Florian Kirstner – leader of Linksruck, the German offshoot of the British SWP, until his expulsion in 2001 – reveals to German leftwing newspaper Junge Welt the recruitment tactics mandated by none other than the late Tony Cliff himself (pictured above):

‘Linksruck hatte immer etwas von einem leninistischen Pfadfinderbund. Das war Ahmed und mir bei aller Arbeiterorientierung auch immer klar, wir fanden es eh’ total geil – und unser Revolutionslehrer Tony Cliff förderte diese Einstellung nach Kräften. Ich höre Cliff noch am Telefon krähen: »Forget all the normal people. You have to go for the mad ones, find crazy people, crazy people is what you need!« (Vergeßt all die normalen Leute! Ihr müßt die Verrückten finden. Verrückte Leute sind das, was ihr braucht!«)’

Loose translation: Linksruck always had something of the Leninist boy scouts about it. Ahmed [Shawki, a British ex-pat Linksruck cadre] and I were always clear about that, despite our orientation to the workers, and found that really cool. Our revolutionary teacher Tony Cliff forcefully supported this attitude. I can still hear Cliff on the telephone crowing: ‘Forget all the normal people. You have to go for the mad ones, find crazy people, crazy people are what you need!’

‘Nuff said.

[Hat tip: I hate my neighbours]