Where did ISO come from in Australia? was Re: Canada, LSA, IS

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I can only really talk about Brisbane.  The ISO came out of the anarchist
Self Management group plus one ex -CP and Spart named Graeme Grassie.  The
space was opened for them by the non-militant line that the SWP (DSP)
pushed in the Civil Liberties protests.  This line was meant to push the
ex-Mandelites into breaking discipline and providing grounds for their
expulsion.  It had nothing to do with the attitude of the DSP to the
protests.  It was purely opportunistic.

At this time ISO was in its Luxembourgist spontaneist phase.  I joined them
because I thought that they were 'les plus braves'. Their militancy
attracted me and I like to think it still would. Later down the track the
turn to Leninism and super activism was to lead to my expulsion, but in
1978 I thought honestly and, Kurt please note, quite sanely that what was
needed was to confront the state in as militant way as possible.


The sad irony was that in the great Electricity Worker strike of 1985 the
leader of IS, Ian Rintoul, was to forbid his members to attend strike
support actions because the workers could not be reached and IS was a
propaganda group primarily focussed on the universities.  Of course this
disavowal of militancy was again a cynical maneuver to get rid of the
militant opposition to his leadership.  I sort of think that Jim Percy
would have approved of Rintoul's tactics. After all he had used them
against the Communist League in 76-7.

regards

Gary