"london 'slaves' had been in political collective with captors, police say"

[RedStarOverChina]

The fact that all the other slavers that were caught were capitalists goes without saying...

[CommieMaybe]

Well as a Communist from Scotland this is gonna' come back and bite up the ar*e.

Can't wait for someone to mention it to me.

[CommieMaybe]

This is just blatant anti-Communist propaganda. ITV and the BBC have been broadcasting Rightist things for years.

I can't wait for Scotland to be Independent so we can get away from the BBC.

[bad ideas actualised by alcohol]

This is just blatant anti-Communist propaganda. ITV and the BBC have been broadcasting Rightist things for years.

I can't wait for Scotland to be Independent so we can get away from the BBC.

Media will clearly cease to be shitty when Scotland becomes independent. With BBC gone the new Scottish media will definitely give the left a fair crack of the whip.

Are you really this naive?

[Ravachol]

How is this a surprise to anyone? Shitty maoist cults have been around sinds the dawn of, well, maoism. The entire history of various weird German K-Gruppen with their forced hairstyles, strictly monitored personal relationships, corvee labor for 'the party' and dogmatic cults of personality is only one in a long line of a quite typical trope (jonestown anyone?).

[Oenomaus]

Good points but this one doesn't apply because the group philosophy of presentism described on Wikipedia

Wikipedia editors have an interesting tendency to link every word to its most common definition even when it is clear that a variant usage is intended - for example, I wouldn't be surprised if a Wikipedia article on Mandel's criticism of "state capitalist" theories linked the word "impressionism" (here meaning the tendency to base an analysis on superficial impressions and not a thorough analysis) to the article about the art movement. In this case, I doubt the "Workers' Institute" wrote much about the philosophy of time - A- and B-series and so on - and that "presentism" probably referred to some tendency of theirs to focus on immediate action with no mid-term strategic goals.

In any case - presentism in philosophy of time states that past states of affairs do not exist, not that they are not important (it is perfectly intelligible to say that the Emperor Napoleon no longer exists, yet is not insignificant.)

[Arlekino]

What's next, holocaust denial? Of course it exists.

Nothing to do about holocaust this was horror as we all know it. I am sorry I can't not believe 30 years is too big gap. I think media trying to brainwashing us.

[Ismail]

I am not sure "charisma" is to blame - have you ever seen Bob Avakian speak? Or LaRouche? Or Healy? All of these people had the charisma of a wet mop.

Ex-members of LaRouche's cult do actually recall him being charismatic. His charisma was expressed in terms of constant optimism and the feeling that his cult was fulfilling "world-historic" goals, with LaRouche as a genius philosopher/statesman/etc.

Also he wasn't that uncharismatic in his younger years: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxuyOsAJmIM&t=4m58s (7:53 onwards = lol)

I notice such tends to be the case with political cults. Peoples Temple makes an interesting contrast because it was like a religious-political hybrid, Jones' personal charisma was very important. Here's Jones replying to a question from his congregation: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/nas/stream...e/MP3/Q929.MP3

[ed miliband]

itv have dug out some footage from 1997, after a woman linked to the group died, seems the women believed they were under a constant fascist threat...

http://www.itv.com/news/story/2013-1...avery-arrests/

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Do people see this cult-like behavior as something particularly problematic for Maoists? Or is it just something particular to political ideologies on the extreme? The reason I ask isn't to denegrate whatever theoretical contribution that Maoists make, but just noticing the way that many less theoretically minded Maoists just regurgitate his words or use his image without any concern for a theoretical concern for Capitalism. That said, it's something other Marxist perspectives are guilty of too, so perhaps it's not fair to attribute it to Maoists in particular. On the other hand the Sparts, which I would consider in some respects to be cult-like, still can regurgitate theory and don't gravitate around particular charismatic leaders. It also seems to be a view that the Chinese Communist Party themselves put forward during events like the cultural revolution.



See in the propaganda poster how it is the noble leader bringing the working classes to communism. I don't want to say it's something that Mao himself or Maoist intellectuals encouraged (in part because there are some Maoist intellectuals I respect) but instead that it may be a part of the political culture which grew out of (sometimes relatively isolated) far left groups. Bob Avakian is an example of that. So is the Shining Path and, it seems, in certain respects the main Nepali Maoist party. Of course, in some contexts it seems to have been worse than others - Bob is relatively harmless for instance, while the SL in Peru was brutal and violent in upholding the commands of their leader.

I am not sure "charisma" is to blame - have you ever seen Bob Avakian speak? Or LaRouche? Or Healy? All of these people had the charisma of a wet mop. I think "get rich quick" (or rather, "start a revolution quick"), organisational loyalty, bizarre politics (often those that want to erase the boundary between the personal and the political), and the element of personal commitment (if you've spent 30 years with the WRP and Gerry Healy barges in one day and eats your kids, you'll be angry - but at the same time, you'll be throwing away 30 years if you quit), are to blame.

I think that people with different backgrounds will find different kinds of people to be "charismatic". You're right though - many of these people aren't charismatic to the general population. There's a funny kind of charisma that comes with the appearance of absolute certainty in one's beliefs though.

[hatzel]

I am sorry I can't not believe 30 years is too big gap.

What does this mean? Too big gap for what? What are you suggesting here?

[Ismail]

Various Trot leaders are extolled by their respective sects: Tony Cliff, Ted Grant, Gerry Healy, etc. LaRouche transformed his Trot/Luxemburg group into a full-blown political cult, eventually dropping Marxism completely. Keep in mind that even Todor Zhivkov of Bulgaria was praised within his country as a Marxist theorist and 40+ volumes of his Collected Works were in existence. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that communist parties are supposed to be the vanguards of the working-class, so it makes sense that the leaders are considered foremost theorists and organizers (e.g. certain Trots are really into James P. Cannon's theories on party building.)

One bourgeois anti-cult work claims that democratic centralism and the vanguard concept are inherently vulnerable to developing cult symptoms and analyzes the CWI in this regard: http://culteducation.com/reference/g...eneral434.html

I think the way in which Maoist propaganda worked, which was meant to play off of a very much backward society, is a bit more conductive to cult activities than ML or Trot parties.

[Gambino]

There have always been stupid people on the far left, the left, the center left, the center right, the right, and the far right.
Unfortunately, no ideology is safe from stupidity.

[Sasha]

Do people see this cult-like behavior as something particularly problematic for Maoists? Or is it just something particular to political ideologies on the extreme?

i think it is more the case of that all 60's political hippie communes where under an increased risk of becoming cults for a whole lot of societal reasons, the fact that most of these where new-left maoists is i think mostly coincidence as this was just the default ideology for student radicals at the time, though obviously in groups that where more egalitarian (less authoritarian politically) it would have been harder for a cult leader to establish themselves

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

i think it is more the case of that all 60's political hippie communes where under an increased risk of becoming cults for a whole lot of societal reasons, the fact that most of these where new-left maoists is i think mostly coincidence as this was just the default ideology for student radicals at the time, though obviously in groups that where more egalitarian (less authoritarian politically) it would have been harder for a cult leader to establish themselves

This is my own thought on the subject - Maoism isn't unique in the risk of this, but it seems that certain authoritarian elements in Maoist political strategy and theory may reinforce the danger. I don't want to give an unfair account of the Maoists though and personally I loathe pointless sectarianism, so I say it not out of a desire to disabuse Maoists of Maoism but of hoping future generations of people inspired by that ideology don't make the same errors twice. I certainly don't think the Trots, anarchists, hoxhaites, ultra leftists etc have any right to denigrate Maoism for its faults either without themselves doing some serious self-criticism. Think of it as a "constructive sectarianism" :P .

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I notice such tends to be the case with political cults. Peoples Temple makes an interesting contrast because it was like a religious-political hybrid, Jones' personal charisma was very important. Here's Jones replying to a question from his congregation: http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/nas/stream...e/MP3/Q929.MP3

Those files of Jones' speeches and works is what made me finally evaluate political groups solely on their actions, not their words. He sounds so genuine that it's scary. He almost sounds like a genuine progressive (he was in contact with members of the Black Panthers even?), but then you remember that he basically hypnotised these churches into treating him like a god, faked near-death experiences to make himself seem immortal, and then kill everyone with kool-aid in Guyana.

[Ismail]

Those files of Jones' speeches and works is what made me finally evaluate political groups solely on their actions, not their words. He sounds so genuine that it's scary. He almost sounds like a genuine progressive (he was in contact with members of the Black Panthers even?), but then you remember that he basically hypnotised these churches into treating him like a god, faked near-death experiences to make himself seem immortal, and then kill everyone with kool-aid in Guyana.

The term "revolutionary suicide" was appropriated and bastardized by Jones, he took it from Huey Newton who had in mind people dying in the course of active struggle, inspiring others in their resistance. He also visited Cuba to meet Newton, had Newton (and Angela Davis of CPUSA fame) extol Jonestown residents to resist imperialism (this being a few months before the mass murder-suicide) via radio, and in fact Newton winded up losing relatives in Jonesetown.

You also had the Soviet ambassador to Guyana saying this particularly inglorious thing upon visiting the commune: "on behalf of the Embassy of the USSR, I’d like to send to you my deepest and our deepest and the most sincere greetings to the people of this first socialist and communist community of the United States of America, in Guyana and in the world."

[Popular Front of Judea]

Heartrending interviews with the family of one of the captives. A cautionary tale for the-revolution-is-any-day-now crowd:

The former member said: “What happened is that over 25 to 30 years all of the things that were supposed to happen, didn’t happen."

“The world did not have a global revolution. His vision collapsed but he still tried to keep a grip on a small number of people.

“Aishah had cut herself off from everybody, her relationship, her family and lived in the collective. She remained with them, was financially dependent on them, had no friends, she became more and more reliant on them.”

He went on: “If your self-confidence is being chipped away all the time, self-esteem chipped away, you feel intellectually inferior … and you are dependent on group living, you are as good as being in prison.”

Slavery case: the high-flying student who vanished into a Maoist sect | Telegraph

[brigadista]

Im reserving an opinion on this until more information is revealed.

Its not clear at all what went on .

[ed miliband]

Im reserving an opinion on this until more information is revealed.

Its not clear at all what went on .

fucking hell, it's not clear whether they were 'slaves' or not, it is clear this was a fucking cult and these women were in a vulnerable position. what is it about your politics that means this is obscure to you?