When I joined the IMT, I was soon appraised of the potential dangers of the Internet. The Internet, for us, had its uses. It was useful for promoting our propaganda on social media, encouraging traffic to our website and winning ‘contacts’ and new comrades. However, we were also warned to be ‘disciplined’ in our use of social media. We had to make sure that nothing we said and did on social media reflected badly on the organisation. I remember being warned that as our organisation became more prominent, the evil bourgeoisie would be digging up all sorts of unsavoury stuff to use against us. We had to ensure that we were always putting forward the party line. I had never used social media before going to university and joining the organisation and creating a Facebook account, and it wasn’t long before I developed a virtual network of ‘comrades’ from across the world. My feed was chock full of IMT propaganda, as comrades shared articles, discussed what they were reading, exchanged jokes and talked over the finer points of revolutionary theory. The full-time apparatus of the organisation was ambivalent about this. We were told that theoretical discussions were best confined to the ‘correct channels’ (i.e. branch), especially if they were controversial. The leadership did not want nasty disputes being made visible in public. At the same time, they rarely did much to police what we were doing, unless it was extremely out of line. With all that they had going on, they likely only had limited time to monitor exactly what every member of the organisation was saying on social media.
The echo chamber in which I existed online was part and parcel of the cult’s milieu control. It gave the impression that we were a massive organisation with a lot of influence, when in practice we were just a tiny group of several hundred sectarians all talking to each other. (It is unlikely that every single member out of the thousands of members the organisation claims to have has Facebook.) I had to make sure that I didn’t say the wrong thing and bring down the wrath of the leadership or other comrades. I obediently and uncritically shared the organisation’s articles online, and conformed as best as I could. We all policed one another for thought crime. This dynamic exists in every cult. Peer pressure helped promote the illusion of complete ideological unanimity.
Every Trotskyist sect, the IMT included, has had to work out how to deal with the challenge posed by the Internet and social media. It is much harder for these organisations to hide what goes on behind closed doors. The SWP found this out to their cost with the rape scandal of 2013 that decimated the organisation. The same fate befell its sister organisation, the ISO, which was dissolved in 2019. Whistleblowers will always uncover the misdeeds and crimes of the leadership, and make them public. ‘Internal’ discussions, normally closed to outsiders, will be exposed to the light. All far-left sects make a virtue of not ‘washing our dirty linen in public’. The Internet has taken that business out of their hands. There will always be at least a few people willing to rebel against the stultifying conformity imposed by these groups, and leak the truth, even if it leads to their expulsion. They are even able to do it anonymously, and thereby avoid any consequences altogether. The example provided by the rebels in the SWP and ISO has been noted, and will be followed by other would-be renegades. I feel a strange bit of pride in saying that they have both been preceded in this department by the IMT rebels of 2010. The link will take you to a full account and transcript of the discussions held by the organisation’s leadership over criticism of the sect’s interpretation of ‘democratic centralism’. The rebels in the leadership wanted a modification. The majority, led by Woods, refused, and drove out the rebels with curses and insults. This was accompanied by splits in the organisation’s sections, with the Spanish section, Woods’ pride and joy, being the most notable casualty, along with the Pakistani section. A resignation letter by some of the leading members that left can be found here.
After leaving the IMT, I retained a strong sense of affection towards my comrades and admiration for Woods in particular, despite the fact that I had come to realise the ugly nature of his organisation. After finding online and reading the transcript of the 2010 debate, and the Stalinist methods he and his cronies used to bully out their opponents, much of that respect was lost. My heart sank as I read the account of leading comrades I had looked up to behaving in this bullying, cultish manner. What the hell had I gotten myself into? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, I had discovered more about the terrible nature of what I had joined.
The IMT, like every cult, is very keen to minimise or bury any negative information about itself that might be found on the Internet. No doubt some of the younger, more tech-savvy members are figuring out how to play the algorithms to make sure people don’t find sites like mine, or anything else that will reflect badly on the organisation. Anyone doing their research on the IMT or any similar organisation is likely to bump into what I and other critics have written about it. Doubting members of the organisation can also come across such information, and have their faith broken. It certainly worked for me. When I was in the organisation, these incidents were either not talked of, or I heard only the organisation’s side. I took it for granted that anyone who left did so because they were a despicable person, or had incorrect views, or some other mistake. The organisation was never wrong. If people left our ranks, it was because they were unworthy of being in such a great organisation as ours. I am sure my former comrades think the same of me now that I have left. This will greatly assist in blinding them to any criticisms I may have of the organisation. I have already had at least one now leading member try and dig up some embarrassing personal information from my time in my branch at university, on this very blog (under a pseudonym, of course), so as to discredit me and distract from the criticisms I have made on this blog about the organisation. Such is the nature of cults. Every ex-member is slandered and has his or her record unpicked, with minor errors or missteps blown out of proportion and used to paint them as a despicable person who should not be trusted. Their positive contribution is written out of the record, even if they have been loyal and dedicated members for many years. No one is safe. Even people who were once full-timers, but have found themselves on the wrong side of the leadership, will be given the same treatment. It is not unheard of for a particular comrade to be praised to the skies as the reincarnation of Lenin, before being hounded out and expelled within a very short amount of time after a dispute.
The truth is that ex-members of cults are far more reliable as sources than anything these organisations have to say about themselves. The IMT, like any other cult, goes to great lengths to edit out critical info from its Wikipedia page and make it a promotion for its organisation. The more ex-members, like myself, put the truth out there for everyone to read, the better it will be for everyone.
Not only is the Internet useful for exposing the abuses of power that go on in Trotskyist groups, but they also allow members to read outside the narrow literature they are given. Alan Woods was not entirely joking when he told me that the only people I needed to read were Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. If you are a ‘comrade’, all your time is spent reading and absorbing ‘Marxist theory’ – or rather, the organisation’s narrow interpretation of Marxism – in the form of books by MELT and ‘leading comrades’ of the sect, articles on the website, ‘lead-offs’ in branch meetings and at national events, etc. The Marxists Internet Archive now allows people to access works from all sorts of Marxist thinkers, including those who are neglected by the more traditional Marxist sects. You can decide to reject your organisation’s interpretation of Marxism in favour of another one, or even decide that you prefer some other form of socialism entirely. One phenomenon I have noticed online is of Marxists enquiring as to which organisations they should get involved with, what they are like, what their position is on x issue, etc. It is good that people are doing their research. Needless to say, members of the sect will loudly promote the virtues of their particular organisation. Others will recount their horror stories of being in or dealing with that sect. Every sect will try and dissuade people from reading criticisms by former members, but the response of a critically-thinking person should be to ignore these voices and do just that. Make up your own mind. Don’t let the cult do your thinking for you.
I should mention parallels with other cults/insular groups. I have been watching a documentary on Netflix about Hasidic Jews who become disillusioned with their community, and, in leaving, are shunned by their friends and family. In one scene, a Hasidic rabbi rants about the dangers of the Internet, and how it constitutes a threat to their community. One young Hasidic boy discovers the outside world through the Internet, and is inspired to escape the narrow confines of this hidebound sect. I have also been watching Leah Remini’s documentary on Scientology, in which the heart-breaking case of a young Scientologist who took her own life comes up. She had been abused by a member of the church, and had tried to go through the ‘official channels’ of Scientology, to no avail. As a result, she began criticising the church publicly on social media. She was harassed and bullied by other Scientologists, who told her that she should keep her grievances ‘internal’. I could not avoid the parallels with the IMT, and the pressure on us to keep such potentially dangerous issues secret from the outside world. Indeed, when I made public criticisms of the IMT on Facebook for the first time after leaving, I was met with a similar response. There is nothing these cults hate more than public criticism on the Internet. It is ironic that an organisation which styles itself as progressive and revolutionary can have such a reactionary attitude to the potentially democratising medium that is the world wide web.
I should not finish this post without giving a special mention to Louis Proyect, whose blog helped me realise the serious flaws in the IMT and other Trotskyist sects. A former member of the SWP, Proyect remains a convinced Marxist (I am not), but is harsh in his criticisms of far-left organisations like the SWP, ISO, IMT and CWI. He considers the Trotskyist movement dead, and has argued for revolutionary socialists to look at alternative methods of organisation. I hope mentioning him will refute the claim of IMT members and others that I am only criticising the IMT’s organisational methods because of my political grievances. Believe it or not, there are Marxists who believe that the traditional methods of Marxist organisations are bankrupt. Some of us think that we need to call time on this failed, 80-year sect building project, and figure out more constructive ways of making the world a better place. So far, all Trotskyist groups have done is waste people’s time, ruin people’s lives, waste people’s money and piss everyone off.