Comments from a discussion with a comrade (slightly edited for grammar and clarity)

December 2, 2021

(We are publishing the following comments, made by a supporter, to show that the views our document expressed are not the result of some sort of caprice, or some sort of ad-hoc, hasty and pragmatic production, but instead are rooted in thoughts developing amongst a layer of supporters of the ICFI over a longer period, in our current stage of globally mobile productive capital which poses more sharply than ever before the question of internationalism and the need for a genuine World Party. ICFI (1953) Supporters do not necessarily endorse in full these comments/musings.)

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We need not abstract propagandist internationalism but a real struggle to build Orthodox Trotskyist parties in every country.

In 36 years, we've only added one section.

I think we should undertake a thorough investigation into and critique of the work to build the ICFI in other countries.

I've got some very basic notes that point toward such a critique.

There's a clear sense in which foreign supporters of the ICFI are subordinated to the building of the ICFI in its traditional strongholds. They've sort of transposed the "Healyite" logic that the ICFI would be built primarily by strengthening the British section onto it being built primarily by strengthening a small core of sections. It's not your classical "national Trotskyism" but... its a sort of mock "internationalist" Trotskyism largely centered on 5 countries.

I think a critique would be a vital contribution to the building of the Fourth International.

We should be pursuing a strategy of "extensive" vs. simply "intensive" organizing. 

Marx tells us a revolutionary situation is necessary for communist consciousness on a mass scale. If that's the case and we can only hope to win the support of a single digit percentage of a country (in non-revolutionary conditions) an extensive strategy makes more sense. We can only win three percent of a country? Fine, win three percent in every country. Worldwide, really worldwide, thats more than two hundred million people.

In recent years revolutionary situations have emerged, all outside of the traditional strongholds of the ICFI. Tunisia and Egypt as part of the Arab Spring, Haiti, Ecuador, Chile, and others. 

In some ways it kind of seems analogous to the USSR and the bureaucracies fear of the expansion of the revolution.

I think not admitting foreign groups has a bad effect on growth. Its like a catch-22. You need so and so to be an official section, but then people leave because they're sick of being strung out forever without being admitted to the IC.

The Lambertists claimed 92 sections. We need 92 ICFI groups!

Another point I'd make on international expansion... Why are merger discussions with groups that spring up in other countries kept in the dark in the first place?