Revolutionary Communist International

The Revolutionary Communist International (RCI) is active in over 70 countries around the world. We are striving to raise the banner under which the awakening generation of revolutionary workers and youth can assemble to overthrow capitalism. We urge all new visitors to marxist.com to read our Manifesto, unanimously passed at the 2024 founding conference of the RCI, which you can read here.

In short, we are fighting to build a single, global party of world socialist revolution, based on the scientific, revolutionary communist ideas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, which we defend. This section of marxist.com includes articles and reports on the activity of the RCI internationally. If you are a communist and want to join us in the struggle, then join the RCI here.

The 24th congress of The Struggle – the Pakistan Marxist Tendency – opened on Wednesday 23rd March in the impressive Alhamra Hall number one in central Lahore. This is the biggest meeting hall in the city with a capacity of one thousand, but more than 1,100 comrades crowded the hall, at times sitting in the aisles or standing at the back.

We are publishing a 1945 article by Ted Grant’s which was a contribution to the discussion on the national question in Europe then taking place within the Fourth International. The IKD was the German section of the Fourth International, but some of its members had unfortunately drawn some very reactionary conclusions. Instead of the perspective of the socialist revolution they had been thrown back to the idea of the “national democratic” revolution. Ted explained the disastrous consequences this idea would have on the movement and went on to state the classical Marxist position on this question.

In 1946 the perspectives of the then leadership of the Fourth International were that through “the combined economic, political and diplomatic pressure and the military threats of American and British imperialism” the Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union could collapse. The complete opposite was the truth. Ted Grant, together with the leadership of the RCP, attempted to correct this mistaken prognosis. Here we provide the historical 1946 documentation.

Over the weekend of December 11th and 12th the 2nd National Congress of the Revolutionary Marxist Current (CMR) took place in the premises of the Bolivarian University in Caracas. This congress was held a year after the Founding Congress of the CMR in December 2003 in Barquisimeto which saw the fusion between El Topo Obrero (The Workers’ Mole) and El Militante (The Militant) groups. The Congress demonstrated the qualitative advance of the organisation with a number of new local cells being established and an increase in both the membership and in the political level of the current in general.

In 1946 the leaders of the Fourth International were predicting imminent revolutonary upheavals, when in reality capitalism was entering the biggest boom in its history. The leadership of the British Trotskyists, in particular Ted Grant, tried to convince the International that their perspective was false. History has proven Ted to be right. No one can doubt it, and we are proud to continue the tradition that he laid down of serious, meticulous analysis of the real processes taking place in society.

A comrade who was actively involved in building the Militant in the 1970s and 1980s recounts his experience, how he became disillusioned by the changes in the internal regime, how the tendency he had joined was transformed into something else. He now sees in In Defence of Marxism the genuine traditions of the Militant at its best.

The resolution adopted by the International Pre-Conference of the Fourth International in April 1946, was permeated with the false perspective of the impending revolutionary crisis, the impossibility of a general economic recovery of capitalism and therefore it highlighted the excellent possibilities to develop the forces of the Fourth International. All this of course was false and eventually led to one crisis after another of the organization, and to its final collapse.

On the 40th anniversary of the publication of the first edition of the Militant (October 1964) Fred Weston interviewed Ted Grant, the key theoretician behind the whole project.

Forty years ago this month the Militant was launched. Its subsequent evolution has no parallel in the history of left groups in Britain or internationally. From a miniscule group with no resources, it became the most successful Trotskyist tendency in Britain since the founding of Trotsky’s Left Opposition. Unfortunately the majority of its leadership was to take an ultra-left turn that would eventually destroy it. Rob Sewell, who was part of the opposition to that turn, recounts what happened.

The conflict that opened up in the Militant in 1991 eventually led to breaking point. The “Majority”, no longer able to tolerate any form of internal debate, decided to expel the Opposition, starting with Ted Grant, the founder of the Tendency. This act put the final seal on the degeneration of the old Militant. From a healthy, vibrant Marxist Tendency, it had been transformed into a bureaucratic, sectarian and undemocratic outfit. The opposition started to draw a balance sheet of the whole experience and this document is part of that.

This is the resolution adopted by the majority of the Militant leadership in 1991 after the Walton by-election. In spite of having received far fewer votes than they had expected (in fact at one stage they even thought they could win), the resolution presents the campaign as a major success. It was supposed to avoid demoralisation of the left. Experience showed that it was the beginning of the decline of the influence of the Militant in Liverpool. (July, 1991)