The Le Monde obit maintains that it is unclear what stance Lambert took in world war two; it seems that he may have argued for entrism inside collaborationist organisations rather than supporting the resistance. If this is true, that is obviously not to his credit. I’m not in a position to judge.
But Lambert gets more kudos for siding with the anti-Pabloites in the 1953 split in the Fourth International. His Parti communiste internationaliste was one of the principal components of the International Committee of the Fourth International. Formally, this was the correct side of the bust-up to be on, although ultimately what was to become the United Secretariat emerged as a far healthier political tradition.
By the early 1970s, the ICFI essentially boiled down to the PCI and the increasingly madcap Socialist Labour League in Britain; Lambert broke with the Healyites, and after a failed flirtation with the USec, ended up in a regroupment with the Latin American current around Nahuel Moreno. That wasn’t to last, either.
British supporters – the Socialist Labour Group, around Ken Stratford, Harry Stannard, Steve Lloyd, Mike Phipps of Labour Left Briefing, and RMT militant Martin Wicks – were active in the Labour Party during the 1980s. Thereafter, the SLG folded into Alan Thornett\’s International Socialist Group, today the soi-disant organised Marxist left of Respect Renewal.
An entire life based upon this idiocy? Lordy.
Splitter!