Resolution on the entrist tactic (Submitted by WIL)¶
Core Argument¶
This resolution, submitted by the Workers’ International League (WIL) to a conference of the British Trotskyist movement, constitutes a strategic intervention in a fierce debate over the correct tactic for building a revolutionary party in Britain. Its core argument is a decisive rejection of the prevailing entrist tactic—the systematic penetration of the Labour Party—as the primary method of work. The resolution does not reject entry as a tactic in principle, but it insists that the tactic must flow from a concrete analysis of the current period, not from a dogmatic formula.
The key claim is that the Labour Party is, in the present period, “almost dead” and losing the confidence of the workers. As evidence, it cites the success of a Scottish Nationalist candidate against Labour in Kirkcaldy. Consequently, the Labour Party is deemed the “least favourable field” for factional work. Instead, the resolution identifies the Independent Labour Party (ILP) as the “most fruitful” arena. It argues that the ILP has grown in strength and influence, is attracting leftward-moving workers, and will likely seek and gain affiliation to the Labour Party when the latter breaks the coalition government. The resolution therefore proposes that Trotskyist forces should enter the Labour Party not directly, but through the affiliated ILP, which will become the main left-wing organisational base. It explicitly dismisses the “socialist left” and similar paper groups set up by Trotskyist entrants inside the Labour Party as a hindrance.
The resolution’s central polemic is directed against both “entrists and anti-entrists” who raise the tactic of entry to the level of a question of principle, denouncing this as “extreme sectarianism.” It argues against the perspective of a total entry into the Labour Party, deeming it unlikely. The main axis of activity, it insists, must be the industrial front—factories, shop stewards’ movements, and trade unions—and the raising of the “independent banner of the Fourth International” to recruit revolutionary industrial militants directly. The resolution draws on the theoretical framework of the Fourth International, insisting that the international programme must be applied to national conditions. It also references the growth of the Communist Party and the loss of its best militants, arguing that these can be won directly to the open banner of Trotskyism. The resolution thus represents a turn away from deep entrism and toward building an independent party, with entry into the Labour Party subordinated to that overriding goal and conducted through the ILP as an intermediary.