Bah humbug!
In terrible news for trainspotters, there’s been a reconsolidation on the Trotskyist left in Australia: the International Socialist Organisation (ISO), the Socialist Action Group (SAG) and Solidarity have agreed to join together in a new Party, imaginatively titled ‘Solidarity’ (in gross violation of The Art & Science of Socialist Party Building; see HOW TO FORM YOUR OWN [SOCIALIST] POLITICAL PARTY: A BEGINNER’S GUIDE).
Boo!
Here’s Bob the Bookseller (and Revolutionary Firebrand) with more:
Three groups in the International Socialists tradition, the International Socialist Organisation, Solidarity (a group consisting [of] some people who split from the ISO and Socialist Alternative a few years ago [2004]) and the Brisbane-based Socialist Action Group, which split from Socialist Alternative a few years ago [2004], unified at a conference on the weekend of February 2-3.
The united organisation will be known as Solidarity.
I’m reliably informed that the conference proceeded in a serious way with little acrimony.
This reduces the number of IS-tradition groups in Australia to two: Solidarity and the extremely propagandist Socialist Alternative.
The general framework of the common orientation, which was the consensus of the conference, is based on electoral support for the Greens and then Labor under the preferential system and a broader united front tactic towards the ranks of the Greens, the trade unions and the Labor Party.
Boo! I says, Boo! I also asks myself, what does it mean? Primarily, that Socialist Alternative will now face some added competition, especially in Sydney and Brisbane (if not Melbourne, where the University of Melbourne remains a SAlt stronghold).
But for how much longer?
- RIP : Marxist Workers’ Group / Socialist Workers’ Action Group (1972–1975) | International Socialists (1975–1990) | Socialist Action (1985–1990) | Socialist Action Group (2004–2008) | Solidarity (2004–2008)
Hi All,
In my experience both Solidarity and SAG are pretty great and really easy to work with, I hope that they continue in this vein and all the best to them!
rebel love
Dave
@ndy,
The amalgamation of SAG and Solidarity is sensible. Two small propaganda groups, with perhaps 15 active members in each, that are essentially concentrated in inner city Brisbane and working for the same objective.
As for the ISO joining, it seems a more dramatic course of action. Perhaps a reflection on how far they have fallen from where they were at the start of this decade. Solidarity used to be an internal faction within the ISO, now the ISO is a faction of Solidarity! It is really the construction of an unholy alliance against SAlt who are their real operational opponent.
If the Melbourne-based SP affiliated with Solidarity then Solidarity could emerge with a national structure to rival both the DSP and SAlt.
I like how Solidarity is less dogmatic and less sect-like than SAlt – but time will tell if it lasts.
I think its main handicap is that the new formation is dominated by a transient university student demographic. Go hard for a year or two, burn out, and then leave the group disillusioned.
The Stalinist League of Australia thinks this is a waste of time. What is the point of creating yet another alliance of parties?
These parties should join the Socialist Alliance. The Socialist Alliance is the only socialist alternative to the bourgeoisie controlled Australia Labour Party and the Liberal Party.
[Peter has left the building.]
Can those of you with more experience with the Ozzie left explain the differences between the SP, the SAG and SAlt?
Oh, I’ve been told that the only real difference between the ISO and SAlt was the fact that the ISO had a 1930s in slow motion analysis of the past decade (coming from the SWP in the UK). Thus they were doing things like door-knocking to capitalise on the ‘upsurge’ of revolutionary sentiment, things which turned out to be pretty futile and demoralising. I was also told that the SAlt mob were kicked out of the ISO for that reason, which still seems a bit bizarre to me really. So whether those explanations are a fair account of the history would also be good to know.
You’re a member of SALt and yet you want me to explain this history to you…?
For what it’s worth, from an outsider’s perspective, the splits appear to have had a large personal dimension, for which political disagreements have served as a partial cover.
SAlt split from the ISO in 1995. As far as I’m aware, most of its then membership was based in Melbourne and Brisbane; I now understand SAlt to be stronger in Melbourne and weaker in Brisbane. This is partly as a result of the split in the Brisbane branch and the creation of the rather short-lived SAG. A letter by a number of those who left SAlt in 2004 is available here; the dirty stinking rats who authored it blame the ruling triumvirate of Mick Armstrong, Sandra Bloodworth and Diane Fieldes for its descent into madness.
Solidarity is — or rather was — a largely Sydney-based affair with veteran Trotskyist Ian Rintoul being primarily to blame. He left the ISO in 2003, ostensibly as a result of the failure of the Socialist Alliance (nee Democratic Socialist Party) to do anything much other than successfully hobble the ISO, and of which the ISO made an ill-fated decision to join upon its launch back in the heady days of the early ’00s. Ian’s reasons for doing so are explicated in another letter.
Never having been a member of a political party, let alone a Trotskyist one, I have no regrets.
I think everyone is missing the key trainspotting question here: does this mean that the ISO has given up its claim to the International Socialist Tendency Australian franchise, that the ISO will remain an ‘official’ IST tendency within Solidarity, or that Solidarity will now become the franchise-holder?
The general framework of the common orientation, which was the consensus of the conference, is based on electoral support for the Greens and then Labor under the preferential system and a broader united front tactic towards the ranks of the Greens, the trade unions and the Labor Party.
Sounds awesome. Who wouldn’t want to join?
Word on the virtual street is that Solidarity will retain the IST Mini Flyweight Championship belt.
Actually i think the main question will be if the new organisation will continue in the generally good direction of Solidarity and SAG (which is not without real problems) or will it fall back in to the errors of the ISO? I think this is also linked to the unstable fusion of Luxemburg and Lenin that is in the ‘hard kernel’ of the IS tendency.
rebel love
Dave
Hmmm. I’m not sure exactly what direction SAG and Solidarity were moving in beforehand — perhaps you could elaborate? — nor am I sure of the errors of the ISO (that is, outside of and in addition to adherence to a particular interpretation of Trotskyist doctrine) but it’s quite apparent that, whatever its precise content, it’s brought them and the ISO full circle and back into the one organisation. Further, assuming Bob the Bookseller is correct, as Lumpen indicated, “The general framework of the common orientation, which was the consensus of the conference, is based on electoral support for the Greens and then Labor under the preferential system and a broader united front tactic towards the ranks of the Greens, the trade unions and the Labor Party”. Is this what you mean by “good direction”? A particular orientation towards the Greens, Labour and trade unions? If so, on one level, it may be a good thing — but I think that really depends on your political perspective. As it stands, what happens appears to have been a rationalisation of the IST outside of SAlt. Given the otherwise minimal political disagreements among the three previously separate organisations, this makes a good deal of sense, and places the IST in a much better position with regards its rivals on the student Left: SAlt and the DSP/Resistance/SA. As for Soviet Man’s suggestion that the SP might affiliate to the (new) Solidarity, I believe the likelihood of that occurring is almost nil. The SP is aligned with the CWI; Solidarity, the IST. And never the twain shall meet.
Hi all
Well I worked with people from Solidarity in the Mexico-Australia Solidarity Network – I found them to be honest, principled, committed to the health of the movement and generally tops. The same with SAG in Brisbane. I think their publication Red Alert (and i have only read the latest issue) is intelligent and non-dogmatic. They work well in collectives and do not engage in the kind of party-building / movement raiding associated with groups like SAlt. In others words they are good comrades with whom i have major disagreements over fundamental politics. This is the real substance of their activity. But i forget how much the deep failures of anarchism are made livable and ignorable through a parasitic obsession over any form of Leninism.
I am actually really disappointed in your response to this Andy. Fuck, the state of emancipatory politics in Australia is totally shit. No one has any answers — few of us any good ideas. When some comrades start doing something different you would think that the way to engage with this would be at least comradely interest. I thought the key to revolutionary understandings of the world was the idea that things changed, that reality was open to the novel.
rebel love
Dave
I thought the answer was blowing everything up and folk-dancing in the green fields that spring up from the ashes of civilisation.
What am I supposed to do with all these explosives if nobody has any answers?!
rebel explosive related anxiety
dr. cam
Dave,
A few things.
First, I’m glad to hear that your work with members of these parties has been fruitful. Red Alert was online but is no longer; the same goes for both party’s websites.
Secondly, I don’t recall ever having worked with any members of either SAG or Solidarity, let along meeting any. I suspect this may have something to do with their being based in Sydney and Brisbane, my non-involvement in the MASN, and for other, perhaps equally obvious reasons.
Thirdly, I’m not sure why you’re really disappointed in my response (to this news). I think what I wrote is fairly accurate and quite straightforward. That is, the parties are recombining and the basis [on] which they are doing so is “electoral support for the Greens and then Labor under the preferential system and a broader united front tactic towards the ranks of the Greens, the trade unions and the Labor Party”. You wrote that Solidarity and SAG were moving in a “good” direction. My reply was intended to highlight the fact that, whatever direction you thought they were moving in, this has been the result. So, when I write:
“I’m not sure exactly what direction SAG and Solidarity were moving in beforehand — perhaps you could elaborate? — nor am I sure of the errors of the ISO (that is, outside of and in addition to adherence to a particular interpretation of Trotskyist doctrine)…?”
I’m being perfectly serious.
Finally, forgive me if I don’t fall off my chair when I hear that some Trotskyist groupuscules are getting back together after they’ve split; I really don’t place Trotskyism or Leninism within the framework of an emancipatory politics in any case.
In memory of Fanya Baron and Lev Chernyi,
@ndy.
Andy, I think this quote:
says more about Bob Gould than Solidarity.
So what do you do when self-styled Leninists actually behave in ways that does help the development of emancipatory politics?
redstars/blackskies
Dave
Perhaps. But I’m assuming that Bob is correct. Well, until such time as Solidarity says otherwise, that is. And I’m sorry, but I honestly don’t understand your question. Perhaps you could give an example? And also explain its relevance and significance? In other words, I’m still unsure what you meant by SAG and Solidarity moving in a “good direction”, or, on the other hand, what are (or were) the “errors” of the ISO. Thus far, all I can ascertain is that at some point you enjoyed working with members of SAG and Solidarity in the MASN.
Okay what I am saying is that in my experience Solidarity and SAG genuinely try to build movements and collectives in a democratic and grass roots way and this contributes (in a tiny way) to the class recomposing itself. They have moved away from party building to a more Luxemburgist position – which in some ways is a return to the better parts of the IS tendency. I hope this is the direction they continue in – an orientation towards open and honest contribution to class struggle. It’s why, for example, Solidarity has a pretty healthy relationship with Mutiny.
cheers
Dave
This is how Solidarity described itself in 2005:
The IST:
The ISO in Australia has remained loyal to the IST leadership: the SWP. In the US, the ISO was expelled from the IST. A faction named Left Turn remained loyal, before it too left the IST in 2003. Left Turn now describes its politics as follows:
The ISO in the US remains wedded to a Cliffite interpretation of Trotskyism, though it prefers to align itself in Australia with the DSP and SAlt as opposed to the ISO (IST).
In my opinion, the substance for much of these shifts has been the indirect result of a re-emergent anti-capitalist discourse, one with a strong libertarian flavour, and the longer-term decline of Marxism in the West. A brief discussion of the IST’s relationship to such matters is available via this extract from a document produced by the SWP’s CC in 2000 regarding events in Prague.
All of which is a roundabout way of saying I think the direction is more Vlad than Rosa.
In conclusion we quote an exchange from the cartoon strip “The return of the Durruti Column”:
Pancho: “What’s your scene man?”
Cisco: “Reification.”
Pancho: “I guess that means plenty of hard work with lots of big books on a big table?”
Cisco: “Nope man, mainly I drift, just drift.”
hey andy
does this:
mean the little shit heel is taking a sabbatical?
oh and cam if you’ve got explosives you need to unload i know a guy … ok … i’m the guy … gimmie gimmie gimmie
Adam,
I’ve grown tired of Peter, so it’s likely he won’t be back for some time.
*tear* i’m going to miss his spartacist like insanity … oh actually nah make it a while dude
SAlt on the ISO and the IST, December 2007:
“…The IST’s false perspective had an extremely deleterious impact on the Australian ISO. At the S11 protest at Melbourne’s Crown casino in 2000 the ISO argued that revolutionary socialists had “90 per cent agreement and only 10 per cent disagreement” with the politics of the mass of people attending this and other demonstrations. One consequence of this greatly exaggerated assessment of the degree to which those involved in anti-capitalist protests agreed with Marxist politics was that the ISO did not seriously attempt to win politically people they signed up as members. Indeed the ISO condemned as “sectarian” any serious attempt to argue for Marxist politics. Hundreds of people signed ISO membership cards at the height of the anti-capitalist movement but hardly any were held as members; even worse, because the ISO accommodated to the prevailing autonomist/anarchist politics of the movement they lost a layer of their existing members to autonomism. In other words the ISO’s vastly exaggerated perspective resulted in them reinforcing the ranks of some of the bitterest opponents of Marxism.
But it was not just in Australia that the IST’s overblown assessment of the anti-capitalist movement proved a debacle. The German IST group also lost a layer of members to autonomism and the ISO (US) was expelled from the IST because in the eyes of the SWP it did not take the anti-capitalist movement seriously enough.
Hot on the heels of this disastrous intervention in the anti-capitalist movement the Australian ISO linked up with the Castroite Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) in 2001 to initiate Socialist Alliance. The ISO argued that a mass radicalisation around the anti-capitalist movement, combined with the growing disillusionment of traditional Labor voters, was opening up a sizeable space for a socialist electoral alternative. But Socialist Alliance proved abortive. It did not attract a significant layer of activists outside the existing socialist groups and its votes in elections were miniscule. The ISO’s analysis was faulty on a series of counts. Firstly, they massively overstated the number of activists thrown up by the anti-capitalist movement. Secondly, they falsely assumed that a socialist electoral project would appeal to the small layer of activists (usually influenced by autonomism) that had emerged. Thirdly, they overstated the extent to which disillusioned working class Labor voters would be attracted to a socialist electoral alternative that had no base in the unions or working class communities. Fourthly, the rise of the Greens soaked up the protest vote against Labor, not Socialist Alliance.
Having failed to pull in significant new forces Socialist Alliance degenerated into a sectarian battle ground between the DSP, the ISO and other tiny socialist groups. The ISO lost out badly. By the time they officially withdrew from Socialist Alliance in early 2007 they had suffered another split and been reduced to a tiny rump.
In joining Socialist Alliance the ISO was simply following the lead of the SWP which had joined the English Socialist Alliance in 1999. But as in Australia Socialist Alliance in England had little political traction. It neither pulled in sizeable new forces nor mobilised significant voter support. But the SWP, holding fast to its “1930s in slow motion” analysis, continued to believe that a significant space had opened up to the left of Labour that they could tap. So they ditched Socialist Alliance and moved on to their next get rich quick scheme – Respect. The SWP argued that Respect would appeal to broader forces galvanised by the anti-war movement; in particular they hoped to draw in significant numbers of Muslims shaken up by Blair’s strident support for Bush’s war drive. Respect – founded in January 2004 – did have a higher profile than Socialist Alliance, partly because of the role of anti-war MP George Galloway who had been expelled from the Labour Party…”
“oh and cam if you’ve got explosives you need to unload i know a guy … ok … i’m the guy … gimmie gimmie gimmie”
Sorry AdamSIO, but these explosives must only be used to dismantle global capitalism and frankly I don’t trust that this is the use you will put them to, you sexual deviant.
🙁
Hi all
Spoke to some mates from Solidarity today at a rally. Bob Gould seems way off in his description of them. I guess the big news is that they are not having a National Executive (a central committee). Rather each branch sends delegates to a National Council and the focus is to have the organisation driven from branch level up.
rebel love
Dave