> Hi,
>
> I saw you'd posted the url of my book (thanks!) - I thought you might
> like
> to also post this review from the New Statesman, that addresses some of
> the
> issues raised in the discussion of 100 Peace Movements Bloom.
>
> Alex Stein
>
>
> Review from the New Statesman
> by Christian Wolmar
> 6 January, 2003
>
>
> Alexandra Stein, Inside Out, A memoir of entering and breaking out of a
> Minneapolis political cult, North Star Press of St. Cloud.
>
> The political movements that sprang up in the 1960s around the new
> agendas
> of women's rights, community activity, housing and third world liberation
> were easy prey for all kinds of entryists. The very nature of their
> loose-knit structure laid them open to exploitation by those with a much
> harder and more specific agenda. Alexandra Stein was active, in the
> 1970s,
> in a variety of radical groups on the west coast of the United States.
> She
> had fled there following a dysfunctional but highly political adolescence
> in
> north London. Dissatisfied with the shapelessness of so much political
> activity, she sought out a more disciplined environment for her activism.
> She soon discovered the "O" (short for "organisation").
>
> From the beginning, there are clues that all is not well within the O,
> such
> as stories about boxing matches between members to "heighten struggle",
> and
> a paranoid security system that results in all meetings being held with
> the
> radio on so as to block out the possibility of eavesdropping. Stein
> finds
> that the O controls every aspect of its members' lives. On their entry
> into
> the organisation, they are assessed for the nature of their "ideological
> form" on the basis "that any relationship between people in capitalism
> can
> be looked at strictly as class relationships between implying domination
> [sic] and subordination". Stein, a committed and active feminist, is
> rather
> incredulous to discover that she has the ideological form of a "male
> chauvinist".
>
> The members work long, punishing hours: in addition to their normal day
> jobs, they are expected to work in any one of the O's own businesses,
> such
> as the wholemeal bakery. There is seldom time for more than four or five
> hours sleep, which means that members, who in any case are isolated from
> each other for security reasons, have scant energy to think about what is
> happening to them. The key point here is that Stein, and the other
> members,
> are unaware that they have entered a cult, because it was disguised as a
> Marxist-Leninist political organisation dedicated to creating cadres
> ready
> to fight for the cause. The penny drops only when she tries to leave the
> organisation and is able to predict how her questioning of the O and, in
> particular, of its stream of failed business initiatives, will be met by
> criticism of her.
>
> It takes courage for her to begin to challenge the organisation, not
> least
> because her husband, a fellow O member, is unable to understand the
> enormity
> of the con perpetrated on all of them. It is only in retrospect that
> Stein
> realises that the O has every facet of a cult, as much as the Branch
> Davidians or the Moonies. All the elements are there: the control, the
> emphasis on shared ideology, the suspicion of outsiders, the need for
> purity
> and so on. The last section of the book reads like a detective story as
> she
> uncovers the true nature of the man running the O.
>
> The importance of this well-written book is not only in its insight into
> the
> workings of a cult, but of how damaging such organisations have been to
> the
> wider left. One of the causes of the demise of the 1960s movements was
> the
> way that cultish groups infiltrated them, and one has only to look at the
> ever-present Socialist Workers banners at demonstrations today to
> understand
> that entryism remains a destructive force. It is not too difficult, for
> example, to characterise most of the extreme left-wing organisations that
> emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such as the Workers'
> Revolutionary Party and Militant, as cults of differing varieties of
> extremity.
>
> It is often said that cults have only two real purposes: recruiting other
> members and raising money. One could add a third, which is sexual
> opportunities for its leaders, a constant theme to which the O is no
> exception. Nor is it too far-fetched to argue that some of the current
> trends in corporate capitalism - the obsession with leadership, the
> incomprehensible management-speak, the emphasis on corporate culture and
> the
> need for long hours - have resonances with Stein's story.
>
>
> Christian Wolmar's latest book is Down the Tube, the battle for London's
> Underground, published by Aurum, £9 99.
>
>
>
>
>
-- Michael Pugliese
I got an axe-handle pistol with a graveyard frame. It shoots tombstone bullets wearing balls and chains. I'm drinking TNT. I'm smokin' dynamite. I hope some screwball start's a fight, 'cause I'm ready, ready, ready
Muddy Waters, "I'm Ready."