All cults have the same, underlying nature. Militant in the 1970s and 80s was a similar organisation to what the IMT and CWI are now – a hyper-controlling, authoritarian cult led by a ‘guru’ or ‘gurus’ – in the case of the former, Ted Grant and Peter Taaffe, prior to the split which saw Taaffe and his acolytes take over most of the organisation, whilst Grant was left with Alan Woods and a few other renegades.
Michael Crick gives a few examples in his book on Militant. There is the example of David Mason, who was expelled for policy differences.
It wasn’t a big bust-up. I announced I had disagreements. They said it was politically inept. They tried to keep me in and agreed to let me make a ‘Why I Want to Leave’ speech. Then at its next meeting the branch voted on whether I should be expelled or not. I was told not to turn up. The decision was that I should remain a nominal member – in effect it was a suspension. Their theory was that when the ‘Perspectives’ were one day fulfilled I’d want to come back in. But then I wrote an article in Labour Weekly defending import controls, and I was finally expelled for publicly opposing Militant policy. I had to give back my main documents, and they asked if I would go to press about it. I didn’t. Later, when I was elected to NOLS National Committee, Andy Bevan revealed that I’d been a Militant supporter just to cause trouble for me on the National Committee.
When I first made my disagreements known in the IMT, I was treated much like Mason. I was told not to tell anyone else about my disagreements and to go through a bureaucratic process, controlled by the leadership, for voicing disagreements. It was made clear to me that publicly criticising the organisation was not possible whilst I remained under the ‘discipline’ of the organisation. It was clear to me at that moment that this organisation was a cult. Rather than wait for my suspension or expulsion, I chose to leave.
Mason recounts his experience:
A lot of it boiled down to selling papers. The pace didn’t bother me, but one day I suddenly realised that after a year my social circle had totally drifted. I had only political friends left, simply because of the lack of time. There’d be the Militant branch on Monday evening, the Young Socialists meeting another evening, ‘contact’ work on Friday night, selling papers on Sunday afternoon, and on top of that, to prove to the local Labour Party we were good party members, we went canvassing for them every week and worked like hell in the local elections.
This is practically identical to how myself and other IMT members would spend our weeks. At branch meetings we would always have a schedule for events to attend and things to do. I did not go a week without being engaged in some sort of political activity. Normal political organisations do not compel such endless activism from their members. It is utterly unhealthy and cultish. Yet IMT members will swear that they are just like any other political organisation, and that calling them a cult is unjust, whilst simultaneously believing they are superior to every other organisation.
Terry McDonald also notes the insular mentality and exploitative attitude of the average Militant member, always on the hunt for people to be recruited:
We were always being told to look out for ‘good types’. Part of the business at branch meetings was ‘Any good types?’ You’d say so-and-so spoke well at a union meeting. ‘Really?’ they’d say. ‘See if he’ll second this motion.’ The next week I’d go back and tell them he had seconded it. ‘That’s interesting.’ So then one of the officers would make contact with him, and it went from there.
This is precisely what we would do at our ‘interventions’ in Labour Party meetings and elsewhere. Love-bomb someone who seemed promising and lure them in.
Richard Hart speaks of his experience of realising that Militant had turned him into a clone:
…that summer I found I was addressing a meeting and coming out with all their phrases. I no longer felt an independent person. I felt sucked into them and started feeling the tendency could take over my whole life.
I must have felt like this whenever I was giving speeches and making ‘interventions’ at IMT and Labour Party meetings, but I suppressed any discomfort I felt. Like me, Barnes expressed policy differences with the organisation and had full-timers brought in to browbeat him into submission.:
I sent them a long letter to say why I was resigning. So they brought in the full-timers and I was persuaded into having a chat in the university bar. It went on all night and we ended up in someone’s room. It really turned into a theological argument and one full-timer turned to me and said, ‘You’ve lost your faith in the working class.’ This was after an evening during which I’d been saying it was all religious and they’d been denying it.
‘Faith’ in the working-class! So much for Marxism being ‘science’. As Crick notes:
The similarities between Militant and religion are obvious from the lifestyle of the members One has only to attend a public Militant rally to notice the parallels with a Billy Graham meeting. Militant’s set texts are treated like the Bible, and quotations from Trotsky and Marx are used in the same way as biblical extracts. Meetings on political matters are more a matter of teaching the members about Marx, Trotsky and Lenin than of developing any new thought. Members are tested on the set texts as if they were Holy Writ . Militant’s simple political philosophy has an appeal to a certain type of person because, like a religion, it answers life’s problems. As Mike Barnes points out, there is tremendous faith in the working class and an almost inexplicable optimism about the eventual demise of capitalism. The full-timer plays the role of the priest, interpreting the teachings passed down from on high and dealing with the problems of individual members of his congregation.
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
One thing in particular I have noticed – Marxists claim they want to create a better world for everybody, in which all individuals are treated as valuable, yet their organisations treat individual members as interchangeable parts in a machine, to be brutally forced out once they offer any dissent or cease to be useful as ‘usefulness’ is defined by the organisation. How will this attitude bring about a better world?
The Story of Steven Hassan
The story of Steve Hassan and how he ended up in the Moonies is very similar to my own. Like myself, Hassan spent two and a half years in an authoritarian cult. Like me, he completely changed his previous, pre-cult views when he became part of the group and ended up believing the opposite.
In his book, Combating Cult Mind Control, Hassan explains how as a 19-year-old, his girlfriend dumped him, leaving him distraught. Attending college at that time, a few attractive women sat around him in the cafeteria and began love-bombing him. He had no inclination to join a cult, but in that emotionally vulnerable state, he ended up listening to the Moonie recruiters, who pretended that they were not part of a religious group, and attending a Moonie meeting with them. Within a few weeks, he had been brainwashed to believe that Moon was his real father, and that his family was evil, as were women, liberal democracy and Jews (which meant renouncing his own Jewish heritage). Once an aspiring poet who loved English literature, Hassan threw out all of his poetry, convinced that it was satanic and a distraction from his cult mission. Two and a half years later, a near-fatal car crash whilst he was doing work for the Moonies left him bedridden. His sister got back into contact with him in hospital and told his parents, who lured him back home for a deprogramming session. His crutches were taken away so he couldn’t escape. After the deprogramming session, he saw the real nature of the Moon cult and agreed to leave. He then dedicated himself to finding out what happened to him so he could help other people trapped in cults. Today, he is a well-known cult expert who recently published a book, The Cult of Trump, analysing the Trump movement as a political cult.
Reading Hassan’s experience, I was struck by how similar it was to my own. We were in our respective cults for the same amount of time, and we both drastically changed our political views after a period of cult indoctrination, which coincided with an unhappy personal situation. In my case, my father died of cancer aged only 52 in November 2016, after many months of having been stricken with an incredibly rare form of sarcoma. This family tragedy was followed months later by my coming out as an atheist to my mother. She did not take this well. Needless to say, the spring and summer of 2017 were not happy months for me. I pushed my grief aside and focused on my exams, which I passed, gaining admission to the University of Warwick. In the months after my exams, I spent most of my time in my room, reading intensely. I had always considered myself a staunch right-wing conservative and a proud individualist. I adored the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and the British philosopher Thomas Carlyle, the staunch advocate of the ‘Great Man’ theory of history. One of my heroes was the late Christopher Hitchens, the famous ex-leftist who became a renegade and supported the Iraq War. Listening to videos of him on YouTube bashing religion and defending the Iraq War made me swoon in admiration. I was so crushed at the fact that he had died in 2011, as I would have loved to meet him in person. Finally, someone who was standing up for the West, giving Islam the robust criticism it deserved and defending the cause of individualism, critical thinking and scepticism. It was Hitchens who persuaded me that there had been a case for the Iraq War after all, and I identified with neoconservative views of muscular liberalism and deposing tyrants like Assad who were enemies of the West. Hitchens also validated my adolescent atheism, which I had kept secret from my parents. I strongly supported Brexit and rejoiced at the vote to leave the EU in 2016. I hated Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, who I saw as a terrorist sympathiser and an enemy of the West. I remember my disgust when in 2015 he failed to vote in favour of bombing ISIS. It convinced me that this man despised our country and was utterly unworthy to be Prime Minister. These views marked me out from my left-leaning peers and teachers and my Labour-supporting family, which, like most ethnic minority families, saw the Labour Party as the only people who stood up for folks like them. I put this down to tribalism and an unwillingness to embrace the Western ideal of liberal individualism, which strongly influenced me. Throughout my adolescence I had been staunchly indiviualistic, held myself aloof from my peers, avoided social groups (having had some unpleasant experiences with peer rejection in the past) and focused entirely on studying and reading, as well as playing computer games to pass the time. I was very introverted and even anti-social, yet had a passionate interest in politics and even thought of going into politics one day. I also wanted to be a writer, historian and philosopher, and had a keen interest in languages.
Quite a few things happened that led to my becoming a brainwashed Trotskyist. In the spring of 2017 I recall becoming increasingly cold over Brexit. I came to realise that leaving the European Union had been a mistake and that the project was based on wishful thinking and outright lies rather than reality. Reading material from the other side convinced me that leaving the EU, far from solving all our problems, would only create more. I became less convinced that Theresa May’s government could do a good job of running the country, and during the elections of June 2017 I considered voting Labour, not because I supported Corbyn, who I still hated, but because I liked our new MP, Wes Streeting, who had been elected in 2015, was firmly on the right of the party, and who had made headlines for denouncing Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, who was suspended from the party for anti-Semitism. Two and a half years later, in the cult, I would see Streeting and other ‘Blairities’ as enemies and defend monsters like Livingstone!
At the same time, I remember discovering left-wing literature on the Internet, reading it at first with intellectual interest, but not much belief. I now wanted to know what ‘the other side’ had to say, having already done this in the case of Brexit. I became interested in libertarian socialism, which combined my individualism with a recognition that capitalism was also in many ways an obstacle to individual freedom. Bakunin, Proudhon and Wilde were among the writers and thinkers I began reading. As the months went by I moved on to Marx. I also read some right-wing stuff, including writings by the conservative pessimist Oswald Spengler. I noted the similarities between the conservative critique of liberalism and the socialist one, and wondered whether they could be reconciled. I was moving away from my liberal individualism towards increasingly dark paths. Perhaps my loneliness at this particular time led to my losing faith in individualism and reaching out towards a philosophy which allowed me to find a place in society.
Meanwhile, I felt increasingly angry at being pressured to go to church just to please my mother, and could not wait for university so I no longer had to go. My father’s death had simply confirmed my belief that there was no God. Feeling alone and isolated, I began spending more and more time in my room, reading Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stirner, Mandel, Rubin, and other thinkers of the left. At this point I was no longer paying much attention to the world around me. I was even somewhat disconnected from the news. If I had paid more attention, I would have seen how Brexit was degenerating into a mess, how Corbyn continued to be assailed by his backbenchers for anti-Semitism in the party, and much more. It would have made me think twice about getting involved in politics on either side, but instead I found myself more and more detached from the real world and becoming more and more radicalised by what I read, but to the left. Despite having earlier hated Marxism, I allowed myself to be convinced by Marx’s criticisms of utopian socialism and of other socialists like Proudhon and Stirner, and noted the similarities between Marx’s critique of the utopian socialists and Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity. Around the same time, I stumbled onto the website of the International Marxist Tendency. I began reading its articles with interest. I was not a Trotskyist – if anything, I was still more sympathetic to libertarian socialism, even social democracy – but I began to suspect that social democracy would always face obstacles from not doing away with capitalism completely. Before too long, I was spending all my time reading IMT material, and resolved to get involved with the organisation when I arrived at university. I had self-radicalised by the time I bumped into the sect, which continued the process of radicalisation and brainwashing. Within the space of a few months, a combination of social isolation and personal tragedy had combined with obsessive reading to turn me into a brainwashed Marxist who ended up wandering into a far-left cult already somewhat radicalised, and indeed, personally unbalanced.
People join cults for a variety of reasons. At least one IMT member, reading my explanation of what drew me into the organisation, accused me of having joined the organisation for the ‘wrong reasons’, i.e. my loneliness and unhappiness, therefore, I could not blame the organisation for my disillusionment. But this is a nonsensical view to take. I joined the organisation primarily for intellectual and political reasons, but my personal situation undoubtedly played a role in making me more vulnerable to the lures of a high-control group. Anyone can end up in a cult. It would be disingenuous to pretend that personal reasons did not contribute to my joining the IMT. Needless to say, any problems we have before joining a cult are intensified and made worse by the experience of being in a cult. I am relieved that I never ended up in a relationship with a member of the organisation (a well-known occurrence). This would have been disastrous for me personally, as I would either have remained in the organisation reluctantly to avoid breaking up, or have had to break up upon leaving. I always thought that this would be a distraction from my role as a professional revolutionary, and wanted all my relationships in the organisation to be focused on our political goals, which is precisely what the organisation expected. So it is simply untrue that I joined for the wrong reasons, though I cannot pretend that there were factors besides politics that led to me joining.
Just as Hassan threw out his poetry under the influence of the cult, I threw out all of the ‘reactionary’ books I possessed by people I used to read, like the conservative journalist and historian Andrew Roberts. I was convinced that they would corrupt my mind! I would expound upon the principles of socialism and defend Jeremy Corbyn to my sceptical mother, who I thought would be pleased at my newfound support for the Labour Party. It reminds me of Hassan’s own experience:
During my time in the group, I was directly involved in many political demonstrations, though they were usually organized under the names of front groups. (Over the years, the Moon organization has created and used hundreds of such groups. For example, in July 1974, I was sent to the Capitol steps with several hundred Moonies, under the name National Prayer and Fast for the Watergate Crisis, to fast for three days and demonstrate in support of then-President Richard Nixon.
Before joining the Moonies I had had several arguments with my father at the dinner table about Nixon. My father, a businessman, was at that time a die-hard Nixon supporter. I voted for McGovern and had always felt strongly that Nixon was not to be trusted. In fact I had often referred to him as a crook. Now, in the heart of my Moon-inspired prayer vigil for Nixon, I called my parents from Washington to tell them about the fast. Because my father had always been so staunchly behind Nixon, I thought he would be pleased.
When I told him the news, my father said to me, ‘Steven, you were right. Nixon’s a crook!’
‘But Dad, you don’t understand; God wants Nixon to be President!’
‘Now I know you are brainwashed,’ my father said. ‘The guy’s a crook.’
It was only after I left the group that I laughed at the irony of this moment.
Much as Hassan defended Nixon, a politician he had once despised, at the height of the Watergate Crisis, so I defended Jeremy Corbyn and his allies at the height of the anti-Semitism crisis gripping the Labour Party. We did this because our cults told us to. Nixon was supposedly under attack from godless communists, and Corbyn was supposedly under attack from loathsome Blairites and Jewish Zionists who were trying to discredit him and stop him becoming Prime Minister. It is notable that both cults were anti-Semitic. Moon preached that the Holocaust was justified as Jews had killed Jesus. We argued that anti-Semitism was an understandable response to the evils of Israel. I had been a staunch conservative and supporter of Israel. I even went to a Jewish school growing up! Now, under the influence of the cult, I had betrayed Israel and the Jews and was supported the anti-Semitic, terrorist-supporting Labour leader that I had once despised. Even my Labour-supporting immigrant family was not keen on him. I recall my great aunt and her son (my second cousin) visiting us one time and speaking contemptuously of him. Likewise, Hassan, who was raised a Jew, now denounced his Jewish heritage at the behest of Moon, and fasted for a man (Nixon) who he had once seen as a crook, and was himself an anti-Semite.
Both myself and Hassan were aghast at what we had supported when we left our respective groups. I will probably never forgive myself for turning a blind eye to the evils of anti-Semitism and denouncing Israel and Zionism at the behest of the sect. At least I can say that I had been subjected to mind control. Only this could have caused me to denounce the Middle East’s only liberal democracy as uniquely reactionary.
Conclusion
From the Moonies and Militant in the 1970s to the IMT today, cults in all times and places have used similar methods to lure and trap vulnerable individuals like myself and Steve Hassan. We can only hope that as more work is done on the phenomenon of cults, more people are saved from the lures of these disgusting organisation.