International Socialist Organization

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) was a Trotskyist group active primarily on college campuses in the United States that was founded in 1976 and dissolved in 2019. The organization held Leninist positions on imperialism and the role of a vanguard party. However, it did not believe that necessary conditions for a revolutionary party in the United States were met; ISO believed that it was preparing the ground for such a party. The organization held a Trotskyist critique of nominally socialist states, which it considered class societies. In contrast, the organization advocated the tradition of "socialism from below." as articulated by Hal Draper.[2] Initially founded as a section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST), it was strongly influenced by the perspectives of Draper and Tony Cliff. It broke from the IST in 2001, but continued to exist as an independent organization for the next eighteen years. The organization advocated independence from the U.S. two-party system and sometimes supported electoral strategies by outside parties, especially the Green Party of the United States.

For other uses, see International Socialist Organization (disambiguation).
International Socialist Organization
LeaderCollective leadership
(Steering Committee)
Founded1976
Dissolved2019[1]
HeadquartersChicago
NewspaperSocialist Worker
IdeologySocialism
Trotskyism
Political positionFar-left
International affiliationFourth International (permanent observer)
Website
http://www.internationalsocialist.org/
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The organization emphasized educational work on the socialist tradition. Branches also took part in activism against the Iraq War, against police brutality, against the death penalty, and in labor strikes and other social movements. At its peak in 2013, the group had as many as 1,500 members.[3] The organization argued that it was the largest revolutionary socialist group in the United States at that time.[4] The ISO experienced discord in early 2019, upon exposure that its leadership mishandled an accusation of sexual assault in 2013 and voted to dissolve itself shortly after.

Ideology

The ISO advocated replacing the capitalist system with socialism, a system in which society's collective wealth and resources would be democratically controlled to meet human need by those who produce that wealth, i.e. the working class. The organization believed that this working-class majority could end capitalism by leveraging their power over production through mass strikes.[5]

Supporters of ISO referred to their beliefs as 'socialism from below', a term attributed to Hal Draper. This concept can also be traced back to the rules of the First International which stated: "the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves."[6] ISO saw this as distinguishing themselves from socialists who work within the Democratic Party and from various forms of what they disparagingly term Stalinism — nominally socialist politics, usually associated with the former Soviet Bloc and the old Communist Parties. These are seen as advocating socialism "from above". Because capitalism is a global system, the ISO argued that capitalism could not be successfully overthrown in individual countries. They agreed with Leon Trotsky that socialism in one country is an impossibility. The ISO held that the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc were examples of bureaucratic, class-stratified states, not socialist societies; and that the People's Republic of China and post-revolutionary Cuba had emulated this model.

Some of the political theories adopted by the ISO had been developed in the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), including that of "state capitalism" developed by Tony Cliff, the party's founder. State capitalist theory identifies the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc as exploitative class societies driven by military competition with private Western capitalism, rather than as the "deformed workers' states" that Trotsky maintained they were in The Revolution Betrayed.[7] The organization tended to follow Cliff's view of these governments as state capitalist, although not all members held this analysis.[8] After the split with the International Socialist Tendency in 2001, this particular characterization became less strict.

Following Vladimir Lenin, the organization believed the creation of a revolutionary workers' party was necessary in coordinating and building the power of a revolutionary working-class vanguard. However, ISO believed that the historical conditions in the United States were insufficient for the existence of such a vanguard party. For this reason, the organization saw itself as a preliminary group that could help to win reforms and raise consciousness until such time that a revolutionary party could be formed. Nonetheless, it aimed for a Leninist principle of democratic centralism in its internal deliberation process. The ISO emphasized the training of cadre, seasoned and educated militants.[9] In theory, these cadre would build the organization as well as engaging in movement work, and would someday cooperate with other groups in order to build a new vanguard party.

The ISO supported struggles for economic, political, and social reforms while also maintaining that exploitation, oppression, war, and environmental destruction could not be eliminated until the overthrow of capitalism and its replacement with socialism.[10]

The organization offered critical support to national liberation movements. Most notably, the organization advocated solidarity with Palestine and supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. ISO also supported Syrian revolutionary groups against Bashar al-Assad.

The organization advocated the right of gays and lesbians to marry as well as social validation of transgender identities. In the final years of its existence, the organization was more strongly aligned with socialist feminist ideas and particularly Black feminism and intersectionality.[11][12]

Philosophically, the organization defended the orthodox Marxist tradition from postmodernism. ISO was somewhat open to Western Marxist and Marxist humanist thinkers.

History

The ISO originated in 1976 among a number of groups in the American International Socialists (IS) that were growing increasingly critical of the organization's leadership. Among them was the self-identified Left Faction, which was led by Cal and Barbara Winslow and supported by the IS's Canadian and British members. The Left Faction and its international supporters maintained that the IS's leadership had acquired a top-down style of operating that depoliticized the organization and placed too much emphasis on sending student activists into working class employment (a tactic referred to as "industrialization"). These disputes followed the disagreements over the 1974 revolution in Portugal. Additionally, the main part of IS thought that there should be attention to rank and file or reform caucuses in unions, whereas the Left Faction contended that in addition to rank and file work, agitation at the workplace for socialism should continue.[13] In 1977, the Left Faction was expelled from the IS and immediately formed the International Socialist Organization.[14] The ISO began publication of its paper, Socialist Worker, shortly after its formation and produced a monthly print version as well as a daily updated website until 2019.[15] The ISO was initially the U.S. section of the International Socialist Tendency (IST), and followed closely the positions of the British Socialist Workers Party.

By 1991, ISO had about 150 members.[16] In 1995, the organization launched a Campaign to End the Death Penalty in San Francisco. ISO also took part in the United Parcel Service strike of 1997.[17]

In 2001, the ISO was expelled from the IST after a dispute with the British SWP. This dispute was framed by the SWP as a critique of the ISO's conservative approach to the anti-globalization movement.[18] The ISO disputed this claim and criticized the SWP for maintaining what the ISO viewed as an exaggerated perspective for the 1990s,[19] which the SWP characterized as "the 1930s in slow motion".[20] However, the organization continued to grow. Juan Cruz Ferre writes, "The ISO famously managed to thrive during the worst years of neoliberalism and working-class retreat."[21]

The organization organized and took part in protests against the Iraq War, helping to build the Campus Antiwar Network and cooperating with Iraq Veterans Against the War.[22]

By 2009, members argued that it was "by far the largest socialist organisation in the United States today, attracting to revolutionary ideas a much larger number of young activists than any of the others."[8] Four years later, an outside observer estimated that the organization had "at least 1500 members."[3] The ISO also helped to organize the Chicago Teachers Union strike of 2012, which it characterized as an example of a new era of Social movement unionism.[23][24]

Even after the split with the IST, ISO continued to receive informal guidance from leaders of the UK SWP, such as Chris Harman.[25] This relationship further deteriorated, however, after Harman's death and the 2013 crisis in the UK SWP. The ISO sharply rebuked Alex Callinicos for his "bureaucratic tendencies" in maintaining control in the fallout of a rape allegation.[26] Ironically, a similar situation led to the dissolution of the ISO six years later.

At this time, the organization also became somewhat more open to ideas outside the tradition inaugurated by Cliff. In 2013, Richard Seymour noted a "lack of a set of 'lines'". He wrote, "I know ISO members who are straightforwardly 'state cap', others who are 'bureaucratic collectivist'. I know members who are 'Political Marxists', others who are more orthodox ... This is a far more diverse ecology inside one organisation than I have been used to."[27] This period of openness led to controversy. While some commentators viewed this positively, others claimed that the organization remained sectarian. For example, Jeffrey St. Clair wrote in CounterPunch that ISO had become less socialist in membership and identification, and opined that they were more concerned with "lash[ing] out at nearly every popular uprising of the last 50 years for being doctrinally impure, from the Cuban Revolution to the Zapatistas, from the protests at the WTO to the Bolivarian Revolution".[28]

In November 2013, nine members of the ISO, mostly in Providence and Boston, announced the formation of the ISO Renewal Faction,[29] resulting in the organization's first national-level faction fight since the dispute with the British SWP. The faction claimed that the ISO was going through an organizational and political crisis[30] and that members critical of the leadership had been "bureaucratically excluded".[31] The ISO leadership denied these claims, stating that "the ISO is more experienced and more engaged than ever".[32] In February of 2014, the ISO expelled the Renewal Faction.[33] The following month, the organization's student branch at Brown University resigned, citing the expulsion of the faction as an indication that the organization had "shown itself to be undemocratic."[34] Beginning in 2017, many of ISO's cadre began to resign in order to join Democratic Socialists of America.[21]

In the mid-2010s, the organization became involved in the new campus anti-rape movement, associated with figures such as Emma Sulkowicz.[35] In 2017, ISO members strongly supported the Me Too movement.[36] The organization began to embrace theoretical influences from intersectional feminism at this time.[11][12]

At the ISO's 2019 convention, much of the long-time leadership of the organization was voted out of office over concerns about "unaccountable leadership structures and a damaging internal culture that had a disproportionate impact on people of color and others with oppressed identities."[37][38] Soon after, an allegation of rape that occurred in 2013 surfaced against a newly elected leader. It was soon revealed that the leadership at the time forced the national appeals committee of the ISO to overturn an earlier finding of rape in order to clear the accused.[39] The ISO was thrown into crisis, with up to a third of the membership resigning and several local branches disaffiliating. After several weeks of debate, the ISO membership voted on March 28, 2019 to dissolve itself.[1]

Publications

The ISO published a daily online and monthly print newspaper, Socialist Worker, with a bi-monthly Spanish language supplement, Obrero Socialista.[40] The ISO also distributed the International Socialist Review and titles from the publishing house Haymarket Books, both of which were run by the non-profit Center for Economic Research and Social Change.[41]

Electoral actions

The ISO participated in several local and national progressive movements. These include the antiwar movement,[42] efforts to end the death penalty,[43] support for gay marriage[44][45] and abortion rights[46] as well as the struggle for immigration rights,[47] among others.

The ISO did not support the Republican Party or Democratic Party, both of which it viewed as political representatives of corporate power. However, the group has campaigned for the Green Party in various races and assisted Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns in 2000 and 2004.[48] In California in 2006, ISO member Todd Chretien ran against Dianne Feinstein for the Senate seat on the Green Party ticket, receiving 139,425 votes (1.8 percent).[49] In 2013, the ISO endorsed Socialist Alternative's Kshama Sawant in her successful Seattle City Council election.[50]

Socialism conference

The ISO was the co-sponsor, along with the Center for Economic Research and Social Change, of an annual conference titled Socialism.[51] Speakers at past Socialism conferences include filmmaker and author Tariq Ali, actors Wallace Shawn and John Cusack, The Nation writers Jeremy Scahill and Dave Zirin, journalists Amy GoodmanGlenn Greenwald, scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, environmental writer John Bellamy Foster, science-fiction author China Miéville, Iraq Veterans Against the War member Camilo Mejía, Palestinian rights activists Omar Barghouti and Ali Abunimah.[52][53]

Notable former members
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gollark: ```Like some species of flamingos, Penk eats a large amount of shrimp and algae high in carotenoids, giving rise to her rosy hue. Penk would, under other circumstances, be a regular, silver-colored member of her breed.```
gollark: That's not messy, that's a spiral.
gollark: Bad Idea #1269078189260: give everyone a prize only visible on February 29.
gollark: You can do it, it'll just take about four years.

See also

References
  1. "The ISO's vote to dissolve and what comes next". International Socialist Organization. 2 April 2019. Retrieved 6 April 2019.
  2. Hal Draper: The Two Souls of Socialism, 1966.
  3. "The ISO's multiple personalities". 7 July 2013. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  4. Bernard, Sara (27 February 2017). "So You Wanna Be a Socialist? In Seattle, You've Got Options". Seattle Weekly. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  5. Building a Revolutionary Socialist Alternative, InternationalSocialists.org
  6. Rules of the International Workingmen's Association (accessed 2008-05-29)
  7. Cliff, Tony (1974). State Capitalism in Russia. Bookmarks. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  8. "Paul Le Blanc -- Why I'm joining the US International Socialist Organization: Intensifying the struggle for social change - Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal". links.org.au. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  9. "What kind of party do we need?". SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  10. Where We Stand, SocialistWorker.org
  11. Smith, Sharon. "Black feminism and intersectionality - International Socialist Review". isreview.org. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  12. "A Marxist case for intersectionality". SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  13. Lee Sustar, "Toward a renewal of the labor movement", "International Socialist Review" No. 89, July 2013 http://isreview.org/issue/89/toward-renewal-labor-movement
  14. Fisk, Milton (1977). Socialism From Below in the US: Origins of the ISO. Hera Press. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  15. "Celebrating our 500th". Socialist Worker. 2002-02-01. Retrieved 2008-02-23.
  16. "The ISO on Cliff on Trotsky on substitutionism (what a lousy title)". 5 April 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  17. "Why I voted to dissolve the ISO". 31 March 2019. Retrieved 3 April 2019.
  18. Ted Crawford, "Split in the IST", What Next?, No. 19, 2001. (accessed 2008-06-26)
  19. "The ISO (US) and the International Socialist Tendency", What Next?, No. 19, 2001. (accessed 2012-2-12)
  20. SWP Central committee, "Statement on Relations Between the SWP (GB) and the ISO (US)", What Next?, No. 19, 2001. (accessed 2008-06-26)
  21. "We Need More Leninism, Not Less". Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  22. "Why I voted to dissolve the ISO". 31 March 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  23. "The Crisis and Collapse of the International Socialist Organization". New Militant. 7 April 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2019.
  27. Richard Seymour. "Socialism 2013." Lenin's Tomb.
  28. The Merchants of Shame, Counterpunch, 31 May 2013
  29. ISO Renewal Faction, "Announcement of the ISO Renewal Faction" (accessed 2014-02-02)
  30. ISO Renewal Faction, "The organizational crisis and its political roots" (accessed 2014-02-02)
  31. ISO Renewal Faction, "In defense of our comrades" (accessed 2014-02-02)
  32. Eric Ruder and Alan Maass "The challenges facing socialists today", SocialistWorker.org, 2013-11-20 (accessed 2014-02-02)
  33. ISO Renewal Faction, "We are Expelled" (accessed 2014-02-22)
  34. Socialism, R. I. "Brown ISO: Statement of Resignation - RISocialism.org". Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  37. "A message to our readers". SocialistWorker.org. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  38. "Letter to the ISO membership". SocialistWorker.org. 15 March 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  39. "What socialists can learn from #MeToo". SocialistWorker.org. 20 March 2019. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  40. "A new era for Socialist Worker"
  41. Consortium Book Sales & Distribution | Publisher Information Archived 2007-06-11 at the Wayback Machine. (accessed 2008-06-26)
  42. "SF State Students Hold Rally, Counter Marine Recruiters", October 26, 2006, Campus Antiwar Network website.(accessed 2008-06-26)
  43. "Protesting Bush's Execution Machine", The New Abolitionist, Issue 20, July 2001. (accessed 2008-06-26)
  44. "SGN Exclusive Interview: Sherry Wolf speaks on the National March"], Seattle Gay News, Volume 37 Issue 45, 6 November 2009.
  45. "Before Mayor Mike's Meeting With LGBT Leaders, A Rally Outside City Hall Last Night", Dallas Observer, 28 January 2012 (accessed 2012-2-12)
  46. "Activists defend Madison clinic", Socialist Worker, Issue 690, 9 February 2009.
  47. "Barnard/Columbia International Socialist Organization History" Last update 19 March 2007, visited 18 December 2009.
  48. "The Green Party: offering a real challenge to business as usual, or just Capitalism Lite?", Freedom Socialist, Volume 27, Issue 6, December 2006 - January 2007.
  49. California Secretary of State, Supplement to Statement of Vote - United States Senator - Statewide Summary" Archived 2008-06-26 at the Wayback Machine, Statement of Vote, 2006 General Election, at www.sos.ca.gov website. (accessed 2008-06-26), "United States Senator; Green Party Election Information June 6, 2006 Election", at www.smartvoter.org website. (accessed 2008-06-26)
  50. "A socialist on the Seattle City Council?". SocialistWorker.org. 31 October 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2019.
  51. SocialismConference.org website.
  52. “Ideas for changing the world”, SocialistWorker.org, 22 June 2010.
  53. “Socialism offers the alternative”, SocialistWorker.org, 24 June 2008.
  54. MacLean stated she has been "politically active in the International Socialist Organization since 1980." Steven Freiss, "War thrusted some students, profs from apathy to activism" Daily Northwestern, January 16, 1992

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