231. The International Committee concluded from the bankruptcy of the reformist organizations that the previous organizational form of its sections as “Leagues” was no longer appropriate. Beginning in 1995, the ICFI sections, in very close collaboration, began the process of transforming themselves from leagues into parties. This was not just a change of name. It was based on an understanding of the new responsibilities imposed on the party by profound changes in the fundamental historical context in which the movement was working. The ongoing political restructuring of the international working class required new forms of work. As explained in The Workers League and the Founding of the Socialist Equality Party:

It is the development of the contradictions of world capitalism and the class struggle as an objective historical process that determines the organizational forms within which our activity develops. These forms, and the relation to the working class that they express, bear a specific relation to the historic conditions under which they arose and initially developed. The formation of leagues, from the Socialist Labour League in Britain in 1959, the Workers League in 1966, the Revolutionary Communist League in 1968, to the formation of the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter in 1971 and the Socialist Labour League in Australia in 1972, was bound up with definite historical conditions and strategic conceptions of the development of the revolutionary movement of the working class.

The central strategical problem that confronted the Trotskyist movement in this early period in the development of the ICFI was the active and militant allegiance given by the most advanced sections of the working class to the mass Stalinist and Social-Democratic parties and trade unions.

The political activity of our sections therefore assumed, despite variations in tactics, that the starting point of a great new revolutionary reorientation of the working class would proceed in the form of a radicalization among the most class-conscious and politically-active elements within the ranks of these organizations. Out of that movement, in which the sections of the International Committee would play a catalytic role as the most intransigent opponents of Social Democracy and Stalinism, would arise the real possibilities for the establishment of a mass revolutionary party.^[1]

232. That was no longer the case. The document stressed:

If there is to be leadership given to the working class, it must be provided by our party. If a new road is to be opened for the masses of working people, it must be opened by our organization. The problem of leadership cannot be resolved on the basis of a clever tactic. We cannot resolve the crisis of working class leadership by ‘demanding’ that others provide that leadership. If there is to be a new party, then we must build it.^[2]

The name of the party was chosen very consciously: Socialist Equality Parties to fight for a world society in which social inequality and classes are abolished.

233. The establishment of the World Socialist Web Site in January 1998 marked a milestone in the history of the ICFI and the international workers’ movement. It was the outcome of the development of the International Committee, in the aftermath of the 1985-86 split with the Workers Revolutionary Party, into a politically unified world party. Moreover, the underlying conception of the WSWS—that the ICFI would play the decisive role in the political reorientation of the working class on the basis of Marxism—was derived from the perspective that motivated the transformation of the leagues into parties. Epoch-making developments in communications, closely followed by the International Committee, created the technological conditions for the WSWS. The Internet was an extraordinary medium for the spread of revolutionary ideas and for organising revolutionary work. For many decades, the production of newspapers had played a central and crucial role in the structure of the revolutionary movement. Lenin had dedicated a substantial part of his groundbreaking work What Is to Be Done? to an explanation of the role of an all-Russian newspaper. The sections of the ICFI had published newspapers. But their circulation was dependent on the number of party members physically available in any given location to organize its distribution. The development of the Internet created new conditions for overcoming old limitations and expanding the audience of the Socialist Equality Parties and the International Committee.

234. The WSWS was not merely the product of technological developments. It was based on the accumulated theoretical capital of the world Marxist movement. Upon launching the WSWS, the editorial board explained:

The World Socialist Web Site, published by the coordinated efforts of ICFI members in Asia, Australia, Europe and North America, takes as its starting point the international character of the class struggle. It assesses political developments in every country from the standpoint of the world crisis of capitalism and the political tasks confronting the international working class. Flowing from this perspective, it resolutely opposes all forms of chauvinism and national parochialism.

We are confident that the WSWS will become an unprecedented tool for the political education and unification of the working class on an international scale. It will help working people of different countries coordinate their struggles against capital, just as the transnational corporations organize their war against labor across national boundaries. It will facilitate discussion between workers of all nations, allowing them to compare their experiences and elaborate a common strategy.

… The International Committee of the Fourth International intends to use this technology as a tool for the liberation of the working people and oppressed all over the world.^[3]