Re: Where did ISO come from in Australia

["Alan Bradley" <alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Gary MacLennan
> Lou, in what I believe is an original but under-recognized contribution
> to Marxist political theory, has argued persuasively that this mode of
> organisation was brought into the Marxist movement by Zinoviev and not by
> Lenin.  Arguably also it is this Zinovievisation that  accounts for all
> the bizarre behavior of the groups.

My feeling is that it suggest organisational causes for political problems,
and, presumably implies organisational solutions for political problems.
This is usually an incorrect approach - in fact, commonly a bureaucrat's
approach.

 But I said _implies_ intentionally, because it doesn't actually suggest
any concrete solutions.  What would a "non-Zinovievist" party look like?
The PCF?  Communist Refoundation in Italy?

> BTW have you rejoined the party?

Yeah, back in April or so.  I'm still only provisional....

This is why I have cranked up my DSP-boosterism even higher in the last few
months.

Going out and getting some exercise was interesting - I got some
interesting perspectives that I mightn't have really appreciated if I'd
been on the inside - but in the end the DSP is still the place to be on the
Australian Left.

I think we were obviously a bit wackier in the 70s and early 80s - we did
the turn, for starters - but we grew out of it.  The fact that we could
suggests that we weren't entirely lost causes even then.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we had to deal with Joh
Bjelke-Petersen now, the DSP's tactics would  probably have more in common
with the SWP's tactics in the 70s than those of "militant
Trotskyism"/ultraleftism.  This is true even though they would be
considerably less crude and schematic than those we used then.  Whether or
not they would succeed is another story - probably not - Petersen was a
harder case than any of the current wimps, even in his own party.  But
perhaps we might have kept things like the anti-apartheid movement alive,
rather than have it being submerged into Petersen's largely successful
attempts to play the "law and order" card.  (Am I correct in saying that
that is what happened to the mass anti-apartheid movement?)

cheers,

Alan Bradley
alanb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx