Trot Watcher Anyone under the illusion that the International Marxist Tendency, or any other Trot cult, encourages open and honest democratic debate, should prepare to have their illusions punctured. When I joined the organisation, I was assured that it was a place where disagreement and dissent was welcomed. It was not long before I found out that … Read more
The average contact It might occur to people reading that the only people who would join an organisation like the IMT, or a cult of any kind, is someone who is stupid or crazy. I can tell you from my own experience that nothing could be farther from the truth. It requires a certain level … Read more
The 1991-2 split in the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) brought about the demise of Militant, the CWI’s British section, and gave birth to the two main organisations that came out of it – the Socialist Party under Peter Taaffe, and Socialist Appeal under Ted Grant, Alan Woods and Rob Sewell. When I was … Read more
“The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.”–Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Dawn, 1881. Cults and Recruitment No cult can survive without obsessive recruitment, and in Socialist Appeal/the IMT, this was at the centre of everything we did and said. … Read more
31 years ago, the USSR came to an ignominious end. In the IMT, I was indoctrinated to see the USSR as a noble and heroic attempt at building a better world. It was, for all its flaws, a ‘workers’ state’, worth defending in the face of its bourgeois enemies. The nationalised planned economy had created … Read more
No one realises how much time they will end up dedicating when they join a cult like the IMT. I had no idea how intense an experience this would be. I did know that as a born-again Marxist, I was keen to get stuck in with a serious organisation. The IMT seemed to fit the … Read more
I should be taking a day off today. It goes to show just how much the IMT has colonised my mind that I am expending yet more energy upon them today. Still, it could be worse. I could still be in the cult. At least I am celebrating my second Christmas free of the stultifying … Read more
Several months ago, some of my criticisms of Trotskyism and Trot cults were posted on Reddit by a guy keen to know what the people on the Trotskyism subreddit thought. There were the typical slanders, dismissals of me as a ‘renegade’ and misunderstandings. I hope to reply to these and to affirm the correctness of … Read more
It has been one year since I set up this blog to expose the inner workings of the IMT. This is nine months after I stormed out of the sect, unable to put up with their nonsense for five more minutes. Leaving the organisation was partly an act of impulse. I felt that I could … Read more
Today marks the tenth anniversary of the death of one of my heroes, Christopher Hitchens. Like many people, I discovered him as a nerdy high school student via the collection of debates, speeches and interviews on YouTube that he took part in throughout his career as a public intellectual. I have vague memories of reading … Read more