The Hub is a project by me, Ezra, in collaboration with other former members to comprehensively expose and condemn the political 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 an ex-punk and former heroin dealer named Jared Roark. Through a campaign of direct action, incessant online outreach and polemicizing, and even infiltrating and sabotaging other leftist organizations, the Red Guards managed to convert a number of other young people and Maoist collectives across the United States. It exerted influence over around two hundred people at its height, including members of front groups with no idea what was going on behind the curtain.
In 2018, Red Guards leadership changed the name of the group to “CR-CPUSA” to better reflect its party-building aspirations and tighter organization of the national structure.
By its collapse in 2022, the CR-CPUSA had consolidated into a high-control organization, or cult, which psychologically and physically abused its members, harbored rapists in leadership, and engaged in practices that meet the legal definition for 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, primarily in Austin, continue trying to regroup, and the cult’s 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. Working on this website has been part of my own healing and recovery process, and I am happy to be able to provide this platform to support others in taking back their lives.
In solidarity,
Ezra Garrison
Info about publishing, website management, and editorial policies
Editorial process and website management
This website is primarily edited and managed by Ezra and another former CR-CPUSA member. We make decisions about the website based on consulting an informal advisory circle of other former members, and through receiving feedback and criticism from readers. It’s a work in progress, and we want to keep improving, so please reach out with ideas and corrections.
Authorship and website positions
The “CR-CPUSA Expose” and other pages where authorship is not specified were written by Ezra, and do not reflect the positions of all former CR-CPUSA members. They are based on my best efforts to arrive at an accurate account based on, in addition to my personal experience, interviewing several dozen former members, referencing public blogs and archives, and studying internal documents. I periodically update and correct the Expose based on new information we receive. Posts on the “Stories and Research” blog are by their respective authors.
Editorial policies
Here are our working policies for what content goes on the website:
1. What is the purpose of the website? The purpose of this website is to provide a hub for information and recovery resources for former CR-CPUSA members and anyone else interested in this topic. We combine contributions and research by the website editors with an open platform for publishing survivors’ testimonies and research about the CR-CPUSA and related topics. We are a blog and not an organization, but as the website editors we are happy to collaborate with other individuals and organizations with similar goals.
2. Who and what can be published on the Hub?
+ We are especially interested in sharing testimonies and articles written by former CR-CPUSA members and those from the larger international movement, but we also publish stories and research by those affected by the cult, or those simply interested in studying it. When it doubt, just email us about what you’d like to write.
+ A main function of the website is to provide a platform for unheard voices. We publish any personal testimonies written by former members, including those who feel positively about their past experience with the organization, or disagree with the website’s stance on it (for example, labeling it a cult, or our critical stance on Gonzaloism). The only exceptions to this rule are that we will not publish details we perceive as putting former members at risk, including outright endorsements or promotion of Jared Roark’s continuing efforts.
+ We stand in solidarity with our comrades and friends who have gone through similar experiences in other organizations and political cults, internationally within the Gonzaloist movement and across the left generally. Recognizing that there are not that many resources or platforms for survivors of political cults, particularly in the Marxist-adjacent niche, we are happy to share our space and publish stories and information by people outside the CR-CPUSA.
+ Included under the label of “research” we are interested in publishing work that can help further our understanding of the CR-CPUSA phenomenon, from personal reflection as former members to rigorous academic research; from organizational psychology, sociology, and cultic studies perspectives to political analysis and criticism of the cult’s ideology and policies through a liberal, Marxist, or even Gonzaloist lens; from analysis of a single aspect of the cult like its fundraising efforts or use of social media, to research that looks at the cult in its larger, international, historical, and ideological context. We are happy to bring together diverse perspectives, and would like to see more work done in this category, but we reserve the right to decline publishing anything that we perceive as putting people at risk.
+ Finally, we republish relevant links and writings we find through other websites, to archive as much as possible in one place.
3. Why do you publish the names and pictures of certain people? While we don’t believe people can be understood in black and white terms, and see exposure as just one of many tactics to achieve some measure of justice and prevent further harm –and not necessarily the best tactic for either– we publicly identify those we have been able to confirm were top leaders of the CR-CPUSA and/or for whom there is clear evidence of crimes and abuse against others. We think former members have a right to know the identity of those who dictated their lives and are responsible for the abuse and suffering we endured, and that the public should be made aware of those who are continuing to actively recruit to Jared Roark’s cult or have otherwise gotten away with particularly heinous crimes.
We generally require the use of pseudonyms for all other former members described in people’s testimonies, and recommend authors use pseudonyms for themselves as well.
4. Was the CR-CPUSA a cult?
The editors of this website define it as such based on comparing its beliefs and practices, based on our own personal experiences and the testimonies and research we’ve gathered, with generally recognized criteria for cults, also known as “high control groups” or simply “abusive organizations.” In the “Defining Terms” section of the website, we describe the features encompassed in the label “cult” which we identify as applying to the CR-CPUSA:
“By using this word [“cult”], we can express that an organization’s essence involves entrapment, coercion, mistreatment, and oppression, while allowing for its variations in form. We can understand, in one word, that an organization possesses some degree of controlling information, restricting choice, commitment to a transcendent ideology, suppression of criticism, traumatic practices, and members bound in a charismatic relationship to a leader’s complete authority.”
On a more practical level, we have found that it was through accurately diagnosing the particular kind of organizational abuse we experienced that we were able to access the specific resources we needed to recover from the trauma. Knowing you were in a cult and learning about how cults function gives you a framework for understanding your experience and helps you find support in others who had been through similar experiences, heal, and move forward. So we recommend this label mainly for this practical reason.
About me (Ezra)
I believe in transparency and taking responsibility for my involvement in the cult, so I wanted to give a brief note about my role. I was a member of the CR-CPUSA’s “Red Army Embryo” for the last 3 years of the cult’s existence and had an administrative leadership position in the cult’s newspaper, Tribune of the People (I went by the names ‘Wyatt’ and ‘Ernest’). I recognize the duality of my involvement, as both a victim and a participant in the cult, acting in ways I regret– worst of these being using shame, stress, and manipulation to coerce others into following the cult’s leadership and policies, and verbally lashing out at others under the guise of “criticism,” misdirecting the anger I felt at leadership toward other low-ranking members. I was under constant supervision, bound by orders, and threatened with psychological, physical, and financial punishment if I disobeyed. But while recognizing the context, I take full responsibility for the ways I treated people, because it was me who acted, and am taking charge of my life so that I never make the same mistakes again. I have sought to make amends on an interpersonal level with those I’m still in touch with, and also see my work on this website as a way of righting the wrongs I participated in.
Ex- Red Guards and CR-CPUSA Hub 