The 2nd World Congress since the reunification of the Fourth International (the 8th Congress since the foundation of the movement) was held in Switzerland from 5 to 12 December 1965. More than sixty fraternal delegates and guests, from twenty-five countries on every continent, took part in its work. The sections of eight countries could not be represented, most because of the repression in their respective countries, some because of insurmountable material difficulties; they sent messages of greeting to the Congress.
The World Congress was held under the honorary chairmanship of the imprisoned Peruvian comrades Hugo Blanco, Vladimir Valer and Daniel Perera, the Bolivian comrade Elio Vasquez and the Indian comrade Kanai Pal, member of the West Bengal Assembly. The Congress saluted the memory of the Bolivian comrade César Lora and of the Greek student Sotiris Petroulas, murdered by the forces of bourgeois repression. It sent its greetings to the militants imprisoned by capitalism in many countries (Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, South Africa...), to the Algerian militants imprisoned by the Boumedienne regime, and to the young revolutionaries imprisoned in the workers states. The Congress paid tribute to the Trotskyists and friends of the movement who had died since the previous congress: Jules Henin (Belgium), Art Preiss (United States), John Baird (England), Alfred Rosmer (France), Raphaël Zakine (Algeria).
The World Congress of the Fourth International issued an appeal to the workers of the whole world for greater support to the Vietnamese people in their struggle against American imperialism.
The Congress recorded with great satisfaction that the reunification carried out at the previous congress, in 1963, after a split that had lasted ten years, had been consolidated and strengthened during the period since.
The Congress discussed the following questions:
a) the Sino-Soviet conflict (reporter: Livio MAITAN),
b) the evolution of capitalism in Western Europe (reporter: Ilario RIVERA),
c) the problems of the African revolution (reporter: Livio MAITAN),
d) the international political situation and the tasks of revolutionary Marxists (reporter: E. GERMAIN),
e) the activity report (reporter: Pierre FRANK).
After discussion, the Congress voted texts on the political questions debated and adopted the activity report. It elected a new International Executive Committee. It recorded that the Pablo faction, which had broken all discipline and refused to apply the decisions of the previous congress, had, by constituting itself as an independent organisation, thereby placed itself outside the ranks of the Fourth International.
A draft of new statutes, presented by the outgoing United Secretariat, was submitted to the discussion of the International with a view to the next World Congress.
The World Congress was characterised above all by a large representation of young cadres, a sign of the recruitment carried out by the sections of the Fourth International in recent years and of the formation of new sections in countries drawn into the colonial revolution. This rejuvenation was also expressed in the composition of the new leading bodies elected by the Congress.
14 December 1965.