LeninistIthink

Regarding the SA in the Greens: I heard that during my recent visit in London, and yes, I too was pretty amazed. Given favorable pieces here and here and a mention on their Wiki page that they got a deputy leader speaking for them on their summerschool this year, I do give credence to this story. I'm sure they'll soon move back to Labour and want to forget about this episode

There are other strategic differences, but that's off topic for now

Well, the funny thing with the British IMT is that they've left Labour for the Greens right at a moment when Corbyn happens

I have several issues with Trotskyist strategy, which is why I no longer consider myself a Trotskyist anymore. Entryism is just one of them, which in my opinion can be summed up as a parasitical raiding party designed to gain for your own group, but at the cost of other working class organisations and often isolating yourself from them. Historically it is also most often a very unsuccessful strategy.

These days I strategically reverted to more 'orthodox' Marxist methods, something that could be called the "merger formular": Aiming to transform the existing workers movement by having socialist ideals accepted, thereby 'merging' the workers movement with socialism. This still requires independent organising, but not because of building a sect, but because of the need to remain independent from bureaucratic manoeuvres against communists.

What we see is halfarsed attempts, like TUSC in the UK, attempting to set up a Labout 2.0, which of course never went anywhere with Labour 1.0 still around. Now with Corbyn, the CWI is really in a somewhat embarrssed position: According to their stance on Labour, Corbyn shouldn't be possible, as Labour became a "fully bourgeois" party. Yet, here we are, 400 000 people joined Labour in no time, Corbyn is set to win and undoubtedly this is barely the beginning of what will probably result in a civil war inside that party. Where is the CWI? Outside...

I has been quite some time since I looked at Trotsky's texts on entryism, so I couldn't directly find it either. I'll come back to you on it.

As for the CWI: Its idea on entryism is different as I understand it from Trotsky. Where Trotsky proposed a short entry to win as much members from the SFIO as possible, the CWI has a much longer strategic view. It has this idea of a dual task of both setting up their own sections as "the revolutionary party" and, with the collapse of social democracy, of building new social democratic parties. The idea here is that while "socialism" will not attract lots of workers, reformist ideas will.

In all cases this has led to the CWI being mostly outside the formations of importance. They're outside Labour, they're semi-outside Die Linke, they're outside Syriza, etc. They can't control these formations, so they don't take part in them.

Hmm. I suggest you read Trotsky's essays on the "French turn" for starters, where it finds its entry in the Trotskyist tradition. Are you looking for something in particular?