Editing Fourth International (section)

== Decision to form the International ==
In the early 1930s, Trotsky and his supporters believed that Stalin's influence over the Third International could still be fought from within and slowly rolled back. They organised themselves into the [[International Left Opposition]] (ILO) in 1930, which was intended to be a group of anti-Stalinist dissenters ''within'' the Third International. Stalin's supporters, who dominated the International, would no longer tolerate dissent. All Trotskyists, and those suspected of being influenced by Trotskyism, were expelled.<ref>{{cite book|author-first=Joseph |author-last=Stalin |author-link=Joseph Stalin |url=http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/ICRD28.html |chapter=Industrialisation of the country and the right deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)" |title=Works |volume=11 |pages=255–302 |orig-date=19 November 1928 |publisher= Foreign Languages Publishing House |location=Moscow |date=1954 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210314175234/http://www.marx2mao.com/Stalin/ICRD28.html |archive-date=14 March 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Trotsky claimed that the [[Third Period]] policies of the Comintern had contributed to the rise of [[Adolf Hitler]] in Germany, and that its turn to a [[popular front]] policy (aiming to unite all ostensibly [[anti-fascist]] forces) sowed illusions in [[reformism]] and [[pacifism]] and "clear[ed] the road for a fascist overturn". By 1935 he claimed that the Comintern had fallen irredeemably into the hands of the Stalinist bureaucracy.<ref>{{cite magazine|author-first=Leon |author-last=Trotsky |author-link=Leon Trotsky |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/xx/fi.htm |title=Open Letter For The Fourth International |magazine=New Militant |date=3 August 1935}}</ref> He and his supporters, expelled from the Third International, participated in a conference of the [[London Bureau]] of socialist parties outside both the Socialist International and the Comintern. Three of those parties joined the Left Opposition in signing a document written by Trotsky calling for a Fourth International, which became known as the "Declaration of Four".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://marx.org/history/etol/document/1930s/four.htm |title=Declaration of the Four |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718092851/http://marx.org/history/etol/document/1930s/four.htm |archive-date=18 July 2011 |magazine=The Militant |date=23 September 1933}}</ref> Of those, two soon distanced themselves from the agreement, but the Dutch [[Revolutionary Socialist Party (Netherlands)|Revolutionary Socialist Party]] worked with the International Left Opposition to declare the International Communist League.<ref name="rocky">{{cite web|author-first=George |author-last=Breitman |author-link=George Breitman |url=http://www.bolshevik.org/history/Tr-breit.htm |title=The Rocky Road to the Fourth International, 1933–38 |year=1978 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419032738/http://www.bolshevik.org/history/Tr-breit.htm |archive-date=19 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref>

This position was contested by [[Andrés Nin]] and some other members of the League who did not support the call for a new International. This group prioritised regroupment with other communist oppositions, principally the [[International Communist Opposition]] (ICO), linked to the [[Right Opposition]] in the Soviet Party, a regroupment which eventually led to the formation of the [[International Bureau for Revolutionary Socialist Unity]]. Trotsky considered those organisations to be [[Centrist Marxism|centrist]]. Despite Trotsky, the Spanish section merged with the Spanish section of ICO, forming the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ([[POUM]]). Trotsky claimed the merger was to be a capitulation to centrism.<ref>{{cite magazine|author-first=John G. |author-last=Wright |author-link=Joseph Vanzler |url=http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/wright/1946/08/trotsky.htm |title=Trotsky's Struggle for the Fourth International |magazine=Fourth International |date=August 1946 |volume=7 |number=8 |pages=235–238}}</ref> The [[Socialist Workers' Party of Germany]], a left split from the [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] founded in 1931, co-operated with the International Left Opposition briefly in 1933 but soon abandoned the call for a new International.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

In 1935, Trotsky wrote an ''Open Letter for the Fourth International'', reaffirming the ''Declaration of Four'', while documenting the recent course of the Comintern and the Socialist International. In the letter, he called for the urgent formation of a Fourth International.<ref name="rocky" /> The "First International Conference for the Fourth International" was held in Paris in June 1936, reports giving its location as [[Geneva]] for security reasons.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.workersrepublic.org/Pages/Ireland/Trotskyism/clrjames.html |title=CLR James Interview |website=Arguments for a Workers' Republic |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210419023922/http://www.workersrepublic.org/Pages/Ireland/Trotskyism/clrjames.html |archive-date=19 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> This meeting dissolved the International Communist League, founding in its place the Movement for the Fourth International on Trotsky's perspectives.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}

The foundation of the Fourth International was seen as more than just the simple renaming of an international tendency that was already in existence. It was argued that the Third International had now degenerated completely and was therefore to be seen as a [[counter-revolutionary]] organisation that would in time of crisis defend capitalism. Trotsky believed that the coming [[World War II|World War]] would produce a [[revolutionary wave]] of class and national struggles, rather as [[World War I]] had done.<ref name="transitional" />

Stalin reacted to the growing strength of Trotsky's supporters with a major political massacre of people within the Soviet Union, and the assassination of Trotsky's supporters and family abroad.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol24/no3/vorkuta.htm |title=Trotskyists at Vorkuta: An Eyewitness Report |magazine=International Socialist Review |date=Summer 1963}}</ref> He had agents go through historical documents and photos to attempt to erase Trotsky's memory from the history books.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/inv/prop_inv_ins.htm |title=Propaganda in the Propaganda State |publisher=[[PBS]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210430195440/https://www.pbs.org/redfiles/prop/inv/prop_inv_ins.htm |archive-date=30 April 2021 |url-status=live}}</ref> According to the historian [[Mario Keßler]], Stalin's supporters turned to [[antisemitism]] to whip up sentiment against Trotsky (as Trotsky was a Jew).<ref>{{cite journal|author-first=Mario |author-last=Keßler |author-link=Mario Keßler |url=http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Newint/Kessler.html |title=Leon Trotsky's Position on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and the Perspectives of the Jewish Question |journal=New Interventions |volume=5 |number=2 |year=1994 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080927223410/http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/Newint/Kessler.html |archive-date=27 September 2008 |url-status=dead}} (transcript of a talk at the AGM of ''[[Revolutionary History]]'' magazine in October 1993)</ref> Stalin's daughter later claimed that his fight with Trotsky laid the foundations for his later antisemitic campaigns.<ref>{{cite book|author-first=Arno |author-last=Lustiger |author-link=Arno Lustiger |title=Stalin and the Jews: The Red Book: The Tragedy of the Soviet Jews and the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee |translator-first1=Mary Beth |translator-last1=Friedrich |translator-first2=Todd |translator-last2=Bludeau |location=New York |publisher=Enigma Books |date=2003}}</ref>