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 groups. However, the cult gave up on the false distinction between the two, and in recent years has been much more open about the real nature of this organisation. All of Socialist Appeal’s ‘Marxist Societies’ that exist on university campuses across the country are affiliated to the MSF and required to pay an affiliation fee for the privilege. This fee was paid largely out of what our campus branches were able to earn through the sale of our literature and merchandise, topped up with whatever we were able to pay on top of our usual subs payments. It was one of the many ingenious money-making schemes utilised by the cult.
Every February, we held a conference of the MSF, which dozens of the organisation’s young members would attend in central London. Like all our national events, it was stage-managed to the last detail, and a fervent effort was made by all student branches to get comrades and contacts going. It was all part of the milieu control. A naive and enthusiastic young contact and/or recruit would be brought into an environment where he/she would be surrounded by true believers from across the country. It was the perfect opportunity for an orgy of love-bombing.
Presumably, the existence of lockdown has made things more difficult for the cult, which has been forced entirely online. There is nothing like personal, face-to-face interaction in terms of boosting the prospects of cult recruitment. The organisation has now been deprived of that. But its young, media-savvy members are finding ways to get past it. This year’s MSF conference, which will be held on 13th February, has been heavily advertised on Twitter.
Despite being advertised as a ‘student’ event, the truth is that student participation in the affair is a limited one, besides advertising and ‘building’ for it. The political substance of the program is decided behind closed doors by a few ‘leading comrades’ who are not even students, and accepted without question by the rank-and-file. The ‘lead-offs’ (political lectures given at the event) are your standard, boilerplate Marxist ‘analysis’ of politics and world events. Despite the ostensible purpose being ‘political education’, the real effect is to further stultify the minds of all those present. Complex global and national phenomena are given simplistic explanations with an equally simplistic response, which is this: that socialism is the solution to all humanity’s problems, and that only the International Marxist Tendency is able to offer the leadership necessary to the starving, huddled masses. After every talk, a round of ‘interventions’ is held in which comrades make points from the floor. These points are always designed to reaffirm the line, not to encourage real questioning or critical thinking. Like every event we held, crowd manipulation was very much part of the cult recruitment process. The endless rounds of applause, the stirring renditions of the Internationale, the photo shoots with all of us holding our fists clenched in unison – all were part of the cultic atmosphere.
Invariably, we would discuss the progress of the organisation across the country. We were always given good news. The enthusiastic, hyper-optimistic speeches given by comrades were almost Stalinist in their wild-eyed boasts of success for the organisation, with recruitment figures and successful ‘interventions’ substituting for the miracles of pig-iron production. There were endless mentions of ‘dialectics’ (‘Remember, things are always changing!’) and appeals to the authority of the great revolutionary heroes of the past – Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. The room was decorated with banners with the fearsome visages of Marx and Engels looking down at us, their piercing gazes exhorting us to storm the citadels of capitalism and fulfill their life’s work. Merchandise was pushed on comrades and contacts – badges with the faces of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky on them, T-shirts decorated with IMT insignia, books published by Wellred (usually overpriced and available for much cheaper online), old copies of our theoretical magazine, etc. The organisation, always determined to make a quick buck, would go to the trouble of purchasing snacks and alcohol in bulk from Costco and elsewhere and selling them at lunchtime and breaktime. We were exhorted to stay behind and not give our money to a corrupt, capitalist outfit like Burger King or McDonalds. Encouraging people to stay in the room for their lunch had the added effect of encouraging conversation between the attendees about the political work and the finer points of Marxist theory. This was yet another form of milieu control. Even those who went out for lunch would usually go out with other comrades who they were friendly with. There was almost no escape from politics.
When I attended my last MSF conference in February 2020, my doubts towards the organisation were steadily mounting. Inwardly, I distanced myself. This was noticed. I was quieter than usual at the event and did not intervene much. My mind was plagued with so many questions. The milieu control no longer affected me as much. I had seen it all before, and my critical faculties were reasserting themselves. I went out for lunch rather than staying behind as I had done on other occasions – subconsciously, I think I wanted to get away from it all. I did so alone, and, having left my phone behind, I got lost on the way back, and returned to the event late. My disappearance was a cause of some concern. The powers that be were getting nervous about me. They were justified in their concerns. Within a few weeks I had resigned.
Looking back, I think it was inevitable that I would get jaded by it all. There is only so long that a naturally independent-minded, critical-thinking person can remain in such an environment before getting disillusioned. I knew that the time would come when I would have to leave all of these people I had come to know over two and a half years behind. They were not really my friends. They were ‘comrades’. And I was getting tired of being a ‘comrade’, of having to match up to a ‘cadre ideal’, of having to read the same prescribed texts and issue the same slogans and ‘analysis’ by rote. I felt trapped. And so I began preparing myself inwardly for the prospect of separation. A frank exchange with the regional full-timer at the end of the event failed to dispel my doubts. That same evening, I sat in a coffee shop in central London and read through Louis Proyect’s blog. The scales were beginning to fall from my eyes. The road to renegacy had begun…