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I don’t think that the behaviours of several members of the Socialist Party can be blamed on the whole organization.
Many members dedicated their lives to the socialist party, and they were good people; some have left the party; it is not a particular case of the SP
I have known organizations that have vanished from the face of the earth, and they had thousands of members, and the socialist party, with its limited resources, has continued; some organizations can not even print their newspapers
Most sexual violations of all time are inflicted by family members. My father never did any wrong actions against me, and I adored my mother and my father. A friend of mine called his father an asshole, and his father was a good man. When his father died, he went to the cemetery, and he killed himself in front of his grave
The aptitude of your father can not be blamed on the socialist party; all human behaviors are socially learned. In this forum, and groups io forum, I was also treated like shits and I was defamed by a couples members of the socialist party, and they are members of the executive committee, and I did not blame it on the socialist party either.
Ozy
It’s not acceptable that you bring up your own personal issues here (I don’t mean just because this is a thread on Trump). Period. It’s also totally out of order that you should then turn this into a rant against the SPGB and its members in general.
Who the hell do you think you are to say such things?
The socialist party is not a cult; it does not have a leader or a god
A cult is a group or movement exhibiting intense, excessive devotion to a charismatic leader, idea, or object, often using manipulative, coercive techniques to control members, isolate them from society, and exploit them physically, financially, or psychologically. Signs include authoritarian, unanswerable leadership, isolation from family/friends, and no tolerance for questions.
Key Characteristics and Signs of a Cult
Charismatic Leader: A living, authoritarian leader who is the central focus and demands absolute, unquestioning loyalty.
Mind Control/Indoctrination: Methods such as repetition, hypnosis, and behavior modification are employed to instill and reinforce beliefs.
Isolation: Members are either encouraged or forced to sever ties with their family, friends, and society, thereby becoming dependent on the group.
Exploitation: Members are often persuaded to commit unethical or illegal acts and surrender assets/money to the group.
No Exit Strategy: Leaving is difficult, discouraged, and often penalized.
How to Identify a Cult
Identifying a cult involves looking for high-pressure recruiting, lack of transparency regarding finances or leadership, and a “we vs. them” mentality that views outsiders as evil or unenlightened.
Examples of Cults
Heaven’s Gate: A group led by Marshall Applewhite that believed they were destined to reach an extraterrestrial spacecraft.
The People’s Temple: Led by Jim Jones, infamous for the 1978 mass suicide/murder in Jonestown.
Manson Family: Led by Charles Manson, known for brutal murders in the late 1960s.
“Cult” Person or Group
A “cult person” is an intense follower, while a “cult of people” refers to a cohesive, often secretive, group bound by these extreme, unorthodox beliefs, frequently existing in tension with mainstream society. The term can also, in a non-derogatory sense, refer to a “cult following” of admirers for a particular, often niche, artistic, or social phenomenon.What you describe involves real harm, and that has to be acknowledged first. Abuse, violence, intimidation and narcissistic domination are not “political disagreements”; they are serious crimes and betrayals of basic human decency. No political organisation, tradition or set of ideas can excuse or relativise that. Anger toward those experiences is entirely justified.
At the same time, those acts were not expressions of socialism, class consciousness, or the idea of working-class emancipation. They were abuses of power by individuals who happened to belong to an organisation — just as abusers exist in churches, families, unions, states and corporations. Their behaviour indicts them as individuals; it does not constitute an argument for capitalism, nor a refutation of socialism as a social system.
The claim that the SPGB is a “cult” also needs to be addressed seriously. Cults are defined by unquestionable leaders, enforced loyalty, emotional dependency, suppression of dissent, secrecy, and isolation from society. None of these are built into the structure or principles of the SPGB. There are no gurus, no charismatic leaders, no required rituals, no personal devotion demanded, no promises of salvation. Members are free to leave, disagree, criticise — and many have done so over more than a century.
What has existed, and this matters, is something far more common and far less mystical: the tendency of small political organisations to become insular, overly abstract, impatient, and sometimes dismissive toward workers who do not share their conclusions. That can slide from criticism of capitalism into contempt for people trapped within it. That is not cultism; it is political alienation reproduced inside a hostile class society.
It is also important to say this plainly: socialists are not morally superior beings. They are workers shaped by the same alienated society as everyone else. Capitalism produces damaged relationships, damaged personalities and damaged power dynamics, and those do not magically disappear when someone adopts socialist ideas. Political labels do not cleanse character.
Socialism does not depend on the moral quality of past members of any organisation. If it did, no emancipatory idea would survive history. Rejecting the goal of a classless, moneyless society because some individuals betrayed it would be like rejecting medicine because doctors committed crimes.
The working class does not need to be romanticised — but neither does it need to be despised. It needs clarity, honesty and conscious organisation. That includes being honest about failures, including internal ones.
Ego, authoritarianism and cruelty are poisons — but they are products of class society, not proofs that class society should continue. They are reasons to abolish the conditions that reproduce them, not excuses to defend the system that generates them.
To put it simply: socialism does not begin with better people; it exists because capitalism systematically produces broken people and broken relationships. The task is not to worship organisations or personalities, but to abolish the social conditions that keep reproducing abuse, hierarchy and alienationWell said, Roberto…
We shouldn’t have to have all this personal stuff aired on this forum. This is not the place. I don’t know what Ozymandias was hoping to achieve, but since he seems to be intent on slinging mud against the entire membership of the SPGB, I, for one, am not impressed. That’s putting it mildly.
Perhaps the Moderator ought to intervene at this point…..
I agree. Whatever personal experiences or grievances someone may carry, this forum is not the place to air them in this way—especially when they are used to indict an entire membership or reduce a body of ideas to personal attacks. That kind of approach sheds far more heat than light.
If there are political disagreements, they should be addressed politically: by engaging with arguments, principles, and analysis, not by slinging accusations or attempting guilt by association. No organisation is defined by the worst behaviour of individuals, and serious claims require appropriate channels, not public mud-slinging.
At this point, the discussion risks drifting away from its stated purpose altogether. Some moderation to bring things back to a constructive and relevant exchange would seem entirely appropriate.
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