Notes on the History of the Lambertists in Germany, Austria and SwissGermany

The Lambertists have a long history. After the split in 1953, German supporters of the IC tradition met in December 1958 and elected a leadership of 5 comrades (including the long-time German Trotskyist cadre Oskar Hippe). The group soon entered a crisis.However they began the publication of a paper called Internationale Arbeiterkorrespondenz Organ der Revolutionren Marxisten (Trotzkisten) in Deutschland (in English: International Workers Correspondence Organ of the Revolutionary Marxists (Trotskyists) in Germany). This group (from now on IAK) worked inside the left-wing student movement SDS and inside the unions. They recruited some apprentices.In 1966 they joined the ICFI of Lambert and Healy.They were successful in building a youth organization (founded in April 1970) called Junge Garde Fr die revolutionre Internationale der Jugend (in English: Young guard For a revolutionary International of the Youth). It had about 200 members. They tried to win other youth groups and organized an international youth congress in Essen in July 1971 which was attended by 3000-4000 people.

However at the same time the split between Lambert and Healy took place. The majority of the IAK and the Junge Garde stayed with Lambert and joined its international tendency.They continued to build a strong youth organization but without success.

As a result they dissolved the Junge Garde and joined the youth organization of the social democratic party in 1975. Already since 1970 did some individual members of IAK join the social democratic party, albeit most of them were expelled soon.

At the beginning of their entry work, they were successful in recruiting people to the IAK and doubled their membership. 60% of them were members of the social democratic youth organization. Their strongholds were Bochum and Frankfurt. Later they came under pressure by the party apparatus as well as by the Stalinists (who constituted a wing inside the social democratic youth organiation) but they continued their long-term entry work for decades.The IAK renamed itself in 1979 in Internationale Sozialistische Arbeiterorganisation (International Socialist Workers Organization).

In 1981-82 they started again to publish the paper Junge Garde.

As you certainly know the Lambertists applied long-term entryism in social democracy combined with an extremely opportunist policy towards this milieu. You might know that the later French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin (1997-2002) was a Lambertist mole until 1987 when he was already in the leading circle of the party.Swiss

A small group of Swiss Lambertists started to work in Geneva in the French-speaking part of Swiss in the mid-1970s. From 1977 onwards they published the Bulletin marxiste and, in addition, from 1979 onwards the Bulletin marxiste/Lettres. In 1981 they held their first congress and constituted themselves as Groupe Trotskyste de Suisse (GTS) and started to publish the paper Action Socialiste. They too focused on long-term entryism. They seem to have remained always small but developed good connections to party bureaucrats.Austria

As you know the LTT and Morenos Bolshevik Faction were formed inside the Mandelist USec in the later 1970s. They split and united with the Lambertists to form the short-living Parity Committee in 1980. In this process Kurt Lhotzky had formed with others the so-called Internationalistische Tendenz (Internationalist Tendency) in the Austrian section (called Revolutionary Marxist Group, GRM). These seven people were expelled in autumn 1980. Lhotzky was in contact with the Lambertists but his small group lost most members soon. He reestablished a small group of seven people in 1984 which was accepted by the Lambertists as their sympathizing section. They published a paper called Manifest freie Tribne des Klassenkampfs (Manifest Free Tribune of the Class Struggle)

Lhotzky however rejected the extreme forms of the Lambertist opportunism towards social democracy. Hence they were expelled in 1987 and Lhotzky looked for collaboration with other Lambertist splitters (like Saint-Just). His group, now called Trotskyist Group Austria (TG) was never bigger than 3 people and dissolved in 1992.