also fought hard in mobilizing to defend the
On lockdowns
In April 2021 the League issued a Supplement to the Spartacist publication ('Down With the Lockdowns!') in which it announced its opposition to the COVID-19 lockdowns measures established to reduce the spread of COVID-19, describing these as a "reactionary public health measure" that had caused mass unemployment, and counterposing these measures to 'union control of safety'.[7]
History
Background
The first Spartacist League, founded in 1966 with
Establishing an International
The American Spartacists remained isolated until
International Spartacist tendency
The iSt held its first international conference in England in the summer of 1979. Delegates attended from the United States, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and Canada. There were also fraternal delegates from the
By the 1985 conference of the iSt an "external tendency" had split from the iSt, that would go on to form the International Bolshevik Tendency. This group had adherents in the US, Canada and Germany.[11] Initially based in the San Francisco Bay area and Toronto the ET was to define itself as a public faction of the SL and sought to be readmitted to the ranks of the parent organization. Said efforts were rebuffed by the SL who have since waged a polemical war with the ET and its successor groups.
The iSt changed its name to the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) in 1989 and adopted a new Declaration of Principles and Some Elements of Program International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) in February 1998.
After the collapse of the USSR, the organization sent its representatives to Russia and Ukraine to find like-minded people and create its own sections in the countries. In 1992, a member of the Spartacist League, Marta Philipps, was killed in Moscow. The crime was not solved.[12] The mission itself in Russia continued to operate until 1996, but ended in failure. In 1997, the Customs of Ukraine stopped a group with a large number of leaflets. After that, the group was expelled from Ukraine and the iSt-mission in Ukraine was terminated.[citation needed]
In the summer of 2017, the ICL questioned its past, believing that it had been, in the person of "a number of American cadres" penetrated by "the chauvinist Hydra" since 1974.[13]
Later splits
In 1996,
The Australian section of the Spartacist League, which had previously been involved in IBT events, split again in 2005, with one member leaving to found the Trotskyist Platform.
Sections
The current members of the ICL include:
- Spartacist Group Japan
- Spartacist League of Britain
- Spartacist League (US)
- Trotskyist Group of Greece
- Trotskyist League in Quebec and Canada
- Spartacist League of Australia
- Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands
- Spartacist Group Ireland
- Lega Trotskista d'Italia
- Grupo Espartaquista de México
- Spartacist/South Africa
- Ligue trotskyste de France
Former sections include:
See also
References
- ^ "Liebknecht and the Spartacists". Workers Vanguard No. 974. The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- ^ "Mumia Abu-Jamal Is an Innocent Man!". The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- ^ "Revolutionary Integrationism: The Road to Black Freedom". The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist).
- ^ "Anti-Sex Witchhunt Targets Teachers". Spartacist Canada No. 163. The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- ^ "On "crimes without victims"". Workers Hammer No. 206. The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Retrieved 20 April 2012.
- ^ "Why revolutionary Marxists should not support Islamic fundamentalists by Maziar Razi". Archived from the original on 2009-01-31. Retrieved 2009-01-15.
- ^ "Down With the Lockdowns!". Retrieved 28 April 2021.
- ^ Alexander, Robert International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement Durham, Duke University Press 1991 p.552
- ^ Alexander, Robert International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement Durham, Duke University Press 1991 p.553
- ^ Alexander, Robert International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement Durham, Duke University Press 1991 p.553
- ^ Alexander, Robert International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement Durham, Duke University Press 1991 p.554
- ISBN 5-367-00269-2.
- ^ Spartacist, English edition, No. 65
- ^ "ICL Seeks to Sabotage Defense of Brazilian Trotskyist Workers".
External links
- Official website
- International Bolshevik Tendency
- Workers Vanguard biweekly paper of the Spartacist League