Ex-Members of This Maoist Clique Say It Was a ‘Cult’

The mysterious group found its way to Austin D. while he was working a dead-end job at a Pittsburgh Starbucks.

“I was feeling a little depressed and hopeless,” Austin told The Daily Beast. “I’d got out of undergrad with a lot of debt. I felt like the opportunities that I’d been taught were available, were not really available. I was still working the same minimum-wage job. My headspace was primed for someone who appeared to have all the answers.”

Then someone with answers appeared. While discussing the exploitation of Starbucks workers, a fellow barista recommended Austin join a group to study the writings of former Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong.

Read more at The Daily Beast.