This has all happened before… A recent history of entryism in environmental justice movements

For this article, I tracked down a handful of people’s stories of a range of entryist strategies: from the Nuclear Disarmament Party in the 1980s, to the emergence of the NSW Greens Party, the Jabiluka uranium mine campaign, the new Community Climate Network, and Climate Camps. I called folks who were involved in the group at the time for a conversation.  All of them are still grassroots activists.  I’ve not doubt there are other interpretations of history and I haven’t done in depth historical research – these are just snippets of people’s experiences.  [This is abridged version – there is a longer version here.]

I have been active in social movements for about a decade – in student groups and community climate justice networks – and have faced a variety of strategies from Socialist organisations.  Sometimes we have been able to work together, and some members have been our friends and allies; but I have found their behaviour as a faction in collectives – or as an organisation at conferences, summits and large actions – to be difficult, disruptive and destructive.

Sometimes it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, or understand why they might be interested in our groups.  It’s been helpful for me to talk to people in Socialist organisations/factions about their organisational structure, and understand how they think change happens.  [Mostly, the response is: ‘building the revolutionary workers’ party that can get masses of workers onto the streets’].

It’s also been helpful to know these tactics and interventions have been happening for decades (and longer!): there are lessons to be learnt.  [In fact, resistance to organised “entryism” has been around since Trotsky’s first proposed the strategy in his essays on “The French Turn” in 1934.  The intervening French Trotskyists faced some resistance as they attempted to dissolve their organisation into the French Socialist Party, however they still managed to significantly raise their group’s membership. But, soon after, the French Socialist Party began to expel the Trotskyists.  Hooray! …Or not? Anyhoo, I think the take home message here is, “You are not alone.  This has been happening since forever.”]

Currently, the strongest ‘entryist’ organisations in the burgeoning climate movement in Sydney are Solidarity and Socialist Alliance (which is mostly made up of people from the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) and their youth wing, Resistance). So far, Socialist Alternative have participated very little in Sydney-based climate organising.

But interventionist or ‘entryist’ strategies are not new to these organisations and political tendencies. Sourcewatch describes entryism as “a political tactic in which an organisation or group enters a larger organisation in an attempt to gain recruits, gain influence or to take control of the larger organisations’ structure.  Characteristically, these groups intervene in single-issue campaign groups, and sometimes cause folks to spend more time on dealing with internal wrangling, than with organising work itself.

Beyond individual groups, both organisations currently prioritise participation in ‘peak’ decision-making spaces, in which many groups participate (campaign alliances, national network committees, committees to organise major rallies or large movement events like Climate Camp).  They also prioritise student spaces, which they identify as the key grounds for recruitment to their organisation.  Student environment collectives – some of the only active networks to survive the Howard Government’s gutting of student unionism – are seen as the largest and strongest student movement, and have faced sustained and sometimes aggressive entryism.

Recently, Wenny Theresia wrote of participation in the growing community climate movement, “An organisational philosophy of groups like Socialist Alliance and Solidarity seems to be seeing highly-charged, lengthy and (deliberately) polarised debates – dominated by a few, pre-caucused positions of these organisations – as ‘politicising’ and beneficial for the movement. Personally I’ve generally found these methods patronising, counter-effective, frustrating and often predictable: not a method that supports critical, grassroots discussion of ideas and consensus decision-making.”

To be fair, it’s possible some ordinary, new or younger members are completely unaware of the entryist tactics and strategies their organisations employ; while others don’t take issue with manipulating other groups for their own agendas (but see this as useful work to ‘politicise’ or ‘radicalise’ what they see as ‘liberal’ groups).  I acknowledge members of these organisations have a right to put forward their views, act around their beliefs and join social change groups. But such groups also have the right to defend themselves – and defend consensus-based and non-hierarchical organising structures – against those who undermine them by participating with ulterior motives and hidden agendas.

Nuclear Disarmament Party 1985

In the 1984 Federal Elections, 642,435 people had cast their primary vote for the Nuclear Disarmament Party: it was a new political party, hastily put together and fast gaining thousands of members.  They won one Senate seat (Western Australia’s Jo Valentine, with Peter Garrett almost winning their second).

Before the Conference – defending the NDP

The March 1985 Newsletter of the Sydney branch of the Nuclear Disarmament Party reported that members of the Socialist Workers Party (later called the Democratic Socialist Perspective, and today forming the Socialist Alliance) were trying to take over the NDP by entryism and block-voting. The November 21 issue of the newspaper of the SWP and Resistance announced its entire staff had joined the NDP.

A step-by-step guide to self defence

So, it looks like you’ve got b(r)ed bugs…?

Here’s a step by step self defence guide, based on some group work that happened in an anti-entryism workshop that we (the compilers of charts and checklists!) designed and ran at an activist training day.

Step 1: Building and maintaining strong foundations

Have strong and documented processes for decision making. For example, people might need to come to two or three meetings before they can bock consensus. Run workshops on consensus and facilitation, so that all of the people in your group have access to, and confidence with, these skills.

Have a Participants’ Agreement [google ‘Bill Moyer Participants’ Agreement for a commonly-used example].  You could also have  a grievance procedure, an appointed grievance officer, and transparent processes for dealing with unacceptable and unsafe behaviour.

Consider having a closed group: membership by invitation only, with a trial period for newcomers. This goes against the ethos of openness but is quite appropriate when faced with overtly hostile infiltration, such as informers in repressive regimes.

Less formally, new people could express interest in joining your group, and need to meet up with someone already in the group before they come along to a meeting.  You could use this meeting to get to know them, explain how the group makes decisions, and see if they are interested in organising in this way.  Or, new members could be admitted with the agreement of the group.  Other groups we know of require new members to come along to two or three meetings BEFORE they can block consensus on an agenda item: this easy and reasonable tool can help avoid stacking, and facilitate better and more consistent decision-making.

You could even rethink your methods of action so that they are less attractive to those who have other agendas. Our guess is that rallies, for example, are more attractive to takeover tactics than boycotts or neighbourhood organising.

Step 2: The follow through

USE the processes you have put in place. If  people object to the processes, then you can discuss them, but be warned against long conversations about processes that drive away people who don’t know what’s going on. Also, the people objecting to your processes might be wasting your time by pretending the object to processes but actually just want to have their way in the group.

So, if people refuse to stick to processes, you can talk to them outside of the group to see what their real concerns are, and to stress the importance of safe meeting spaces. Try to convince them individually to stick to meeting procedures that the group has committed to because that’s how you can work together best in a way that makes everybody feel safe.

Following through on your safe meeting procedures might mean that the grievance officer brings concerns to people who break the rules and ask them to change their behaviour or else leave the group.

What are the politics?

Whenever the problems in Sydney Uni Enviro Collective last year were brought up in the wider world, people kept asking “what are the politics?”  Supporters of the intervention into collective (by some members of the socialist organisation Solidarity) claimed that the implosion of collective was caused by the refusal of other collective participants to engage in “political discussion.” This claim spread beyond the collective, and various people who had never been to collective confidently explained that the “real issue” was this supposed absence of political debate. Paddy Gibson (who had not been to any of the relevant meetings, or in fact any meetings at all in 2009) claimed that “there has not been accountable and open debate about what the SRC should do about climate change” in collective.

But I think that this isn’t really true. And I think that this claim is symptomatic of the lack of respect with which Solidarity as an organisation has recently treated other groups and individuals in the left. There was a political debate, and the rest of collective had a political response to Solidaity’s positions. The fact that Solidarity members did not listen to or engage with this response in more than the most superficial manner is what I want to describe and discuss here.

The debate which Solidarity wanted to have centred around a couple of main demands. They demanded that collective concentrate all of its energy on one particular campaign. This campaign was, chronologically, against the Nuclear Institute (2007) against Energy privatisation (2008) and against the CPRS (2009). They argued that, generally, no other campaign should be organised through collective (because of the need to build a “mass movement”), and specifically, that a “On Campus Campaign” about renewable energy would be lifestylist, capitalist, and wrong. They argued that collective should give up its commitment to pluralism and consensus decision making.

Collective members made coherent, political arguments against each of these demands. They pointed out that a “mass-movement” need not be mobilised on a single issue (especially where that single issue is as narrowly constructed as a particular campaign tactic against a single piece of legislation). If you want a mass movement against capitalism, surely the different aspects of capitalism which people are oppressed by are together capable of building a mass, anti capitalist movement. Do Solidarity members expect that we can only have a campaign on CPRS, and that Indigenous Elders on Muckaty station have to be mobilised by CPRS and not be motivated by their long struggle for sovereignty and the right not to be exposed to  radioactive waste? Of course they don’t. It would be cool if we can extend to non-Solidarity members the right not to have to believe doggerel. They pointed out that the collective could help to build a “mass movement” through continuing to campaign on their preferred issues: anti coal campaigning, anti CPRS campaigning (2008 and 2009), renewable energy on campus campaigning, anti-nuclear campaigning, forest campaigning, and others (including each of the campaigns Solidarity put forward). They pointed out that it wasn’t a very strong argument to claim that increasing the number of people on a campaign from 7 to 20 would be the crucial step in showing our commitment to “mass movement” politics. They affirmed their political commitment to pluralism and diversity of tactics. They explained the political reasoning behind each of their campaigns, at length and ad nauseam, because Solidarity repeatedly asked them too.

Critical Reflections on our organising

In compiling a zine about other groups one might start to get the idea that we are the keepers of the truth, and know everything there is to know about social change.  We aren’t and we don’t.  We have never claimed to.  The purpose of this article is to critically reflect on our activism and to discover some of our failings; not only in our organising but to provide reasons why Solidarity have been to some degree successful in their interventions (specifically in the Sydney University Environment Collective), strategically picking off first year activists and integrating them into their structures, often away from the scrutiny of the people they are attempting to illegitimise.

One of the claims consistently made by Solidarity of non-solidarity members of collective is that some people in collective are united as part of a friendship group, rather than being united in political action.  There is rarely evidence raised to support this claim.  But the claim requires further analysis.  By virtue of people’s political solidarity and common experiences, friendships form.  It is no doubt that Solidarity would also have friendship groups.  The question is, does the process of socialising with one another distract a collective from its goals?  I think it can, under certain circumstances.  However it seems highly unlikely that a group that has been able to organise and plan campaigns together, conduct high profile non-violent direct actions and work in solidarity with other community campaigns is necessarily hamstrung by the fact that the majority of people are friends with each other.

While friendships form, its important that the group does not appear clique-ish to new folks, that new folks are encouraged to come to meetings and participate and that people are engaged as activists or organisers whether or not we might be interested in a personal friendship with them. It might be worth interrogating our own behaviours in meeting spaces: hugging or catching up on what happened on the weekend may be isolating to  a new person sitting alone with no-one to chat to before the meeting.

Membership structures of our groups continue to be poor.  It is not exactly clear when someone becomes a member of most groups and what their obligations are.  There is the widespread use of participants agreements – but do they go far enough?  When key items come up for discussion, and someone is brought along to the meeting to ‘win’ the vote, does their opinion matter?  Conventional wisdom sees groups as open, fluid structures with few barriers, but can we leave our groups open to abuse?  More consideration is needed on how we can keep our groups open to new people but prevent abuse.

Why is it that we leave deep theoretical discussions to other groups who recruit from collectives?  Often whilst getting on top of the week to week discussions of collectives we forget to engage new people out of meetings in deep political discussions that can illuminate them to a diversity of theories.  This often leaves more organised forces ready to whisk them away after meetings for theoretical development.  Not that there is anything wrong with people exploring their ideas, it is just problematic that the forum in which they explore those ideas is geared towards a particular set of ideas.  This space for exploring ideas will never be genuine, because it doesn’t genuinely consider all ideas. Especially if it is dominated by old, rusted-on members of the left.

Often despite good attempts, our meetings are just not well facilitated.  We fail to skill people up in the difficult task of effectively mediating competing interests in a way that keeps everyone partially satisfied and comes up with a good outcome. Using instruments of facilitation regularly enough rarely happens.  This often allows loud voices to become further entrenched. We must take responsibility for our failures to make sure meetings are well facilitated and provide skillshares and support.

There is also something to be said about our willingness to create good spaces leading us to be nice to everyone most of the time even if we find their behaviour challenging.  Anecdotal deconstruction of this reveals that it might be a ‘middle class’ value to be nice to people even when we disagree.  The failure of this that we risk not effectively communicating our displeasure with certain people who don’t do activism on that basis.  We need to be strong, rather than nice, and recognise that not everyone has to like each other outside of formal meeting spaces, and that some conflict, provided it isn’t distressing, might be required to protect our spaces.