The mass party once defined the boundaries of social belonging itself

Evidence

In an interview, Michéa recalled that one of the most disconcerting moments of his childhood was the day he discovered there were neighbors in the village who were not card-carrying French Communist Party (PCF) members. “That seemed unimaginable,” he said, as if those people “lived outside the bounds of society itself.” … For Michéa, the Party served as an extension of family, of friendship circles, of the neighborhood. Its boundaries were the boundaries of his world. — Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics, 90

Categorization

• DEFINE: Gives a vivid concrete instance of what mass institutions looked like when they still converted feeling into force — the baseline against which hyperpolitics is defined.
• XREF: connects to: Cadre and mass parties are distinguished by the quality versus quantity of their supporters — John T. Ishiyama, Party Organization and the Political…, 36; Mass membership served as the party’s only needed proof of legitimacy — Anna M. Grzymala-Busse, Redeeming The Communist Past: The…, 176