I left the International Marxist Tendency in March of 2020, and have never looked back. I have since embraced the freedom that leaving this cult has provided me.
Cults use all sorts of tactics to shame people out of the idea of leaving. One of them is to say that if you leave, you are ‘weak’ and uncommitted to the cause. Another is to claim that only their organisation can offer salvation to humanity, and that to leave is to condemn the planet to destruction. These tactics are used by Trotskyist cults, the IMT included, to keep doubting members in line. I am grateful that I had the strength to finally see through this bullshit, and leave. In the months after leaving, I read ‘heretical’ books by reactionaries like Leszek Kolakowski and Roger Scruton, and cleansed my mind of Trotskyist nonsense. I read Arthur Koestler and Christopher Hitchens, Paul Avrich and Louis Proyect, and all sorts of critics of Marxism and Trotskyism. The intellectual freedom of being able to think for yourself and read whatever you want, not just approved Marxist texts, was thrilling. Yet so many IMT members think that they must spend all their time reading Alan Woods, Ted Grant, Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, instead of reading what they want. The first step to freedom involves repudiating this nonsensical position.
In the months since leaving, I have been able to pursue a Master’s degree and commence learning French, and I am glad to put Trotskyist cultism behind me. It is possible to have a life outside of Trotskyism, and a very successful life at that. It is possible to thrive and succeed in achieving great things without being enslaved to a cult. I am finally putting thought to my career, which I neglected when I was a member of the IMT. All of my time and energy revolved around this preposterous groupuscule which claimed that it alone had the keys to the regeneration of the human race. Now, I am able to fill that time with more meaningful pursuits. I am sad to have wasted two and a half years, but relieved that it was only two and a half years. It could have been another twenty. One thing that prevents people from leaving cults is the sunk cost fallacy – one has already invested so much that walking away feels impossible. But it is possible. I did it. People who are desperate enough will leave – no matter how much they stand to lose, it is nothing compared to what they will gain if they head for the exits. In Leah Remini’s Scientology documentary, I listened to the case of one woman who was trapped in Scientology’s headquarters working ‘on duty’ for the organisation, and was so desperate to leave that she got into the boot of a stranger’s car so that they could get out.
There is no need to waste another moment, not even another month. I walked out after several days of deliberation in the spring of 2020. I was not prepared to waste months in an ‘internal debate’ which would have culminated in my being expelled anyway. Thank goodness I did so. I dread to think of what would have happened otherwise.
If my experience has taught me anything, it is to love freedom and appreciate it more than ever. It have brought me to the realisation that I cherish individualism and critical thinking more than anything else. I would not go back to the IMT if I was paid. Freedom is worth more than anything. Guard it with your life.