League for the Fifth International

It was founded as the Movement for a Revolutionary Communist International. Its first member groups were Workers Power in Britain, the Irish Workers Group, Pouvoir Ouvrier in France and Gruppe Arbeitermacht in Germany (GAM). After ArbeiterInnen Standpunkt in Austria joined it became the League for a Revolutionary Communist International (LCRI). This was reportedly not due to any political factor other than the fact that their name in Spanish was very similar to the international tendency of which Sendero Luminoso is a part. The LRCI was of course in the process of recruiting the Poder Obrero groups of Bolivia and Peru.

Later the LRCI did in fact recruit the Poder Obrera groups of Peru and Bolivia and also added a group in New Zealand which renamed itself Workers Power. However renewed factional disputes broke out within the tendency and it lost many of its members in Austria and france. Then a full scale debate led to the Peruvian and Bolivian groups leaving along with a part of the New Zealand group, since renmed the Communist Workers Group, and some militants in Britain.

However the LRCI has since turned to an orientation on 'anti-capitalist' youth launching the Revolution groups as its interventionist vehicle in that area. Despite some success in recruiting militants in the Czech republic and Slovakia, together with a samll Australian group (which seems to consist of former members of the defunct New Zealand Workers Power) the LRCI has not grown. In fact its French section dissolved itself at the end of 2003 for lack of interest and its Irish group is rarely seen.

The tendency has for many years held that a new international is necessary, and that the fragments of the Fourth International cannot merely be brought together, but the new call for a Fifth International which accompanied its change of name in 2003 has found no echo.

External link

• LRCI web site

See also: List of Trotskyist internationals

Referenced By