International Socialist Organization - History

History

The ISO originated in 1976 among a number of groups in the 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. In 1977, the Left Faction was expelled from the IS, and immediately formed the International Socialist Organization. The ISO began publication of its paper, Socialist Worker, shortly after its formation, and continues to produce a monthly print version, as well as a daily updated web site, Socialistworker.org.

Some of the political theories adopted by the ISO had been developed in the British Socialist Workers Party (SWP), including that of state capitalism. 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.

Having a small membership in the 1980s, the ISO found that its primary organizing efforts toward rank and file work in the unions was unsustainable. From the early 1980s, the group began organizing and recruiting on university campuses. The decision to focus primarily on students was regarded as a necessary retreat, given the conservative nature of the Reagan era.

In the 1990s the ISO expanded and participated in a series of movements and campaigns, including the movement against the first Gulf War and other US military interventions, against racism, and for abortion rights. The group was involved in building a number of the major protests against corporate globalization in the early 2000s, and has been active in opposing what it refers to as "US imperialism" connected with the "war on terror" in the wake of September 11th, including the invasion of Afghanistan as well as the Iraq War. The group has also been active in opposing Israel's occupation of Palestine.

In 2001 the ISO was expelled from the International Socialist Tendency (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-corporate/anti-capitalist movement. The ISO disputed this claim and criticized the SWP for maintaining what the ISO viewed as an exaggerated perspective for the 1990s, which the SWP characterized as 'the 1930s in slow motion.'

After some years with very little contact between the ISO and the British SWP, relations have improved. Ahmed Shawki, a leading member of the ISO, was invited in 2010 to speak at the SWP's Marxism festival while SWP National Secretary Martin Smith spoke at the ISO's Socialism 2010 conference. Alex Callinicos, leading member of the SWP, also spoke at the Socialism 2012 conference. The ISO also maintains friendly relations with the Fourth International, currently holding permanent observer status in the FI.