International Spartacist Tendency

The International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) (formerly the International Spartacist Tendency) is a Trotskyist international organisation. It consists of the various Trotskyist groups, many named the Spartacist League.

The most prominent section of the international is in the United States, and there are smaller sections in Mexico, Canada, western Europe, Japan, South Africa and Australia. They named themselves after the original Spartacist League of Germany.

The group originated at the Revolutionary Tendency in the American Socialist Workers Party, formed in 1961, seeing themselves as loyal to the International Committee of the Fourth International while the SWP were keen to reunify with the Pabloite International Secretariat of the Fourth International. After explusion from the SWP, they renamed themselves in 1964, but were expelled from the ICFI in 1966.

The group has been led by James Robertson since its inception. It characterizes itself as a revolutionary fighting propaganda group. In organizing and participating in demonstrations and labor support and co-ordinating "exemplary actions" against fascists and elsewise, it devotes much attention to polemicizing against other groups that consider themselves to be socialist and refused to join most left wing political coalitions and campaigns characterising them as popular fronts. There behaviour is often seen as simple disruption of these other group's activities and it is alleged that they have gotten violent at meetings of the Democratic Socialists of America and the International Socialist Organization (ISO). They in turn have alleged that various groups have acted in a violent fashion towards them, and have documented this at various points. They are also highly critical of groups associated with the United Secretariat of the Fourth International which they characterize as Pabloite.

The International Bolshevik Tendency, which formed in 1985 out of members who had variously quit and been expelled, claims that since they left the group it has engaged in very little trade union activity. The IBT also claims that the Spartacists have degenerated into an "obedience cult" centered around Robertson.

Another split occurred in 1996 when the founders of the League for the Fourth International were expelled, allegedly for maneuvering with a group from Brazil involved in bringing court suit against a trade union.

The ICL(FI) denounces all support to capitalist parties, not least through popular front formation, in favor of an independent workers party aiming for state power. They regard what they term the "black question" as central to revolution in the U.S. and promote "revolutionary integrationism".

It was one of the few groups to hail the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the Soviet occupation which followed. They believed it provided an opportunity to extend what they saw as the gains of the October Revolution to the Afghan people, in a struggle against Islamic fundamentalism. It also gave no support to Ayatollah Khomeini during the Islamic Revolution, which the majority of the left supported as anti-imperialist.

The group also maintains a position of defending what they see as the remaining Communist states, which it calls deformed workers states. This famously extends to them calling for defense of North Korea's right to nuclear arms. The ICL(FI) also fought hard in mobilizing to defend the Soviet Union and East Germany from what it saw as capitalist restoration, though it was unsuccessful. Their group in Germany waged an election campaign in 1989 uniquely calling for opposition to the capitalist reunification.

Since the early 1980s, the group and affiliates have participated in mobilizations against Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan, and in the late-1980s were early campaigners to save Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The US group publishes the newspaper Workers Vanguard, while the UK group publishes Workers Hammer. They publish the and the theoretical journal Spartacist in four languages.