ICFI/Marxist Library

This archive contains material from the history of the Marxist movement from the 1840s to the present. Although we present Marxist classics in general, our focus is on the history of the Trotskyist movement, with special attention devoted to the history of the ICFI since its inception in 1953.

We begin with the most recent documents from the founding congress of the Socialist Equality Party in August 2008. Other sections will develop in the next few months, with new material added frequently.

Recent Documents

The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party

This document reviews the history of the international socialist movement from the origins or Marxism through the present day. It was adopted unanimously at the Founding Congress of the SEP, held August 3-9, 2008.

Socialist Equality Party Statement of Principles

August 2008

The SEP Statement of Principles outlines the basic conceptions of the SEP and the foundation for membership in the party. It was adopted unanimously at the Founding Congress of the SEP, held August 3-9, 2008.

History of the ICFI (1953 - present)

The Heritage We Defend. A Contribution to the History of the Fourth International

By David North, 1988

This book is a critical analysis of the history of the Fourth International from the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940 through the 1980s. It examines the struggle waged by the Trotskyist movement against Stalinism, Pabloism, bourgeois nationalism and various forms of petty-bourgeois radicalism.

Coming Soon!

Fourth International

Back issues of the journal of international Marxism published by the ICFI.

Coming Soon!

Security and the Fourth International

Groundbreaking investigation of the assassination of Leon Trotsky and its coverup by agents in the SWP. Most of these documents appeared from 1975-1985.

Coming Soon!

Trotskyism versus Revisionism

A documentary history of the first twenty years of the ICFI.

Coming Soon!

Marxist Classics

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - The Communist Manifesto – 1848

The first and most systematic exposition of scientific socialism, written on the eve of the revolutions of 1848 throughout Europe....

Friedrich Engels - Socialism: Scientific and Utopian - 1880

Praised by Marx, this work is a concise presentation of scientific socialism.

Vladimir Lenin - Karl Marx - 1914

This work, written from July-November 1914 for publication in one of Russia's most popular encyclopedias, contains a general overview of the Marxist doctrine as well as a biographical sketch of Marx. It is perhaps the most comprehensive overview of Marxism in so short a document, and is infused with Lenin's distinctive polemical vein; here, as in all of his writings, Lenin defends the international and revolutionary essence of Marxism at a time when the majority of the leaders of the Second International were contorting Marx's teachings into a doctrine of reformism and lining up behind their ruling classes in the First World War.

Documents from October 1917 through the First Four Congresses of the Comintern

Leon Trotsky - Report on the World Economic Crisis and the New Tasks of the Communist International - 1921

In this report, Trotsky introduces the concept of the curve of world capitalist development and uses it to elucidate the revolutionary potential of the world situation. He details the titanic political and economic shifts unleashed by World War I -- the ruination of Europe, the development of industry especially in the US and Japan, and the unstable financial trickery which had permitted the re-establishment of a certain capitalist equilibrium in post-war Europe. Trotsky explains the tensions building up inside the capitalist system: the risk of a crisis of overproduction and the continued development of militarism -- a remarkable anticipation of the twin crises of the Depression and World War II.

History of the Trotskyist Movement from 1923-1940

Leon Trotsky - Lessons of October - 1924

Trotsky's preface to his writings on 1917 which sparked an intense debate over the essential lessons of the seizure of power by the Bolshevik Party in October 1917 in Russia.

Leon Trotsky - Culture and Socialism - 1927

This work concisely explains the fundamentals of a Marxist approach to culture and art, explaining the link between the growth of technological culture and mass acquisition of artistic and spiritual culture in the 1920s USSR.

Leon Trotsky - In Defense of October - 1932

Trotsky's speech in defense of the October Revolution which he gave to students in Copenhagen in 1932.

Leon Trotsky - Stalinism and Bolshevism - 1937

Written in the midst of Stalin's Terror, which exterminated the Old Bolsheviks who had led the October Revolution, this pamphlet by Trotsky analyzes Stalin's claim to be the continuator of Bolshevism...

Leon Trotsky - The Transitional Program - 1938

Founding document of the Fourth International in September 1938.

Leon Trotsky - Marxism in Our Time - 1939

Written as an introduction to a one-volume abridgement of Marx's Capital, this work is one of Trotsky's clearest statements on the role of Marxism today, on the prerequisites of socialist revolution, and on the crisis facing the international capitalist system.

Leon Trotsky - A Petty-Bourgeois Opposition in the SWP - 1939

Trotsky deals here with a skeptical petty-bourgeois tendency that had arisen in the US Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the late 1930s, led by James Burnham and Max Shachtman. After reviewing the theoretical issues over which disagreements had first arisen -- notably the materialist dialectic, to which Trotsky gives a masterful introduction -- Trotsky reviews the organizational and political consequences of Burnham's and Shachtman’s desertion of Marxist theory: e.g. the growth of factionalism, and of ambiguous and abstentionist positions on the question of the USSR and international politics. This text is from In Defense of Marxism, which was published in 1942.

Leon Trotsky - Three Conceptions of the Russian Revolution - 1939

From his unfinished biography of Stalin, Trotsky explains how his theory of permanent revolution differed from the conceptions of the Russian Revolution advanced by Plekhanov and Lenin.

From Trotsky's Assassination to the Founding of the ICFI in 1953

James P. Cannon - A Letter to Trotskyists Throughout the World - 1953

This Open Letter to the Trotskyist Movement signalled the founding of the International Committee of the Fourth International...