Iso

[Weezer]

I've taken a less than friendly stance to the ISO, seeing them as pretty liberal.

I'm not really considering joining, but I would like to know their policies, positions, etc. on a few things.

Does the ISO accept degenerated/deformed worker's state theories or state capitalism?

What has the ISO accomplished?

Is the ISO explicitly sectarian?

How big is the ISO in membership?

[Reznov]

ISO? Sorry, but I'd rather join RAAN then these guys.

[RED DAVE]

I've taken a less than friendly stance to the ISO, seeing them as pretty liberal.Why would you say that when they are explicitly a revolutionary socialist organization?


I'm not really considering joining, but I would like to know their policies, positions, etc. on a few things.http://www.internationalsocialist.org/

I'm not an ISO member but definitely a friend. (ISO member, please correct and supplement.)

Here goes:


Does the ISO accept degenerated/deformed worker's state theories or state capitalism?The ISO is state cap, but, as far as i know, is willing to accept people who follow degenerated/deformed worker's state theories.

QUOTE=PurpleBurger;1902687]What has the ISO accomplished?[/quote]The main accomplishments of the ISO, as far as I know are: participating in the building of rank-and-file caucuses in various unions and active recruiting on campuses.


Is the ISO explicitly sectarian?Wha do you mean by sectarian? Does it work with other left groups? Yes.


How big is the ISO in membership?About 1000.

RED DAVE

[graymouser]

Red Dave's answers above are pretty accurate for what they cover.

As far as their accomplishments and their sectarianism, well, a lot of that depends on who you ask. The ISO knows and acknowledges, internally, that it is seen as sectarian by other left groups, but doesn't see itself as such. They think they're doing what's important, but they really aren't big on coalition work side-by-side with other groups. They do have a tendency to set up groups, like Campus Anti-War Network and Coalition to End the Death Penalty, that are more or less front groups but they don't run them with the efficiency of, say, one of the Marcyite groups (PSL or WWP). Campus Antiwar Network has actually become independent of the ISO lately.

In terms of their politics, the ISO proclaims itself revolutionary socialist but honestly, it spends a lot of its time courting liberals. I think this has had a corrosive effect on its political stances, for instance its recent support of the DREAM Act instead of a straightforward call for amnesty and legalization for all immigrants. But their view is explicitly against the transitional program, which is a pretty significant thing as I see it.

[thriller]

Like the others said, they believe in state capitalist theory, but accept those who view it as degenrated worker states.
What have they accomplished? Well they have sold a lot of haymarket books.
Are they sectarian? Well in my opinion democratic centralism is sectarian so yes. But it depends on your views.
They claim to be the largest socialist group with over 1000 members. But I know SPUSA has that many members at least, so who knows.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I've taken a less than friendly stance to the ISO, seeing them as pretty liberal.

I'm not really considering joining, but I would like to know their policies, positions, etc. on a few things.

Does the ISO accept degenerated/deformed worker's state theories or state capitalism?

What has the ISO accomplished?

Is the ISO explicitly sectarian?

How big is the ISO in membership?

Red Dave covered these questions really well. In addition to being active in rank and file movements and campuses we are involved in anti-death penalty work, as well as many local struggles like the budget cuts movement, the Oscar grant movement, our members got an anti military recruitment proposition passed in San Francisco, and generally try to be involved in working class movements of all kinds in the hopes of arguing for the movement taking a independent (from union leaders or liberal -Democrat, usually- leadership) and militant direction.


Red Dave's answers above are pretty accurate for what they cover.

As far as their accomplishments and their sectarianism, well, a lot of that depends on who you ask. The ISO knows and acknowledges, internally, that it is seen as sectarian by other left groups, but doesn't see itself as such. They think they're doing what's important, but they really aren't big on coalition work side-by-side with other groups.Just to give an inside take on your observations, which aren't totally off the mark, but I think miss the political reasoning behind the way we try and go about things.

Re: sectarianism - I have worked with comrades from Socialist Action and Solidarity in coalitions and countless independent Marxists and anarchists in coalitions, so I don't know how this impression comes from, but if people see it that way I guess we need to work on that because trying to rebuild the general left is our main near-term (nearer than revolution anyway) goal.

We want to build the left in general, so when the IWW wins or rank and file workers take action somewhere or whatnot this is a good thing even if the ISO has no relation to it whatsoever. However, we could be considered "sectarian" in the sense that we are not a "big socialist tent". We have our points of unity "Where we stand" and are trying to build a specific kind of group around specific politics, but we also want to work with allies and build coalitions with radicals and activist non-radicals too.

We don't however, want to be leading coalitions from the front that are basically just generals without armies, so in these kinds of coalitions, we don't.


They do have a tendency to set up groups, like Campus Anti-War Network and Coalition to End the Death Penalty, that are more or less front groups but they don't run them with the efficiency of, say, one of the Marcyite groups (PSL or WWP). Campus Antiwar Network has actually become independent of the ISO lately.Well the CEDP is really the only thing that might be considered a front group, but it's only by default. We actually don't see front groups as that valuable for what we try to do. Our goal in the coalitions we have tried to set up is for these to run on their own without the ISO being the leaders of the coalition - we want a new generation of radicalizing activists to replace us. In some things we have had success, but it hasn't always worked - particularly at times when movements have been in decline.


In terms of their politics, the ISO proclaims itself revolutionary socialist but honestly, it spends a lot of its time courting liberals. I think this has had a corrosive effect on its political stances, for instance its recent support of the DREAM Act instead of a straightforward call for amnesty and legalization for all immigrants. But their view is explicitly against the transitional program, which is a pretty significant thing as I see it.Yes, we try and reach out to radicalizing people who are involved in movements - most of them would be liberals, but we do not cater to liberal politics. Talking with people who have liberal or reformist ideas is an essential task for radicals IMO - that's what any red does in a union: make the radical case to the rank and file, criticize liberal leadership or pro-business leadership and try and prove in practice why radical politics and tactics are more effective than liberal politics and inaction.

[graymouser]

Re: sectarianism - I have worked with comrades from Socialist Action and Solidarity in coalitions and countless independent Marxists and anarchists in coalitions, so I don't know how this impression comes from, but if people see it that way I guess we need to work on that because trying to rebuild the general left is our main near-term (nearer than revolution anyway) goal.

We want to build the left in general, so when the IWW wins or rank and file workers take action somewhere or whatnot this is a good thing even if the ISO has no relation to it whatsoever. However, we could be considered "sectarian" in the sense that we are not a "big socialist tent". We have our points of unity "Where we stand" and are trying to build a specific kind of group around specific politics, but we also want to work with allies and build coalitions with radicals and activist non-radicals too.

We don't however, want to be leading coalitions from the front that are basically just generals without armies, so in these kinds of coalitions, we don't.
Well, my observations come from a few different places.

In Philadelphia at least, the ISO has maintained a life pretty independent of what I suppose would be the rest of the left. They occasionally send somebody to antiwar meetings and do show up at demos but aren't viewed as serious coalition members - and that's just what it is. When I was in the ISO for a little while it was more or less the same, a very introverted group that showed up periodically for Mumia or antiwar stuff.

Honestly I'm a bit surprised that you write about "working with comrades from Socialist Action," when I was with them (before the ISO) the general sense I got was that the groups really had no love between them in San Francisco. It may be the time, this was about four and a half years ago now and there was real friction between the ISO and SA with regard to the Mumia work - the ISO having its CEDP and SA's leadership being very involved in the Mobe.

Then there was what happened to us at the College of New Jersey - the ISO recruited the main student activists we were working with, and all of a sudden the antiwar work we were trying to do in Trenton vanished. It's the sort of thing that can be frustrating and leave a bad taste in one's mouth. (Of course, when the ISO had a bunch of people drop into Philly and form an instant branch, I was pretty dazzled. Didn't last.)


Well the CEDP is really the only thing that might be considered a front group, but it's only by default. We actually don't see front groups as that valuable for what we try to do. Our goal in the coalitions we have tried to set up is for these to run on their own without the ISO being the leaders of the coalition - we want a new generation of radicalizing activists to replace us. In some things we have had success, but it hasn't always worked - particularly at times when movements have been in decline.
Yeah, I saw some of this attitude first hand in Philly - the ISO set up a CAN chapter at Penn (yeah, that should tell you something) and was so lackadaisical that the group sort of petered out rather than going anywhere. There was a clear reluctance to actually lead, which I guess is more ideological than I thought. I have to disagree thoroughly with it, as I see the whole point of a Leninist group as training leaders - not setting up a sort of framework and telling other progressives to just go for it.


Yes, we try and reach out to radicalizing people who are involved in movements - most of them would be liberals, but we do not cater to liberal politics. Talking with people who have liberal or reformist ideas is an essential task for radicals IMO - that's what any red does in a union: make the radical case to the rank and file, criticize liberal leadership or pro-business leadership and try and prove in practice why radical politics and tactics are more effective than liberal politics and inaction.
The ISO has been trying very hard to relate to pro-Obama liberals while still being able to call themselves "Marxist" for the last couple of years. Of course, I disagree quite strongly with the perspective that you can do what you lay out above without a transitional program to form a bridge between where workers are and the need for socialism, not just "radical politics and tactics." The ISO doesn't see any value to an actual program, preferring the more vague "politics," a conception that allows people to sort of fill-in-the-blanks as they see fit. "Build the Left" is a very mechanistic view of how struggle occurs, and doesn't take advantage of the sharply contradictory developments in real consciousness the way a transitional program does.

[syndicat]

but you need to think about what the "bridge" is for. it's to assist and encourage people in personal development, and in development of the ideas and self-activity in oppositional movements, to develop more in a revolutionary direction. so it seems to me that the character of the kind of movement one organizes, and its militancy, its methods, are as much a "bridge" as any pre-cooked "program" might be.

from the perspective of my own organization, it is a question of developing movements that are autonomous of union bureaucracy and Dems, and are directly controlled by the participants, to encourage in people a sense of their capacity to run things themselves, rather than being "followers" of entrenched leaderships of various kinds. there is no apriori set of "demands" that are necessarily a bridge. this is why I'm skeptical of the Trot method of a "transitional program."

[Barry Lyndon]

Although I come out of the Trotskyist tradition, , my main problems with the ISO are the following:

1) The fact that they seem to recruit almost exclusively from the ranks of college students, their union work is peripheral at best.

2) Their ridiculous line on racism- Socialist Worker ran an article about how 'white workers derive no benefit from racism'- which is a blatant falsehood that overlooks one of the major obstacles to the development of class consciousness in the United States.

3) Their defamatory propaganda against Cuba- the articles that they put out on the subject resemble those written by the Cuban American National Foundation.

4) Continuing from #3, their embrace of the whole state capitalism theory, which lumps the differing revolutions in China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba all together in one homogenous entity, makes no logical sense, and totally fails to explain the massive negative changes in Eastern Europe of the last 20 years. In addition to the fact that the whole theory is rooted in liberal cowardice during the McCarthy era.

5) Their obsession with proceduralism. Many ISO seem to simply to love to hear themselves talk. A friend of mine got fed up with the way the ISO would force him to attend organizational meetings that discussed technicalities of how he wasn't adhering to 'proper revolutionary discipline', while he wanted to do things like....labor organizing, something the other ISO cadres were unfamiliar with.

6) The way they set up front groups(CAN, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, etc), suck the life out of the students who are drawn in, then abandon such groups when they can no longer control them and/or decide to move on the next liberal hot topic. This was my experience in my campus chapter of CAN.

[Zanthorus]

For the record, he ISO's line on the former Soviet bloc is not representative at all of 'state-capitalism theory', not matter how much they may like to think it is. Tony Cliff's theory is very superficial compared to the analysis by the likes of Bordiga or Chattopadhyay, and is mostly a lame attempt not to implicate Lenin and Trotsky in the creation of 'state-capitalism'

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah, I saw some of this attitude first hand in Philly - the ISO set up a CAN chapter at Penn (yeah, that should tell you something) and was so lackadaisical that the group sort of petered out rather than going anywhere.As opposed to the thriving anti-war movement we see all around us?


There was a clear reluctance to actually lead, which I guess is more ideological than I thought. I have to disagree thoroughly with it, as I see the whole point of a Leninist group as training leaders - not setting up a sort of framework and telling other progressives to just go for it.Exactly and as I see it, a "coalition" that is just a bunch of ISO members (or any radicals) leading people from the front does not train a new layer of "leaders" or help radicalize people. ANSWER comrades have worked hard and done a good job or organizing events, but has it increased class-consciousness or moved the anti-war movement to the left? Was anyone convinced of anti-imperialism because the protest demands were anti-imperialist? If a coalition was really thriving and healthy, it's one thing for radicals to try and get elected on the basis of support for radical tactics and politics as a show of where the membership's consciousness is at, but seriously, in most of the smallish movements we see now, front groups just amount to generals without armies.

We want to help build the general left because unless people are fighting the system and hitting the limits of liberal politics, our (and I mean all radical) arguments don't amount to much. Its out of movements and a broad left that will cause people to ask the questions that we, as radicals, have some answers to.


The ISO has been trying very hard to relate to pro-Obama liberals while still being able to call themselves "Marxist" for the last couple of years.Well first, there is a distinction, IMO, between a pro-Obama liberal like Keith Olberman or Rham Emanuel and a working class person with illusions in Obama or liberalism in general. We have no interest in appealing to big-L Liberals whose support for Obama comes from their desire for a better capitalism and a more "sustainable" (i.e. can be sold to the population more convincingly) model for US imperialism. But should radicals be talking with people who had illusions in Obama because they are sick of racism, sick of lowered expectations? Hell yes. The Obama campaign mobilized the EXACT groups of people who should be the audience for radicals... working class people, young people, and people of color and IMO every radical should have been out there talking to them and explaining in a firm by sympathetic way why the Democrats and Obama are not actually the allies they claim to be. We took shit for it from Obama die-hards but we also met many people who voted for Obama despite our arguments and have now come up to us and said that all our arguments had been correct. I just spoke to someone last week who said he thought we were full of shit in 08, voted for Obama, and since the healthcare thing went down now wants to be a socialist.

Our political understanding throughout the election was that people were right to want the reforms they thought Obama would pass and they were right in wanting to see an end to the Bush-era politics, but that they were wrong in thinking that Obama would deliver without movements forcing him to do so. In my experience, there was a big difference in 2008 between people who supported Bill Clinton's moderation and the young black and latino people in Oakland or the young white people in San Francisco who really wanted to see change happening. My "line" during that time was always: "Yeah, I'd like to see that too, but Obama has actually said he supports the opposite, so how do we actually win this?"


Although I come out of the Trotskyist tradition, , my main problems with the ISO are the following:

1) The fact that they seem to recruit almost exclusively from the ranks of college students, their union work is peripheral at best.That is mostly a myth based on what our organization was like over 10 years ago. We had a specific focus on campuses in the 1980s because we thought the union movement was going into a downturn whereas there was still activism going on at campuses. Groups like the US SWP, Solidarity, or the IWW took a beating at this time despite any good work they did because of the objective situation of an attack on labor - considering that the ISO had maybe 100 members at most, I don't think we could have stemmed the tide of the decline of (and attack on) labor with magical will-power:D that somehow all these other dedicated comrades in other organizations lacked. That we were able to come thorough this and become one of the largest groups is a testament that it was a good tactical decision at the time.

But you are correct in that our labor involvement is not where we want it to be - the entire labor movement is not where we'd like it to be. But saying that we currently pick students over workers or don't take labor seriously is simply not true. Our members have been central to reform movements in the LA teacher's union and CORE, our members who are in unions are all active rank and file members. In my branch of about 20, only 5 are students while the rest are workers including: a member of UNITE-HERE, an AFSME janitorial worker who is a rank and file leader in an ongoing struggle (and also a long-time ISO member), a teamster, 3 teachers in 3 different school districts, and two SEIU members. Like I said before, our goal in union work is not to win leadership positions, but to try and be rank and file "leaders" in arguing for independent and militant rank and file action. We try and build up the networks and allies and lay groundwork the best we can, but given the state of the labor movement and the smallness of our organization and the radical left, I don't know how else to be a part of a grassroots labor movement when one does not really exist. Right now most of the class struggle (at least where our class is fighting) happens away from the point of production - like the immigrant rights movement - and so while we do a lot of labor work, it is much more modest than what is happening in other areas of struggle right now. But it's totally incorrect to say that we don't want to help build the labor movement or that we are not interested in organizing both unionized rank and file workers and non-unionized workers.


2) Their ridiculous line on racism- Socialist Worker ran an article about how 'white workers derive no benefit from racism'- which is a blatant falsehood that overlooks one of the major obstacles to the development of class consciousness in the United States. How is it ridiculous? Working class white people "benefit" from schools and services being cut to build prisons? Poor whites reap the reward of ending welfare on the basis of ruling class "Black welfare queen" myths when most of the people who got welfare were white! Native workers get better wages from the attacks on immigrant labor?

To believe that some workers benefit from the oppression of other workers is to replace the call for solidarity and the US working class/radical slogan: "An injury to one is an injury to all" with "An injury to one actually works out OK for others".

The ISO fights racism on principle in order to both win reforms that will help people and build up confidence to fight back collectivly, but also because getting rid of social inequality and racism/sexism/homophobia/islamophobia are necessary if we hope to see the working class be able to fight back.


3) Their defamatory propaganda against Cuba- the articles that they put out on the subject resemble those written by the Cuban American National Foundation. And calling for an end to the war in Iraq or justice in Palestine, on the surface, resembles similar calls from the American Neo-Nazis. Considering that Raul Castro is using pseudo-marxist reasoning to push cutbacks and unemployment just like the G8 are pushing austerity... to be pro-Cuban government is to be anti-working class.


4) Continuing from #3, their embrace of the whole state capitalism theory, which lumps the differing revolutions in China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba all together in one homogenous entity, makes no logical sense, and totally fails to explain the massive negative changes in Eastern Europe of the last 20 years. In addition to the fact that the whole theory is rooted in liberal cowardice during the McCarthy era. First, each of these different situations are very different, just as capitalism developed differently in England, France, and Germany. But we can still call all these countries capitalist even though England had a very different appearances and developments because of the basic structure of the society and so on. It's the same with the state-capitalist countries... in some places it was created through a national liberation movement, in eastern Europe it was mostly dictated from the USSR, in Cuba it wasn't even a "socialist" movement until several years after the liberation struggle when Castro needed allies and the USSR could balance out the US.


5) Their obsession with proceduralism. Many ISO seem to simply to love to hear themselves talk. A friend of mine got fed up with the way the ISO would force him to attend organizational meetings that discussed technicalities of how he wasn't adhering to 'proper revolutionary discipline', while he wanted to do things like....So in other words, in this branch, the members decided to do X, your friend wanted to do Y despite the decision of everyone else and then was curious about why the branch leadership wanted to discuss the issue of discipline?


he wanted to do things like....labor organizing, something the other ISO cadres were unfamiliar with.Drop the sectarian smarmyness and the discussion will go better.


6) The way they set up front groups(CAN, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, etc), suck the life out of the students who are drawn in, then abandon such groups when they can no longer control them and/or decide to move on the next liberal hot topic. This was my experience in my campus chapter of CAN.So according to this thread, the ISO simultaneously micro-manages and controls "front groups" AND is too loose with them?

[The Hong Se Sun]

I've taken a less than friendly stance to the ISO, seeing them as pretty liberal.

I'm not really considering joining, but I would like to know their policies, positions, etc. on a few things.

Does the ISO accept degenerated/deformed worker's state theories or state capitalism?

What has the ISO accomplished?

Is the ISO explicitly sectarian?

How big is the ISO in membership?

They are very liberal.

Their policy is that no one is a socialist nation in their eyes and that they are the only real revolutionaries in this country even though they do nothing besides sell thing and be good little capitalist for their leaders. (jk but really)

Ive heard ISO members use all of those terms

What have they accomplished? nothing really other than showing up at other events and making people hate them. Oh sorry they also sell things.

The ISO is extremely sectarian and chauvinist (not in platform or program but in person)

The membership is hard to tell as it is with any group. If they have 1000 members as claimed about (doubt it) then it is really sad cause they are so irrelevant it isn't worth writing this but I could read all this crap about them with out spitting some truth

[Jimmie Higgins]

They are very liberal.And some would claim that Obama is a socialist. They would also be wrong.


Their policy is that no one is a socialist nation in their eyes and that they are the only real revolutionaries in this country even though they do nothing besides sell thing and be good little capitalist for their leaders. (jk but really)We argue that there is no existing socialist country according to the definition of socialism as the described by Marx or described in State and Revolution by Lenin. If socialism is a society run by the working class, nothing like that exists... at best you can say there are countries which claim they are run in the interests of the working class, but not collectively and cooperatively by the working class (and so not socialism).


The ISO is extremely sectarian and chauvinist (not in platform or program but in person)And Obama is sectetly a socialist helping communists to force a radical agenda in Amurika!

We also have tails and horns... not officially, just in person:rolleyes:


The membership is hard to tell as it is with any group. If they have 1000 members as claimed about (doubt it) then it is really sad cause they are so irrelevantIt's about that and you are correct, it is sad to be the biggest group in a too too small revolutionary left. It's even sadder that in a country of millions, some on the left spend more time worrying about a group of 1000 people rather than reaching out to the millions who could potentially be radicalized. You do know that the biggest Maoist group in the US was probably about 1000 people in the 1970s. The only really big revolutionary groups in the US were the US CP and the IWW (and maybe the Socialist Party, but many of their members were not revolutionary).


it isn't worth writing this but I could read all this crap about them with out spitting some truthTruth, or your opinion? Truth usually can be backed up by evidence and more that one person's say-so.

[The Hong Se Sun]

But The Maoist groups actually accomplished thing with their membership not just showing up to events claiming to be revolutionary socialist then spitting sectarian bull shit trying to sell their paper/books and leaving. I think other groups with less than 1/3 of the membership are more relevant and way more effective than these mainly liberals groups. Only ISO members actually believe they are socialist sans a few other trotskyist.