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The Fourth International is the World Party of Socialist Revolution. It was founded byLeon Trotskyin 1938 to carry forward the fight for Marxism in opposition to the Stalinist degeneration of the Soviet Union and the Communist (Third) International.

Trotsky had founded the Left Opposition in 1923 to oppose the usurpation of power by a nationalist bureaucracy headed by Joseph Stalin and defend the program of socialist internationalism that had animated the Russian Revolution in 1917. In 1933, with the coming to power of the Nazis, facilitated by the disastrous policies of Stalinism, Trotsky called for the formation of a new (Fourth) International.

In the decades after its founding, revisionist tendencies repeatedly emerged inside the Fourth International, advocating in one form or another the abandonment of its orientation to building a revolutionary party in the working class, and calling instead for an orientation to one or another petty-bourgeois, Stalinist, Social Democratic or bourgeois-nationalist tendency.

The International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) was established on November 23, 1953, following a split in the Fourth International between the orthodox Trotskyists, led by James P. Cannon, a founder of the Trotskyist movement in the United States, and an opportunist faction led by Michel Pablo and Ernest Mandel. The ICFI, which publishes the World Socialist Web Site, has upheld the principles of Marxism and is today the sole representative of revolutionary socialism in the world.

On this page, readers will find links to essays, books and topics on the history of the Fourth International. We also encourage our readers to explore the works available in our Library.

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History of the Fourth International - World Socialist Web Site - WSWS

With todays edition, the International Editorial Board is initiating the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site. The WSWS has undergone a complete and fundamental redesign. The changes in the appearance of the site have been motivated not only by important technical and aesthetic considerations, though we certainly hope that our readers will appreciate the many improvements in the functionality and appearance of the site. But as significant as these advances are in themselves, they are secondary to the essential issues of theory and political perspective that have guided all aspects of the relaunch project.

It is nearly 23 years since the World Socialist Web Site was launched on February 14, 1998. The International Committee of the Fourth International appreciated at a very early stage in the development of the Internet the revolutionary potential of this immense advance in communications technology. We seized the opportunity to utilize a technology that would make possible a more favorable alignment between the power of our Marxist-Trotskyist ideas and the size of our audience. The old barriers imposed by the physical demands of circulating a printed newspaper were transcended with a technology that enabled the instantaneous transmission of information and ideas all over the world.

It was especially the global character of this technology that convinced the International Committee, almost a quarter century ago, that it should transfer its publishing efforts to the Internet. Not only could we reach a world audience, but it would be possible to politically integrate and unify, to an extent unprecedented in the history of the Marxist movement, the political work of all the sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Here, too, the new technology made possible a far better alignment of the daily practice of the International Committee with its international strategy and program. With the founding of the World Socialist Web Site, the International Committee of the Fourth International could respond to daily events, wherever they occurred, with a single political voice as the World Party of Socialist Revolution.

During the first decade of its publication, the World Socialist Web Site achieved an immense expansion of the audience for authentic revolutionary Marxism, that is, for Trotskyism. In its response to the events of the first years of the twenty-first centurydominated by the nightmarish crimes committed by US and world imperialism under the bloody banner of the War on Terrorthe World Socialist Web Site provided the essential critical revolutionary orientation for, at first, tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands, and, by 2008, even several million readers throughout the world.

After 10 years of publication, not only had the growth of the readership placed demands upon the WSWS that could not be met within its original structure. It was evident to the International Committee and the International Editorial Board that the rapidly intensifying crisis of American and world capitalism was confronting the World Socialist Web Site with challenges that required a significant advance in both its technical infrastructure and presentation. We did not have to wait for the assessment of the objective situation that motivated the redesign of the WSWS to be proven correct. The first edition of the redesigned World Socialist Web Site appeared on October 22, 2008, in the midst of the greatest economic breakdown of the global financial system since the Wall Street crash of 1929.

In the statement posted on October 22, 2008, explaining the political conceptions underlying the redesign, the WSWS made the following points:

More on the History of the Fourth International

The International Committee of the Fourth International is the leadership of the world party of socialist revolution, founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938.

The events of the last twelve years have completely substantiated the assessment upon which the redesign was based.

In light of the most recent developments, it should hardly be necessary to argue at great length that world capitalism is confronted with the specter of a full-scale political and economic breakdown. The crisis is so far advanced that no intelligent bourgeois commentator can state, with any reasonable degree of certainty, that the United States will still have even a semi-democratic government in three months time.

The 2008 redesign of the World Socialist Web Site was undertaken in anticipation of an intensification of the world capitalist crisis.

The 2020 relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site occurs in the midst of a global political and socioeconomic breakdown and emerging revolutionary crisis.

This situation has not taken the International Committee by surprise. In the first edition of the WSWS published in the New Year, on January 3, 2020, we stated that the decade of socialist revolution had begun. Even before anyone knew that the world would be struck by a pandemic, the WSWS predicted the eruption of a global crisis of historically unprecedented dimensions.

However, the International Committee was not content to simply make predictions and passively await their realization. The decisive issue was, and is, how the International Committee will respond to this crisis, how it will prepare the working class for conditions of revolutionary struggle.

The changes in the World Socialist Web Site that are being introduced with this relaunch are being made in the expectation that the global expansion of class struggle will generate an immense resurgence of interest within the working class in socialist politics, history and theory.

The World Socialist Web Site will continue to provide, as it has since 1998, unequaled coverage and analysis of the major events of the day. But the changes in design and structure are aimed at creating a more direct and dynamic interaction between the coverage of the news and the historical experiences and theoretical foundations of the Fourth International and the socialist movement.

The site has been redesigned to provide readers far better access to the the vast archive of essays, reports, historical documents and lectures on a vast range of subjects published by the WSWS since 1998. The material already posted on the siteclose to 150,000 itemswill be augmented by the inclusion of previously unpublished material from the archives of the International Committee and its sections.

The International Editorial Board has assembled teams that will create and curate online exhibits of political, cultural and theoretical topics that will provide greater depth to the understanding of contemporary events.

At the conclusion of the 2020 New Year statement, the WSWS declared:

The enormous historic foundation upon which this movement rests, the conscious repository of the experiences of the international working class, must be brought forward in the developing struggles of the working class and in the forging of the path to socialism.

This is the essential aim of the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site. We are setting out to arm the working class with the theoretical understanding, historical knowledge and political insight necessary to wage a highly conscious political struggle against capitalism, smash the fascistic conspiracies of the corporate-financial oligarchs, and secure the victory of socialism.

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Welcome the relaunch of the World Socialist Web Site! - WSWS

Since its launching in February 1998, the World Socialist Web Site has devoted a great deal of attention to artistic and cultural matters. We have reviewed thousands of worksfilms, concerts, plays, television series, novels, albumsand commented on artistic currents and problems out of a concern, above all, for the development of the social awareness and consciousness of the working class.

Marxists consider that art and culture play an immense role in shaping and broadening the outlook of the working class, sharpening its awareness of the injustices of capitalism, strengthening and refining the workers outrage and willingness to sacrifice and making more ardent their belief and confidence in the possibility of realizing socialism and building a society based on genuine social equality and solidarity. (Introduction to The Sky Between the Leaves, David Walsh)

Our attitude toward present-day cultural life is highly critical. Indeed, as a leading German socialist once explained, contemporary culture is the enemy of culture. Triviality, self-centeredness and social indifference largely prevail. Art, if it is to make a deep impact and endure, needs to turn its attention, by whatever means it chooses, to the great questions and convulsions of our day.

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Arts and Culture - World Socialist Web Site - WSWS

The Socialist Equality Group (New Zealand) will hold a public online meeting, via Zoom, on Saturday October 3 at 4:00 pm NZ time to discuss the upcoming election, the breakdown of capitalism and the socialist and internationalist perspective that the working class must adopt.

The global COVID-19 pandemic, which looms over the election, has the character of a trigger event in world history: it has greatly accelerated the processes of widening social inequality, the drive by the ruling class towards dictatorship and world war. In the United States, Trump is threatening to disregard the November election result, stage a coup dtat and unleash fascist violence against the working class.

The unlivable conditions created by capitalism are driving millions into mass protests and strikes, further fuelled by anger over the criminal negligence of governments that has led to nearly a million coronavirus deaths worldwide.

New Zealand is not in any way an exception. Contrary to the global media adulation for Labour Party Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, she leads a right-wing coalition government with the Greens and the extreme nationalist NZ First, which is overseeing soaring inequality and poverty. Workers have responded with a series of strikes including by teachers, nurses and healthcare workers, and mass protests against inaction on climate change and police killings.

The governments main response to the pandemic and the economic crisis has been an unprecedented transfer of tens of billions of dollars to the rich in the form of quantitative easing, bailouts, tax concessions and wage subsidies for businesses.

Billions continue to flow to the military to upgrade, expand and integrate into US-led war plans against China. Meanwhile, basic services, including hospitals, are being starved of funds, and unemployment is sky-rocketing to levels not seen in generations.

To divert anger over the social crisis, the government has scapegoated immigrants. Cabinet Ministers have spewed racist filth that echoes the manifesto of the fascist terrorist who killed 51 people in Christchurchan atrocity fuelled by decades of demonisation of Muslims and other immigrants and participation by successive governments in the criminal US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The election will resolve nothing. In their campaigns, the Labour Party and the opposition National Party, along with the minor parties, are seeking to cover up their real agenda with fraudulent platitudes about creating jobs and reviving the economy. Whoever wins, the next government will intensify the assault on workers living standards, attack democratic rights and ramp up preparations for war.

Workers and young people will inevitably be driven into revolutionary struggles. But this movement must be guided by a new perspective and leadership, independent from, and opposed to, all the established parties. Its conscious aims must be the establishment of a workers government, abolition of the profit system and the fight for international socialism.

The Socialist Equality Group, the New Zealand supporters of the International Committee of the Fourth International, urges workers, students, young people and readers of the WSWS to register to attend our public meeting to discuss these vitally important issues.

Meeting times:

New Zealand time: 4:00pm Saturday October 3Sydney time: 1:00pm Saturday October 3Britain: 4:00am Saturday 3 OctoberIndia/Sri Lanka: 8:30am Saturday 3 OctoberNew York (EDT): 11:00pm Friday October 2

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Public meeting: New Zealand's COVID election, the breakdown of capitalism and the fight for socialism - WSWS

For better or worse, the 50 states serve as the laboratories of democracy. Sometimes states pass laws that are overwhelmingly beneficial, causing other states to follow suit. Other times, states pass laws that are destructive, causing other states to learn valuable lessons about what not to do.

Over the past few decades, Californias embrace of socialist policies is a classic example of the latter. In other words, Californias adoption of far-left ideology, and the devastating toll it has wrought on the Golden State, should serve as a canary in the coal mine for any state wishing to follow Californias example.

The list of Californias socialist policies is extensive. For starters, California has been ground zero for the radical, socialist environmental movement that seeks to upend Americas energy system.

In California, the renewable movement, which is front-and-center in theGreen New Deal, has caused massive problems. Energy prices are skyrocketing. According to a recentreportby theCenter for Jobs and the Economy at the California Business Roundtable, These outcomes mean that even as many households struggle under the current economic conditions, the states energy policies continue to take an increasing share of household incomes both directly in gasoline and utility bills and indirectly as these costs are incorporated into the prices of every other component of the costs of living.

As if sky-high prices for energy were not bad enough, in California, blackouts have become commonplace because the states energy grid, which is more reliant on wind and solar power than any other state, simply cannot meet energy demand.

California Assemblyman Jim Patterson, vice-chair of the Committee on Utilities and Energy,recently said, I have been warning over and over again that the policies coming out of the Democrat-controlled legislature and governors office are creating the conditions for blackouts and brownouts and here we are seeing the evidence. Patterson is 100 percent correct.

Due to Californias far-lefts Green New Deal-like energy policies, Golden State residents pay extraordinarily high prices to power their homes and fuel their cars. But even worse, these ridiculous policies have led to massive energy shortages for millions of Californians.

But then again, shortages and socialism go together like peanut butter and jelly, so this should not be all that surprising.

Aside from the energy debacle that has harmed Californians, far-left Golden State leaders have also enacted onerous taxes and regulations, which are causing a mass exodus of residents and businesses.

In June, California proposed hiking taxes on the states most productive residents yet again. If enacted, it would increase the top tax rate on millionaires in the Golden State to an unprecedented 54 percent. The tax hikes would be the tipping point for many taxpayers, prompting them to book a one-way trip to one of the 49 states with lower taxes, saidRobert Gutierrez, president of the California Taxpayers Association.

In California, wealth redistribution via super high taxes, a central tenet of socialism, is causing massive turmoil. U.S. Census Bureau data showthat 691,145 residents fled the Golden State in 2018.

Asmultiple reports show, Californias burdensome taxes are the overwhelming reason residents are feeling the state. Unsurprisingly, this has been acommon theme in many socialist countries, as well.

There are several other socialist policies that California has implemented over the past few decades that are causing havoc and economic ruin. Fromoutrageous housing costsandwater shortagesdue to asinine environmental regulations to ahuge increase in homelessnessbecause of Californias generous welfare payments, the list goes on and on.

And, as these problems fester, California is doubling down on even more radical socialist policies. Already there is auniversal basic income pilot program, free college, and all sorts of other failed socialist policies in place or on the docket.

In 1932, liberal Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.

Amen to that. If Californias decades-long romance with socialism has taught the rest of the country one thing, it is that these policies do not work and should not be implemented anywhere. Maybe one day Californians will realize this as well and reverse course.

ChrisTalgo(ctalgo@heartland.org)is an editor at The Heartland Institute.

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California's embrace of socialism should serve as a warning | TheHill - The Hill