International Socialist Tendency
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The International Socialist Tendency is an international grouping of organisations around the ideas of Tony Cliff, founder of the Socialist Workers Party in the UK. It has sections across the world, however its strongest presence is in Europe, especially in the UK and Ireland.
The politics of the IST are similar to the politics of many Trotskyist Internationals. Where it differs with many is on the question of the Soviet Union, the IST adopting the position that it was state capitalist, rather than a degenerated worker's state, and the theories of the permanent arms economy and deflected permanent revolution.
Unlike many international tendencies the IST has no formal organisational structures and has only ever made one publicly known decision, which was to expel the American International Socialist Organization from its ranks. However the antecedents of the IST go back to the 1950s when the founders of the British Socialist Review Group, around Tony Cliff, were expelled from The Club and thus from the Fourth International. The lack of an international organization has been the source of criticism by dissident groups as the lack of a formal international democratic structure means that the leadership of the British SWP has enormous influence over the other sections without being democratically accountable.
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History
Through the 1950s the SRG had a loose relationship with the American International Socialist League led by Max Shachtman until it dissolved in 1958. It then retained links with comrades coming out of that group and with other individuals in the international Trotskyist movement. But there was no significant growth in support for its ideas until the late 1960s. Some of the ideas of the IST, such as the "permanent arms economy" were originally developed from writings published by the ISL. The theory of the Permanent Arms Economy was developed by T.N. Vance in a series published throughout 1951 in the ISL journal New International, although in its original form it was basically a Keynesian theory and was given a Marxist gloss by Tony Cliff in the late 1950s. However the theory was refined over the years by key IS theoreticians such as Mike Kidron, Nigel Harris and Chris Harman in later years.
In the 1960s the International Socialists (as the group was now called) established links with militants in a number of countries which led to the formation of IS groups in their countries. Perhaps the first such group was the Irish IS group founded in 1971, there then followed groups in Australia, Canada and Germany. Meanwhile links were built with the Independent Socialists, later International Socialists, in the USA. These links led to a split in the ISUS in 1978 and the formation of the ISO a group more closely linked to the IS Britain.
During the late 1960s the IS also attended a series of meetings held by the French Lutte Ouvriere group which were also attended by the American IS. In many quarters the IS and LO groups were seen as constituting a loose semi-syndicalist tendency within world Trotskyism in this period. The meetings were also attended by a wide variety of groups such as the Italian Autonomia Operaia but petered out.
Despite this growth there was no formal organisation. However International Meetings of the leaderships of the IS tendency did develop, usually held in conjunction with the SWP's Marxism Summer School, which is held in London. This was the foundation of the IST which at some point in the 1990s came to be referred to thus with capitalisation.
Through the 1980s the IST grew internationally, in part as other revolutionary socialist tendencies entered into crisis thus removing competitors. New IS groups appeared in France, Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, Norway and in Greece the Socialist Revolution Organisation which had been loosely linked to IS in the 1970s rejoined the tendency. A group of Turkish comrades was also recruited in exile during this period its members living in Germany and Britain.
The 1990s saw more international growth for the IST as groups were founded in yet more countries including Austria, Cyprus, Spain, Aotearoa/New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Korea. Groups were also founded in the former Stalinist states as contact could be sustained in those countries for the first time, this led to the foundation of IS groups in Poland and the Czech Republic. A group linked to the IST existed in Russia but collapsed.
But the 1990s also saw the beginning of serious problems for the IST. While there was a great deal of geographical expansion there were also losses and fragmentation. On the negative side there were a number of splits which were unrelated to each other but seem to have common causes. Those causes were a concern among some members of the groups concerned that the internal regime of their own group had become bureaucratised and lacked in democratic accountability. Sometimes this was associated with the involvement in internal affairs of the group concerned of representatives of the SWP. And the political orientation of the group. Among the groups affected by such splits were those based in Germany, South Africa, Ireland, Zimbabwe, Australia, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Canada, France. In Belgium the group simply disappeared. (See entries on individual groups for details).
The last few years have seen contradictory developments for the IST. New groups have been formed in a number of countries for the first time as in Austria, Uruguay, Finland, Sweden and Ghana. However the largest groups in the IST outside Britain have both split and sections of them have left the IST. Thus in the USA the International Socialist Organisation's leadership entered into a dispute with the leadership of the SWP as to the significance of the anti-capitalist or anti-globalisation movement following a demonstration in Seattle. This led to the ISO being expelled from the IST and a small faction leaving it to form Left Turn. Ironically Left Turn also left the IST in 2003 leaving the tendency with no affiliate in the United States. Meanwhile in Greece the OSE, which had renamed itself the Socialist Workers Party (SEK), split on similar lines with a substantial minority forming the Internationalist Workers Left (DEA).
It should be noted that the listing below is neither fully comprehensive, as there are additional groups not mentioned in official lists found on IST websites, nor completely accurate. IST sources often containing references to Suara Socialis in Indonesia and Malaysia which are in fact websites only. Many IST sources also refer to the OSI of Puerto Rico as being in the IST but it is actually close to the ISO of the USA. Some other small groups exist in various countries cannot be mentioned for legitimate security reasons. In addition there are IS type groups in a number of countries unconnected to the IST as in Germany, the USA, Australia and New Zealand.
Note that the Socialist Workers Party in the United States has no formal connection to the IST nor ever has done.
Affiliated Parties
- Anti-capitalist (Antikapitalist) (Turkey)
- Communism from below (Comunismo dal basso) (Italy)
- In Struggle (En Lucha) (Spain)
- International Socialist Organization (Zimbabwe)
- International Socialist Organization (Organización Socialista Internacional) (Puerto Rico)
- International Socialist Organisation (Australia)
- International Socialist Organisation (Ghana)
- International Socialists (Internationale Socialister) (Denmark)
- International Socialists (Internationella Socialister) (Sweden)
- International Socialists (Internasjonale Sosialister) (Norway)
- International Socialists (Canada)
- International Socialists (Internationale Socialisten) (Netherlands)
- International Socialists (Socialismo Internacional) (Brazil)
- International Socialism (Socialismo Internacional) (Uruguay) previously known as Revolutionary Left (Izquierda Revolucionaria)
- Keep Left (South Africa)
- Workers Democracy Group (Klum Prachatipatai Rangarn) (Thailand)
- Left Shift (Linksruck) (Germany)
- Left Turn (Linkswende) (Austria)
- Socialism from Below (Socialisme par en bas) (France)
- Socialist League (Sosialistiliitto) (Finland)
- Socialist Solidarity (Socialistická Solidarita) (Czech Republic)
- Socialist Workers Organization (New Zealand)
- Socialist Workers' Party (Great Britain)
- Socialist Worker Platform (faction in Scottish Socialist Party)
- Socialist Workers' Party (Sosialistiko Ergatiko Komma) (Greece)
- Socialist Workers Party (Ireland)
- Workers' Democracy (Pracownicza Demokracja) (Poland)
- Workers' Democracy (Ergatiki Demokratia), (Cyprus)
An offical list can be found here [1] (http://www.istendency.net/node/view/3).
The International Socialist Organization in the United States, Socialist Alternative in Australia, Socialisme International in France [2] (http://www.revue-socialisme.org) and the International Socialist Organisation in New Zealand all consist of former members of the IST and remain based on the basic ideas of the IS Tradition.
See also
External links
- The Official IST Web Site (http://www.istendency.net)
- IST Documents (http://www.angelfire.com/journal/iso/index.html)
- More Years of the Locust: The Origins of the SWP (http://www.marxists.org/archive/higgins/1997/locust/index.htm) Criticism of Cliff and the SWP by Jim Higgins, former National Secretary of the International Socialists.
- IST Subject Archive at Marxists.org (http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/ist/) Articles written by former leaders of the IST