By Cake Boy
The (leftwing) anarchist party I was a member of is a cult. I didn’t know much about cults back then, so after I got out of it, I dug into it to understand.
It seems that I was mentally too strong to get sucked into a cult, so that’s why I left very soon. However, I’m still a bit ashamed that I was part of it.
There are political cults in the world. Often, the small nazi/fascist parties and the Maoist parties in a country are cults. Nazism, and Maoism functioned as a cult anyway- a very dangerous and successful cult.
But, when you think of anarchism, you think of free thought, free spirits, no leaders, free association/dissociation etc. At least, it says it stands for these kinds of practices. When you read about it, you wouldn’t think it has much to do with cultism.
The funny thing is, in my country, the common people often say: anarchists/Antifa and Nazis, it’s a bit the same. They are always men, they wear black, they are stupid, they are aggressive, they hide their faces, they are against the freedom of speech, they attack journalists, they wear the Palestine scarfs, they are marginal, they are paranoid, they are white, and they think they have a special mission.
It’s not strange that people mix them up.
Here are ten characteristics of a cult.
- Absolute authoritarianism without accountability
- Zero tolerance for criticism or questions
- Lack of meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget
- Unreasonable fears about the outside world that often involve evil conspiracies and persecutions
- A belief that former followers are always wrong for leaving and there is never a legitimate reason for anyone else to leave
- Abuse of members
- Records, books, articles, or programs documenting the abuses of the leader or group
- Followers feeling they are never able to be “good enough”
- A belief that the leader is right at all times
- A belief that the leader is the exclusive means of knowing “truth” or giving validation
There was no so-called leader in the anarchist cult I was part of. But in reality, some ‘queer’ activists in the party were the leaders. There were different standards for them. They could get away with anything because they were ‘queer’ and ‘queer’ people are better (you’re a bad person when you’re straight). These ‘queer’ persons had transcended the dull, normative world. They stepped past gender, so in a way, they were further than us ‘cis’ people. It’s as if they were in another mental/existential domain. Like how, in some religions, the androgynous deity also gets worshipped; it’s a bit like that. Somewhere I sort of understand that, there is something interesting about the androgynous. But it has nothing to do with anarchism or any kind of politics.
The idea of the cult was that we all are bad people. We are racist, sexist, and ‘transphobic’ to the core. And we have to ‘work on ourselves’ throughout our whole lives. It’s a bit like the original sin theory we see in Christianity. This is actually not strange because a lot of these woke anarchist cultists have very strict Christian backgrounds. It’s as if they created a secular version of their Christianity/Calvinism.
If you would leave the cult, they would say that you were a fascist all along anyway. You had a chance to join the most leftwing party in the country, but you are not ready yet. And they always thought you were ‘problematic’ anyway.
When we look at violence, there was some man in the cult, which was accused of rape, and the cultists beat this person up. There was no jury, nothing. It was just based on rumors. This is very scary. So, when you’re in this milieu, and someone says you did something to someone, then they will just beat you up. Because to them, the victim is, by definition, always right. They have no idea of justice, court, mediation, or anything. When a woman or ‘trans person’ says something, then it’s by definition always right (in a way, it’s a matriarchal cult, something we can look at later on)
About finance. A lot of money was being hoarded in the cult, but nobody ever heard anything about it. There were no discussions about what to do with the collective money. We knew that someone monitored it, but we didn’t know who. Probably a very ‘unproblematic’ ‘queer’ person.
You could ask yourself, did cultism ruined the name of (leftist) anarchism for good? How did it turn into cultism? Was it always a cult?
When you join a political movement or anything, it’s good to look at these ten points of cultism. I think anarchism as a movement can only be successful if it’s not cultism. Something like anarchism needs to connect with the broader population. In a way, it needs to ride the waves of popular culture.
The libertarians in this country actually do this. They reach the masses with their podcasts and shows, despite the fact that they sometimes call themselves anarchists. They reach the people because they don’t show the cultist signs we mentioned above. That’s why a pluralist anarchist movement could only be based on their movement.
