‘I told women to get abortions’ – a cult survivor on brainwashing and regrets
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San Francisco in the 1970s was exploding with liberation. From black rights to the first feminist advocacy group for sex workers, the Californian city was charged with an atmosphere of political change.
So when the Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975, some left-leaning activists were pondering what cause to tackle next.
A Fulbright scholar, Janja Lalich had just returned from four years in Spain. She had come out as a lesbian and her friend asked her to attend a “study group” to read “radical literature” and tackle social justice.
“Other people I knew at the time were also joining,” the now 79-year-old recalls, speaking on a Zoom call from California State University, where she’s a professor emerita of sociology. “So I thought, well if she’s joining, I’ll join.”
The social justice angle appealed to Lalich, who’d grown up in an immigrant family that faced discrimination, especially because “my mother was divorced and poor”. And it also just seemed like a social opportunity. “I thought, well, that would be cool because I’ll meet other people… I didn’t know that the study group was the front for an organisation.
“I had these affinities for the working class and… we were going to make a revolution and we were going to bring social justice and get rid of sexism and racism and all that. It all sounded wonderful.”
The Democratic Workers Party was led by former professor Marlene Dixon, who was promoting a communist ideology and attracting large numbers to join. Her hero was Mao Tse-tung, and the University of Chicago refused to rehire her, describing her teaching as “dangerously persuasive”.
Initially wooed by Dixon, Lalich said she quickly rose through the ranks and into Dixon’s inner circle where she would work 20 hour days, seven days a week.
There were different membership levels, and those in the “outer rings” had no clue what went on at the top level.
“I really thought what we were doing was the right thing, but as I was more exposed, especially to her and her arbitrary decisions and her drunkenness and waving guns around, I thought, this isn’t good, but I couldn’t figure out how to leave. By then I had lost everybody on the outside. I had no friends, I had no money, I had nowhere to go, and I was brainwashed.”
The group did political work, ran street meetings, and put candidates up to run in elections.
But with limited food, the membership was exhausted and “terrified” as they spent most of their time sitting in circles, “criticising each other ’cause you were supposed to get rid of your bourgeois background.'”
Those who didn’t conform were swiftly rejected. “There were always like trumped up charges … people were put on trial like the fake Russia trials and expelled and, you know, I mean, it was very, very harsh.
“People were just beaten down.”
Reflecting on her time inside, Janja said she felt horrible for buying into the narrative, and bullying people.
“I expelled people, I told women to get abortions, I broke up families. I did horrible things as a leader.”
When Janja’s mother was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour, she asked for three months leave to be with her in Milwaukee. The leadership said no, and said her mother could stay with her.
“So this poor Serbian woman, I bring her back to San Francisco and she lives in my house with other members, and I never saw her ’cause I was working all the time.
“I came home one night and she was lying dead on the floor. It just broke me. I’m sorry, I can’t tell this story without crying.”
Lalich broke the news to the leadership and told them that she would fly her mother’s body home to Milwaukee.
“And she said to me, well, you’re not going to the funeral, are you? And I looked at the phone and I thought, wait a minute, I’m killing myself to build a better world, and if this is the better world I’m building where I’m being told I can’t go to my mother’s funeral who just died in my house, this is f***ed.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/09/29/i-told-women-to-get-abortions-a-cult-survivor-on-brainwashing-and-regrets/.
