How a rebel can turn into a Cult Party zombie Article on SWP leader Jack Barnes

[ " The psychological burden of having the fate of the world resting on one's own shoulders is enormous to bear. "What if I make a mistake? What if I don't measure up? The consequences could be terrible." Thoughts like these, whether one is aware of it or not, must surely have run through our minds, at least subconsciously. Not surprisingly this kind of pressure, even if it is self-imposed, will cause most people to seek to shift responsibility onto someone else, onto a stronger person, onto someone who seems supremely confident, onto the leader of the group. A price is paid, however, for that psychological relief: it must inevitably cause at least some degree of psychological dependence on the leader.

There is, I believe, a type of authoritarian/submissive dynamic at work here, akin in some respects to the dynamic at work in some religious groups. One's focus at first is not on the group or the leader, but on the doctrine. One submits to the doctrine, to the force of history, to the authority of the great historical figures of the past. Over time, however, there is, at least in part, a transference of psychological submission from the doctrine and history to the current group and its current leader.

Paul LeBlanc, in his book, Trotskyism in the United States, presents a very perceptive review of this dynamic at work, quoting and summarizing from Freud.

"The functioning of some SWP members, responding to the powerful personality and tremendous authority that Barnes assumed, brings to mind Freud's insights on group psychology: 'the individual gives up his ego-ideal [i.e., individual sense of right and wrong, duty, and guilt] and substitutes for it the group-ideal as embodied in the leader.' The authority of the leader (in the minds of at least many members) becomes essential for the cohesion of the group, and the approval of the leader, or a sense of oneness with the leader, becomes a deep-felt need that is bound up with one's own sense of self-worth. The member of the group enjoys 'a feeling of triumph' when his or her thinking coincides with this leader's judgments, and is vulnerable to 'delusions of inferiority and self-depreciation' whenever inner doubts arise about the leader's authority." [3]

This aspect of group psychology presents a fertile environment in which one person can emerge as the predominant figure in the group, as someone who cannot be challenged. Of course, one should not take Freud's perceptions in too sweeping a fashion. The problems he points to need not necessarily come to fruition. Other circumstances are required.

A leader, once he or she accepts the sense of mission that Jack spoke of, also bears the same kind of self-imposed psychological burden. Yet the leader is compelled to accept that responsibility, to take it upon his or her shoulders. The leader who "totally absorbs" that "fateful responsibility" must surely live with the keen feeling that he or she is a special person, a person on whom the fate of humanity at least partially depends. No wonder, then, that there is a serious risk of megalomania in such circumstances, a feeling that one is indispensable, a feeling that everything one does has special, fateful importance. "]