Pathfinder Tendency - History

History

In the 1980s the Socialist Workers Party and its international supporters within the Fourth International (FI) broke from many of the traditional positions of Trotskyism, including the theory of Permanent Revolution, and embraced positions that marked a political convergence with the Cuban Communist Party and the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional. Upon adopting these new positions, the SWP expelled supporters of the FI from the party, and SWP supporters abroad split from or attempted to take over sections of the FI in various countries. By the late 1980s this process was completed and national sections of the FI had either been taken over with supporters of the international's mainstream being expelled—this happened with the Revolutionary Workers League in Canada, the Socialist Action League in New Zealand and the SWP in the US—or supporters of the US SWP had split from FI sections and founded their own organisations — as occurred in Australia, Sweden and Britain.

In 1990 the SWP and its supporters formally left the FI. Supporters of the SWP internationally renamed their organisations the Communist League in each country. Since the creation of the Pathfinder tendency, new Communist Leagues have formeded to organise previously existing groups of supporters in Iceland and in France (1999).

The Youth sections of the Pathfinder Tendency are increasingly active in the World Federation of Democratic Youth. The Young Socialists of USA, Britain and New Zealand have been able to become members of the Federation.