So I'm pretty sure I met some people probably tied to the Juche tagfags a couple years back. Maybe 2022? Something like that. They had a whole network of squats running between Baltimore and Dundalk, and leftypol was on one of the common computers, and there was a constant blend of anarchist style langauge but a worship of juche idealogy, and the vigorously blended the two and had insane study sessions. Like, maybe 20 buildings total abandoned row houses, old warehouses, a couple storefronts. The vibe was exactly like Fight Club to be honest. The creepy "we live in a dilapidated house and hit each other with sticks" type shit. Most of them were in straight up drug den living conditions. You'd walk in and see piles of clothes, stolen motor bikes, and at least three people tweaking on the floor. But they had it organized somehow.
>>This picture from the movie is really the vibe you'd get walking to a lot of their "pads".
How I found myself in this situation I was in the Young Communist League at the time. It's a direct CPUSA offshoot. These werid guys had people acting on their behalf inside the YCL people who would target the more down nnd out members. The ones who were broke isolated, maybe fresh out of rehab, layoffs, struggling with mental health, or bad home lifes. They'd gaslight you into thinking your "bourgeois tendencies" were holding you back, then offer you a spot in one of their "activist squat houses." If you acted too intellectual or too uncomfortable with their aggressive politics, they'd ship you to these places for "re education." but they didn't call it that of course. They were gaslighting people.
They had this thing called a "struggle period." The goal they said was to shed your bourgeois brain patterns. What that meant in practice is they'd disconnect you from your family, make you quit your job, and ration your food. You'd get maybe $220 a week if you were lucky and showing "progress" but realistically 80 bucks. They'd make you do physical labor around the squat for hours, general repairs, cleaning, hauling scrap, fixing holes in the walls. Then theory classes. Then physical conditioning. Pushups and burpees until you puked. I saw a kid start crying during a study session about Maoist mass line after intense workouts, and they made him do more pushups while sobbing. "Learn to handle tension," they'd say.
They'd also suit up in full riot gear, helmets, shields, retractable batons and have you charge at each other in an abandoned warehouse. They'd swing those batons for real. People got bruised ribs, bloody noses. They called it "stress inoculation." If you complained, they'd say you were being a "petty‑bourgeois intellectual, who needed to learn how to handle brute force".
One kid, maybe 19, said he wanted to go back to his neighborhood. Just wanted to see his mom. They basically kidnapped him. Made him homeless. Forced him to sleep on the pavement for 2 months. They had some of their freight train riders and tweaker lackeys "mentor" him on how to survive. The goal was to "build character" and "truly learn the struggle."
They printed their own papers. Held classes on theory and praxis. The stuff they taught was almost identical to what Juche guys post here. shit word for word sometimes. The same critiques of the NGO‑left, the same calls for a distributed vanguard (this word was said every day in the squats), the same glorification of lumpen energy. But they conveniently leave out the part where they psychologically break people and turn them into disposable cadres.
I'm not saying everyone in that orbit is like this. But I saw it with my own eyes. And the fact that their stories match up so perfectly with the theory they were teaching in those squats? Makes you wonder. Maybe the creepy parts are just the parts they don't post about. This isnt even the half of it. They were absolutely mad. Started talking about "the maoist street code", still have no idea that that means.
>>They had a strict no‑smartphone policy, if you got caught with one, you'd have to "glove up" and fight one of the main organizers this shady Muay Thai cambodian guy and he'd just beat the shit out of you while everyone cheered like it was an army boxing scrum. I was an army vet and fresh out of rehab so I could hang without a phone and live rough easy, and honestly this whole setup helped keep me sober. They ended up liking me, paying me like $400 a week to print and spread their paper which is how I first noticed the language, all that "distributed vanguard" stuff, sounding exactly like what Juchefag posts here.
>>They were paranoid as hell about being watched. Before any meeting where they'd talk about theory and strategy they'd pat everyone down for wires. And I mean a full pat-down, ankles to armpits, like you're going into a supermax visiting room. Then they'd assign people to guard posts around the block, sometimes for hours at a time, just watching for cops or anyone who looked out of place. They had this whole network of hidden surveillance cameras rigged up on telephone poles and in abandoned windows covering like a six block radius. You'd sit in a damp basement stairwell with a beat-up laptop or some weird encrypted radio thing looked like a military surplus walkie‑talkie with a mini keyboard attached and you'd have to call out every car that passed, every person who lingered too long or whatever. If you missed something you'd be doing pushups until your arms gave out then forced to hard spar, or they'd assign to some other risky manual labor and claim it's the maoist street code
The weirdest thing they did wasn't the fighting or the counter surveillance. It was the "Dream Logs." Every morning, right before the 6 AM workout, you had to sit in a circle and describe your dreams from the night before. In detail. And I mean graphic detail. They believed that your subconscious was full of "bourgeois programming" that you had to purge by verbalizing it to the group and deprogramming it collectively with consensus of the group. If you said you didn't remember your dreams, they'd make you drink this horrible herbal tea some kind of mugwort and wormwood mix and then blindfolded asked to meditate for an hours until you hallucinated something. People would start crying, describing nightmares about their parents or their old jobs. One guy kept dreaming about a Target store he used to work out and they made him write a 10‑page essay on commodity fetishism before he was allowed to eat breakfast he had to finish 200 pushups and 250 situps.
They had a "Dream Interpreter." This one older crustie looking train riding anarchist dude, a former philosophy grad student who'd dropped out and been living in the squats for like eight years selling lucy. He would listen to everyone's dreams and then assign "struggle tasks" based on what he heard. If you dreamed about money, you had to panhandle for a week and give all the cash to the collective. If you dreamed about a cop, you had to go stand outside the nearest police station for an hour just staring at the door shouting slogans at them, sometimes even more "meaningful manual labor". If you dreamed about your ex? You had to write them a letter apologizing for your "bourgeois attachment" and then burn it while everyone chanted death to the bourgeoise.
You could easily be put on a "Silent Watch.". I helped them with this unfortunately. The money and sobriety was nice. If you broke a major rule like talking to your family or using a smartphone or drinking too much alcohol they'd make you wear a black armband and not speak for a full week. You could still do labor, still attend theory classes, but you couldn't say a word. You had to communicate by writing on a little whiteboard they gave you. And everyone else was encouraged to ignore you unless it was absolutely necessary. People would break down after three or four days. I saw a grown man sob silently while scrubbing a floor because no one would acknowledge he existed as this guy shouted YOU CANT HANDLE THIS SHIT HUH WHITE BOY?
After your Silent Watch was over, they'd throw you a little party with dumpstered sweets and snacks, joints, cheap cider, and you'd feel like you'd survived something. They would all hug you and say it's ok comrade welcome to the working-class.
They also ran shifts. You were either on the night crew staying up all night in a certain part of the buildings, watching the cameras or just sitting in silence, reading, or you were on the early morning crew, up at 4 AM to start the workouts and theory reading. The night crew joined the workouts before dinner and bed. Usually rice and beans with a bit of tuna. New people didn't get to choose. You got whatever slot they gave you, usually the worst one. It felt like they were testing how much discomfort you could take.
And they definitely targeted the softer types. The ones who came from decent families, had some college, maybe a degree, but were disaffected burned out on activism or just lost in life. They had this weird theory that educated people carry "petite‑bourgeois programming" in their bones, and that you couldn't get rid of it through normal education or just reading theory. You had to live like a lumpen. They said they borrowed a lot from the Catholic Worker movement the whole idea of voluntarily choosing poverty to become one with the poor. Dorothy Day was quoted constantly. They'd make you read her stuff, then say, "She slept on the streets. She ate garbage. That's what real solidarity looks like. You never lived it and you wont be able to refuse to now".
So they'd force people into this lumpen lifestyle. No steady job. No phone. No contact with your old friends or family. You'd sleep on a once piss-stained mattress in a room with five other people. You'd eat whatever they could scrounge or steal. The goal was to "harden you to the true working class struggle" and burn out your "bourgeois programming" through sheer deprivation mixed with theory and "aggression building". honestly, for some people, it worked. They became harder, meaner, more blue collar. But for others, it just broke them. I saw one girl, a former social work student, completely lose her mind after three months. Started talking to herself. They just said she was "processing" and kept her on the night shift for two more weeks until she ran off. Never saw her again. When I confronted them about it softly they said "She would have folded when it matters most anyway, best she purge herself".
Here are some pics of the conditions befoore they "burned operations" and left the buildings apparently. i went back to visit. a weird time but maybe it helped me in a strange kind of way. i dont even think i should really describe half of it… they did help me stay sober and i learned some cool things ill say they had safecracking classes and i became an expert. not that i'd use it. but i also got really in fucking shape and felt more confident and stronger. i learned a lot of niche leftist strategy, history and theory too. so it wasnt all bad
>>2787279Fanfic should go into /siberia/ or /hobby/.
Was this Black Hammer or maybe an offshoot?
>>On another hand they'd pull from people from broken homes who were already adjacent to anarchist or leftist scenes, or people struggling mentally or with addiction and homelessness. They became the "right hands." They weren't grilled as hard during the struggle periods because they'd already internalized the lifestyle. They got more say in decisions, more freedom of movement, and they were the ones who'd pat someone down or lead the theory sessions with main organizers.
sorry for tl;dr didnt know how else to share this story. I printed thousands of papers for these guys and saw the word "distributed vanguard" pop up often
>>2787279>They'd make you do physical labor around the squat for hours, general repairs, cleaning, hauling scrap, fixing holes in the walls.>>2787297<people forced to spend hours on cleaning and fixing<house still looks like shitsomething isn't adding up. my bet is that OP found some pics online and decided to write a story from them as a creative writing exercise.
>>2787301This isn't a fan fic, I was a trained electrician who became a junkie out of school and ended up on the streets in baltimore. went to rehab got clean and was into communism so joined the YCL and this is where i met these people. Is this really that crazy or do you just not go outside? I've been around the world with the military, and shot fent into my neck on the streets so i have stories that make this look normal. relax.
>>2787302I'm not sure but someone said this guy jason something on youtube talked about the maoist street code too but i couldn't find anything.
>>2787304I also don’t get how there’s tweakers around but you’re sober and the group is mostly sober but also have alcohol and weed on hand as carrots
>>2787306>>I also don’t get how there’s tweakers around but you’re sober and the group is mostly sober I didn't have a problem with meth, but I also didn't mean that literally. There's a lot of people who give off tweaking energy, and a bunch of these guys did without even seeming high. People weren't getting blackout drunk either it wasn't a completely sober group. They'd dose people with psychedelics too. You couldn't really avoid drugs and alcohol in those neighborhoods, to be honest. What kept me sober was the fact that doing any of the stuff they had us doing while hung over or fried would have destroyed me. And I started to believe it a bit.
I still go into abandoned buildings and have taken pictures of hundreds, maybe thousands now, but I know at least two of those are from there. My memory's foggy. I've been through a lot. Feel older than I am.
The homes and buildings were usually somewhat spacious, even the row homes. The struggle period housing was different from what most of us got to live in. The ones forced into those pads where the weird wild shit was happening full blast, were the people deemed "petite bourgeoisie." And they were often stuck in the most isolated, dangerous parts of town while those of use who were seen as "key players" from "true working-class backgrounds" or who have already "fought trauma" got to live in the spaces that the key organizers did. This image without a doubt was one of the buildings because i actually slept in this one.
>>2787302btw what is Black Hammer? did they talk about the distributed vanguard and seem like a weird blend of juche maoism and anarcho nihilism in their writings? maybe this was them?
Sounds cool, clearly you didn't shed enough bourgeois brain patterns anon. This is why despite my disagreements I respect maoists, they're not afraid to do some crazy shit
>>2787329Huh?? I left for reasons I won't say. Not trying to be cryptic, I just don't want to put their safety at risk. I'm trying to be neutral about my experience. They genuinely seemed to care about me and keeping me sober, and they did a lot for people who were down and out. But they also abused and purposely mentally broke the ones they saw as "petite‑bourgeois" leftists. Some of it is hard to think about now looking back.
That said, I know how to fight now, like physically defend myself. I never stopped the workout routine they gave me I just added to it. And I love all the books they forced us to read. They held classes on all kinds of useful stuff, glove prints (forensics), safecracking, stopping major bleeding wounds, stitches, CPR, grappling, boxing, Muay Thai, firearm safety, managing burn wounds, crowd control tactics, abortion and black market clinics, how to start all types of motorbikes without keys and safely ride one at high speeds. Tons of things. There were positives, okay?
They made people read The Wretched of the Earth, The Coming Insurrection, the Red Book, What Is to Be Done?, Catechism of a Revolutionary constantly. Over and over. "I still have my copies. So yeah, it was a mixed bag. But I'm not here to trash them completely. Just telling it how I saw it.
>>2787346That's dope, that's dope. I just thought you sounded very dismissive in your OP, but I see there is more nuance.
Interestingly I always thought there was a lot of overlap between Maoists and anarchists. I don't think the details are that similar, but in the broad strokes they resemble each other. Was there a lot of overlap in your experience? I see a lot of anarchist symbols in the photos you posted.
>>2787349That's the thing though they didn't even call themselves anything, not really. No name with any vigor. They'd say debating what a post‑capitalist society looks like at this stage is idealism, and the real task is just building for and organizing the "workers insurrection." Anyone in the working class who supported that, their differences didn't matter. "Lend your differences to building strengths" was the line they forced down throats. They drilled into us that fixating on labels was idealism.
They seemed like Maoists, but heavily mixed with nihilism. They held whole classes on "the dialectical history of nihilism," "nihilism and Leninism," another one called "nihilism and the Black Panther Party's Maoist formation." That was the vibe. But the thing that was really weird, beyond anything I've ever seen in leftist spaces, was
>>2787292 that's what had me sounding critical.
I left out some books they made us read,
>>On The Juche Ideology>>The ego and its own>>On The Genealogy of Morals This is the path of the lumpen urban guerilla, they are training you for kidnapping and extortion maoist activities and for evasion and subturfuge of the authorities by living a untracable urban guerilla lifestyle.
The thing is, its basically the same material conditions and lifestyle that Mexican cartels need to follow, they are more or less the same OPSEC and lifestyle training. In order to further facilitate your own survival the black market becomes your income source and recruitment pool, not the working class. Its sort of the problem with this mode of organizing, you become too easy to demonize due to having to engage in the black market for survival that the upper class just needs to call you a gang and then use the prison apparatus to entomb your entire collective if they get too uppity.
Its why it cant work in the US really, it cant overcome this barrier of alienation to the working class. Its good to know in the case of an asymmetric civil war but, it has its limits.
>>2787292This sounds like an eclectic mix of a Christian monastery and drugged out schizo shit
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