Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1992, Page 3
The Cadre Ideal:
Origins and Development of a Political Cult
Janja Lalich
Alameda, California
Abstract
A little-explored sector of the cult world is the political cult. Those who join such cults
are usually seeking to change society in some fundamental way --right or left --and
are thereby willing to make great sacrifices to attain their lofty goals. This idealistic
commitment is abused by political cult leaders who skillfully exploit the members’
desire to serve. This paper, adapted from a work-in-progress, dissects the founding
and development of a now defunct political cult. The article shows how thought
reform was achieved through the group’s indoctrination and training methods, carried
out under the pretense of “working for the greater good,” and details specific
manipulative techniques that served to create and uphold a cultic environment and a
harsh and exclusionary life-style.
***************
We are believers. Not as you are. We do not believe either in God or in men. We
manufacture gods and we transform men. We believe in Order. We will create a
universe in our image, without weakness, a universe in which man, rid of the old rags
of Christianity, will attain his cosmic grandeur, in the supreme culmination of the
species. We are not fighting for a regime, or for power, or for riches. We are the
instruments of fate.
--from Training of the Cadre,
a Workers Democratic Union training manual
What vileness would you not commit to exterminate vileness?
Could you change the world, for what would you be too good?
Who are you?
Sink into the mud, embrace the butcher, but change the world: it needs it.
--Song of the Controlchorus
from Bertolt Brecht’s “Die Massnahme”
We do not indulge faults, we rectify them we do not justify errors,
we overcome them. Ours is a hard calling and a stern discipline: it is also
liberation.
--Doreen Baxter, General Secretary, Workers Democratic Union
********************
In late October 1985, some one hundred members of a 12-year-old political organization met
in San Francisco and voted unanimously to expel their leader and to dissolve their
organization. This vote, taken by the full membership of the Workers Democratic Union
(WDU), came after two weeks of intense, highly emotional, and revealing discussions among
the members, mostly current, some former. For the first time in 12 years these political
The Cadre Ideal:
Origins and Development of a Political Cult
Janja Lalich
Alameda, California
Abstract
A little-explored sector of the cult world is the political cult. Those who join such cults
are usually seeking to change society in some fundamental way --right or left --and
are thereby willing to make great sacrifices to attain their lofty goals. This idealistic
commitment is abused by political cult leaders who skillfully exploit the members’
desire to serve. This paper, adapted from a work-in-progress, dissects the founding
and development of a now defunct political cult. The article shows how thought
reform was achieved through the group’s indoctrination and training methods, carried
out under the pretense of “working for the greater good,” and details specific
manipulative techniques that served to create and uphold a cultic environment and a
harsh and exclusionary life-style.
***************
We are believers. Not as you are. We do not believe either in God or in men. We
manufacture gods and we transform men. We believe in Order. We will create a
universe in our image, without weakness, a universe in which man, rid of the old rags
of Christianity, will attain his cosmic grandeur, in the supreme culmination of the
species. We are not fighting for a regime, or for power, or for riches. We are the
instruments of fate.
--from Training of the Cadre,
a Workers Democratic Union training manual
What vileness would you not commit to exterminate vileness?
Could you change the world, for what would you be too good?
Who are you?
Sink into the mud, embrace the butcher, but change the world: it needs it.
--Song of the Controlchorus
from Bertolt Brecht’s “Die Massnahme”
We do not indulge faults, we rectify them we do not justify errors,
we overcome them. Ours is a hard calling and a stern discipline: it is also
liberation.
--Doreen Baxter, General Secretary, Workers Democratic Union
********************
In late October 1985, some one hundred members of a 12-year-old political organization met
in San Francisco and voted unanimously to expel their leader and to dissolve their
organization. This vote, taken by the full membership of the Workers Democratic Union
(WDU), came after two weeks of intense, highly emotional, and revealing discussions among
the members, mostly current, some former. For the first time in 12 years these political
