Entryism
Entryism is a political tactic whereby members of a smaller, often more radical group join a larger, established organization—such as a political party or movement—with the deliberate intention of influencing, subverting, or controlling its policies and leadership from within, typically through covert or gradual means rather than open advocacy.[1][2] The strategy prioritizes infiltration over independent electoral competition, allowing fringe elements to leverage the host organization's resources, membership base, and legitimacy to advance objectives incompatible with the original group's founding principles.[3] Originating in Trotskyist circles, entryism gained formal articulation through Leon Trotsky's advocacy of the "French Turn" in 1934, which directed his followers to dissolve their independent Communist League and enter the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), a social democratic party, to capitalize on rising working-class radicalization amid economic crisis and fascist threats.[3][4] This maneuver aimed to recruit disillusioned militants and expose reformist limitations from inside, though it often led to internal factional struggles and expulsions rather than sustained dominance.[5] Trotsky viewed entryism as a temporary expedient for building revolutionary forces when mass parties experienced surges in support, but its application extended beyond Trotskyism to other communist and extremist groups seeking to penetrate labor movements or mainstream parties.[6][7] A notable success of entryism occurred with the British Militant Tendency, a Trotskyist faction that infiltrated the Labour Party during the 1970s and 1980s, securing control of the party's youth wing, several local councils (including Liverpool), and influencing policy debates before Neil Kinnock's leadership orchestrated their systematic expulsion in the late 1980s.[3] This episode highlighted entryism's potential to amplify minority voices within mass organizations but also sparked controversies over democratic integrity, as infiltrators prioritized ideological purity over the host party's electoral viability, contributing to Labour's internal divisions and electoral setbacks.[3] Critics, including party moderates and security agencies like the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, have long decried entryism as a subversive method akin to infiltration by foreign agents, enabling unaccountable shifts in organizational direction without voter consent.[2][8] While proponents frame it as pragmatic adaptation to political realities, empirical outcomes often reveal high risks of backlash, purges, and reputational damage to the targeted entity, underscoring causal tensions between covert influence and transparent governance.[9]
Definition and Core Principles
Conceptual Foundations
Entryism constitutes a deliberate political strategy wherein adherents of a minority ideological faction infiltrate a larger, typically reformist or centrist organization to steer its policies, leadership, or membership toward the infiltrators' objectives, often through covert coordination and disciplined internal agitation. This approach presupposes that direct competition or independent organization-building yields insufficient traction in mass movements, necessitating the exploitation of established structures' resources, electoral machinery, and rank-and-file networks to amplify radical messaging. The tactic's intellectual underpinnings derive from Marxist-Leninist vanguardism, positing that a revolutionary minority must maneuver within broader workers' parties during favorable conjunctures to accelerate class consciousness, rather than capitulating to gradualism or remaining isolated.[3][2] Leon Trotsky systematized entryism in the mid-1930s amid the Fourth International's formation, viewing it as a tactical expedient for numerically weak Trotskyist cadres facing Stalinist dominance and social democratic inertia. In a 1934 directive, Trotsky outlined the "French Turn," instructing supporters to dissolve their independent groups and enter the French Socialist Party (SFIO) en masse, applying for membership collectively while maintaining internal fractions to critique reformist leadership and recruit proletarian elements disillusioned with centrism. This maneuver aimed not at endorsing the host party's program but at utilizing its platforms—conferences, press, and youth sections—to expose bureaucratic conservatism and propel militants toward permanent revolution, with an explicit timeline for re-emergence as a distinct Bolshevik tendency upon gaining sufficient converts. Trotsky emphasized rigorous discipline to avert assimilation, warning that unchecked entry risked diluting revolutionary content into opportunism.[5][10] Conceptually, entryism hinges on causal dynamics of organizational power: smaller groups leverage superior ideological cohesion and strategic patience to outmaneuver diffuse majorities, fostering splits or takeovers by amplifying latent contradictions within the target entity. Proponents argue it aligns with dialectical materialism by treating mass parties as arenas of class struggle, where entry exploits economic crises to radicalize bases against entrenched apparatuses, as evidenced in Trotsky's 1936 correspondence urging British revolutionaries to form clandestine Labour Party factions for analogous ends. Critics, including orthodox Leninists, contend it undermines party independence and invites co-optation, yet empirically, successful applications correlated with periods of upheaval, such as the 1930s Popular Front era, where entry yielded temporary gains in cadre expansion before expulsions or dilutions. This framework distinguishes entryism from mere opportunism by mandating exit strategies and fidelity to core tenets, ensuring the tactic serves long-term rupture over perpetual subversion.[11][6]Strategic Objectives and Mechanisms
The strategic objectives of entryism center on enabling a minority revolutionary faction to capture influence, resources, and personnel from a larger, mass-based organization—typically a reformist social democratic or labor party—without the isolation risks of maintaining a separate, marginal entity. By infiltrating such bodies, entryists aim to radicalize their rank-and-file toward proletarian revolution, exploit internal crises or radicalizing tendencies, and redirect the host's electoral machinery and institutional weight to serve vanguardist goals, such as preparing for insurrectionary upheaval. This approach, formalized by Leon Trotsky in the 1930s, sought to overcome the numerical weakness of isolated Trotskyist groups by tapping into broader working-class layers drawn to reformism during periods of acute capitalist instability, thereby accelerating cadre recruitment and ideological conversion rather than building from scratch.[10][5] Key mechanisms include the coordinated entry of disciplined cadres who dissolve their public Trotskyist identity temporarily to blend into the host, while sustaining covert internal fractions or caucuses to coordinate agitation, nominate candidates for leadership roles, and propagate entryist doctrine through publications, meetings, and alliances with sympathetic elements. In the "French Turn" tactic, pioneered in 1934 amid France's Popular Front radicalization, Trotskyists entered the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), a socialist party, to contest its bureaucracy from within, recruit militants disillusioned with Stalinism or centrism, and exit once sufficient forces were consolidated—typically after 12 to 18 months. Preparation entails reconnaissance by initial infiltrators to map power structures, identify vulnerabilities, and gauge receptivity, followed by phased immersion to avoid premature expulsion.[3][12][6] Entryism's operational success hinges on maintaining dual loyalty—public conformity to host norms paired with private adherence to the entryist group's program—enabling tactics like "boring from within" through policy subversion, such as amending platforms to include transitional demands that bridge reform and revolution. Proponents emphasize its tactical, not programmatic, nature, deploying it in conjunctural openings like economic downturns or electoral shifts that swell reformist ranks with potentially militant recruits, as Trotsky argued in advising British followers in 1936 to form secret factions within the Labour Party to harness its mass appeal. Critics within Trotskyism itself, however, have noted risks of assimilation or dilution, underscoring the need for rigorous internal education to preserve revolutionary coherence amid the host's centripetal pressures.[10][3][5]Distinctions from Related Tactics
Entryism, as a deliberate political strategy, involves the coordinated joining of an existing organization by members of a smaller ideological group to exert influence, recruit, or redirect its policies toward the infiltrators' objectives, typically through legal membership rather than covert insertion.[2] This contrasts with espionage tactics such as deploying moles, where individuals penetrate target entities—often intelligence agencies or governments—primarily to extract classified information or conduct sabotage, without the aim of collective ideological transformation or open participation in decision-making processes.[13] In entryism, participants operate semi-openly within the host group, leveraging internal mechanisms like voting or advocacy to advance their agenda, whereas moles maintain deep cover for prolonged secrecy, focusing on unilateral data transmission to external handlers rather than building factional power bases.[1] Unlike the establishment of front organizations, which entails creating ostensibly independent entities to mask affiliation with a sponsoring group and propagate its views indirectly, entryism targets pre-existing structures to exploit their established legitimacy, resources, and membership networks.[14] Front groups, such as those historically used by communist parties during the Cold War to influence labor or civil rights movements without revealing control, allow for deniability and parallel operations, whereas entryism risks exposure through direct immersion and factional struggles within the host.[15] This distinction underscores entryism's reliance on the host's infrastructure for amplification, rather than building parallel facades that could be disavowed if compromised. Entryism also diverges from general subversion, a broader term encompassing any internal undermining to alter or destroy an entity's purpose, often through disruptive or illegal means like propaganda dissemination or operational sabotage without formal integration.[16] While both may involve ideological manipulation, entryism emphasizes tactical, temporary immersion—such as the "French Turn," where small groups enter larger parties to contest elections or policies before potentially exiting—prioritizing electoral or reformist gains over outright demolition.[3] Subversion in non-political contexts, like corporate or military infiltration, similarly lacks entryism's focus on mass mobilization and doctrinal capture, instead aiming at paralysis or theft of assets. These boundaries highlight entryism's unique orientation toward revolutionary opportunism within democratic frameworks, distinguishing it from purely destructive or extractive tactics.Historical Origins
Pre-Trotskyist Precursors
The tactic of "boring from within" originated in the early 20th-century socialist and syndicalist movements as a method for radicals to infiltrate and transform established trade unions dominated by conservative leadership. In the United States, this approach contrasted with dual unionism advocated by groups like the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which sought to build parallel revolutionary organizations. Proponents argued that directly challenging entrenched unions like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) through internal agitation would more effectively mobilize the working class, avoiding the fragmentation caused by splinter groups.[17] William Z. Foster, a prominent organizer initially aligned with syndicalist ideas, exemplified the strategy during the 1917-1919 period in the meatpacking and steel industries. As secretary of the Chicago Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee, Foster coordinated efforts to radicalize AFL-affiliated locals by recruiting militants, promoting class-struggle rhetoric, and securing leadership positions without openly forming rival unions. His success in the 1919 Steel Strike, where over 350,000 workers participated under AFL auspices, demonstrated the potential for internal subversion to amplify revolutionary influence, though it ultimately failed due to AFL bureaucracy and employer resistance. By the early 1920s, Foster and other leftists, including those joining the nascent Communist Party USA (CPUSA) in 1919, continued this tactic to counter Gompers-era conservatism, viewing unions as key battlegrounds for proletarian consciousness.[18][19] In Europe, analogous strategies appeared in social democratic and communist circles during the interwar period, predating Trotsky's emphasis on disciplined, temporary entry into mass parties. The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB), founded in 1920, pursued affiliation with the Labour Party and encouraged members to join its constituency organizations to influence policy from inside, despite initial rejections by Labour leadership in 1921 and 1924. This reflected broader Comintern directives for "united front" penetration of reformist bodies, adapted locally to build Bolshevik-style cadres within social democratic structures. Such efforts, while not always labeled entryism, shared the core mechanism of embedding revolutionaries to exploit mass appeal and erode reformist control, as documented in CPGB internal debates and early infiltration of trade councils.[8]Trotskyist Formulations and Early Applications
Leon Trotsky first systematically formulated entryism as a tactical maneuver in mid-1934, amid the radicalization of French workers following the February 6 crisis, where right-wing leagues stormed the National Assembly, prompting widespread strikes and a shift toward the left. In correspondence and articles, such as his August 1934 piece "The Way Out" and a November 20, 1934, letter to French comrade Raymond Frangin, Trotsky urged the Ligue Communiste (Communist League), the French Trotskyist organization, to dissolve into the larger Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO, French Socialist Party) to access its mass base of disillusioned workers alienated from Stalinist policies. This "French Turn" was presented not as a permanent fusion but as a short-term infiltration to expose reformist leaders, recruit militants, and build a revolutionary vanguard, emphasizing fractional discipline while maintaining ideological independence.[20] Trotsky elaborated the rationale in his 1935-1936 writings, including "Whither France?", arguing that the SFIO's leftward surge offered Trotskyists an opportunity to intervene directly among proletarian elements radicalized by economic depression and fascist threats, bypassing the isolation imposed by the Comintern's ultraleft "Third Period" policies. He stressed that entryism required entering "with our program and our ideas," conducting agitation within party ranks to "vaccinate the revolutionary workers against opportunism," while preparing for eventual exit once sufficient forces were regrouped.[20][21] This formulation distinguished entryism from mere opportunism by framing it as a dialectical response to conjunctural weaknesses in the communist movement, rooted in Trotsky's broader theory of permanent revolution, which prioritized winning the masses over sectarian purity.[22] The initial application occurred in France, where the Ligue Communiste voted to enter the SFIO in September 1934 after internal debate, with approximately 300-400 members joining and fusing with the party's left wing to form the Bolshevik-Leninist Group.[23] This fraction rapidly grew, publishing La Vérité as an internal bulletin and gaining influence during the 1936 Popular Front elections, but faced expulsion in July 1936 after criticizing the SFIO's alliance with Radicals as a betrayal of working-class interests. The tactic yielded recruits—estimated at several thousand over time—but also provoked splits, as some Trotskyists resisted dissolution of their independent organization.[24] Inspired by the French precedent, American Trotskyists under James P. Cannon applied entryism to the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1936. The Workers Party of the United States, numbering around 2,000 members, entered the SPA's "Old Guard" faction in June 1936, leveraging the party's appeal to radicalized youth amid the Great Depression; this boosted their numbers to about 4,000 by attracting former Musteites and independents.[7] Cannon framed the move as a "regroupment" to combat Norman Thomas's reformism from within, publishing The New Militant to propagate Trotskyist critiques, though expulsion followed in 1937 after clashes over support for the Soviet Union during the Moscow Trials, leading to the formation of the Socialist Workers Party.[25] These early implementations demonstrated entryism's potential for expansion in mass workers' parties but highlighted risks of factional conflict and ideological dilution when prolonged beyond tactical bounds.Evolution in Post-War Contexts
Following World War II, entryism tactics among Trotskyist groups adapted to a period of relative capitalist stabilization, marked by economic booms in Western Europe and the expansion of welfare states under social democratic governments, which bolstered reformist illusions among workers. The victory of the Labour Party in Britain in 1945 and similar developments elsewhere reduced immediate revolutionary pressures, prompting Trotskyists to prioritize infiltration over independent organization to access mass worker bases within established parties. This shift built on pre-war "French Turn" strategies but extended durations, as groups like the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain dissolved into the Labour Party around 1949 to cultivate cadres amid stagnant membership growth for open revolutionary sections.[6] A pivotal evolution occurred in the early 1950s with Michel Pablo's advocacy for "entrism sui generis," or deep entryism, formalized in theses presented to the Fourth International's International Committee in February 1952. This approach urged long-term, semi-dissolved infiltration into Stalinist communist parties and social democratic organizations, anticipating that objective crises—such as an imminent Third World War or nuclear confrontation—would compel these mass entities toward revolutionary action without needing explicit Trotskyist leadership. Unlike earlier tactical entries limited to electoral cycles, deep entryism emphasized adaptation to the host party's line, potentially subordinating independent Trotskyist identity to influence from within, as Pablo argued in documents like "The Coming War."[26][27] This strategy provoked intense debates and splits within the Fourth International, with critics like James P. Cannon of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party denouncing it as liquidationist, fearing the erosion of revolutionary program in favor of opportunist tailing of bureaucracies. By late 1953, opposition led to the formation of the International Committee of the Fourth International, rejecting Pabloite tactics in favor of orthodox independent party-building where feasible, though selective entryism persisted in contexts like Britain. There, Ted Grant and the "Entrist" faction defended sustained Labour Party work in a 1959 analysis, arguing it preserved Trotskyist perspectives during non-revolutionary phases while preparing for future left-wing surges, influencing the rise of the Militant Tendency, which grew to 8,000 members by the 1980s through incremental control of local Labour structures.[6][28][26]Variants and Tactical Forms
"Boring from Within" and Incremental Infiltration
"Boring from within" refers to a tactic employed by communist and radical groups to infiltrate established mass organizations, such as trade unions or social democratic parties, by joining them en masse while outwardly adhering to their rules and structures, with the aim of gradually transforming them toward revolutionary goals through internal agitation, caucus-building, and positional gains.[29] This approach contrasted with dual unionism, which involved creating parallel radical organizations, and emphasized patience and incremental influence over immediate confrontation.[30] The strategy gained prominence in the early 1920s within the Communist International (Comintern), particularly after the Third Congress in 1921, where it received Moscow's endorsement as a means to engage workers within existing American Federation of Labor (AFL) unions rather than isolating revolutionaries.[29] William Z. Foster, leader of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), advocated this method explicitly, arguing in 1921 that radicals must "bore from within" conservative unions to educate and radicalize members without splitting the working class.[31] By 1922, TUEL organizers had applied it in strikes like the New York Hotel Workers' strike, where they built influence through rank-and-file committees while nominally supporting AFL leadership.[32] In practice, incremental infiltration under this tactic involved several mechanisms: recruiting sympathetic members into informal caucuses, contesting elections for shop steward or local officer roles, disseminating propaganda through union channels, and leveraging strikes or grievances to expose leadership inadequacies.[18] Communists in the U.S. Communist Party (CPUSA) used it to secure positions in unions like the International Longshoremen's Association by the mid-1920s, though purges and factional fights often limited long-term success.[33] Trotskyist groups later adapted it for social democratic parties, viewing it as a form of entryism suited to periods of mass radicalization, but warned against dissolving revolutionary identity entirely.[34] Critics, including anti-communist labor leaders and rival radicals, argued that "boring from within" prioritized bureaucratic maneuvering over genuine worker mobilization, often leading to co-optation or expulsion without substantive change, as seen in the CPUSA's failed bids for AFL executive council seats in the 1920s.[35] Despite setbacks, the tactic influenced later leftist efforts, such as Trotskyist infiltration of the British Labour Party in the 1950s, where groups like the Militant Tendency incrementally captured local councils through sustained organizing.[36] In entryism's broader framework, this variant prioritizes longevity and stealth over rapid transformation, relying on the host organization's stability to amplify radical voices over time.[37]The "French Turn" and Transitional Strategies
The "French Turn" referred to the tactical entry of French Trotskyists into the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), the country's main social-democratic party, between September 1934 and early 1936. This maneuver, advocated by Leon Trotsky in June and July 1934 amid heightened working-class radicalization following the February 1934 riots in Paris—sparked by the Stavisky financial scandal and perceived fascist threats—aimed to position small Trotskyist groups within mass reformist organizations to influence leftward-moving militants and recruit to revolutionary politics. Trotsky argued that the isolated Ligue Communiste de France (LCF), with around 150 members at the time, lacked the strength for independent action and should dissolve into the SFIO while maintaining an open Bolshevik-Leninist faction, complete with its own press like La Vérité, to expose reformist limitations and build cadre during the crisis.[24][23] Implementation occurred after a contentious LCF congress on August 29, 1934, which approved the entry by a 66-44 vote, with members joining the SFIO in September and the affiliated youth wing entering the Jeunes Socialistes (Young Socialists). The tactic emphasized fractional work to advocate Bolshevik positions within party branches, particularly in radicalized areas like the Seine Federation, rather than outright takeover. Trotsky envisioned it as temporary—lasting six to eighteen months—to exploit the SFIO's internal ferment without permanent dissolution, drawing on historical precedents like Bolshevik entry into the Mensheviks. By mid-1935, the Bolshevik-Leninists claimed influence over key sections, securing over 20% of votes in the Seine Federation (with 6,000 members) and leadership in the Seine Young Socialists (1,450 members), while their newspaper Révolution reached 80,000 copies monthly. Membership grew modestly, adding about 150 recruits to reach 615 by May 1936.[24][5] Expulsions began in July-August 1935 from the Young Socialists over refusal to dissolve factions amid the emerging Popular Front alliance between SFIO and the Stalinized French Communist Party (PCF), with full withdrawal by January 1936 to reform an independent party. Outcomes were mixed: initial gains in visibility and cadre-building were offset by significant internal splits, including a December 1935 rupture led by Raymond Molinier over control of La Commune, forming the separate Internationalist Communist Party, and further fragmentation in 1936 yielding the Workers' and Peasants' Party (POI). Net membership declined 23% to around 474 by October 1936, attributed to isolation from the PCF-SFIO united front and post-exit opportunism. Trotsky deemed the entry a partial success for providing organizational experience but criticized hesitation in exiting decisively, while internal evaluations like those from Pierre Frank noted lost opportunities during the Popular Front's rise, and Raymond Craipeau highlighted limited worker recruitment beyond Parisian parliamentary circles.[24] As a transitional strategy within Trotskyist entryism, the French Turn exemplified short-term "entrism sui generis"—open fractional activity to bridge immediate mass mobilizations toward revolutionary consciousness—contrasting with deeper, concealed infiltration. Trotsky framed it as a pragmatic response to objective conditions of crisis, where reformist parties experienced radical influxes, allowing revolutionaries to accelerate transitions from defensive struggles (e.g., against fascism) to offensive proletarian demands, without abandoning the goal of an independent Fourth International. This approach influenced later applications, such as U.S. Trotskyists entering the Socialist Party in 1936, but empirically yielded marginal growth for the broader movement, with French Trotskyism remaining under 1,000 members by the late 1930s amid ongoing factionalism. Critics within and outside Trotskyism viewed it as risking adaptation to social democracy, diluting revolutionary independence, though proponents emphasized its role in testing militants' mettle during radicalization.[24][38]Deep Entryism (Sui Generis)
Deep entryism, or entryism sui generis, emerged as a strategic orientation within Trotskyism during the early 1950s, primarily advanced by Michel Pablo (pseudonym of Michel Raptis) and the International Secretariat (IS) of the Fourth International. This approach prescribed the indefinite, covert infiltration of Trotskyist cadres into established mass parties of the working class, such as Stalinist communist parties or social-democratic organizations, with the aim of radicalizing them from within toward revolutionary objectives. Unlike shorter-term tactics, it emphasized dissolving or subordinating independent Trotskyist formations to prioritize long-term influence within these "centrist" or bureaucratic entities, anticipating that objective crises—such as impending world war or capitalist collapse—would compel these parties to shift leftward under proletarian pressure.[39][40] The tactic was formalized amid debates following the Second World War, when Pablo argued that the "deepening of the crisis of leadership" in workers' parties necessitated Trotskyists functioning as a concealed "vanguard" layer inside them, rather than maintaining separate organizations doomed to marginality in an era of atomic warfare and bureaucratic hegemony. By 1953, this "sui generis" variant—Latin for "of its own kind," denoting its departure from prior entryist norms—gained traction within the IS, leading to directives for sections to enter parties like the French Communist Party or British Labour Party affiliates, often without public acknowledgment of Trotskyist identity. Proponents viewed it as adaptable across contexts where masses trailed reformist or Stalinist leaderships, extending beyond electoral conjunctures to a semi-permanent strategy.[41][42] Opposition crystallized rapidly, with figures like James P. Cannon of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United States condemning it as a "liquidationist" deviation that risked subsuming Trotskyism's transitional program under alien bureaucracies, potentially fostering opportunism over principled struggle. This rift contributed to the 1953 split in the Fourth International, birthing the International Committee (IC) as a guardian of "orthodox" Trotskyism against Pabloite "deep entryism." Critics contended that the tactic's emphasis on indefinite immersion eroded cadre independence, as evidenced by subsequent Pabloist groups' adaptations, such as the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI), which applied variants in social-democratic parties but faced accusations of programmatic dilution.[39][40] In practice, deep entryism influenced post-war Trotskyist trajectories, including entries into Stalinist parties in anticipation of their radicalization during hypothetical third world war scenarios, though empirical outcomes often yielded factional expulsions or marginal gains rather than wholesale transformations. Its legacy persists in debates over "entrism without exit," where infiltrating groups prioritize internal maneuvering over open revolutionary agitation, as seen in later applications by tendencies like the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). This form remains distinct for its theoretical justification in structural adaptations to bureaucratic dominance, rather than mere opportunism, though detractors highlight its causal role in fragmenting the Trotskyist movement by prioritizing tactical immersion over independent political clarity.[43][44]Open and Hybrid Entryism
Open entryism involves a political group joining a larger organization while maintaining an overt presence as a faction, often through internal caucuses, bulletins, or programmatic platforms that explicitly advance the entrants' distinct ideology. This contrasts with covert variants by emphasizing public ideological struggle within the host body to recruit sympathizers and build influence, rather than dissolution of the group's identity. In practice, it risks expulsion but allows for transparent contestation of reformist policies.[45] A key historical application occurred in Canada in 1938, when reunified Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers League, the Canadian section of the Fourth International with approximately 75 members, entered the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) via open entryism. They formed the Socialist Policy Group as an avowed Trotskyist tendency within the CCF, publishing the bulletin Socialist Action to propagate revolutionary positions and target left-wing recruits. This effort aimed at programmatic regroupment but led to expulsions of key members by mid-November 1938, prompting a shift to independent operations under the League.[45] Hybrid entryism blends overt factional activity with elements of strategic concealment or temporary alliances, often to accelerate influence during periods of mass radicalization. Leon Trotsky advocated such an approach in the "French Turn" tactic of 1934, directing French Trotskyists to enter the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), the French Socialist Party, as the Bolshevik-Leninist faction. Operating semi-openly through debates and youth sections, they sought to capture militant layers disillusioned by reformism, with the entry spanning 1934 to 1936 before partial exits amid internal conflicts. This method yielded short-term gains, including recruitment of hundreds, but highlighted risks of assimilation without firm revolutionary discipline.[46][4] In later contexts, hybrid forms have appeared in parties permitting internal currents, such as Brazil's Workers' Party (Partido dos Trabalhadores, founded February 10, 1980), where Trotskyist groups like Convergência Socialista joined early and maintained hybrid operations—open factional structures alongside tactical adaptations to electoral dynamics. Such entries prioritize building revolutionary nuclei amid broader left alliances, though outcomes vary with host party tolerance.[47]Ideological Applications
Left-Wing and Socialist Entryism
Left-wing and socialist entryism primarily involves revolutionary socialist groups, especially Trotskyists, infiltrating larger social democratic or labor parties to radicalize their bases and seize control from within. This tactic, formalized by Leon Trotsky, aimed to leverage the mass appeal of reformist organizations while propagating revolutionary ideas among their more militant members.[3][24] The "French Turn" of 1934 exemplifies early application, when Trotsky directed his French followers to join the Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), the main socialist party, amid rising fascist threats and socialist radicalization. Trotskyists entered as individuals or small groups, forming a left-wing faction to critique reformism and advocate permanent revolution, though they faced expulsion by 1936 after gaining limited influence.[4][48] In the United Kingdom, the Militant Tendency, originating from the Trotskyist Revolutionary Socialist League in the 1950s, pursued long-term "deep entryism" into the Labour Party by concealing its organized structure and building influence incrementally through youth sections, local branches, and trade unions. By the late 1970s, Militant controlled key positions, including the Liverpool City Council from 1983 to 1987, where it implemented militant policies like refusing rate caps, and supported four MPs by 1983.[49][50][51] Proponents like Ted Grant justified this approach as necessary for small revolutionary groups to access working-class layers inaccessible via open sects, emphasizing patient recruitment of advanced workers without premature factional declarations. The strategy yielded short-term gains in membership—peaking at around 8,000 by the mid-1980s—but provoked backlash, leading to Labour's purge of over 400 members between 1985 and 1991 under Neil Kinnock's leadership.[6][52] Similar tactics appeared elsewhere, such as U.S. Trotskyists entering the Socialist Party in the 1930s under the French Turn, recruiting figures like James P. Cannon before splitting to form the Socialist Workers Party in 1938. In these cases, entryism exploited crises in host parties to amplify socialist agitation, though success often hinged on avoiding detection and maintaining ideological discipline amid reformist pressures.[48]Right-Wing and Conservative Entryism
Right-wing entryism refers to tactics employed by more radical conservative, nationalist, or anti-government factions to infiltrate mainstream conservative parties, aiming to shift their platforms toward harder lines on issues like immigration restriction, national sovereignty, and opposition to perceived elite influences. These efforts typically involve joining local party structures, running for low-level positions, and leveraging internal elections to gain influence, rather than the deep, long-term ideological dissolution seen in some left-wing variants. While less ideologically codified than Trotskyist formulations, such strategies have been documented in efforts to "capture" party apparatuses from within, often framed by proponents as reclaiming authentic conservatism and by critics as subversion by extremists.[53][54] In the United States, white nationalist groups have pursued entryism into the Republican Party by encouraging members to attend meetings, volunteer, and contest primaries to embed ethnonationalist priorities, such as halting non-European immigration. Identity Evropa, a now-defunct group, explicitly directed activists in 2018 to infiltrate GOP structures stealthily, with its leader stating the goal was to "take over" the party and advance bans on nonwhite immigration.[54][55] This included running candidates like Holocaust denier Arthur Jones, who secured the Republican nomination in Illinois's 3rd congressional district primary on March 20, 2018, despite no party endorsement, and Paul Nehlen, who sought a Wisconsin Senate seat in 2018 while promoting antisemitic views.[56] Similarly, the Groyper Army, a loose network of Christian nationalists associated with Nick Fuentes, has targeted GOP events and primaries since 2019 to purge "establishment" figures and promote America First policies, including through the America First Political Action Conference. More practically, anti-government networks like the People's Rights Network (PRN), led by Ammon Bundy, have captured local Republican control; in December 2022, PRN affiliates won most leadership posts in Deschutes County GOP, and by May 2024, at least 66 PRN members ran unopposed or contested for precinct committee positions across central Oregon counties to dominate party infrastructure.[57][58] In the United Kingdom, accusations of far-right entryism into the Conservative Party have centered on efforts to oust moderate MPs and back hardline Brexit advocates, with reports in 2018 of organized campaigns to flood memberships and influence leadership votes, such as supporting Boris Johnson.[59] Historical precedents include fascist or racist elements penetrating the party, as noted in analyses of mid-20th-century infiltration attempts.[1] However, these claims often stem from left-leaning outlets and have been contested by Conservatives as exaggerated, with internal shifts attributed more to voter-driven populism than coordinated subversion; surveys in 2019 showed divided party views on the threat's severity.[60][61] Outcomes have included deselections of Remain-supporting MPs but limited evidence of wholesale extremist control, contrasting with more tangible local gains in U.S. cases.[62]Applications in Other Ideologies and Non-Political Spheres
In religious ideologies, entryism has facilitated the expansion of fringe or minority sects into mainstream faith-based structures or community organizations. The Church of Scientology has employed entryism by positioning members in or near roles of influence within external institutions, aiming to bolster the organization's public legitimacy and operational reach beyond its doctrinal boundaries.[63] Similarly, Islamist networks affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood have pursued entryism in France, embedding influence in 280 associations spanning education, welfare, and cultural sectors of Muslim daily life, often presenting as apolitical civic entities while advancing broader ideological objectives.[64] Within esoteric, pagan, and occult ideologies—distinct from conventional left-right political spectra—radical right-wing actors have used entryism to propagate aligned narratives. For instance, fascist-leaning elements have infiltrated esoteric publishing outlets, such as the Australian magazine New Dawn, leveraging endorsements and thematic overlaps to normalize extremist views in non-mainstream spiritual communities. This approach exploits shared motifs like anti-modernism or traditionalism to shift group priorities toward exclusionary or authoritarian ends, as documented in analyses of occult-fascist confluences dating to the interwar period but persisting in contemporary niche networks. In non-political spheres such as professional associations and cultural institutions, entryism manifests through incremental ideological capture to redirect missions away from core functions. Scholarly associations, for example, have faced entryist pressures via "decolonization" initiatives, where activists embed to reorient disciplinary paradigms toward politicized frameworks, undermining established methodological standards in fields like history or anthropology.[65] Environmental organizations have also experienced analogous tactics, with anti-immigration advocates—often from restrictionist perspectives—gaining footholds in groups like the Sierra Club and EarthFirst! during the early 2000s, pushing population-control policies that diverged from traditional conservation priorities and sparked internal expulsions by 2005.[66] These cases illustrate how entryism erodes organizational neutrality by prioritizing external agendas, with measurable outcomes including policy shifts and membership fractures verifiable through internal voting records and subsequent leadership changes.Country-Specific Examples
United Kingdom
The most prominent instance of entryism in the United Kingdom occurred through Trotskyist groups infiltrating the Labour Party, particularly via the Militant Tendency, which operated as an organized faction within the party from the 1960s to the early 1990s.[50] [3] Militant, centered around its newspaper launched in 1964, pursued a deliberate strategy of joining Labour en masse to influence policy, secure positions, and advance revolutionary socialist goals, drawing on earlier Trotskyist tactics advocated by Leon Trotsky in the 1930s for British followers to form secret factions inside the party.[10] [52] By the mid-1970s, Militant had gained control of the Labour Party Young Socialists, using it as a recruitment base, and expanded influence in local branches, notably dominating Liverpool City Council from 1983, where members like Tony Mulhearn and Derek Hatton led a high-profile rebellion against central government rate-capping in 1984-1985, refusing to set budgets and accruing £30 million in debt.[51] [50] Labour Party leadership, viewing Militant as an alien, subversive element undermining moderate social democracy, initiated a purge under Neil Kinnock. In a 1985 Labour conference speech, Kinnock condemned Militant's tactics as divisive, highlighting their role in Liverpool's governance failures, which included sacking 300 workers and illegal borrowing.[50] [67] Expulsions began in 1986 with the Liverpool District Labour Party deregistered and key figures like Hatton suspended; by 1989-1991, over 400 Militant members faced expulsion, fracturing the group and prompting it to abandon entryism in Labour by 1991 in favor of independent organization as the Socialist Party.[52] [51] This episode, rooted in post-World War II efforts by the Revolutionary Socialist League (Militant's predecessor), demonstrated entryism's potential to capture local power bases but also its vulnerability to internal party mechanisms enforcing ideological conformity.[68] Other forms of entryism in UK politics have been less systematically documented or ideologically coherent. In the Conservative Party, concerns arose during the 2019 leadership contest over rapid membership surges—adding over 100,000 new members—to bolster pro-Brexit candidates like Boris Johnson, prompting accusations of "entryism" by figures such as Philip Hammond, though party rules requiring three months' membership mitigated overt infiltration, and no organized faction akin to Militant emerged.[69] [59] Allegations of Islamist or ethnic entryism have surfaced in Labour's candidate selections, particularly in areas with high Muslim populations, such as claims of coordinated voting blocs influencing shortlists in the 1990s and 2010s, but these lack the structured, ideological framework of Trotskyist cases and often reflect broader demographic shifts rather than deliberate subversion.[70] [71] These episodes underscore entryism's role in amplifying intra-party tensions, with Labour's response—via inquiries like the 1975 Underhill Report and constitutional reforms—establishing precedents for vetting members and limiting factional control, though debates persist on whether such measures enhance or stifle democratic pluralism within mass-membership parties.[51] [67]United States
In the 1930s, American Trotskyists, led by James P. Cannon, employed entryism by directing the Communist League of America to dissolve and join the Socialist Party of America (SPA) in 1936, following Leon Trotsky's "French Turn" tactic to influence larger socialist formations.[7] This infiltration aimed to radicalize the SPA's left wing and recruit members, resulting in temporary fusion but leading to the Trotskyists' expulsion in 1937 after internal conflicts.[5] The strategy yielded short-term gains, including control over the SPA's youth organization and recruitment of figures like Farrell Dobbs, but ultimately fractured the party without achieving lasting dominance.[72] The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) pursued entryism in labor unions during the 1930s and 1940s, embedding members in organizations like the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to steer them toward pro-Soviet policies.[73] CPUSA influence peaked with leadership roles in unions such as the United Electrical Workers, where communists advocated strikes and political action aligned with Moscow directives, contributing to the CIO's early growth but provoking anti-communist backlash.[74] Post-World War II revelations, including declassified Venona intercepts, confirmed CPUSA-directed infiltration in government agencies, with over 300 identified Soviet agents holding positions in the State Department and other bodies by 1945, aiming to shape U.S. foreign policy.[75] These efforts faced expulsion drives in the late 1940s, as unions like the CIO purged communist leaders amid House Un-American Activities Committee investigations.[76] In contemporary politics, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has adopted tactics resembling entryism by endorsing and running candidates in Democratic Party primaries since 2016, seeking to shift the party leftward on issues like Medicare for All and Green New Deal policies.[77] This approach propelled figures such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Congress in 2018, with DSA membership surging from 6,000 to over 90,000 by 2021, though internal factions debate its sustainability versus forming an independent party.[78] Critics, including former DSA members, argue this embeds socialist ideology within the Democratic establishment, risking co-optation, while proponents cite electoral successes like 100+ DSA-endorsed wins in 2020 local races.[79] Unlike historical cases, DSA's open participation blurs lines with hybrid entryism, but it echoes Trotskyist strategies in targeting mass parties for influence.[5]