Portal:Politics/Selected article/2006, week 43

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The Fourth International (FI) has been a socialist international organisation working in opposition to both capitalism and "Stalinism". Consisting of supporters of Leon Trotsky, it has striven for an eventual victory of the working class to bring about socialism.

In Paris in 1938, Trotsky and many of his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union, considered the Comintern to have become lost to "Stalinism" and incapable of leading the international working class towards political power. Thus, they founded their own competing "Fourth International". Throughout the better part of its existence, the Fourth International was hounded by agents of the Soviet secret police, repressed by capitalist countries such as France and the United States, and rejected by followers of the Soviet Union and later Maoism as illegitimate - a position these communists still hold today. It struggled to maintain contact under such conditions of both illegality and scorn around much of the world during World War II. When workers' uprisings occurred, they were usually under the influence of Soviet, Maoist, social democratic, or nationalist groups, leading to further betrayals and defeats for Trotskyists.

The FI suffered a split in 1940 and an even more significant split in 1953. Despite a partial reunification in 1963, more than one group claims to represent the political continuity of the Fourth International. The broad array of Trotskyist Internationals are split over whether the Fourth International still exists and if so, which organisation represents its political continuity.