International Socialist Organisation (Australia)
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International Socialist Organisation
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|---|---|
| Leader | Collective leadership |
| Founder | Tom O'Lincoln, Janey Stone, Ross Mackenzie, Dave Nadel and Chris Gaffney |
| Founded | Marxist Workers' Group (1971) Socialist Workers' Action Group International Socialists International Socialist Organisation (1980s) |
| Dissolved | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
| Newspaper | Socialist Worker |
| Ideology |
Democratic revolutionary socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Trotskyism |
| Political position | Far-left |
| International affiliation | International Socialist Tendency |
| Website | |
| www.iso.org.au | |
The International Socialist Organisation (ISO) was an Australian Trotskyist political organisation, founded in 1971, originally as the Marxist Workers' Group (MWG) until it became Solidarity in a merger in 2008 with two other socialist organisations. It was the official representative of the International Socialist Tendency (IST) in Australia.
The ISO formed in 1971 as the MWG, then as the Socialist Workers' Action Group (SWAG), and finally the International Socialists (IS), becoming the official representative of the IST in Australia. The IS expanded from its initial base in Melbourne until it had branches in every major Australian city. The organisation published a paper until 2008 called Socialist Worker.
The IS saw a breakaway faction in the 1980s called Socialist Action led by Tom O'Lincoln and Carole Ferrier which later rejoined the IS. At this point they changed their name to the ISO.
A faction fight beginning in 1993 led to the expulsion of leading ISO members in 1995, mainly but not exclusively in Melbourne, who went on to form Socialist Alternative (SA).
Another period of internal crisis beginning in 2001 led to a loss of members and a further split in 2003 when another grouping of members around former leader Ian Rintoul left to form a group known as Solidarity. Somewhat prior to this O'Lincoln also left, eventually joining Socialist Alternative.
The ISO was a founding component of the Socialist Alliance which grouped together a number of Australian socialist organisations. In 2007, the ISO voted to withdraw its involvement at its national conference, criticising the failure of the project to achieve its intended goals and the role of the Democratic Socialist Perspective in that failure.
On 3 February 2008, the ISO, the Socialist Action Group and Solidarity agreed to merge, with the new organisation to be named Solidarity and based in Sydney. The new Solidarity replaced the ISO as the official representative of the IST in Australia.
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