The following year a second ISC was founded in Berkeley (one on campus, one in town) and another in New York.[5] In September 1967 a conference was held in New York and the clubs were federated under the umbrella Independent Socialist Clubs of America. A quarterly, Independent Socialist or I.S. had begun in early 1967 and became the organ of the new group.[6]
More changed than just the name. The national office was transferred from New York to Detroit. The group's periodical, which had moved from New York to Berkeley, was also moved to Detroit and rechristened Workers' Power. National Secretary Joel Geier noted that while they had formerly been oriented toward the student, anti-war, and women's liberation movements, they would now focus on the industrial working class. They developed a three pronged strategy that included building rank and file within the unions, caucuses for black and women workers, and urging independent political action of the workers organizations. This strategy deemphasized the long term program of socialist revolution, instead focusing on day-to-day issues. As they put it "Rank and file groups usually arise around a specific event, incident or issue. It is the tasks of socialists and advanced militants to move the group in a broader programmatic direction. This is not done by putting forth a score of demands all at once. New demands and concepts should be introduced in a logical and relevant manner." A group of member who were uncomfortable with this distancing from Trotskyist ideology broke away in 1973 and formed the Revolutionary Socialist League in 1973, taking about a third of the membership.[10]
However they were most successful within the Teamsters. Here they worked within the Teamsters Rank and File Caucus, which was organized around the issue of alleged misspending of pension funds by union officials. They also were an important element within the Teamsters for a Decent Contract later in the decade. These efforts helped lead to the creation of Teamsters for a Democratic Union. Through these activities the IS was able to recruit a number of important rank-and-file leaders, most of whom later left the group during its splits, such as that forming Workers Power.[12]
The IS organized regional conferences of the opposition movements within labor unions during the mid-1970s, and in the late 1970s formed the "Labor Education and Research Project." This "Project" began publication of Labor Notes, which carried news on rank-and-file reform movements within the unions and began regular conferences and workshops on re-radicalizing the labor movement.[13]
Meanwhile, the group lost some of its original members. Hal Draper left the organization in 1971. He claimed that the IS was embracing dual unionism, and felt that the IS was becoming a "micro-sect" and it was best to participate in personal, rather than organized political activity.
IS had long had informal links with the International Socialists in Britain led by Tony Cliff. By the early 1970s some members were becoming influenced by that group and came to reject the labeling of Stalinist states as bureaucratic collectivist in favor of Cliff's state capitalism theory. These members were also disturbed by the abandonment, as they saw it, of IS's traditional policy on building rank and file caucuses in the unions as well as by the stance adopted by the leadership around Geier on the then-current upheaval in Portugal. By 1977 this group had formally constituted itself as the Left Tendency and was then expelled, after which it founded the International Socialist Organization.
Around the same time another tendency came into opposition to IS's leadership and split to form a new group called Workers Power. By the early 1980s the IS had decided that a more pluralist sort of revolutionary socialist organization was required and merged with Workers Power and Socialist Unity to form Solidarity in 1986.
^Alexander, Robert "Schisms and unifications in the American Old Left", Labor History, vol. 14, Fall 1973, p.546
^Alexander, Robert "Schisms and unifications in the American Old Left", Labor History, vol. 14, Fall 1973, p.545
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism: A Documented Analysis of the World Movement, Durham, Duke University Press, 1991, pp.899-900
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism: A Documented Analysis of the World Movement, Durham, Duke University Press 1991 pp. 901, 903
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism: A Documented Analysis of the World Movement, Durham, Duke University Press 1991, p.901
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism: A Documented Analysis of the World Movement, Durham, Duke University Press 1991 pp.902, 910
^Alexander, Robert. International Trotskyism: A Documented Analysis of the World Movement, Durham, Duke University Press 1991, p.902
Works
Independent socialist New York, N.Y. New York Independent Socialist Club, Vol. 1, no. 1 (January/February 1967)-v. 1, no. 7 (October 1968)
I.S.: independent socialist. Berkeley, Ca. : Independent Socialist Clubs of America, No. 8 (March 1969)-no. 20 (June 1970)
Book burning and censorship at U.C. Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1964
The mind of Clark Kerr by Hal Draper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1964
Independent socialism, a perspective for the left Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1964 (ISC pamphlet #1)
Third camp; the independent socialist view of war and peace policy by Hal Draper and Julius Jacobson Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1965 (ISC pamphlet #2)
MacBird! by Barbara Garson Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966
The Two Souls of Socialism by Hal Draper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966 (ISC pamphlet #3)
Toward the working class; a position paper for the New Left by Hal Draper, Kim Moody, Fred Eppsteiner and Mike Flug Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966 (ISC pamphlet #4)
Independent socialism and war; articles by Hal Draper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1964 (Independent socialist clipping-books #2)
A new era of labor revolt: on the job vs. official unions by Stan Weir Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966
The case for a new politics by Michael Shute Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966
In defense of black power; a position paper by Sy Landy and Charles Capper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966
The fight for independence in Vietnam by Hal Draper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1966
The first Israel-Arab war, 1948-49 by Hal Draper and Al Findley Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1967 (Independent socialist clipping-books Xerocopy series #X-2)
Zionism, Israel, & the Arabs; the historical background of the Middle East tragedy by Hal Draper Berkeley, Calif. : Independent Socialist Club, 1967 (Independent socialist clipping-books #3)
Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels: articles in the New American cyclopaedia Hal Draper Berkeley ed., Calif. : Independent Socialist Press, 1968 (Independent socialist clipping-books #5)
Joel Geier, "Socialism from Below: Hal Draper's Contribution to Revolutionary Marxism," International Socialist Review, no. 107 (Winter 2017-18), pp. 87-108.