Talk:International Socialist Group

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I've checked against the Socialist Resistance membership list on Yahoo Groups and added a comment on membership numbers. Of course, this only reflects activists who have subscribed to the list, which will be a subset of those with email addresses, but it's a hard number at least. My guesstimate is that most of those will be supporters of the USFI.--DuncanBCS 11:49, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

I've corrected some factional excesses on this page. --DuncanBCS 09:13, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Upgrade from being a section

This is a little tricky to date. We are right to date the 89 IEC as being the change over, since SA largely withdrew from them leaving the ISG as the only group working like a section. We could note also that the 1991 WC resolutions recongised the SA resolution as 'members of the FI' and not as a section or sympathising section. However, the upgrade to full section was finalised by the 1991 world congress. --Duncan 13:20, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like it would be useful to have the detail on this, in order to clarify quite a complex situation. Warofdreams talk 00:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

To be conservative, we should either date the change over in 1991, or show both groups as being public fractions of the section between 89 and 91 (which perhaps reflects the reality). Very hard to do more with verifyable sources, and this was a molecular process largely undocumented by public materials: the deciding factor is always how does each group relate to the FI in practice, rather than assuming that then-current dynamics will continue. There were still two pro-FI tendencies in the SL after 1989. Even after the SL withdrew from active participation in the FI, those tendencies related to the FI and, for example, organised partly around selling International Viewpoint and even submitted documents which are in the 1991 World Congress edition of International Marxist Review. However, in 1991 those tendencies left to join ISG partly because that now had higher status than the SL. However, neither the ISG nor the FI will have wanted to close the door on comrades in the SL who continued to describe themselves as Fourth Internationalists (and, for example, I attended the Mandel memorial seminar in Amsterdam in 1996 where a leader of the SL identified himself in that way).--Duncan 11:04, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

When International Group split from the SL its members were recognised as individual members of the FI. The Socialist League participated in the 1991 World Congress and were still the British Section althought the division of the section into two was recognised. The SL were represented by two delegates, the Rossite majority and a minority in Birmingham that later joined the ISG. The ISG were recognised as the section at the 1995 world congress. Between 1991 and 1995 the SL withdrew from the international. -- 82.39.140.92 23:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)Anon.

This is excellent, thanks. So before 1991 they ISG were individual members, and then from 1991 it was like the current situation in Germany, with a divided section involving two groups with equal status, then from 1995 the ISG was the section. --Duncan 10:06, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The IG/ISG campaigned for recognition in the international and placed great stress on the fact that a few (one, two?) of its members were guarantors for the SL's mortgage on their premises. The World Congress in 91 and I think the IEC before that asked the SL to release these individuals. I don't know if they have yet been released and I am reluctant to name the individual here. Unsigned comment by editor using 82.39.226.11

Yes, I am not sure what happened about that. I think it's been sorted out. --Duncan 22:57, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 'Red Baiting'

Someone has deleted some names from this article, saying that (Deleted some individual names - I put them in but it seems unfair to name people who are still alive, working and are not members any more. I don't want to be responsible for red baiting.). This seems reasonable to me. --Duncan 12:03, 18 February 2007 (UTC)