Former parties
125-582: The Communist Party of New Zealand ( CPNZ ) was a communist party in New Zealand which existed from 1921 to 1994. Although spurred to life by events in Soviet Russia in the aftermath of World War I , the party had roots in pre-existing revolutionary socialist and syndicalist organisations, including in particular the independent Wellington Socialist Party, supporters of the Industrial Workers of
250-404: A tax on land values and the establishment of a progressive income tax . The national government itself owned and operated the railways, telegraph and telephone systems, schools, and postal savings banks throughout the country even before the landmark election of 1891. Workers' compensation insurance to protect against injury was required by law, and low cost life insurance had been provided by
375-651: A Comintern gathering in Moscow. Griffin travelled circuitously to the Soviet Union , with his ocean voyage going first to Australia before heading to Great Britain via the Suez Canal . British authorities were aware of his presence by the time he arrived, detaining him for questioning and seizing documents, but Griffin was allowed to depart in time to reach Moscow prior to 17 July opening of the World Congress. The 6th Congress of
500-520: A Leninist vanguard party approach that involved trying to influence and penetrate the Labour Party, the New Zealand trade union movement, various single-issue protest groups and public opinion on foreign policy, industrial activity, opposition to New Zealand's involvement in the Vietnam War , Māori rights , the anti- Apartheid movement, feminism, and nuclear disarmament , and anti-colonial activism in
625-634: A ceremony over which Tony Blair presided. As of 2016, the Fabian Society had about 7,000 members. In June 2019 it had 7,136 individual members. The Fabian Society Tax Commission of 2000 was widely credited with influencing the Labour government's policy and political strategy for its one significant public tax increase: the National Insurance rise to raise £8 billion for National Health Service spending. (The Fabian Commission had in fact called for
750-415: A directly hypothecated "NHS tax" to cover the full cost of NHS spending, arguing that linking taxation more directly to spending was essential to make tax rise publicly acceptable. The 2001 National Insurance rise was not formally hypothecated, but the government committed itself to using the additional funds for health spending.) Several other recommendations, including a new top rate of income tax, were to
875-662: A few cases where the original sections of the Communist International have retained those names. But throughout the twentieth century, many parties changed their names. For example, following their ascension to power, the Bolshevik Party changed their name to the All-Russian Communist Party. Causes for these shifts in naming were either moves to avoid state repression or as measures to generate greater acceptance by local populations. An important example of
1000-511: A health service in order for "the breeding of even a moderately Imperial race" which would be more productive and better militarily than the "stunted, anaemic, demoralised denizens ... of our great cities"; and a national education system because "it is in the classrooms ... that the future battles of the Empire for commercial prosperity are already being lost". In 1900 the Society produced Fabianism and
1125-511: A massive victory for the Labour Party, bringing it to power for the first time, and a grave failure for the CPNZ in its electoral efforts, with all four of the party's candidates faring so poorly at the polls that they failed to recover their electoral deposits. The Communist Party of New Zealand had shown growth over the years of the Third Period, with the party's delegate to the 7th World Congress of
1250-410: A means to implement the Fabian Society version of socialism. In addition to Nehru, several pre-independence leaders in colonial India such as Annie Besant —Nehru's mentor and later a president of Indian National Congress – were members of the Fabian Society. Obafemi Awolowo , who later became the premier of Nigeria 's now defunct Western Region , was also a Fabian member in the late 1940s. It
1375-466: A more unified footing ". This situation continued through all of 1925, only ending the year after following a six-month organising tour by Australian activist Norman Jeffrey, a bow-tie wearing former "Wobbly" (IWW member). In April 1926 a new monthly magazine was launched for the New Zealand communist movement, The Workers' Vanguard , published in the isolated inland mining town of Blackball , located on
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#17330938794111500-557: A particular national affinity. Although membership in the CPNZ remained legal, People's Voice was suppressed by the government. The tide turned in June 1941, following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union . At that time, in accord with Soviet foreign policy, the CPNZ became vocal supporters of the war effort, which combined with the country's new status of military allies with the Soviet Union paved
1625-522: A population of 1.14 million. Of these, about 18,000 were killed in battle and another 41,000 felled by wounds or disease – a casualty rate approaching 60%. Conscription was introduced in 1916, with the stream of volunteer enthusiasts exhausted. As casualties continued to mount into 1917, public war-weariness set in, fuelling political discontent. A revolutionary socialist movement began to emerge. There were isolated reflections of international radical tendencies present in New Zealand from shortly after
1750-400: A role in the 1994 election of Tony Blair as Labour Leader. Today there is also an active Fabian Women's Network and Scottish and Welsh Fabian groups. After the election of a Labour Party government in 1997 , the Fabian Society was a forum for New Labour ideas and for critical approaches from across the party. The most significant Fabian contribution to Labour's policy agenda in government
1875-566: A separate society, the Fabian Society. All members were free to attend both societies. The Fabian Society additionally advocated renewal of Western European Renaissance ideas and their promulgation throughout the world. The Fellowship of the New Life was dissolved in 1899, but the Fabian Society grew to become a leading academic society in the United Kingdom in the Edwardian era . It was typified by
2000-644: A small network of Marxist study circles were formed during the wartime years, concentrated mainly in the small mining communities of the South Island . Wartime violence and the 1917 October Revolution in Russia proved a stimulant to revolutionary ideas, drawing members to these groups, leading to their formal affiliation during the summer Christmas holiday of 1918 as the New Zealand Marxian Association (NZMA). This group electing T. W. Feary as secretary of
2125-613: A socialist state governed by revolutionary industrial unions. From 1911, the ideas of syndicalism began to gain a foothold in the Auckland area under the banner of the Industrial Workers of the World , while the anti-political impossibilist ideas of the Socialist Party of Great Britain made their mark upon others. All of these tendencies would contribute adherents to the pioneer New Zealand communist movement. Particularly worthy of note were
2250-473: A student section was organised called the University Socialist Federation (USF) and by the outbreak of World War I in 1914 this contingent counted its own membership of more than 500. The first Fabian Society pamphlets advocating tenets of social justice coincided with the zeitgeist of Liberal reforms during the early 1900s. This includes eugenics , but eugenics was a common view for
2375-434: A top-down hierarchical structure, ideological rigidity , and strict party discipline . In contrast, other studies have emphasized the differences among communist parties. Multi-party studies, such as those by Robert C. Tucker and A. James McAdams, have emphasized the differences in both these parties' organizational structure and their use of Marxist and Leninist ideas to justify their policies. Another important question
2500-531: A wedge between the rank and file and leadership of each of these organisations, a tactic euphemistically called the "United Front from Below." The distrust and alienation between the Communist Party and the Labour Party leadership carried over through the November 1935 general election , during which the CPNZ made use of the slogan "Neither Reaction nor Labour" in the campaign. The 1935 election ultimately resulted in
2625-411: Is a British socialist organisation whose purpose is to advance the principles of social democracy and democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist effort in democracies , rather than by revolutionary overthrow. The Fabian Society was also historically related to some of the furthest left factions of radicalism , a left-wing liberal tradition. As one of the founding organisations of
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#17330938794112750-426: Is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism . The term " communist party" was popularized by the title of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels . As a vanguard party , the communist party guides the political education and development of the working class (proletariat). As a ruling party, the communist party exercises power through
2875-490: Is governed by an elected executive committee. The committee consists of 10 ordinary members elected from a national list, three members nationally elected from a list nominated by local groups, representatives from the Young Fabians, Fabians Women's Network and Scottish and Welsh Fabians. There is also one staff representative and a directly elected honorary treasurer from the membership. Elections are held every other year, with
3000-481: Is obscure but the delegates had before them the constitution of the Communist Party of Australia and a draft manifesto and constitution drawn up over the previous few months by members of the Wellington Socialist Party." E. J. Dyer of the capital city was elected as the first secretary of the new organisation. In contrast to demographic findings made of the early Communist Party of America , for example,
3125-514: Is over 20% higher than when the Labour Party came to office in May 1997. It is now double what it was when Clement Attlee left office in 1951." The latest edition of the Dictionary of National Biography (a reference work listing details of famous or significant Britons throughout history) includes 174 Fabians. Four Fabians, Beatrice and Sidney Webb , Graham Wallas , and George Bernard Shaw , founded
3250-616: Is why communist parties were able to rule for as long as they did. Some scholars have depicted these parties as fatally flawed from their inception and argue they only remained in power because their leaders were willing to use their monopoly of power and the state monopoly to crush all forms of opposition . In contrast, other studies have emphasized these parties' ability to adapt their policies to changing times and circumstances. Fabian Society Social democracy Socialism Communism Northern Ireland Scotland Wales Other The Fabian Society
3375-581: The 1963 election ; and in 3 by-elections; Brooklyn 1951 by-election , Grey Lynn 1963 by-election , and Otahuhu 1963 by-election . Candidates stood frequently in the Christchurch Central electorate (7 elections) and the Island Bay electorate (8 elections; often Ronald Smith ). The highest vote was 534 for Vic Wilcox in the Arch Hill electorate in the 1946 election . The Communist Party experienced
3500-567: The 2017 United Kingdom general election , the lowest number since 1935, due to Brexit , lack of support in Scotland , and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn 's unpopularity, although in the event the party won 262. The major influence on the Labour Party and on the English-speaking socialist movement worldwide, has meant that Fabianism became one of the main inspirations of international social democracy. In February 1895, an American Fabian Society
3625-619: The Action Party in Italy. The Community Movement , created by the socialist entrepreneur Adriano Olivetti , was then the only Italian party which referred explicitly to Fabianism, among his main inspirations along with federalism, social liberalism, fighting partitocracy and social democracy. In 2000, the Sicilian Fabian Society was founded in Messina . It is written into the rules of
3750-716: The Attlee government (1945–51). Rita Hinden founded the colonial bureau and was its secretary. Fabian academics of the late 20th century included the political scientist Sir Bernard Crick , the economists Thomas Balogh and Nicholas Kaldor , and the sociologist Peter Townsend . During the 20th century the group was always influential in Labour Party circles, with members including Ramsay MacDonald , Clement Attlee , Anthony Crosland , Roy Jenkins , Hugh Dalton , Richard Crossman , Ian Mikardo , Tony Benn , Harold Wilson , and more recently Shirley Williams , Tony Blair , Gordon Brown , Gordon Marsden , and Ed Balls . 229 members of
3875-462: The Auckland West 1940 by-election held after Michael Joseph Savage 's death, although after the low number of votes received in the 1935 election , no Communist Party candidates stood in the 1938 election or the 1943 election . The Communist Party stood candidates in general elections from the 1946 election to the 1969 election ; particularly in the 1949 election , the 1960 election and
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4000-648: The Australian Fabian Society , the Douglas–Coldwell Foundation and the now-disbanded League for Social Reconstruction in Canada, and the NZ Fabian Society in New Zealand . Direct or indirect Fabian influence may also be seen in the liberal socialism of Carlo Rosselli (founder, with his brother Nello , of the anti-fascist group Giustizia e Libertà ) and all its derivatives such as
4125-530: The Labour Representation Committee in 1900, and as an important influence upon the Labour Party which grew from it, the Fabian Society has had a powerful influence on British politics . Members of the Fabian Society have included political leaders from other countries, such as Jawaharlal Nehru , who adopted Fabian principles as part of their own political ideologies. The Fabian Society founded
4250-748: The Liberal Government This idyllic vision – which incidentally paid no attention to the treatment of or conditions endured by the indigenous Polynesian population – proved to be short-lived. With the eruption of World War I in 1914, New Zealand sent soldiers to Allied campaigns in Turkey, Palestine, and France and Flanders . Over 120,000 New Zealanders were enlisted in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, with about 100,000 men and women eventually serving as soldiers and nurses in Europe, out of
4375-656: The London School of Economics in 1895. Today, the society functions primarily as a think tank and is one of twenty socialist societies affiliated with the Labour Party. Similar societies exist in Australia , in Canada , in New Zealand , and in Sicily . The Fabian Society was founded on 4 January 1884 in London as an offshoot of a society founded a year earlier, called The Fellowship of
4500-525: The London School of Economics with the money left to the Fabian Society by Henry Hutchinson. Supposedly the decision was made at a breakfast party on 4 August 1894. The founders are depicted in the Fabian Window designed by George Bernard Shaw . The window was stolen in 1978 and reappeared at Sotheby's in 2005. It was restored to display in the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics in 2006 at
4625-840: The Preparatory Committee for the Formation of the Communist Party of New Zealand (Marxist–Leninist) . Meanwhile, other former members of the CPNZ in Wellington, where the party branch had been expelled en masse in 1970, founded the Wellington Marxist Leninist Organisation, which in 1980 merged with the Northern Communist Organisation to form the Workers' Communist League (WCL). While the CPNZ never had mass influence or real political power, it pursued
4750-600: The Red Worker and a pamphlet found to be seditious in 1932 and those responsible for their publication jailed for more than a year. The CPNZ also lost its influence in the country's trade unions during the late 1920s and early 1930s owing to its rigid support for unpopular secondary strikes in solidarity with workers in other countries. This was epitomised by a 1929 call for a miners' strike in sympathy with mine and timber workers in Australia, which annihilated party influence among
4875-608: The Socialist Workers Organization , evolved into the small but highly active Socialist Worker (Aotearoa) . However, most of the ISO members split off again and resumed their own organisation. A number of SW members also split from the organisation in 2008 to form Socialist Aotearoa . The SW voted to dissolve itself at its conference in January 2012. Communist party Former parties Former parties A communist party
5000-598: The dictatorship of the proletariat . Vladimir Lenin developed the idea of the communist party as the revolutionary vanguard, when the socialist movement in Imperial Russia was divided into ideologically opposed factions, the Bolshevik faction ("of the majority") and the Menshevik faction ("of the minority"). To be politically effective, Lenin proposed a small vanguard party managed with democratic centralism which allowed
5125-537: The 107 parties with significant memberships, there were approximately 82 million communist party members worldwide. Given its worldwide representation, the communist party may be counted as the principal challenger to the influence of liberal-democratic , catch-all parties in the twentieth century. Following the collapse of the Eastern Bloc between 1989–1992, most of these parties either disappeared or were renamed and adopted different goals than their predecessors. In
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5250-669: The 21st century, only five ruling parties on the national level still described themselves as Marxist–Leninist parties: the Chinese Communist Party , the Communist Party of Cuba , the Communist Party of Vietnam , the Workers' Party of Korea and the Lao People's Revolutionary Party . As of 2023, the Chinese Communist Party was the world's second largest political party , having over 99 million members. Although
5375-442: The 48-hour week said to be a local maximum. The presence of "tramps" had been eliminated through town allotments of small homesteads to poor workers, granted through easily affordable perpetual leases. The power of eminent domain had been assumed by the New Zealand parliament in 1896, allowing the state to assume ownership of large estates at their assessed price for division into small farms. State finance had been accomplished by
5500-576: The Arab world in the form of dictatorial regimes in Iraq and Syria . Salāmah Mūsā of Egypt, another prominent champion of Arab Socialism, was a keen adherent of Fabian Society, and a member since 1909. In October 1940, the Fabian Society established the Fabian Colonial Bureau to facilitate research and debate British colonial policy. The Fabian Colonial Bureau strongly influenced the colonial policies of
5625-552: The British armed forces in a high state of readiness to defend the Empire; the creation of a citizen army to replace the professional army; the Factory Acts would be amended to extend to 21 the age for half-time employment, so that the thirty hours gained would be used in "a combination of physical exercises, technical education, education in civil citizenship ... and field training in the use of modern weapons". The Fabians also favoured
5750-592: The CPNZ approached the National Executive Committee of the New Zealand Labour Party with a proposal for a joint campaign against fascism. No answer was given. Parallel appeals were made to several key trade unions, including the Miners, Seamen, and Dockworkers, with only the Miners providing a response. The CPNZ responded to the tacit rejection of their appeal by accelerating their efforts to drive
5875-521: The CPNZ was directed to concentrate its attention on continued agitation and propaganda. Dick Griffin became the first full-time organiser of the CPNZ in May 1929. In August of that same year he assumed the role of General Secretary of the organisation. It was only in March 1930 that the CPNZ received a communication from ECCI directing it to take on ultra-radical policies in accord the Third Period analysis. The party's previous policies were deemed incorrect and
6000-484: The CPNZ was instructed to attempt to assume leadership of the New Zealand workers movement by working to "expose and destroy all the Labourite, pacifist , social democratic illusions about the possibility of solving social problems...under the existing political and economic regime." This marked the actual beginning of sectarian Third Period tactics in New Zealand. The CPNZ was beset by rapid membership turnover throughout
6125-477: The Central Executive Committee arrested in 1930, four more in 1931 and 1932, and all seven members in 1933. The party was further disorganised by the churn of its rank-and-file members in and out of the party, exemplified by the count of Wellington members booming from 51 in March to 80 by May 1931 before plummeting to just 25 in January 1932. Things grew so bad that by October 1932 only one member of
6250-450: The Central Executive Committee had been a member of the party for longer than a year, with some members for as little as two months. The party was impoverished, its coffers drained both by the cost of producing the Red Worker (rival publication to the mainstream trade unionist Maoriland Worker), and by courtroom losses in several libel cases brought against that publication. Party publications were carefully scrutinised, with two issues of
6375-464: The Comintern in Moscow, Leo Sim (pseudonym: Andrews), reporting there that party membership had increased by 600% from 1928 to 1935. The reality was modest, with the party failing to achieve a membership of 400 — results which only were promising when compared to the nadir of the late 1920s. Dissatisfaction with Freeman's commanding leadership style grew in 1935 and 1936 and he landed on the wrong side of
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#17330938794116500-423: The Comintern is remembered for its launch of the ultra-radical analysis and tactics of the so-called Third Period , which posited the rapid decay of capitalism and the acceleration of the class struggle and coming of potential revolutionary situations. While in many countries this meant directives to immediately shatter joint work with social democratic political and trade union leaders, the Comintern's "Resolution on
6625-515: The Communist Party of Australia in the eyes of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), early in 1928 the CPNZ received a cable from Moscow requesting that the party dispatch a delegate to the forthcoming 6th World Congress of the Comintern . Twenty-eight-year-old Wellington activist Dick Griffin, a member of the Seamen's Union, was chosen as the party's first-ever delegate to
6750-401: The Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) was formally established. Of the origins of the Communist Party, historian Kerry Taylor writes: "The foundation of the CPNZ will always remain shrouded in a degree of mystery. No direct record of the event survives — the minutes have long since been lost and no reports appeared in the media at the time.... The precise nature of the discussion and debate
6875-407: The Empire , the first statement of its views on foreign affairs, drafted by Bernard Shaw and incorporating the suggestions of 150 Fabian members. It was directed against the liberal individualism of those such as John Morley and Sir William Harcourt . It claimed that the classical liberal political economy was outdated, and that imperialism was the new stage of the international polity. The question
7000-502: The Fabian Society began attracting many prominent contemporary figures drawn to its socialist cause, including George Bernard Shaw , H. G. Wells , Annie Besant , Graham Wallas , Charles Marson , Sydney Olivier , Oliver Lodge , Ramsay MacDonald , and Emmeline Pankhurst . Bertrand Russell briefly became a member, but resigned after he expressed his belief that the Society's principle of entente (in this case, between countries allying themselves against Germany) could lead to war. At
7125-491: The New Life , which had been a forebear of the British Ethical and humanist movements. Early Fellowship members included the visionary Victorian elite, among them poets Edward Carpenter and John Davidson , sexologist Havelock Ellis , and early socialist Edward R. Pease . They wanted to transform society by setting an example of clean simplified living for others to follow. Some members also wanted to become politically involved to aid society's transformation; they set up
7250-432: The October Revolution by John Reed , and The Soviets at Work , a widely reprinted pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin . These were successfully smuggled back to New Zealand, with the Lenin tract immediately put into print in yet another new edition. Adding to the complexity of the fragmented radical movement was the Wellington Socialist Party, formerly a branch of the NZSP which had split with the national organisation in 1913 over
7375-407: The Pacific region; issues in which communists and non-communist left-wing elements found common cause. After the collapse of communist rule in Albania, the Communist Party of New Zealand gradually changed its views, renouncing its former support of Stalinism, Maoism, and Hoxhaism. Instead, under the leadership of its last general secretary, Grant Morgan , it developed a state capitalist analysis of
7500-399: The Popular Front-driven Comintern decision that the CPNZ should seek formal affiliation with the Labour Party sooner rather than later. Freeman came to be politically isolated, with the Auckland district of the party, backed by Lance Sharkey of the Communist Party of Australia , leading the charge for his removal as an alleged impediment to the new international line. Freeman was removed from
7625-511: The Society were elected to Parliament at the 1945 general election . Ben Pimlott served as its chairman in the 1990s. (A Pimlott Prize for Political Writing was organised in his memory by the Fabian Society and The Guardian in 2005 and continues annually.) The Society is affiliated to the Party as a socialist society . In recent years the Young Fabian group , founded in 1960, has become an important networking and discussion organisation for younger (under 31) Labour Party activists and played
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#17330938794117750-449: The Stalinist states. The party now believed that the Soviet Union had never been socialist at all, not even in Stalin's time. Opponents of this change departed and established the Communist Party of Aotearoa (a Maoist group) and the Marxist–Leninist Collective (a Hoxhaist group). The Communist Party of New Zealand eventually merged with the neo-Trotskyist International Socialist Organization on 2 November 1994. The resultant party, known as
7875-419: The Tasks of the Communist Party of New Zealand," brought back to Wellington by Griffin, maintained that New Zealand was still marked by "the steady upward swing of capitalist development, combined with relatively good conditions for the workers," thereby serving to "prevent the possibility of a general revolutionary situation in New Zealand." Instead of consolidating itself for an envisioned revolutionary uprising,
8000-498: The World in the Auckland region, and a network of impossiblist study groups of miners on the west coast of the South Island. Never high on the list of priorities of the Communist International , the CPNZ was considered an appendage of the Communist Party of Australia until 1928, when it began to function as a fully independent party. Party membership remained small, only briefly topping the 1,000 mark, with its members subjected to government repression and isolated by expulsions from
8125-542: The aegis of a new organization, the Cominform . Historically, in countries where communist parties were struggling to attain state power, the formation of wartime alliances with non-communist parties and wartime groups was enacted (such as the National Liberation Front of Albania ). Upon attaining state power these Fronts were often transformed into nominal (and usually electoral) "National" or "Fatherland" Fronts in which non-communist parties and organizations were given token representation (a practice known as Blockpartei ),
8250-408: The alleged 30 September coup attempt as a right wing coup. Later, when Mao died, the Communist Party of New Zealand began to follow the lead of Enver Hoxha 's Albania , which they considered to be the last truly Communist country in the world. Members of the CPNZ national leadership who continued to uphold the line of the post-Mao Chinese Communist Party including Wilcox were expelled, and formed
8375-504: The appearance of charismatic revolutionary leaders and their ultimate demise during the decline and fall of communist parties worldwide have all been the subject of investigation. A uniform naming scheme for communist parties was adopted by the Communist International. All parties were required to use the name 'Communist Party of ( name of the country )', resulting in separate communist parties in some countries operating using (largely) homonymous party names (e.g. in India ). Today, there are
8500-412: The centralized command of a disciplined cadre of professional revolutionaries . Once a policy was agreed upon, realizing political goals required every Bolshevik's total commitment to the agreed-upon policy. In contrast, the Menshevik faction, which initially included Leon Trotsky , emphasized that the party should not neglect the importance of mass populations in realizing a communist revolution . In
8625-432: The colonies, like Singapore and Malaya , it was a great attraction as the alternative to communism. We did not see until the 1970s that that was the beginning of big problems contributing to the inevitable decline of the British economy. In the Middle East , the theories of Fabian Society intellectual movement of early 20th-century Britain inspired the Ba'athist vision. The Middle East adaptation of Fabian socialism led
8750-413: The communist movement in New Zealand was never dominated by Slavic, Scandinavian, and Jewish emigrants from the former Russian empire , with one academic study showing that a big majority of the movement's participants during the decade of the 1920s were either native New Zealanders by birth or first-generation immigrants from England, Scotland , Ireland, or Wales . The CPNZ participated in elections for
8875-401: The core of the Fabian Society were Sidney and Beatrice Webb . Together, they wrote numerous studies of industrial Britain, including alternative co-operative economics that applied to ownership of capital as well as land. Many Fabians participated in the formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 and the group's constitution, written by Sidney Webb, borrowed heavily from
9000-424: The country to assume the position of general secretary following four years in Moscow at the service of the Comintern. More politically astute and organisationally adroit than Griffin, Freeman promoted university graduates Clement Gordon Watson and his friend Elsie Farrelly , to positions of party leadership, where they were joined by party veteran Ernie Brooks. This group of four would dominate CPNZ politics through
9125-421: The country was declared "no Utopia", New Zealand nevertheless was said to have "no real want" and "no unemployment problem to solve". Instead trade unions were not merely formally recognised but were pervasive and had managed to mitigate the class struggle through arbitration laws sanctioned by law, with disputes decided by three member courts of arbitration, each including representatives of capital, labour, and
9250-642: The course of the revolution, the Bolshevik party which became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) assumed government power in Russia after the October Revolution in 1917. With the creation of the Communist International (Comintern) in 1919, the concept of communist party leadership was adopted by many revolutionary parties, worldwide. In an effort to standardize the international communist movement ideologically and maintain central control of
9375-452: The courts as provided in the 1894 Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act . An extensive system of public works were in existence, governed by the principle of "fair work and fair pay." More than 200 employment bureaus dotted the country, connecting every willing worker with a job. Sweatshops were banned, as was systematic home manufacturing, with mandatory labelling of all products made outside of factories. Wages were generally high and
9500-406: The creation of the modern Bank of England"; William Keegan offered a similar analysis of Balls's Fabian pamphlet in his book on Labour's economic policy, which traces in detail the path leading up to this dramatic policy change after Labour's first week in office. On 21 April 2009, the Society's website stated that it had 6,286 members: "Fabian national membership now stands at a 35 year high: it
9625-651: The dissolution of the Communist International. After the Second World War new international coordination bodies were created, such as the World Federation of Democratic Youth , International Union of Students , World Federation of Trade Unions , Women's International Democratic Federation and the World Peace Council . The Soviet Union unified many of the Comintern's original goals in the Eastern Bloc under
9750-552: The early 1960s, the party experienced more internal strife due to the Sino-Soviet split . The party was divided between supporters of the Soviet Union under Nikita Khrushchev and those who claimed Khrushchev was a "revisionist" and chose instead to follow China under Mao Zedong . Subsequently, the CPNZ under the leadership of Victor Wilcox became the first official Communist party in the First World to side with Mao. The majority of
9875-482: The end of 1935. The operations of the CPNZ came to resemble those of larger and more efficient communist parties in other countries, with official directives and circulars issued systematically for the first time by the Central Committee to local party committees. Representatives of the Central Committee also began to travel regularly to visit local party organisations. Dues collecting and record-keeping of branches
10000-464: The establishment of a communist political party along those lines advocated by the fledgling Communist International . A preparatory conference was called for Easter weekend, 26–27 March 1921, in Wellington . This preliminary gathering was followed with a formal organisational conference held on Saturday, 9 April, at Wellington Socialist Hall – headquarters of the Wellington Socialist Party – at which time
10125-714: The first time in 1923, with its inaugural candidate drawing an impressive 2,128 votes in a race for election to the Dunedin city council. Unable to take over the newspaper of the Federation of Labour , the Maoriland Worker , in 1924 the CPNZ established its own official publication, The Communist , published in Auckland. Despite the establishment of this new central organ, the organisation remained highly decentralised in its formative years, with branches operating in virtual isolation and
10250-598: The foreign policy of the British Empire as a conduit for internationalist reform and were in favour of a capitalist welfare state modelled on the Bismarckian German model; they criticised Gladstonian liberalism both for its individualism at home and its internationalism abroad. They favoured a national minimum wage in order to stop British industries compensating for their inefficiency by lowering wages instead of investing in capital equipment; slum clearances and
10375-611: The founding documents of the Fabian Society. At the meeting that founded the Labour Representation Committee in 1900, the Fabian Society claimed 861 members and sent one delegate. The years 1903 to 1908 saw a growth in popular interest in the socialist idea in Great Britain, and the Fabian Society grew accordingly, tripling its membership to nearly 2500 by the end of the period, half of whom were located in London. In 1912,
10500-429: The general idea is that each man should have power according to his knowledge and capacity. [...] And the keynote is that of my fairy State: From every man according to his capacity; to every man according to his needs. A democratic Socialism, controlled by majority votes, guided by numbers, can never succeed; a truly aristocratic Socialism, controlled by duty, guided by wisdom, is the next step upwards in civilisation. It
10625-418: The globe as a sort of laboratory test case of social democratic government in practice. One June 1901 pamphlet put to print by J. A. Wayland , proprietor of the mass circulation socialist weekly Appeal to Reason , detailed the ways in which the island nation of 720,000 had already passed extensive legislation for the benefit of wage workers, backed by 200 agents of the "Labour Intelligence Department". While
10750-437: The historical importance of communist parties is widely accepted, their activities and functions have been interpreted in different ways. One approach, sometimes known as the totalitarian school of communist studies, has implicitly treated all communist parties as the same types of organizations. Scholars such as Zbigniew Brzezinski and Francois Furet have relied upon conceptions of the party emphasizing centralized control,
10875-620: The international communist movement was fragmented due to the Sino-Soviet split in the 1960s. Those who sided with China and Albania in their criticism of the Soviet leadership, often added words like 'Revolutionary' or ' Marxist–Leninist ' to distinguish themselves from the pro-Soviet parties. In 1985, approximately 38 percent of the world's population lived under "communist" governments (1.67 billion out of 4.4 billion). The CPSU's International Department officially recognized 95 ruling and nonruling communist parties. Overall, if one includes
11000-525: The issue of electoral politics. While the main body of the NZSP had gone on to found the New Zealand Labour Party in 1916, the Wellington Socialist Party believed in direct action and use of the general strike for the intended overthrow of capitalism and had forced a split. Suffering attenuation but surviving the war, this Wellington organisation would constitute the main component of the new Communist Party of New Zealand. By 1921, sentiment had begun to build for
11125-564: The late 1920s and early 1930s, with general secretary Griffin accused of operating a personal dictatorship, spurring rank-and-file discontent. The CPNZ was also subjected to unrelenting police operations by the national government, including a July 1929 raid which seized the internal records and literature of the Wellington branch and the subsequent successful prosecution of five members of the governing Central Executive Committee for possession and sale of allegedly seditious literature. Party leaders were particularly targeted, with three more members of
11250-491: The latter was the renaming of many East European communist parties after the Second World War, sometimes as a result of mergers with the local social democratic and democratic socialist parties. New names in the post-war era included " Socialist Party ", " Socialist Unity Party ", " People's (or Popular) Party ", " Workers' Party " and " Party of Labour ". The naming conventions of communist parties became more diverse as
11375-560: The left of government policy and not accepted, though this comprehensive review of UK taxation was influential in economic policy and political circles, and a new top rate of income tax of 50% was introduced in 2010. In early 2017, Fabian general secretary Andrew Harrop produced a report arguing the only feasible route for Labour to return to government would be to work with the Liberal Democrats and Scottish National Party . The report predicted Labour would win fewer than 150 seats in
11500-701: The loss of several prominent members including Sid Scott following Nikita Khrushchev 's denunciation of Stalin at the 20th Congress of the CPSU in February 1956 and the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution in November 1956. As a result of these events, most of the intellectuals the CPNZ had attracted left the party while some erstwhile supporters founded new journals such as New Zealand Monthly Review , Comment , Socialist Forum , and Here & Now . Next, in
11625-441: The mainstream labour movement concentrated in the New Zealand Labour Party . During the period of the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the CPNZ sided with the Chinese Communist Party headed by Mao Zedong . The party splintered into a multiplicity of tiny political parties after 1966 and no longer exists as an independent group. As the 20th Century dawned, New Zealand was recognised by adherents of International Socialism around
11750-460: The member parties, the Comintern required that its members use the term "communist party" in their names. Under the leadership of the CPSU, the interpretations of orthodox Marxism were applied to Russia and led to the emergence of Leninist and Marxist–Leninist political parties throughout the world. After the death of Lenin, the Comintern's official interpretation of Leninism was the book Foundations of Leninism (1924) by Joseph Stalin . As
11875-517: The members of its vanguard Coefficients club . Public meetings of the Society were for many years held at Essex Hall , a popular location just off the Strand in central London. The Fabian Society was named—at the suggestion of Frank Podmore —in honour of the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus (nicknamed Cunctator , meaning the "Delayer"). His Fabian strategy sought gradual victory against
12000-473: The membership of a communist party was to be limited to active cadres in Lenin's theory, there was a need for networks of separate organizations to mobilize mass support for the party. Typically, communist parties built up various front organizations whose membership was often open to non-communists. In many countries, the single most important front organization of the communist parties was its youth wing . During
12125-561: The miners of the South Island's West Coast and 1931 efforts to blackball a Japanese ship, which led to discord and alienation from the party in the Seamen's Union. By the middle of 1933, the Communist Party of New Zealand was in crisis, with its entire Central Committee jailed for publication of the pamphlet Karl Marx and the Struggle of the Masses. The New Zealand-born Fred Freeman was returned to
12250-592: The most popular examples of these being the National Front of East Germany (as a historical example) and the North Korean Reunification Front (as a modern-day example). Other times the formation of such Fronts was undertaken without the participation of other parties, such as the Socialist Alliance of Working People of Yugoslavia and the National Front of Afghanistan , though the purpose was
12375-421: The nationalisation of land rent, believing that rents collected by landowners in respect of their land's value were unearned, an idea which drew heavily from the work of American economist Henry George . In the period between the two World Wars, the "Second Generation" Fabians, including the writers R. H. Tawney , G. D. H. Cole and Harold Laski , continued to be a major influence on socialist thought. But
12500-509: The organisation and in 1919 dispatched him and two others to North America to gain additional information on the revolutionary movement through the American and Canadian prism. Visiting the Pacific Coast cities of San Francisco and Vancouver , Feary and his co-thinkers obtained copies of a number of influential publications, including Ten Days That Shook the World , a participant's account of
12625-684: The party and its newspaper The People's Voice adopted Maoism, while supporters of Khrushchev's Soviet Union (mainly Auckland trade unionists) split off to form the Socialist Unity Party . The Communist Party also maintained warm ties with the Indonesian Communist Party and supported Indonesia during the Indonesian-Malaysian Confrontation (1963–1966). It also condemned the Indonesian mass killings that followed
12750-454: The party leadership late in 1936, suspended from the party soon thereafter for failing to accept this decision, and ultimately expelled late in 1937. In 1938, CPNZ headquarters were moved from the capital city of Wellington to the booming northern port city of Auckland and a new weekly was launched there in July 1939, People's Voice . This headquarter city and official organ would remain constant for
12875-519: The party nevertheless managed to exert a degree of influence within the national Miners' and Seamen's Unions. The party did not operate in a vacuum but was rather the object of official scrutiny from the start with the New Zealand Police and New Zealand Army both engaged in the systematic monitoring of radical activists, including those suspected of "using their influence to establish Bolshevism." Previously considered an insignificant adjunct of
13000-568: The political leadership of the party. After the fall of communist party regimes in the 1990s, mass organizations sometimes outlived their communist party founders. At the international level, the Communist International organized various international front organizations (linking national mass organizations with each other), such as the Young Communist International , Profintern , Krestintern , International Red Aid , Sportintern , etc. Many of these organizations were disbanded after
13125-481: The rainy West Coast side of the South Island. A return to independence of the New Zealand party shortly followed and by the end of 1926 headquarters of the CPNZ were moved from Wellington to Blackball. They would remain there until returned to the North Island and the capital city in 1928. Total membership of the party remained tiny in this period, with the CPNZ counting fewer than 100 members. Despite its small size,
13250-492: The rest of the party's institutional life. In the summer of 1939, the CPNZ came into conflict with the government in the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , to which the party responded with anti-war rhetoric while the governments of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union carved up spheres of influence in Europe. Tensions worsened in 1940, when Great Britain came under attack – a country to which New Zealanders felt
13375-468: The same: to promote the communist party line to generally non-communist audiences and to mobilize them to carry out tasks within the country under the aegis of the Front. Recent scholarship has developed the comparative political study of global communist parties by examining similarities and differences across historical geographies. In particular, the rise of revolutionary parties, their spread internationally,
13500-407: The small movement failing to achieve critical mass. A conference was consequently held during the 1924 Christmas break, attended by delegates of the Communist Party of Australia (Hetty and Hector Ross), at which it was decided to make the CPNZ a subordinate section of the larger Australian party. Harry Quaife from Australia also visited in 1925, and had " some success in putting Auckland communists on
13625-399: The society that it has no policies. All the publications carry a disclaimer saying that they do not represent the collective views of the society but only the views of the authors. "No resolution of a political character expressing an opinion or calling for action, other than in relation to the running of the Society itself, shall be put forward in the name of the Society." The Fabian Society
13750-692: The state since 1869. Old age pensions were provided to all New Zealanders 65 years of age or older who had been resident in the country for at least 25 years. "The New Zealanders are collectivists, although they adhere to the old party names of liberals and tories," the American examiners enthused, with the New Zealand Liberal Party reckoned as equivalent to the Fabian socialists of Great Britain. Richard Seddon (1845–1906), Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1893 until his death in 1906, oversaw implementation of an array of social welfare programs as leader of
13875-463: The state to control big industry, transport, banks, internal and external trade. The state would direct the course of economic development, with the ultimate aim to provide a guaranteed minimum standard of living for all. Michel Aflaq , widely considered as the founder of the Ba'athist movement, was a Fabian socialist. Aflaq's ideas, with those of Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Zaki al-Arsuzi , came to fruition in
14000-414: The superior Carthaginian army under the renowned general Hannibal through persistence, harassment, and wearing the enemy down by attrition rather than pitched, climactic battles. An explanatory note appearing on the title page of the group's first pamphlet declared: For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently when warring against Hannibal, though many censured his delays; but when
14125-425: The time comes you must strike hard, as Fabius did, or your waiting will be in vain, and fruitless. According to author Jon Perdue , "The logo of the Fabian Society, a tortoise, represented the group's predilection for a slow, imperceptible transition to socialism, while its coat of arms, a 'wolf in sheep's clothing', represented its preferred methodology for achieving its goal." The wolf in sheep's clothing symbolism
14250-466: The time of the Communist International , the youth leagues were explicit communist organizations, using the name ' Young Communist League '. Later the youth league concept was broadened in many countries, and names like 'Democratic Youth League' were adopted. Some trade unions and students', women's, peasants', and cultural organizations have been connected to communist parties. Traditionally, these mass organizations were often politically subordinated to
14375-638: The time. The Fabian proposals however were considerably more progressive than those that were enacted in the Liberal reform legislation. The Fabians lobbied for the introduction of a minimum wage in 1906, for the creation of a universal health care system in 1911 and for the abolition of hereditary peerages in 1917. Agnes Harben and Henry Devenish Harben were among Fabians advocating women's emancipation and supporting suffrage movements in Britain, and internationally. Fabian socialists were in favour of reforming
14500-430: The turn of the 20th century. The New Zealand Socialist Party (NZSP), founded in 1901, included in its ranks a left wing which eschewed political action, arguing that socialism could only be won by the direct efforts of the organised working class acting through their unions. Others adhered to the theories of Daniel DeLeon , which advocated the use of the ballot box for a revolutionary transformation of society leading to
14625-413: The way for the New Zealand party's growth in membership and influence. By 1945 party membership reached its all-time high of approximately 2,000, while circulation of People's Voice topped 14,000 copies per week. This level of membership and support would continue through 1946, when new international circumstances would arise leading to the CPNZ's inexorable attrition. A Communist Party candidate stood in
14750-401: Was Ed Balls 's 1992 discussion paper, advocating Bank of England independence . Balls had been a Financial Times journalist when he wrote this Fabian pamphlet, before going to work for Gordon Brown. Former BBC Business Editor Robert Peston , in his book Brown's Britain , calls this an "essential tract" and concludes that Balls "deserves as much credit – probably more – than anyone else for
14875-840: Was at this time that many of the future leaders of the Third World were exposed to Fabian thought, most notably India's Jawaharlal Nehru , who subsequently framed economic policy for India on Fabian socialism lines. After independence from Britain, Nehru's Fabian ideas committed India to an economy in which the state owned, operated and controlled means of production, in particular key heavy industrial sectors such as steel, telecommunications, transportation, electricity generation, mining and real estate development. Private activity, property rights and entrepreneurship were discouraged or regulated through permits, nationalisation of economic activity and high taxes were encouraged, rationing, control of individual choices and Mahalanobis model considered by Nehru as
15000-592: Was established in Boston by W. D. P. Bliss , a prominent Christian socialist . The group published a periodical, The American Fabian , and issued a small series of pamphlets. Around the same time a parallel organisation emerged on the Pacific coast, centred in California , under the influence of socialist activist Laurence Gronlund . American Fabianism lasted for less than a decade. Similar non-UK societies include
15125-414: Was later abandoned, due to its obvious negative connotations. Its nine founding members were Frank Podmore , Edward R. Pease , William Clarke , Hubert Bland , Percival Chubb , Frederick Keddell, H. H. Champion , Edith Nesbit , and Rosamund Dale Owen. Havelock Ellis is sometimes also mentioned as a tenth founding member though there is some question about this. Immediately upon its inception,
15250-609: Was made more regular and increased attention was paid to the problem of internal security in an effort to stave the crippling series of arrests that had swept the party. Comintern policy began to change in 1933 following the victory of the Nazi Party in Germany, leading to eventual advocacy of a so-called Popular Front against fascism by 1935. Under the Freeman leadership the CPNZ took the first tentative steps in this direction late in 1933 when
15375-468: Was strongly influenced by the Fabian Society. However, he later altered his views, considering the Fabian ideal of socialism as impractical. In 1993, Lee said: They [Fabian Socialists] were going to create a just society for the British workers—the beginning of a welfare state, cheap council housing, free medicine and dental treatment, free spectacles, generous unemployment benefits. Of course, for students from
15500-566: Was the Fabian ideology that Awolowo used to run the Western Region during his premiership with great success, although he was prevented from using it in a similar fashion on the national level in Nigeria. It is less known that the founder of Pakistan , Muhammad Ali Jinnah , was an avid member of the Fabian Society in the early 1930s. Lee Kuan Yew , the first Prime Minister of Singapore , stated in his memoirs that his initial political philosophy
15625-561: Was whether Britain would be the centre of a world empire or whether it would lose its colonies and end up as just two islands in the North Atlantic. It expressed support for Britain in the Boer War because small nations, such as the Boers , were anachronisms in the age of empires. In order to hold onto the Empire, the British needed to fully exploit the trade opportunities secured by war; maintain
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