When do the Minority want us to enter the Labour Party?¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter, a Political Bureau statement from December 1945, targets the Minority faction within the Revolutionary Communist Party for its evasive and contradictory positions on entering the British Labour Party. The core argument is that the Minority has consistently refused to state clearly whether it advocates immediate entry, instead hiding behind vague formulations designed to manoeuvre the membership rather than educate it.
The chapter opens by noting that the Minority’s initial call for immediate entry was quickly abandoned. It then dissects successive Minority texts to expose their ambiguity. In Healy’s ‘Our Tasks and Perspectives’, entry is described as a gradual subordination of independent activity to work inside the ILP and Labour Party, with “total entry” deferred until “circumstances dictate”. The Minority’s Congress amendment is even more slippery, specifying “conditions for full-scale entry” — a growth in Labour Party membership and branch re-activisation — which the Political Bureau dismisses as deliberately vague, allowing the Minority to claim these conditions are met at any time. The chapter then quotes Condon, who admits he would be for entry now if the party were united, but proposes a “turn toward the rank and file... with a view to early entry”. Finally, it takes up the joint document by Healy, Goffe, and Finch, which claims the Labour Party presents “the opportunity of entering... without great obstacles” yet immediately retreats into talk of “preparation for total entry” and an “educational campaign”.
The Political Bureau’s polemic is sharp. It accuses the Minority of a dishonest tactic — “manoeuvring the membership in stages” — and invokes James P. Cannon’s authority to condemn this as petty-bourgeois politics, not Marxism. A party, Cannon is quoted as saying, cannot be manoeuvred; it must be educated. To smuggle a programme through by keeping quiet is denounced as unworthy of a revolutionary party. The chapter concludes by demanding the Minority answer a single, direct question: do they stand for immediate entry into the Labour Party? Until that is clarified, further discussion is deemed pointless. The text thus functions as a polemical trap, forcing the Minority to either openly advocate a position the Political Bureau considers adventurist or admit to a lack of clarity that discredits their leadership.