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I don't understand. Is it a rule that only people hostile to Trotskyism can write about it?
After all, not everyone in the SWP was "eager for reconciliation." Whose interpretation is this? And why does this interpretation take precedence? How can you write about the Fourth International without a single mention of the concepts of "Stalinism" or "bourgeois nationalism", which are the main opponents of Trotskyists, who advocate a world socialist revolution?
The oppostion between the ISFI and the ICFI is precisely on these questions.
"In the ISFI, Pablo had lost prestige, and as both the SWP and the ISFI hailed the Cuban Revolution as unconsciously furthering Trotskyism, they grew together."
Unconsciously furthering Trotskyism? Was this idea held by everyone in the SWP? No, so why present it this way? Only the ISFI believed in the unconcious furthering of Trotskyism, while the ICFI defended the tradition of Bolshevism, which stated that a revolution could only by won if led by a concious marxist leadership.
It's absurd that these ideas need to be edited out. It's incontravertible that that is what Trotsky stood for, and that is what the Fourth International was founded upon.
And finally, for now, "*was* a Trotskyist..."??? It still is Trotskyist.
Reading through the minutes, I can't see any reference to the claim that "they were charged with refusing to give testimony on the split within the American movement". I;ve cut it until someone can produce a reference. (PS Sorry, I should have signed this) -- Duncan 08:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
This section is not referenced and does not have a neutral point of view. Chronologically, a number of events here are presented out of order. I suggest we delete this section: if we cannot state on the WRP page that it was partly funded by Arab regimes, then the same standard of evidense should apply here. The suggestion that, because Field was related to a CIA employee, that her disagreements were police disruption, seems unsupported. I have placed the unsupported section below, while awaiting references. -- Duncan 12:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
_________________________________
A response to the above: I will try to ignore the frothing at the mouth of the first 2 paragraphs. Clearly the ICFI did not oppose the anti-war movement! Ha!
1. By this poster's admission, Gelfand filed suit in response to being expelled, so that answers the previous edit.
2. There are two contradictory claims: the trial was meant to drain funds from the SWP vs. the trial was meant to "generate material for political attacks". If the SWP had nothing to hide, the trial could not possibly generate anything of the sort. The ICFI does not deny that they were trying to get testimony from SWP leadership that could be used against them, regardless of the lawsuit's outcome. The material gained helped the ICFI produce its "Security and the Fourth International" book, which goes into an investigation of how the Stalinists infiltrated the Fourth International in order to murder its leaders, including but not limited to Trotsky.
As for the costs of the trial: Did it not drain funds from the Workers' League and Alan Gelfand? And why did the judge only award partial costs to the SWP rather than all costs?
3. Think logically: The judge did not issue a summary judgement, and the case would have never gone to trial if a grand jury had not decided previously that there was some merit to the case. Also, how could the trial go on for 10 years if it was not for obstruction and avoidance by the SWP? The full, publicly available transcipts of the case are published and sold on the ICFI's website (www.wsws.org) while the case is only alluded to as a side issue by the SWP. The judge also with-held important grand-jury testimony from Gelfand until the very end of the trial, when no more witnesses could be called.
4. "Wild" conspiracy is one thing. It takes a certain type to deny that the US government, especially the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, would never dream of conspiring against the civil liberties of American citizens.
5. Gelfand's expulsion should be seen in the context of many expulsions the SWP carried out in the late 70s to mid 80s. This was during the period when they openly turned away from marxism, openly breaking with Marx's call for a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and denying Trotsky's theory of "Permanent Revolution". Any SWP members who criticized these steps or even had smaller tactical disagreements was compared to Gelfand as a traitor to the party and expelled.
6. I highly recommend the link: http://annotatedlife.blogspot.com/2006/07/excerpt-from-gelfand-case.html It details Gelfand's questions in a letter sent to the SWP leadership before his expulsion.
Please provide a source, as it contradicts mine. Thanks.
Please do not revert. If you disagree with something, remove it individually and give an explanation. Then I can actually do the research and find the information you want to prove the claim. If you make large reversions, it is impossible to respond and come to an agreement.
Questions before you revert again:
1. What was the ISFI's policy towards the majority in Britain? I think it's reasonable that they would be just as anti-democratic as they were in France. Perhaps it was these traumatic experiences with Pabloism that made these sections less willing to compromise in 1964?
2. Regarding Castro, Lula, etc. Please reread: "They (ICFI) point as justification..." That is, they look back at their predictions of the ISFI's direction and they believe they are proved correct by subsequent development. They did not know everything the ISFI would do, but they did predict that the ISFI would abandon Trotskyism to support stalinist parties and to join nationalist movements. It is not wrong to explain what a movement's current view of its history is. Please be objective instead of attempting to remove all criticism of the ISFI!
3. Why do you want to delete the fact that Wohlforth himself voted for his own suspension from the central committee?
4. If you are not satisfied with saying that Fields was raised by a CIA agent, and you want to emphasise that he worked in the computer division, then why are you against explaining what he did in the computer division? He was not a technician but a high level operative, adn they actually often had a former CIA director over dinner at home on multiple occasions.
5. Why delete references to Seymour Hersh's articles in the NY Times, which clearly motivated the ICFI? I am giving you the author and the source!
6. Please cite source for claim that "Security" was only interested in assassinations.
7. Why are you deleting references to what documents the ICFI studied? During the late 50s, Soviet agents were tried in the United States, making available information not previously available. The SWP, however, never investigated these.
8. How can you reference Cliff Slaughter and ignore the role he played personally in the ICFI investigation?
9. Hansen's laxness was summarized in his point of view that it's better to have a spy and provacateur in the movement than to sow distrust among members. This is a lax approach to security.
In the future, if you make whole reversions with only partial comments, then I will just revert back again. This is a waste of both our time. Since you provided the source for the Gelfand thing, I am leaving it in. I admit that my source was a google search and I found a government website that mentioned the case, and it only had the 1979 date. This shows that I am not trying to hide the history but clarify it.
You seem to be more interested in removing facts without offering a counter-explanation. That is not a way to approach writing history. We don't need to cite a source for every claim, only claims for which there are contradictory points of view and conflicting sources. In that case, either one person concedes that the other source is more authoritative, or both sources are cited and the decision is left to the reader. I hope this is clear to you.
I have removed the floowing section: "It was impossible, the Pabloites argued, to build an alternative to Stalinism in the form of the Fourth International. Instead, various sections of the bureacracy could be influenced under pressure to defend the working class." This is not referenced, and does not fit with sources I have consulted. In particular, Pablo split with Mestre, Cochran and Lawrence on exactly these points. Are there any references that suggest that this, in fact, was Pablo's view at that time? -- Duncan 18:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
The ICFI does not use this term with any energy: I can't find even a handful of uses of the term. The idea that this is a branch is bonkers. This is self-serving page, simply pushing the POV that the only two tributaries of Trotskyism are Northism or Shachtmanism. This page adds nothing, as exists only to support changes on the Trotskyism template. -- Duncan 15:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there are still TWO ICFI's not one as the article states. The smaller ICFI is still associated with the Shelia Torrance run WRP in the UK.
David Walters —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.203.27.99 ( talk • contribs) . (belatedly put in by Mr Stephen 23:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC), I moved the comment)
I am removing the HOAX and OR tags from ICFI because no comments have been made on the talk page to justify those tags. -- Duncan 10:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
If effective leadership is defined as the ability to capture the stage, as it were, for some particular thing, in this case the bringing of the truth of revolutionary Marxism to the masses then page rank is probably as good an objective measure as anything available right now. That was the basis of prior body of the 1998-present §:
Confused on the "government agent" bit about Joseph Hansen. Was he an FBI or GPU agent? Maybe someone can clear this up. -- 11:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
In order to confirm the statement with a (citation needed)
Here's an in-depth article by wsws confirming the statement about what the ICFI thinks about the denial of globalisation by the spartacists :
http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/global/nblect.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.13.193.183 ( talk) 17:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note that I made a series of additions and changes to this section to make it more even handed and not a ICFI love fest. See the history section to compare differences 66.77.107.100 ( talk) 08:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)DavidMIA
In this article, the "Japanese section" of the ICFI is referred. However, the ICFI never had a formal section in Japan. There was a Trotskyist organisation called the JRCL (Japan Revolutionary Communist League), had contacts with both the Pabloite International Secretariat and the ICFI. The JRCL joined the United Secretariat along with the SWP/US. East Japan International ( talk) 05:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
While the WRP(UK) still claims the ICFI label, they don't even claim to have other sections, do not appear to recognise any actual IC, and are derived from a group that denied the authority of the IC in 1985. (See here.) It's unclear how they can really be considered just as much the ICFI as the group that had remained with the IC, but out of respect for balance, the article should state that the WRP(UK) still claims to be a section of the ICFI. -- Nixin06 ( talk) 16:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Many parts of the article read as polemical points justifying the ICFI at different junctures. Examples being the reference to ICFI supporters being "Orthodox Trotskyists" as counterposed to the IS orgs, and references to people who have "learned the lesson" of different events. 73.151.137.144 ( talk) 03:05, 14 June 2022 (UTC)
This article is rated Start-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||
|
I don't understand. Is it a rule that only people hostile to Trotskyism can write about it?
After all, not everyone in the SWP was "eager for reconciliation." Whose interpretation is this? And why does this interpretation take precedence? How can you write about the Fourth International without a single mention of the concepts of "Stalinism" or "bourgeois nationalism", which are the main opponents of Trotskyists, who advocate a world socialist revolution?
The oppostion between the ISFI and the ICFI is precisely on these questions.
"In the ISFI, Pablo had lost prestige, and as both the SWP and the ISFI hailed the Cuban Revolution as unconsciously furthering Trotskyism, they grew together."
Unconsciously furthering Trotskyism? Was this idea held by everyone in the SWP? No, so why present it this way? Only the ISFI believed in the unconcious furthering of Trotskyism, while the ICFI defended the tradition of Bolshevism, which stated that a revolution could only by won if led by a concious marxist leadership.
It's absurd that these ideas need to be edited out. It's incontravertible that that is what Trotsky stood for, and that is what the Fourth International was founded upon.
And finally, for now, "*was* a Trotskyist..."??? It still is Trotskyist.
Reading through the minutes, I can't see any reference to the claim that "they were charged with refusing to give testimony on the split within the American movement". I;ve cut it until someone can produce a reference. (PS Sorry, I should have signed this) -- Duncan 08:46, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
This section is not referenced and does not have a neutral point of view. Chronologically, a number of events here are presented out of order. I suggest we delete this section: if we cannot state on the WRP page that it was partly funded by Arab regimes, then the same standard of evidense should apply here. The suggestion that, because Field was related to a CIA employee, that her disagreements were police disruption, seems unsupported. I have placed the unsupported section below, while awaiting references. -- Duncan 12:03, 20 March 2006 (UTC)
_________________________________
A response to the above: I will try to ignore the frothing at the mouth of the first 2 paragraphs. Clearly the ICFI did not oppose the anti-war movement! Ha!
1. By this poster's admission, Gelfand filed suit in response to being expelled, so that answers the previous edit.
2. There are two contradictory claims: the trial was meant to drain funds from the SWP vs. the trial was meant to "generate material for political attacks". If the SWP had nothing to hide, the trial could not possibly generate anything of the sort. The ICFI does not deny that they were trying to get testimony from SWP leadership that could be used against them, regardless of the lawsuit's outcome. The material gained helped the ICFI produce its "Security and the Fourth International" book, which goes into an investigation of how the Stalinists infiltrated the Fourth International in order to murder its leaders, including but not limited to Trotsky.
As for the costs of the trial: Did it not drain funds from the Workers' League and Alan Gelfand? And why did the judge only award partial costs to the SWP rather than all costs?
3. Think logically: The judge did not issue a summary judgement, and the case would have never gone to trial if a grand jury had not decided previously that there was some merit to the case. Also, how could the trial go on for 10 years if it was not for obstruction and avoidance by the SWP? The full, publicly available transcipts of the case are published and sold on the ICFI's website (www.wsws.org) while the case is only alluded to as a side issue by the SWP. The judge also with-held important grand-jury testimony from Gelfand until the very end of the trial, when no more witnesses could be called.
4. "Wild" conspiracy is one thing. It takes a certain type to deny that the US government, especially the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, would never dream of conspiring against the civil liberties of American citizens.
5. Gelfand's expulsion should be seen in the context of many expulsions the SWP carried out in the late 70s to mid 80s. This was during the period when they openly turned away from marxism, openly breaking with Marx's call for a "dictatorship of the proletariat" and denying Trotsky's theory of "Permanent Revolution". Any SWP members who criticized these steps or even had smaller tactical disagreements was compared to Gelfand as a traitor to the party and expelled.
6. I highly recommend the link: http://annotatedlife.blogspot.com/2006/07/excerpt-from-gelfand-case.html It details Gelfand's questions in a letter sent to the SWP leadership before his expulsion.
Please provide a source, as it contradicts mine. Thanks.
Please do not revert. If you disagree with something, remove it individually and give an explanation. Then I can actually do the research and find the information you want to prove the claim. If you make large reversions, it is impossible to respond and come to an agreement.
Questions before you revert again:
1. What was the ISFI's policy towards the majority in Britain? I think it's reasonable that they would be just as anti-democratic as they were in France. Perhaps it was these traumatic experiences with Pabloism that made these sections less willing to compromise in 1964?
2. Regarding Castro, Lula, etc. Please reread: "They (ICFI) point as justification..." That is, they look back at their predictions of the ISFI's direction and they believe they are proved correct by subsequent development. They did not know everything the ISFI would do, but they did predict that the ISFI would abandon Trotskyism to support stalinist parties and to join nationalist movements. It is not wrong to explain what a movement's current view of its history is. Please be objective instead of attempting to remove all criticism of the ISFI!
3. Why do you want to delete the fact that Wohlforth himself voted for his own suspension from the central committee?
4. If you are not satisfied with saying that Fields was raised by a CIA agent, and you want to emphasise that he worked in the computer division, then why are you against explaining what he did in the computer division? He was not a technician but a high level operative, adn they actually often had a former CIA director over dinner at home on multiple occasions.
5. Why delete references to Seymour Hersh's articles in the NY Times, which clearly motivated the ICFI? I am giving you the author and the source!
6. Please cite source for claim that "Security" was only interested in assassinations.
7. Why are you deleting references to what documents the ICFI studied? During the late 50s, Soviet agents were tried in the United States, making available information not previously available. The SWP, however, never investigated these.
8. How can you reference Cliff Slaughter and ignore the role he played personally in the ICFI investigation?
9. Hansen's laxness was summarized in his point of view that it's better to have a spy and provacateur in the movement than to sow distrust among members. This is a lax approach to security.
In the future, if you make whole reversions with only partial comments, then I will just revert back again. This is a waste of both our time. Since you provided the source for the Gelfand thing, I am leaving it in. I admit that my source was a google search and I found a government website that mentioned the case, and it only had the 1979 date. This shows that I am not trying to hide the history but clarify it.
You seem to be more interested in removing facts without offering a counter-explanation. That is not a way to approach writing history. We don't need to cite a source for every claim, only claims for which there are contradictory points of view and conflicting sources. In that case, either one person concedes that the other source is more authoritative, or both sources are cited and the decision is left to the reader. I hope this is clear to you.
I have removed the floowing section: "It was impossible, the Pabloites argued, to build an alternative to Stalinism in the form of the Fourth International. Instead, various sections of the bureacracy could be influenced under pressure to defend the working class." This is not referenced, and does not fit with sources I have consulted. In particular, Pablo split with Mestre, Cochran and Lawrence on exactly these points. Are there any references that suggest that this, in fact, was Pablo's view at that time? -- Duncan 18:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
The ICFI does not use this term with any energy: I can't find even a handful of uses of the term. The idea that this is a branch is bonkers. This is self-serving page, simply pushing the POV that the only two tributaries of Trotskyism are Northism or Shachtmanism. This page adds nothing, as exists only to support changes on the Trotskyism template. -- Duncan 15:47, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, there are still TWO ICFI's not one as the article states. The smaller ICFI is still associated with the Shelia Torrance run WRP in the UK.
David Walters —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.203.27.99 ( talk • contribs) . (belatedly put in by Mr Stephen 23:13, 9 October 2006 (UTC), I moved the comment)
I am removing the HOAX and OR tags from ICFI because no comments have been made on the talk page to justify those tags. -- Duncan 10:38, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
If effective leadership is defined as the ability to capture the stage, as it were, for some particular thing, in this case the bringing of the truth of revolutionary Marxism to the masses then page rank is probably as good an objective measure as anything available right now. That was the basis of prior body of the 1998-present §:
Confused on the "government agent" bit about Joseph Hansen. Was he an FBI or GPU agent? Maybe someone can clear this up. -- 11:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)
In order to confirm the statement with a (citation needed)
Here's an in-depth article by wsws confirming the statement about what the ICFI thinks about the denial of globalisation by the spartacists :
http://www.wsws.org/exhibits/global/nblect.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.13.193.183 ( talk) 17:29, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Please note that I made a series of additions and changes to this section to make it more even handed and not a ICFI love fest. See the history section to compare differences 66.77.107.100 ( talk) 08:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)DavidMIA
In this article, the "Japanese section" of the ICFI is referred. However, the ICFI never had a formal section in Japan. There was a Trotskyist organisation called the JRCL (Japan Revolutionary Communist League), had contacts with both the Pabloite International Secretariat and the ICFI. The JRCL joined the United Secretariat along with the SWP/US. East Japan International ( talk) 05:52, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
While the WRP(UK) still claims the ICFI label, they don't even claim to have other sections, do not appear to recognise any actual IC, and are derived from a group that denied the authority of the IC in 1985. (See here.) It's unclear how they can really be considered just as much the ICFI as the group that had remained with the IC, but out of respect for balance, the article should state that the WRP(UK) still claims to be a section of the ICFI. -- Nixin06 ( talk) 16:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
Many parts of the article read as polemical points justifying the ICFI at different junctures. Examples being the reference to ICFI supporters being "Orthodox Trotskyists" as counterposed to the IS orgs, and references to people who have "learned the lesson" of different events. 73.151.137.144 ( talk) 03:05, 14 June 2022 (UTC)