Is entryism viable?

[the Leftâ„¢]

This topic is fascinating to me. I was wondering what you all thought about this. Any articles or essays on its effectiveness or lack thereof?

[Avanti]

it does work

i've organised infiltrations of numerous neonazi movements

our infiltrators were actual nazis, who've we threatened into acting as spies

we got all information about their leaders

and destroyed their organizations

[Anarchocommunaltoad]

it does work

i've organised infiltrations of numerous neonazi movements

our infiltrators were actual nazis, who've we threatened into acting as spies

we got all information about their leaders

and destroyed their organizations

Why are you posting this on an open forum?

[Avanti]

it doesn't hurt to instill a little paranoia.

besides, that's ancient history now.

it was in the 1990s.

what you hope to accomplish with infiltration?

[Ilyich]

This topic is fascinating to me. I was wondering what you all thought about this. Any articles or essays on its effectiveness or lack thereof?

What kind of entryism do you mean? Like a left-wing organization entering a political party?

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

This topic is fascinating to me. I was wondering what you all thought about this. Any articles or essays on its effectiveness or lack thereof?
Isn´t entryism something unique to trotskyism? I think there is a difference between the sort of entryism Trotsky proposed and the sort a lot of trots later practiced. The former: a short term entry into an organistion (f.e. a multi- tendency party or a freshly formed one) during times of convulsions/crisis to possibly gain freshly radicalised recruits. The latter: enter a reformist organisation and stay there for years or even decades. Make your participation in said reformist org. your top priority and claim you are struggling to "move it to the left". When the bureaucracy of the org. in question has had enough and wants to kick you out you scream with rightful indignation about witch-hunts against the glorious revolutionary martyrs you are. I think the former can be a valid tactic while the latter is tragicomic.

[Grenzer]

Entryism is a failed tactic. It promotes liquidationism and the tailing of liberal parties and class alien elements.

[Ostrinski]

Man haven't certain socialists in Britain been trying to "reclaim Labour" forever now? I ask just because I see memes about it everywhere. Anyway if there are actually people out there trying to accomplish that I wonder what kind of progress they've made ;).

[Avanti]

the problem is.

most voters don't want socialism.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Avanti, your ramblings are wonderful but please keep them out of discussions about real life stuff.
As Ghost Bebel correctly stated above, entryism has no place in the revolutionary leftist movement today. Cooperation with mainstream unions might have made sense in Russia in the year 1917, but it's not going to do anything for us now.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This topic is fascinating to me. I was wondering what you all thought about this. Any articles or essays on its effectiveness or lack thereof?

I think people should be clear by what they mean by "entryism".

If it means joining a group or union to covertly "infiltrate" it, then I am opposed to it - unless someone does what Avanti said, but then that's sabotage, not entryism and I don't mind if people sabotage racists or fascists. Though I'd much rather focus on building our own class power and militants which would mean such tactics are unnecissary because workers could handle these threats openly and directly without the need for covert sabatours. Covert infiltration just treats workers as passive and doesn't help workers actually develop self-leadership or militant ideas.

If by entryism people mean "working within the mainstream unions" then I support that as long as it's organic (not like if some party sent some 40 year old white collar workers to work at a Wal-Mart) and done openly as an attempt to organize the rank and file. If it means just trying to become the leadership directly of such a union, then that's a dead-end too IMO. But for openly organizing actual rank and file unionists and trying to build a rank and file counterweight to the reformism of union leaders, then it's valuable in my view.

[Comrade #138672]

it does work

i've organised infiltrations of numerous neonazi movements

our infiltrators were actual nazis, who've we threatened into acting as spies

we got all information about their leaders

and destroyed their organizationsSo how do we know you're not infiltrating here?

[Jimmie Higgins]

So how do we know you're not infiltrating here?What's to infiltrate? Discussions? Infiltrating a discussion = butting into a conversation :lol:.

[Thirsty Crow]

Avanti, your ramblings are wonderful but please keep them out of discussions about real life stuff.
As Ghost Bebel correctly stated above, entryism has no place in the revolutionary leftist movement today. Cooperation with mainstream unions might have made sense in Russia in the year 1917, but it's not going to do anything for us now.
Does entryism also concern "cooperating with mainstream unions"? I thought that it only refers to joining a nominally workers' party in order to sway the membership to the left.

[Q]

Entryism (of the Trotskyist kind) hasn't been working in my experience. In the time we (that is, the Dutch CWI section, active within the SP on and off since 1998, but not exclusively in the SP) have been active in the Dutch SP, we've been stagnant and growing smaller.

The conditions in which entryism would work is either you go in and try to recruit as much as possible and be kicked out or leave again (this was proposed by Trotsky in the 1930's), or you go in for the long haul and operate secretively and/or water down your politics (making entryism effectively a liquidationist strategy, as Ghost Bebel noted).

You can enter a party as a group, but the fight for a democratic culture (as opposed to bureaucratic control) needs to take precedence.

[Avanti]

So how do we know you're not infiltrating here?

because i hate nazis.

i'm an antifa veteran, son.

once got all fingers on my left hand broken by a skinhead in bar brawl.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Entryism is an idea whose time has come....and gone. Long gone. IMO even Trotsky only advocated it as a one-shot deal, based upon the supposed "left turn" of certain Second International parties in the wake of the Great Depression. Didn't the tactic fail badly in France and the UK? I don't believe it was a smashing success in the USA either.

[Drosophila]

Entryism is about as useful as every other Trotskyist strategy out there today. In other words: useless.


Man haven't certain socialists in Britain been trying to "reclaim Labour" forever now? I ask just because I see memes about it everywhere. Anyway if there are actually people out there trying to accomplish that I wonder what kind of progress they've made ;).

Actually, from what I understand, they don't want to "reclaim" or "overthrow" the Labour Party. Rather, they want to create a mass tendency within it that would cause a split in the party, thus rendering Labour a dead party and putting the Marxist party in its place. Still a dumb tactic, but yeah.

[LiberationTheologist]

Entryism is a failed tactic. It promotes liquidationism and the tailing of liberal parties and class alien elements.

It is a historical failure that is a fact, it has never worked in an organized national party. Does it work in small groups? I would say yes if you have enough people or are smart enough and have enough time and resources.


Wikipedia backs this point up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entryism

[sixdollarchampagne]

there is a difference between the sort of entryism Trotsky proposed and the sort a lot of trots later practiced. The former: a short term entry into an organistion (f.e. a multi- tendency party or a freshly formed one) during times of convulsions/crisis to possibly gain freshly radicalised recruits. The latter: enter a reformist organisation and stay there for years or even decades.

Beninist makes an excellent, indeed essential point: Trotsky was about "hit and run" entryism, go in where there is a developing left wing, in a context of a crisis, recruit all you can and then leave with all you can. That's what Beninist calls "the former," i.e., which is a part of Trotskyism.

"The latter," "entryism" without an exit strategy, in the manner of the Grantists, of the IMT, in fact, their only tactic, it would appear, is truly a dead end, since, as can be seen in Grantism, prolonged exposure to social democracy, that is, sending subjectively revolutionary youth into, amazingly, the ranks of the pro-imperialist, pro-war, British Labour Party, just creates more social democrats.

In response to the following,
I don't believe it was a smashing success in the USA either. Actually, entryism was quite successful in the US. The Trotskyists took a left wing out of Norman Thomas' Socialist Party and then formed the Trotskyist SWP, which had an honorable history as a revolutionary organization under the leadership of J.P. Cannon, for some decades.

[Lucretia]

The Russian Revolution was, in the long run, a historical failure, but I don't see throngs of people abandoning or condemning it. The goal of entryism -- applied in very specific situations -- is to push people in a workers organization or party into adopting a revolutionary program, or at least to get some members of the reformist organization to become revolutionary so that when the "entry" is over, they will join a revolutionary group. While the first hasn't happened, the second has.

As advocated by Trotsky, it was NOT to be a long-term liquidationist strategy. It was to be a short-term tactic.

[LiberationTheologist]

In response to the following, Actually, entryism was quite successful in the US. The Trotskyists took a left wing out of Norman Thomas' Socialist Party and then formed the Trotskyist SWP, which had an honorable history as a revolutionary organization under the leadership of J.P. Cannon, for some decades.


So the trotskyites helped weaken a declining fractional organization and created another small weak organization. This pretty much is in line with what I said.

This technique can work on a small political party and can help create another weak fractional party. [sarcasm]Well I'm convinced, lets get this entryism into small nearly powerless parties plan moving forward. Long live small party fractional entryism.

[Guayaco]

The only significant organization that today promotes entryism "sui generis" is the IMT. Grant and Woods put their theory to the test in the British Labor Party, and that reality testing gave them feedback.

We all know how "successful" that was.

I have no objection to the exporting of a tried and true model. However, in light of the IMT "home" section´s failure to demonstrate its efficacy, its attempt to now promote it abroad in Venezuela and Pakistan certainly raises an eyebrow.

[Lucretia]

So the trotskyites helped weaken a declining fractional organization and created another small weak organization. This pretty much is in line with what I said.

This technique can work on a small political party and can help create another weak fractional party. [sarcasm]Well I'm convinced, lets get this entryism into small nearly powerless parties plan moving forward. Long live small party fractional entryism.

Um, no. Not all "organizations' are created equal. It took workers mired in a reformist party and channeled them into a revolutionary party, which they can then help build. That's an improvement, a big improvement.

[LiberationTheologist]

Um, no. Not all "organizations' are created equal. It took workers mired in a reformist party and channeled them into a revolutionary party, which they can then help build. That's an improvement, a big improvement.

That may be and from what I see the Socialist Party of America was in decline in the 1940s. It "worked" I guess but it weakened a party that had at one time way more support than SWP could ever dream of having. So in that sense it looks to be a failure.

So if one of the conditions for entryism to work is to have a party in decline maybe in that sense the strategy could be useful, but then why not just build your own organization?

[TheOther]

Entrism is risky. You mean joining a capitalist party, and then rising to government power thru that capitalist party. And after in power, to try to shift toward the left?




This topic is fascinating to me. I was wondering what you all thought about this. Any articles or essays on its effectiveness or lack thereof?

[Permanent Revolutionary]

Living in a country with a small population, I actually do see entryism as a viable tactic.

[Lucretia]

Entrism is risky. You mean joining a capitalist party, and then rising to government power thru that capitalist party. And after in power, to try to shift toward the left?

No, entryism is not about entering "capitalist" parties.

[Geiseric]

Isn´t entryism something unique to trotskyism? I think there is a difference between the sort of entryism Trotsky proposed and the sort a lot of trots later practiced. The former: a short term entry into an organistion (f.e. a multi- tendency party or a freshly formed one) during times of convulsions/crisis to possibly gain freshly radicalised recruits. The latter: enter a reformist organisation and stay there for years or even decades. Make your participation in said reformist org. your top priority and claim you are struggling to "move it to the left". When the bureaucracy of the org. in question has had enough and wants to kick you out you scream with rightful indignation about witch-hunts against the glorious revolutionary martyrs you are. I think the former can be a valid tactic while the latter is tragicomic.

This is a good way of explaining it. Entryism worked fantastically in the 30's when the SWP joined the SP-USA, causing a big split off from the SP-USA, and when the Socialist Party in France had a huge split from it due to the 4th internationalists who joined.

[blake 3:17]

This is a good way of explaining it. Entryism worked fantastically in the 30's when the SWP joined the SP-USA, causing a big split off from the SP-USA, and when the Socialist Party in France had a huge split from it due to the 4th internationalists who joined.


Those were very particular circumstances and were a very particular tactic.

That kind of rapid entrism could certainly make sense in a revolutionary situation.

The very different one is the Labour Militant kind of deep entrism. I'd be interested in more CWI perspectives on this.

The FI current I was in generally had and "inside-outside" approach to social democratic parties, joining as individuals either around a particular campaign or popular left current or because it made sense for their movement work. The other FI grouping here has made a weird fetish of the NDP while constantly criticizing it.

[DVRA]

Nowadays we are seeing the rise of a precarious working class -- which has low levels of union membership and typically works casual jobs -- especially in the "first world", whilst in the rest of the world, most jobs (1.8 billion, about half of all jobs on the planet) exist in the "black market" or the "underground economy" where there can be no legal union representation for workers. Entryism is not viable, and should be dead and buried by now.