ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a descriptive and historical account of the four main national centres of the world Trotskyist movement. Historically the world's first Trotskyist party to achieve a four-figure membership was the American Socialist Workers Party (SWP), back in the 1940s and since that time parties with around 10,000 members have been created (briefly) in just three countries, Argentina, Britain and France. Taken together these four countries are also home to the headquarters of 26 of the world's 32 Fourth Internationals and so it is these four that will be taken to constitute the main centres of world Trotskyism. The chapter traces the evolution of Trotskyism in each country from the 1930s to the present day, noting broad trends in membership and influence, shifts in policy and the many organizational splits that have bedevilled the movement. All four movements began as tiny organizations operating in the shadow of their social democratic and communist rivals and only began to grow significantly in the 1960s, fuelled by strikes as well as feminist, anti-war and anti-imperialist protests. This ‘Golden Age’ of Trotskyism began to unravel in the 1980s as the world Trotskyist movement entered a prolonged period of disintegration and decline from which it has never recovered.
