Gonzaloism is a cult. One massive cult which destroys everything it touches and harms the people who are sucked under by it.
For the past few months, I was a part of this cult. I basically worshiped "Chairman Gonzalo", upheld him as a superhuman figure and "Great Leader" to the world communist movement. I was utterly fanatical. We all were.
We isolated ourselves from other communists. Even other Maoists whom we met we called "rightists" if they failed to adhere to the rigid set of dogmas that composes Gonzaloism. To us, you were either a "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist, principally Maoist, with the contributions of universal validity of Chairman Gonzalo" ("M-L-M, pM, CUVCG", note that you had to include the dashes even in the acronym, otherwise you were denying Maoism "scientific continuation".), or you were nothing.
My website was made to reflect the point of view of this cult. Every article had to pay homage to Gonzaloism in some form. Whenever mentioning Marxism, you always had to append it with "(today Maoism)" or else you were suspected of being part of the out-group.
We basically worshiped a group called "The Worker", which is tied with the "Committee to Reconstitute the CPUSA". The cult-like tendencies of this clique is detailed here. Every article from them had to be reflected in our project in some way. I kept regular email correspondence with them and held them in high regard, but never allowed to be an editor. This is one of the features of a cult; you are never good enough, always be servile to your betters.
Suddenly, Trump was not a fascist, because "The Worker" said so (they failed to comply with Gonzalo's narrow definition of fascism). Suddenly, the Black nation did not exist. And so on, and so forth. Supporters (potentially members; they kept their associations hidden) of "The Worker" joined our Discord server and propagated their views. There was an entire gang of "thought leaders" who could recite "The Worker" articles and quotations from Chairman Gonzalo in seconds, and their line was presented as an unfalsifiable truth.
This continued for a long time. Eventually, two of my best friends had a talk with me and told me their thoughts; I was in a cult.
At first, it was hard to believe them, but I eventually realized there was truth to what they said. They showed me a list of features of a cult and my group was increasingly meeting many of them.
I spoke with a Marxist-Leninist about this from a respected party of mine. He confirmed my suspicions but, even despite my Gonzaloism, offered me a path towards true proletarian organizing.
I decided โ this had to stop. I started questioning Gonzaloism, even in small ways, but was immediately called a "rightist" and "dogmato-revisionist" by the Gonzaloites. The non-Maoists in the server noted their cult-like tendencies, their appeals to authority, etc. but they to were called revisionists and thus placed in the out-group.
I had enough of Gonzaloism. I purged the cultists and deleted my website.
From now on, I will commit to true proletarian organizing.
I always found Maoists emphasis on direct action and symbolism interesting. The Red Guards Austin where some of the only people in the United States who had massive rallies, proudly holding up signs of the "classics" of Marxism. Maoists place symbols over actual ideology, which attracts a lot of new people who are not as knowledgeable.
Beyond that, I found Maoist's outward presentation of anti-revisionism intoxicating. Maoists exceed pro-Hoxha MLs in the amount of criticisms of China and other countries they output. Maoists claim to be against Deng and other figures. As a staunch anti-revisionist, I could hardly resist.
After I became a Maoist, it was only a matter of time before I became a Gonzaloist. I was quickly exposed to groups like "The Worker" and their article's apparent concern for real-world struggle. I went deeper into the rabbit hole, reading Gonzalo, until finally I considered myself one with the "MLMpM" movement. A lot of it was peer pressure and social conformity; Gonzaloists flooded into my server after we started allowing them.