Q. What was the 4th International?
A. This betrayal (of the Third International) and the terrible effect of the Hitler defeat led to a reappraisal of the role of the Communist International. An International which could perpetrate the treachery of surrendering the German proletariat to Hitler, without a shot being fired and without provoking a crisis within its ranks, could no longer serve the needs of the proletariat. An International which could acclaim this disaster as a victory could not fulfil its role as a leadership of the proletariat. As an instrument of World Socialism, the Third International was dead. From an instrument of International Socialism, the Communist International had degenerated into a complete and docile tools of the Kremlin, into an instrument of Russian Foreign Policy. It was now necessary to prepare the way for the organisation of a Fourth International, untarnished with the crimes and betrayals which besmirched the Reformist and Stalinist Internationals.As in the days after the collapse of the Second International, the Revolutionary Internationalists remained small isolated sects. In Belgium they had a couple of MPs and an organisation of a thousand or two, in Austria and Holland, the same. The forces of the new international were weak and immature, nevertheless they had the guidance and assistance of Trotsky, and the perspectives of great historical events. They were educated on the basis of an analysis of the experience of the Second and Third Internationals, and of the Russian, German and Chinese Revolutions and the British General Strike, and of the great events which had followed the First World War. In this way cadres were to be trained and educated, as the indispensable skeleton of the body of the new International.
It was this period, taking into account the historical isolation of the movement from the mass organisations of the Social Democracy and Communist party, that the tactic of 'entrism' was evolved. In order to win the best workers, it was necessary to find a way of influencing them. This could only be done by working together with them in the mass organisations. Thus beginning with the ILP in Britain, the idea of entrism was worked out for the mass organisations of Social Democracy. This, where they were in a state of crisis and moving towards the left. Thus, with the developing revolutionary situation in France there was an entry into the Socialist Party. In Britain the entry of the ILP, then in a state of flux and ferment after breaking from the Labour Party, was followed by entry by many of the Trotskyists, on Trotsky's advice, into the Labour Party. In the USA there was an entry into the Socialist Party.
In the main, the pre-war period was one of preparation and orientation and selection of cadres or leading elements to be trained and steeled theoretically and practically, in the movement of the masses.
The tactic of entry was also considered as a short term expedient, forced on the revolutionaries by their isolation from the masses, and the impossibility of tiny organisations getting the ear and finding support among the mass of the working class. It was for the purpose of working among the radical elements looking for revolutionary solutions, who would in the first place turn towards the mass organisations. But always under all conditions the main ideas of Marxism should be put forward and the revolutionary banner i.e. the ideas of Marxism, maintained and defended. It was a question of acquiring experience and understanding, of combating both sectarianism and opportunism. It was a means of developing a flexible approach, with the implacability of principle, as a means of preparing the cadres for the great events which impended.
The defeats of the working class in Germany, France and in the civil war in Spain, the defeats of the immediate post-war period, which were entirely due to the policies of the Second and Third Internationals, in their turn prepared the way for the Second World War. The paralysis of the proletariat in Europe, in conjunction with the new aggravated crisis of world capitalism made the Second World War absolutely inevitable. It was in this atmosphere that the 1938 founding conference of the Fourth International took place.