Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1998, page 22
3. Relying usually on a closed system of logic, which permits no feedback and
refuses to be modified except by executive order.
4. Relying on the unsophistication of the person being manipulated (that is, the
person is unaware of the process), and pressing him or her to adapt to the
environment in increments that are sufficiently minor so that the person does
not notice changes.
5. Eroding the confidence of a person‟s perceptions.
6. Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences to promote
new learning or inhibit undesired previous behavior. Punishments are usually
social ones, for example, shunning, social isolation, and humiliation (which
are more effective in producing wanted behavior than beatings and death
threats, although these do occur). (p. 1470)
Extensive data are now available on the extent to which such methods have been used in a
variety of settings. However, this is limited in its application to political cults in general and
left-wing cults in particular. The main case study material hitherto available concerns a
Marxist-Leninist party (the Democratic Workers Party, or DWP) based in California from
1974 to 1985 (Lalich, 1992, 1993 Siegel, Strohl, Ingram, Roche, &Taylor, 1987). A
summary of these accounts will be helpful in identifying the specific thought-reform
techniques most widely used by left-wing cults, and which must therefore be taken into
account in any formal definition of political cults.
Fundamentally, the DWP ideology and organizational practice completely dominated the
lives and psyches of its members. Siegel et al. (1987), in an account written by ex-
members, testify that the DWP:
challenged its members to devote their lives to revolutionary struggles as others
were doing around the world, and to see themselves as part of a world
movement to do less when one could do more was profoundly unserious. This
was a compelling moral imperative. (p. 62)
This “moral imperative” is a leitmotif in many accounts of extreme left-wing politics, and
historically has had the effect of extracting extraordinary levels of commitment from people.
For example, Valtin (1988), in a text originally published during the 1940s, chronicled life
within the Communist International (Comintern) during the 1920s and 1930s, when it came
increasingly under Stalin‟s control. Particularly with the rise of fascism, the organization
could plausibly represent itself as a last barrier to barbarism (thereby engendering a moral
imperative in many people), especially if it denied that anything untoward was occurring in
Russia. The effect was to generate what George Orwell described as a religious veneration
of the Russian experiment, and a sanctification of the personality of Stalin. This ensured a
frantic devotion to “building the party,” slavish conformity to the party‟s often contradictory
nostrums, and a habit of responding to suspected dissent with a heresy hunt.
Within the DWP, indoctrination started at an early stage of membership. Thus:
Members went through an intensive new members program, which included in-
depth analysis of their class history and intensive criticism of their practice and
attitudes. The discipline demanded of a cadre member included 24 hour-a-day
availability and submission of all aspects of one‟s life to the needs of the party.
In principle one‟s personal life was one‟s own business in practice the party‟s
discipline and control were total. A very unified but stratified community was
developed as party members were taught that we were preparing to be an elite,
and we took pride in our submission to criticism and discipline in the name of
political commitment. The ideology of the Leninist party as an instrument of the
3. Relying usually on a closed system of logic, which permits no feedback and
refuses to be modified except by executive order.
4. Relying on the unsophistication of the person being manipulated (that is, the
person is unaware of the process), and pressing him or her to adapt to the
environment in increments that are sufficiently minor so that the person does
not notice changes.
5. Eroding the confidence of a person‟s perceptions.
6. Manipulating a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences to promote
new learning or inhibit undesired previous behavior. Punishments are usually
social ones, for example, shunning, social isolation, and humiliation (which
are more effective in producing wanted behavior than beatings and death
threats, although these do occur). (p. 1470)
Extensive data are now available on the extent to which such methods have been used in a
variety of settings. However, this is limited in its application to political cults in general and
left-wing cults in particular. The main case study material hitherto available concerns a
Marxist-Leninist party (the Democratic Workers Party, or DWP) based in California from
1974 to 1985 (Lalich, 1992, 1993 Siegel, Strohl, Ingram, Roche, &Taylor, 1987). A
summary of these accounts will be helpful in identifying the specific thought-reform
techniques most widely used by left-wing cults, and which must therefore be taken into
account in any formal definition of political cults.
Fundamentally, the DWP ideology and organizational practice completely dominated the
lives and psyches of its members. Siegel et al. (1987), in an account written by ex-
members, testify that the DWP:
challenged its members to devote their lives to revolutionary struggles as others
were doing around the world, and to see themselves as part of a world
movement to do less when one could do more was profoundly unserious. This
was a compelling moral imperative. (p. 62)
This “moral imperative” is a leitmotif in many accounts of extreme left-wing politics, and
historically has had the effect of extracting extraordinary levels of commitment from people.
For example, Valtin (1988), in a text originally published during the 1940s, chronicled life
within the Communist International (Comintern) during the 1920s and 1930s, when it came
increasingly under Stalin‟s control. Particularly with the rise of fascism, the organization
could plausibly represent itself as a last barrier to barbarism (thereby engendering a moral
imperative in many people), especially if it denied that anything untoward was occurring in
Russia. The effect was to generate what George Orwell described as a religious veneration
of the Russian experiment, and a sanctification of the personality of Stalin. This ensured a
frantic devotion to “building the party,” slavish conformity to the party‟s often contradictory
nostrums, and a habit of responding to suspected dissent with a heresy hunt.
Within the DWP, indoctrination started at an early stage of membership. Thus:
Members went through an intensive new members program, which included in-
depth analysis of their class history and intensive criticism of their practice and
attitudes. The discipline demanded of a cadre member included 24 hour-a-day
availability and submission of all aspects of one‟s life to the needs of the party.
In principle one‟s personal life was one‟s own business in practice the party‟s
discipline and control were total. A very unified but stratified community was
developed as party members were taught that we were preparing to be an elite,
and we took pride in our submission to criticism and discipline in the name of
political commitment. The ideology of the Leninist party as an instrument of the
