Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1992, Page 38
would pick up fast-food on the way in, or would bring a second lunch, or would eat something
quick like potato chips, candy bars, and soda, or would not eat at all. Full-time functionaries
were expected to be at their facility all the time. Functionaries reported to the facility at 9
a.m. (or earlier) and stayed until the end of the evening, generally 11 p.m., and often one to
two hours later. Full-time functionaries rarely saw the light of day, much less the changing of
seasons.
More often than not, the party was in the midst of some kind of internal or external
mobilization which meant working anywhere from 16 to 20 hours a day, sometimes for days
on end without sleep or even going home. (An example of an internal mobilization would be
carrying out a partywide criticism campaign against sexism an example of an external
campaign would be carrying out work for a party-sponsored candidate for Board of
Education.)
The accepted workday at the facility was 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. however, reading, study, and
writing self-criticisms and other reports were not to be done at the work facility. That meant
doing these things somewhere between midnight and 6 a.m., before the next day started the
cycle all over again.
The accepted work week was Monday through Sunday. At some point, it was decided that
Sundays should be a day off, for personal errands, laundry, food shopping, paying bills, and
calling parents. Even with this understanding, most years most militants never really had a
Sunday off, including those party members who were parents themselves. Occasionally
militants had half the day off on a Sunday it was extremely rare to have off an entire
Sunday. There was always some work to be done some-where. And if nothing else, there
were always reports to write. If by chance some militants did have time off, they usually felt
extremely guilty and unable to relax or enjoy themselves knowing that other comrades were
working.
Most often, work assignments had little to do with a person’s previous skills or training, or
with their preferences. Doctors were given production work intellectuals were put in typing
pools. This was supposed to teach humility. In later years, however, this type of assigning
was less the norm and was used only for periods of punishment (for example, a party
intellectual under criticism might be assigned to work in the bindery for a time in order to be
taught a lesson). Over time, there came to be an obvious distinction between mental and
manual labor, resulting in a somewhat privileged group of intellectuals and administrative
leadership and another somewhat disregarded group of lower-level workers. This rather
glaring class division would never have been admitted to, since the party thought of itself as a
microcosm of a perfect socialist society --with equality and justice for all members.
Other Responsibilities
Besides the weekly meeting, the work unit, and the required reports, each member had many
other responsibilities. These included fund-raising quotas, paper-selling quotas, recruitment
quotas, petition-signature quotas, and volunteer-activation quotas. Beginning with the
electoral organizing work (around 1978), fund-raising became and remained an obsession.
Militants were required to sell a vast array of things: buttons with political slogans or the
party’s name, political posters, party literature (books, journals, and pamphlets), raffle
tickets, the party’s political program, tickets to party-sponsored political film series, even
candy bars.
In addition, members were supposed to be studying the party’s political and theoretical lines,
which were put out either in internal documents or in public literature. A rather prolific group,
the WDU produced a biweekly, bilingual newspaper with a monthly theoretical insert, an
academic Marxist quarterly journal, another rather specialized radical academic journal, a
labor bulletin, and a multitude of internal pamphlets and handouts, usually related to a
would pick up fast-food on the way in, or would bring a second lunch, or would eat something
quick like potato chips, candy bars, and soda, or would not eat at all. Full-time functionaries
were expected to be at their facility all the time. Functionaries reported to the facility at 9
a.m. (or earlier) and stayed until the end of the evening, generally 11 p.m., and often one to
two hours later. Full-time functionaries rarely saw the light of day, much less the changing of
seasons.
More often than not, the party was in the midst of some kind of internal or external
mobilization which meant working anywhere from 16 to 20 hours a day, sometimes for days
on end without sleep or even going home. (An example of an internal mobilization would be
carrying out a partywide criticism campaign against sexism an example of an external
campaign would be carrying out work for a party-sponsored candidate for Board of
Education.)
The accepted workday at the facility was 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. however, reading, study, and
writing self-criticisms and other reports were not to be done at the work facility. That meant
doing these things somewhere between midnight and 6 a.m., before the next day started the
cycle all over again.
The accepted work week was Monday through Sunday. At some point, it was decided that
Sundays should be a day off, for personal errands, laundry, food shopping, paying bills, and
calling parents. Even with this understanding, most years most militants never really had a
Sunday off, including those party members who were parents themselves. Occasionally
militants had half the day off on a Sunday it was extremely rare to have off an entire
Sunday. There was always some work to be done some-where. And if nothing else, there
were always reports to write. If by chance some militants did have time off, they usually felt
extremely guilty and unable to relax or enjoy themselves knowing that other comrades were
working.
Most often, work assignments had little to do with a person’s previous skills or training, or
with their preferences. Doctors were given production work intellectuals were put in typing
pools. This was supposed to teach humility. In later years, however, this type of assigning
was less the norm and was used only for periods of punishment (for example, a party
intellectual under criticism might be assigned to work in the bindery for a time in order to be
taught a lesson). Over time, there came to be an obvious distinction between mental and
manual labor, resulting in a somewhat privileged group of intellectuals and administrative
leadership and another somewhat disregarded group of lower-level workers. This rather
glaring class division would never have been admitted to, since the party thought of itself as a
microcosm of a perfect socialist society --with equality and justice for all members.
Other Responsibilities
Besides the weekly meeting, the work unit, and the required reports, each member had many
other responsibilities. These included fund-raising quotas, paper-selling quotas, recruitment
quotas, petition-signature quotas, and volunteer-activation quotas. Beginning with the
electoral organizing work (around 1978), fund-raising became and remained an obsession.
Militants were required to sell a vast array of things: buttons with political slogans or the
party’s name, political posters, party literature (books, journals, and pamphlets), raffle
tickets, the party’s political program, tickets to party-sponsored political film series, even
candy bars.
In addition, members were supposed to be studying the party’s political and theoretical lines,
which were put out either in internal documents or in public literature. A rather prolific group,
the WDU produced a biweekly, bilingual newspaper with a monthly theoretical insert, an
academic Marxist quarterly journal, another rather specialized radical academic journal, a
labor bulletin, and a multitude of internal pamphlets and handouts, usually related to a
