The Revolutionary Workers Ferment, often known by its Spanish name or initials Fomento Obrero Revolucionario or FOR, was a small

Trotskyist Trotskyism (, ) is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Russian revolutionary and intellectual Leon Trotsky along with some other members of the Left Opposition and the Fourth International. Trotsky described himself as an ...

international founded by

Grandizo Munis Grandizo Munis (18 April 19124 February 1989) was a Spanish Trotskyist politician turned left-communist following his break with the Fourth International. Biography Grandizo first entered revolutionary politics as a member of the Izquierda ...

, which arose as a split from the

Fourth International The Fourth International (FI) was a political international established in France in 1938 by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, having been expelled from the Soviet Union and the Communist International (also known as Comintern or the Third Inte ...

at its Second Congress in 1948.Alexander, Robert ''International Trotskyism: a documented analysis of the world movement'' Durham, Duke University Press 1991 pp. 250–251. Though Munis and his co-thinkers carried on polemics with other currents of Trotskyst origin for three decades, and it was only in the late 1970s that a formal organization was formed. The FOR only held one international conference, at Paris in 1981. At that conference a split emerged between, on the one hand the "interior" Spanish section based in Spain, supported by the FOCUS group in the United States, and the Spanish "exile" faction based in Paris, along with the French section. The interior Spanish and American groups were expelled from the FOR. Munis and the FOR had developed an "

ultraleft In Marxism, ultra-leftism encompasses a broad spectrum of revolutionary Marxist currents that are anti-Leninist in perspective. Ultra-leftism distinguishes itself from other left-wing currents through its rejection of electoralism, trade unioni ...

" policy: they were opposed to the "Communist" states, regarding them as

state capitalist State capitalism is an economic system in which the state undertakes business and commercial economic activity and where the means of production are nationalized as state-owned enterprises (including the processes of capital accumulation, ce ...

; they were opposed to the capitalist system and its form of government; they did not believe in

parliamentarism A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

trade unions A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages ...

; they did not believe in any kind of

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

or national liberation struggles and affirmed the "inevitable necessity of the communist revolution on a world scale".

Sections

Groups associated with the FOR included *

FOR Organizing Committee of the United States The FOR Organizing Committee in the United States or FOCUS was a small group of leftists in the United States. It was the US section of the Revolutionary Workers Ferment, known by its Spanish initials FOR (Fomento Obrero Revolutionario). FOCUS was ...

in the United States * The Allarme Group in Italy *Synagermos in Greece *Allerma in Spain *Alarme in France

References

{{Reflist Trotskyist political internationals