What does entrist mean?
An entrist is someone who deliberately joins an established organization — most often a mainstream left-wing political party — not out of wholehearted allegiance but in order to advance a rival faction's agenda from the inside. The term arises from "entryism," the strategy associated with Leon Trotsky and later with various Marxist groups that sought to influence larger parties they could not defeat externally. Entrists typically operate openly as members while quietly coordinating among themselves, contesting internal elections, capturing committee posts, and steering policy toward their own ends. The label is almost always pejorative: it suggests bad faith, hidden loyalties, and subversion of democratic processes within the target organization. The word appears mainly in political journalism and histories of the British and European left, where accusations of entrist activity shaped party battles for decades.
nounA person who joins an existing political organization, typically a larger left-wing party, in order to work within it and shift its direction toward their own aims; an advocate or practitioner of entryism.
- A person who enters or infiltrates an organization, especially a political party, in order to promote their own faction's agenda from within.
- An advocate of entryism as a political strategy.
"The party leadership suspected that several new members were actually entrists sent by the rival faction."
"The Labour Party expelled several members it identified as organised entrists from smaller revolutionary groups."
"As a committed entrist, she spent years working patiently inside the broader movement, building support for her caucus's positions."
Standard English plural, formed by adding -s.
"The conference voted to bar suspected entrists from holding office."
Born from Trotsky's strategy of joining parties he opposed, "entrist" names the political mole who signs up openly but plots transformation from within.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of entrist
Entrist combines the verb "enter" — from Old French "entrer", ultimately from Latin "intrare" — with the agent suffix "-ist". It emerged in twentieth-century British political discourse alongside "entryism" and "entrism", terms coined to describe the Trotskyist tactic of joining larger parties to influence them from within. Its Latin root also yields cognates such as "entrance", "entry", and, via French borrowing, "entrepreneur".
Related word forms
How entrist is actually used
The word belongs chiefly to the vocabulary of political journalism and leftist history, particularly discussions of British politics from the 1970s onward, where debates over Trotskyist entryism were prominent. It carries a connotation of covert or subversive intent and is rarely used neutrally — calling someone an entrist usually implies criticism. The variant "entryist" is considerably more common in modern usage.
Easily confused with entrist
"Entryist" is the far more common adjective/noun form describing this tactic of infiltration, while "entrist" is a rarer variant referring specifically to the person who practices it.
An "entrant" is simply anyone who enters — a competition, a country, a profession — without any implication of covert political intent.