In the wake of the rape scandal last year, the IMT is desperately trying to shore up its members and solidify the loyalty of its remaining members and its new recruits through a massive campaign of anti-identity politics propaganda and rape apologia. A member of their Pakistani section has been posting quotes from sessions of their most recent World Congress in Italy, and they make for horrifying reading. It is unclear whether the leadership would want this individual publicising such vile material, or whether they have become totally indifferent to what anyone outside the cult thinks of them. These tweets tell a tale of an organisation that has become more and more unmoored from reality and has truly degenerated into a quasi-fascist groupuscule of angry fanatics preaching to the converted. One such tweet quotes Adam Booth as denouncing therapy on Marxist grounds:
The toxic masculinity, the reactionary chauvinism, the ableism and misogyny of this disgusting speech from this disgusting individual (note his dead-eyed, cult leader stare) is symptomatic of a wider problem within this putrid sect. This is clearly a response to those dissidents within the sect who called for the organisation to empathise with rape victims and institute a proper system for reporting and punishing abusers. According to the cult leader and rape apologist Booth, these are ‘bourgeois’ mechanisms designed to stifle the sect’s ability to operate. People in the organisation who are raped are not ‘victims’ in his mind, people to be listened to and supported emotionally, but rather a drag on the organisation, with their ‘hysteria’ and ‘identity politics’. They need to be re-educated in line with Marxist principles to rationalise their experience as the product, not of bad people, but of an evil capitalist system. They must suck it up and fight harder to bring about the end of capitalism, which alone will extinguish rape and rapists. Or so the logic goes.
Here is a quote from Fiona Lali, who is, as far as I know, the organisation’s only POC full-timer and the head of the Marxist Student Federation, the organisation’s youth group (who is not even a student and has not been in years):
It is very interesting that they find themselves having to explain that they are not a social club. Maybe all those drunken socials they hold every five minutes (and use as a means of recruitment and consolidation of recruits) are getting people confused as to the purpose of their group. Of course, if they actually did anything useful for the cause they supposedly believe in, instead of pushing their stupid paper in everyone’s faces, maybe people wouldn’t misconstrue their intentions so much.
Note again the idea that the organisation should not be a ‘support group’ for people who are oppressed. Again, this is aimed at people who have or might end up being raped by people in the organisation, or else hurt in some other identity-related way. (God help Fiona if anyone in the sect racially abuses her. She will hardly be able to offer a squeak of complaint lest she be denounced for promoting identity politics and removed from her position.) Anyone who is unlucky enough to suffer such horrors within the group cannot expect any sympathy or emotional support from their so-called ‘friends’ and ‘comrades’ in the organisation, who will cut them loose the minute they stop toeing the party line and demand justice. They are spelling it out for you in black and white, so no one who sees that tweet or this post can say they have not been warned. If you join this group and are raped, racially abused, or have any other identity-based offence committed towards you, you are ALONE.
The most that anyone will do is reassure you that the organisation is fighting for socialism and that is our only hope of ending such abuses. After all, why should a Marxist organisation uphold ‘bourgeois’ ideas about justice and punishment of individual wrongdoers? Until the means of production are in the hands of the working-class, there can be no talk of eradicating such evils. The individual who harmed you will in all likelihood be let off with a light reprimand. Mitch Thompson and Adam Zeineddine, two full-timers for the Canadian section, have been publicly accused of rape and sexual assault and had no action taken against them.
The thread of dogma running through all of this satanic garbage is that ‘Marxist theory’, as defined by the organisation, is sufficient to deal with all evils, including that of rape. There is no need for any rethinking or restructuring in the light of real-world events. That is cultism 101 for you. It is what Lifton called ‘doctrine over person’. The ideology is always right. Dissidents are by definition always wrong, and their lived experience invalid if it contradicts the doctrine. On this basis, the membership are consistently gaslit about things happening right in front of their eyes. It helps that the doctrine of diamat teaches members to forego their ‘bourgeois’ common sense in favour of whatever rationalisations are adopted by the leadership. Not just that, but it incentivises them to insist the opposite of whatever is in fact the case. Up is down, left is right, rape is not rape…
Note also the ridiculous notion that the only things preventing us from becoming super-humans and overcoming all trauma and mental health challenges are environmental obstacles. Remove these, and all these problems disappear. I have learned the hard way that this is complete and utter nonsense. Contrary to what Adam Booth said, we are vulnerable. We are not Promethean superheroes, we are fragile people on a fragile planet who need love and understanding from our fellow human beings, not lectures denouncing us for not being hyper-resilient men of action who can magically overcome all personal struggles through Marxist theory. Personal experience, and great works of literature by Dostoevsky, George Eliot and Tolstoy, as well as conservative political philosophers like Edmund Burke and Roger Scruton, have taught me this. The IMT’s doctrine gives me uncomfortable reminders of Scientology’s ridiculous claim that whatever happens to you is because you have not ‘done the work’ to cleanse yourself of your ‘body thetans’, or that you ‘pulled in’ whatever happened to you because of sins you committed in your present life or in a past lifetime. Traumatised by a rapist? Toughen up. Marxists are supposed to be optimists. Marxist science and Marxist theory will solve all your problems. If you disagree with this, you must be a reactionary.
The organisation has advanced considerably in its methods of indoctrination and control over the membership since I was in. All I can say is, thank God I’m out.
“We have very strong enemies The bourgeois state is very centralized and disciplined If we are not very centralized and very disciplined they will crush us Revolution is not a game, it is a serious matter.”- Alan Woods…i.e. if you don’t listen to me you’re lost. Please…f that