Mick’s metaphysics

A critique of Mick Armstrong’s pamphlet on socialist organisation

Bob Gould

In this pamphlet, Mick attempts to raise the Socialist Alternative propaganda group orientation to the level of high Marxist theory. He presents this orientation as an organic development of Marxism and Leninism and as a kind of culmination of the Marxist and Leninist tradition which is presented as a “seamless web”, so to speak, starting with Marx and Engels, and culminating ideologically in Socialist Alternative, and its menu of special theories.

Mick Armstrong’s prayer meeting about May 1968

Bob Gould

On Sunday evening Mick Armstrong came into my shop, as he does when he’s in Sydney, worked his way through my Marxist shelves picking up all kinds of things for his personal bookstall, which he conducts at Socialist Alternative events in Melbourne, and I gave him the usual significant discount as a pretty good customer. The arrangement suits him and it suits me, and we had the usual desultory exchange of political ideas.

Resignation from Socialist Alternative

August 25, 2004

Comrades,

There is an unacknowledged crisis in Socialist Alternative. The entire Brisbane branch, with only a handful of exceptions, have left the organisation. This comes at the end of a long process of bureaucratic and political harassment, which should be of concern to all members. The immediate causes of tonight’s events are only one of the most recent. The NE recently declared Emma T unfinancial, with scheduled branch committee elections two weeks overdue, on the pretext that the branch owed the national organisation $470 (which had been used to help pay for transport to the NUS Education Conference in Sydney). This was a blatantly factional attack by the NE on a vocal critical member. This has brought Brisbane members to the end of their tether. It is regrettable that good comrades have been forced to the point of resignation by the political errors and bureaucratic manoeuvres of the NE.

The further fragmentation of the ISO

A statement by Socialist Alternative

The resignation of 21 members from the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) on 25 May is the latest reflection of the crisis that has wracked the ISO for a decade. Since the last ISO conference in December 2002 almost 50 members have resigned either individually or in groups, leaving the ISO on a generous estimate with an active membership of less than 100. This sharp decline occurred, as the 21 former ISO members point out in their resignation letter, during a period that “saw the emergence of a massive international anti-war movement and the largest anti-war demonstrations in Australia’s history. That the ISO failed to grow out of this movement, has no greater political coherence, no larger established periphery and if anything smaller meetings is a serious indictment of the current practice of the group.” (Letter of resignation from the International Socialist Organisation)