In Defence of Cult Analysis: A Reply to IMT Cultists

IMT cultists have taken exception to my description of their organisation as a cult. They have raised some key objections to my analysis of the IMT. They are as follows: (a) cult analysis is a distraction from discussion of their political ideas, (b) cult analysis can describe such a wide variety of organisations so as … Read more

The terrible truth about the Marxist Student Federation

As a member of the IMT from October 2017 to March 2020, I was also part of the Marxist Student Federation (MSF). This was advertised as the youth and student wing of Socialist Appeal. From what I learned when I joined the organisation, it was originally designed to be one of the organisation’s many front … Read more

Dennis Tourish and the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) as a political cult

Dennis Tourish, Professor of Leadership and Organisation Studies at the University of Sussex, has written at length about cults. Like many cult experts, he was in one – he worked as a full-timer for the Militant Tendency in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. In 1998, he wrote a paper entitled ‘Ideological Intransigence, Democratic Centralism and … Read more

The BITE Model and the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) as a political cult – Part 2

The BITE model is an extremely useful way of looking at cults and gauging the severity of cultic practices inflicted upon their members. Steven Hassan created an ‘influence continuum’, with traits belonging to destructive cults at one end, and those belonging to healthy organisations at another. The very worst cults are at the extreme cultic … Read more

Stalinism and Bolshevism

Trotskyism has so much wrong with it that a book would be needed to fully examine, analyse and refute its false claims. That will have to wait another day. For now, I will content myself with rebutting perhaps the central argument of Trotskyism. That is the claim Stalinism is not an essential product of Marxism. … Read more

Standard Response from a Cult Member

This is the standard response from a cult member when they are called out on their organisation’s lies: This individual happens to be a member of the IMT. I believe I know his name and the fact that he belongs to the Canadian section. (He does not have the balls to use his real name … Read more

Trotsky’s False Predictions

They say that insanity is doing the same thing again and again and expecting different results. If this is the case, then insanity, thy name is Trotskyism. For eighty years straight, the Trotskyist movement has been advancing the same basic ideas, slogans and tactics unchanged. The dozens of Trotskyist sects in existence have convinced themselves … Read more

The Question of the Workers’ State

The major dividing line within the Trotskyist tradition is the question of whether or not the USSR should be seen as a workers’ state. The split happened definitively in 1940, with the orthodox Trotskyists remaining loyal to Trotsky’s conception that the USSR was a workers’ state, and the heterodox Trotskyists labelling it state capitalist instead. … Read more

In Praise of Renegacy

Yup. That’s right. I’m a renegade. I have deserted the path of righteousness. I have abandoned the teachings of Saint Trotsky. I have turned my back on the one true road to revolution. I have become that dreaded thing. An ex-Trotskyist. And I have to tell you, it feels great. A burden has been lifted … Read more