International Socialist Organization
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International Socialist Organization (ISO)
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| Leader | Collective leadership (Steering Committee) |
| Newspaper | Socialist Worker |
| Ideology |
Marxism Revolutionary socialism Trotskyism Communism |
| Political position | Far-left |
| International affiliation | Fourth International (permanent observer) |
| Website | |
| http://www.internationalsocialist.org/ | |
The International Socialist Organization (ISO) is a revolutionary socialist organization in the United States that identifies with Trotskyism, Leninism, and the Marxist political tradition of "socialism from below."
The ISO advocates 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 are posited to produce that wealth: the working class. To achieve socialism, the ISO argues that the working class majority must lead a revolutionary transformation of society into a workers' democracy. As an anti-Stalinist left organization, the ISO opposes state bureaucracy and all forms of "top-down" socialism.
Because capitalism is a global system, the ISO argues that the struggle for socialism must be international in scope. The ISO holds that the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, as well as China and Cuba, are examples of bureaucratic class-stratified societies rather than socialism. While the ISO supports struggles for economic, political, and social reforms, it also maintains that exploitation, oppression, war, and environmental destruction cannot be eliminated until capitalism is overthrown and replaced with socialism.
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, ISO has said. (To this day the ISO is largely a campus-bases group although in recent years they've made some inroads into the union movement.) While the Left Faction contended that, in addition to rank and file work, agitation at the workplace for socialism should continue. 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.
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