Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, 1998, page 32
What runs through all these accounts is the boredom which accompanied CWI membership,
after the thrill of initiation and the feeling of being special had worn off. For example,
recruitment itself, and much of party life, consisted of hearing the same basic ideas
endlessly repeated: there might be variations, but they would be variations around a
minimalist theme. As Scheflin and Opton (1978) point out, paraphrasing no less an expert
on mind control than Charles Manson, such repetition, combined with the exclusion of any
competing doctrine, is a powerful tool of conversion. Even if the belief is not fully
internalized a person hearing nothing but a one-note message will eventually be compelled
to draw from it in expressing their own opinions. But once inside the CWI this became akin
to spending every night listening to an orchestra playing the same piece over and over
again. However well accoutered the musicians or however superb their performances,
boredom, tiredness, and cynicism inevitably set in.
The recruitment process can also be interpreted as a means of indoctrinating new recruits
by presenting them with an escalating series of challenges, or ordeals. Wexler and Fraser
(1995) have argued that this is an important method of establishing the cohesiveness of
decision elites within cults, thereby activating the extreme conformity known as groupthink.
However, within the CWI, it seems that such methods were used on all new recruits in order
to embroil them more deeply in CWI activities. Thus, the prospective recruit first expressed
private agreement with some CWI ideas. They were then required to advance this
agreement publicly at Labor Party or trade union meetings, then contribute money, buy
literature, and sell newspapers on the street. This continued until their entire life revolved
around the CWI. The process seems to be one of extracting commitment and then forcing a
decision. The full extent of the group‟s organization and program would not be immediately
made clear, and given the secretiveness of the CWI about its very existence would not be
readily known via the media. Nevertheless, a commitment to some form of activity was
obtained, and sounded on first hearing to have nothing in common with a life-transforming
commitment. One interviewee told me:
We would routinely lie to recruits about what their membership would involve.
They would ask what level of activity we expected, and we would talk mostly
about the weekly branch meeting and tell them that they could pick and choose
what else to do, if anything. But once they were inside there would be
systematic pressure to do more and more. Once they were in, very few could
resist. But we knew that if we told them in advance all that was involved they
would never join. I remember telling a full-timer once that I thought this new
recruit we had met didn‟t have any friends. He looked absolutely delighted, and
told me that meant we would at least get plenty of work out of him!
Thus, recruits soon found their initial levels of activity rising: “come to one more meeting,”
“attend one more conference,” “read an extra pamphlet this week.” Whether they had
consciously decided anything became irrelevant: a real commitment had been made to the
organization. They often then found that their attitudes changed to come in line with
escalating levels of commitment, and eventually reached such an intense pitch that a formal
decision (if it needed to be made at all) was only a small final step --a classic
demonstration of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957).
The evidence therefore suggests that, until the mid-1980s, the CWI was a growing political
force, with several thousand predominantly young and enthusiastic members. Prospects
seemed limitless. Members were certainly encouraged to believe that the British revolution
would develop within a 10-year period, and that their organization would play a decisive
role in history‟s most crucial turning point. It was at this point, with pride at its peak, that
everything began to go wrong.
What runs through all these accounts is the boredom which accompanied CWI membership,
after the thrill of initiation and the feeling of being special had worn off. For example,
recruitment itself, and much of party life, consisted of hearing the same basic ideas
endlessly repeated: there might be variations, but they would be variations around a
minimalist theme. As Scheflin and Opton (1978) point out, paraphrasing no less an expert
on mind control than Charles Manson, such repetition, combined with the exclusion of any
competing doctrine, is a powerful tool of conversion. Even if the belief is not fully
internalized a person hearing nothing but a one-note message will eventually be compelled
to draw from it in expressing their own opinions. But once inside the CWI this became akin
to spending every night listening to an orchestra playing the same piece over and over
again. However well accoutered the musicians or however superb their performances,
boredom, tiredness, and cynicism inevitably set in.
The recruitment process can also be interpreted as a means of indoctrinating new recruits
by presenting them with an escalating series of challenges, or ordeals. Wexler and Fraser
(1995) have argued that this is an important method of establishing the cohesiveness of
decision elites within cults, thereby activating the extreme conformity known as groupthink.
However, within the CWI, it seems that such methods were used on all new recruits in order
to embroil them more deeply in CWI activities. Thus, the prospective recruit first expressed
private agreement with some CWI ideas. They were then required to advance this
agreement publicly at Labor Party or trade union meetings, then contribute money, buy
literature, and sell newspapers on the street. This continued until their entire life revolved
around the CWI. The process seems to be one of extracting commitment and then forcing a
decision. The full extent of the group‟s organization and program would not be immediately
made clear, and given the secretiveness of the CWI about its very existence would not be
readily known via the media. Nevertheless, a commitment to some form of activity was
obtained, and sounded on first hearing to have nothing in common with a life-transforming
commitment. One interviewee told me:
We would routinely lie to recruits about what their membership would involve.
They would ask what level of activity we expected, and we would talk mostly
about the weekly branch meeting and tell them that they could pick and choose
what else to do, if anything. But once they were inside there would be
systematic pressure to do more and more. Once they were in, very few could
resist. But we knew that if we told them in advance all that was involved they
would never join. I remember telling a full-timer once that I thought this new
recruit we had met didn‟t have any friends. He looked absolutely delighted, and
told me that meant we would at least get plenty of work out of him!
Thus, recruits soon found their initial levels of activity rising: “come to one more meeting,”
“attend one more conference,” “read an extra pamphlet this week.” Whether they had
consciously decided anything became irrelevant: a real commitment had been made to the
organization. They often then found that their attitudes changed to come in line with
escalating levels of commitment, and eventually reached such an intense pitch that a formal
decision (if it needed to be made at all) was only a small final step --a classic
demonstration of cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957).
The evidence therefore suggests that, until the mid-1980s, the CWI was a growing political
force, with several thousand predominantly young and enthusiastic members. Prospects
seemed limitless. Members were certainly encouraged to believe that the British revolution
would develop within a 10-year period, and that their organization would play a decisive
role in history‟s most crucial turning point. It was at this point, with pride at its peak, that
everything began to go wrong.
