‘Guerrilla tactics’ – what this means¶
Core Argument¶
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This chapter is a polemical rebuttal of a factional opponent, Stuart, who has accused the British Trotskyists of pursuing "guerrilla faction work" rather than "organised political warfare." The core argument is that Stuart has deliberately misrepresented a clearly defined tactical concept to cover his own errors and to manufacture a false picture of the British section's work. The term "guerrilla tactics," the author insists, was explicitly defined in the resolution on the entrist tactic: it meant splitting limited forces across multiple sectors of the front—the main body building the independent organisation, a major detachment in the ILP, and a lesser one in the Labour Party—rather than concentrating "full strength at the point of attack" on a single entryist target. This was not aimless "body-snatching" but a strategic allocation of scarce resources.
The chapter’s key evidence is Stuart’s use of two cases. First, the withdrawal of Comrade Tearse from the ILP to become Industrial Organiser of the RCP. Stuart presents this as a "symptomatic" example of "sporadic withdrawals" from a field where Trotskyist leaders were scarce. The author demolishes this by stating the factual error: Tearse had left the ILP long before the fusion, and his subsequent work—the Barrow strike, the Tyneside strike, the Newcastle case—were "landmarks in the history of British Trotskyism." Stuart’s criticism is thus revealed as a backdoor attack on the entire perspective of building the independent party, a perspective he had previously praised.
The second, more substantial case concerns the expulsion of north-east comrades from the ILP. Stuart claims they were trapped into expulsion on a "minor organisational issue" and that the RCP then planned to withdraw them for "more favourable fields of work," squandering the sympathy of numerous ILP members. The author counters with a different set of facts: the expulsion was not on an organisational issue but on the programme of the Fourth International—specifically resolutions for adherence to the FI, revolutionary military policy, and a correct attitude toward the Labour Party. The ILP bureaucrats sacrificed them to guarantee their own anti-Trotskyist credentials. Furthermore, the "sympathy" from ILP delegates was thin; those delegates expected the expelled comrades to join the RCP. To have left inexperienced rank-and-file members to fight a hopeless battle for reinstatement against an overwhelming conference vote would have been to expose them to demoralisation for no gain. The subsequent collapse of the ILP in the north-east, reinforced by the RCP’s open work, proved the tactic correct.
The chapter draws on the immediate history of British Trotskyism—the fusion of the Revolutionary Socialist League and the Workers' International League, the tactic of entry into the ILP and Labour Party, and the specific struggles of the north-east division. Its polemic is directed squarely at Stuart, accusing him of carelessness with facts, of failing to consult the leadership before rushing into print, and of distorting the truth to the American party to sustain his false narrative that the British section’s policy was unprincipled and solely focused on Labour Party affiliation. The author’s tone is one of exasperated correction, repeatedly stating "the facts are wrong, comrade."