1. Observations on the discussion in the ISO and issues raised for the left
1. Observations on the discussion in the ISO
Bob Gould
[This piece was directed at members of the Australian International Socialist Organisation in their internal discussion leading up to the ISO national conference in early 2002.]
The socialist left in Australia is numerically the smallest it has been for about 100 years, and proportionately even smaller, if you consider that in the early years of the 20th century, when the Marxist left was about the same numerical size as it is today, Australia had a population of about 4 million, compared with nearly 20 million now. The overthrow of Stalinism in the Soviet Union, the removal of the greatest obstacle to healthy socialist movements for most of the 20th century, has not led to the more or less automatic flowering of a better socialist movement.
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