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"Full And Conscious Subjection": Inside A Maoist Cult In America
- 2023
- From 2014-2021, the "Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party USA" (CR-CPUSA) aka the "Red Guards," exerted control over the lives of hundreds of young people — psychologically, financially, physically, and sexually abusing them. Its charismatic leader, Jared Roark, walked free and continues to preside over a handful of devotees in Austin, TX. Very little about this cult has been published. With this project we seek to collect documentation, member testimonies, resources, and analyses in one place, so the cult can be exposed and its survivors empowered.
FACS is a project by [someone remaining anonymous], in collaboration with other former members to comprehensively expose and condemn the Maoist cult that impacted our lives and the lives of so many other, mostly young, people who wanted to fight for a better world. I am proud to have helped take it down from the inside, and am now working to collect and share survivors' stories, warn people where the cult's leaders and ideology still pervade certain organizing spaces, and educate on the topics of cults and organizing safely.
The "Committee to Reconstitute the Communist Party of the USA," or the "CR-CPUSA," launched in 2014 under the initial name "Red Guards Austin." Led by the charismatic authority of Jared Roark, it grew out of and largely seized control of the Maoist movement in the US — an emerging wave of collectives and organizers with revolutionary aspirations.
By its collapse in 2022, it had consolidated into a high-control organization, or cult, which psychologically and physically abused its members, harbored rapists in leadership, and engaged in at least one instance of human trafficking. The cult dictated how members dressed, where we lived, and who we dated. It punished us with sleep deprivation, humiliation, "struggle sessions," and beatings. It preyed on people's just desire for social and societal change in order to fulfill Jared's personal vision, all while sabotaging genuinely progressive organizing efforts.
The CR-CPUSA operated through public fronts like study groups, tenant unions, marches against police brutality, and charity work. It also had, and its leaders are still defended by, connections to a broader international movement, which we hope to investigate and interrogate further. Despite the collapse, Jared and his closest devotees in Austin and Los Angeles have made efforts to regroup, and its ideology has gone on to inspire a small but not insignificant movement of similar organizations. If, with this project, I can help just one person avoid falling into the trap I did, it will be worth it.
The name of this project comes from the loyalty pledge CR-CPUSA members were compelled to recite at every meeting before we could speak: "I declare my full and conscious subjection..."
We're speaking freely now.