International Socialist Organization (New Zealand)

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The International Socialist Organisation is a Trotskyist organisation in New Zealand. It is based in Dunedin, and also has a branch in Wellington.

The founders of the ISO in New Zealand, notably Brian Roper, had developed sympathies with the International Socialism current of Trotskyism while living overseas. Returning to New Zealand, they formed the small Dunedin-based ISO in the early 1990s.

As a result of its own development, the Communist Party of New Zealand was also attracted to the International Socialism current, and developed links with the British Socialist Workers Party, the leading representative of that current. This meant that there were two competing representatives of the same political ideology in New Zealand, which led to the SWP brokering a fusion between the two groups.

The ISO and CPNZ did, in the end, fuse to form the Socialist Workers Organization. However, a majority of the former ISO soon left as a result of what were seen as Stalinist practices on the part of the former CPNZ leadership. The ISO then resumed its separate existence, and expanded from Dunedin to form a branch in Wellington, although it has lost some membership more recently.