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http://socialistworker.org/where-we-stand This is the most current 'where we stand.' Our actual organizational website is being redesigned and hasn't been updated to reflect that change. I supported the change, although I think - as Louis hints at - that it was merely formal, as I was never indoctrinated with state capitalism...assuming that members were at some point. Clearly, there are more important issues at hand. I am still a bit confused by Louis' criticism about the 'nucleus of the vanguard.' I think any revolutionary organization should WANT to be the embryo or nucleus of the vanguard or however you want to put it. That doesn't make it so, though any revolutionary group that is completely bypassed by an upsurge of struggle would be either insignificant or doing something terribly wrong. Not to say the ISO is all that significant, but we are certainly growing in significant ways from what I hear. Allow me to exerpt a section from our Where We Stand: The Revolutionary Party: To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a revolutionary socialist party. The ISO is committed to playing a role in laying the foundations for such a party. We aim to build an independent socialist organization, rooted in workplaces, schools and neighborhoods that, in fighting today's struggles, also wins larger numbers to socialism. I assume Louis doesn't have a problem with this wording as much as the fact that the ISO maintains an opposition to Castroism and Maoism and therefore 'regroupment.' Here is where he thinks I have un-learned what I thought a few years back. I joined the ISO with some fading illusions about Castro, Che, Chavez, et al (I admittedly know next to nothing about Mao) which I subsequently dropped due to my own reading rather than any indoctrination. When you read about the Russian and German Revolutions, France '68, et al. the daring and heroic sacrifices of a guerrilla army become clearly and qualitatively different. The ISO focus on workers' democracy and socialism from below are completely opposed to the real, problematic 'vanguardism' that I think can stem from the idea that the working class can be liberated by a military force outside of its ranks rather than its own self-activity and organization. It also cuts against the notion that the party can exist separately, surfing above the class to state power in its name. Even Trotsky's piston-steam analogy may be a bit off since it gives the impression that the party is not an organic formation woven through the entire class. More concretely, I for one am not against regroupment as much as I seriously question on what basis that would happen and whether it would actually create a more effective organization. Similarly on the question of 'broadening,' I don't know enough about any of the attempts to do that - SA, NPA - to say whether they were the right steps in themselves nor whether they would be for us. Dan ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
