When I pulled down the Leftovers, the section of the website I used to run as a guide to the organisations and sects of the socialist left in NZ, it was due in part to simply not having the time to keep it adequately up to date. That I don’t regret, I pulled it earlier in the pandemic and hadn’t updated in since before the pandemic began. But I think it has left a gap, without it there isn’t really an easy way to get quickly accustomed with the still quite large array of organisations that populate the relatively small field of the socialist left. So I’ve instead opted for a regular survey. Whether that turns out to be annual, every couple years, or something else, it’s a more manageable format.

If there’s any one tendency that dominates among the socialist left, it is precisely no tendency at all. Pluralistic organisations with a medley of tendencies and perspectives are a somewhat recent phenomena though they share at least some DNA with the tradition of joint and broad-left projects in which multiple organisations would participate. Over the last half decade this style of organisation has come to the for in the body of two notable organisations, Organise Aotearoa and the Federation of Socialist Societies. Both of these organisations have in their own way benefited from the stagnation and collapse of the ‘old’ socialist left organisations over the 1990s-2010s which left many either sharply contracted or disappeared from the map entirely. Broadly those organisations could be loosely placed in three traditions from the 1960s onwards: ‘official’ communism in the form of the old Communist Party and its many Marxist-Leninist relations, the Trotskyists (notably the Spartacist, ‘Pathfinder’, and Cliffite traditions), and the anarchists who saw a revival during the heyday of the New Left and another in the 1990s. As anarchism declined from the mid-2000s onward, Trotskyism largely stagnated with the ISO never managing to break the ceiling of 50 active members during their ‘MANA bump’ and the other Trotskyist groups either folding or waning, and Marxism-Leninism became all but moribund with one brief exception, the field lay open for organisations to propose a pluralistic vision of socialism to overcome or sidestep the malaise.

This brings the story to more recent years. Overall I believe the socialist left expanded in the late-2010s but has contracted across the period of the pandemic. Adoption of virtual events during periods of lockdown or high case numbers proved to be patchy across the various groups. Some organisations have bucked this trend, but as an aggregate total the movement seems to have declined. The total membership is somewhere below 300 people. However, that’s not including non-member supporters and fellow travelers who dot the edges of the socialist left and make up an unknowable but likely significant bloc of the extant socialist movement in New Zealand. To put it in context the membership of every organisation combined could probably have narrowly squeezed in the old Socialist Unity Party on a good month for recruiting back in the 1980s, and fully half or more of that number is made up by one organisation of which most is in one city.

This trend has been matched by the reconstitution and revival of right-wing extra-parliamentary politics, including the rise of a radical faction which was most visible at the parliament protests earlier this year. That “street level” anti-government politics have decisively shifted to the right is not necessarily the natural result of a center-left government being in power. More often than not the most serious opposition to the Fifth Labour Government (under Helen Clark) outside of parliament came from its left, fighting over issues from genetic engineering to the War on Terror.

Nor does a trough necessarily signal some great death knell for the socialist left. Trying times have been the norm for the socialist left for decades at this point, going back as far as the 1980s. That is unlikely to change in the immediate future, but the point is the socialist left likely isn’t going anywhere even if as a movement it’s small, fragmented, and wields minimal influence. A possible prerequisite of revival is taking stock of where the movement is, or at the least it can’t hurt.

As per before the list is restricted to those organisations which can comfortably be called socialist in the sense that they conceptually advocate for the cause of a socialist replacement of capitalism rather than accommodation of it. Socialism is a porous concept, and people may disagree with some of the exceptions like the Fabians or the Green Left Network inside the Green Party. Simply put, at some point the decision has to be made as to whether an organisation is included and self-identification with the socialist tradition along with political independence from the main trio of center-left parties weighs heavy in that calculation. At any rate, I believe the survey has captured the most representative list of organisations which comprise the socialist movement in New Zealand. Feel free to disagree!

Lastly, I’ve written on a number of occasions about the idea of an “activist yellow pages”, most recently in the article Notes on the International Question. Since then I’ve been put in touch with someone who’s working on such a project. Whether it will get off the ground is yet to be seen, but I’m glad to hear the idea’s being mulled over by others. Call it parallel thinking. At any rate I’ve been asked before why I specify a focus on the socialist movement rather than the wider progressive movement/activist left (now if socialism is a porous concept…). The simple answer is that I’d like to but that it is a far larger project. Given this survey alone has taken about four months, and was answered by slightly less than half the organisations queried, it is honestly just beyond me to be able to survey such a vast array of organisations without the result being unacceptably patchy. I hope that more take up the project of cataloguing the activist left in such a manner that it becomes easier to grasp the wider movement(s) as a whole, and drastically reduce the “induction shock” which faces those newly involved in left-wing politics.

Anyway, boring stuff out of the way, on with the show…

Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement

With a background in the large if dysfunctional anarchist scene of the early 2000s, AWSM emerged as an attempt to remedy the disorder in 2008. Though small and lacking many of its founding members, AWSM have held on and their stickers crop up far & wide across the country. Much of the organisation’s energy seems to be used in maintaining its website and hosting somewhat regular online meetings, along with the publication of their irregular newssheet Solidarity.

Black Star Books

One of anarchism’s longest running institutions in New Zealand, BSB has been around almost two decades since its first launch in 2003. Primarily an anarchist social center away down in Ōtepoti/Dunedin, BSB maintains an archive of Dunedin art zines inherited from Glue Gallery and a library of leftist literature. Asides the archive BSB serves as a social space hosting movie screenings, talks and lectures; and previously having played host to meetings for local orgs, a community kitchen, and at one point a D&D group. Fairly standard infoshop fare.

Covid has been hard for BSB, which has seen multiple collective members fall ill and the ‘shop shut for months at a time. However in spite of these trials and generations of local anarchists having passed through its ranks, the ‘shop remains open today and recently held a fairly successful Anarchyfest. If you’re visiting Dunedin, BSB is presently open 2PM-5PM Wednesday & Friday in addition to the various events held there.

Communalism Aotearoa

A small, and now mostly defunct, social ecology (most would say ‘Bookchinite’) project that never really got offline. Beyond their website, which has sat untouched for most of the pandemic, the group has hopes to get a Rojava solidarity campaign off the ground one day.

Communist League

Originally the Socialist Action League when founded in 1969, the Communist League renamed in 1989 after it sided with the Socialist Workers Party (US) in a split from the Fourth International in the 1980s. It now functions as the New Zealand branch of the informally known ‘Pathfinder tendency’ which sprung up around the SWP(US). These days outside of bumping into one of ’em at one of the usual protests or pickets (they’ve apparently been active supporting the recent CHEP strike and Ukrainian solidarity activity), your average encounter with the Communist League is via their frequent electoral runs in Auckland. They did have a youth section, the Young Socialists, at least as recently as the early ’00s but it’s long since moribund. In spite of a reputation for being rather difficult to find, given their refusal to maintain any kind of online presence outside occasional press releases, they host their ‘Militant Labour Forums’ fairly frequently at a building they use as bookshop, meeting hall, and election office in Onehunga. Said bookshop is also the local outlet of Pathfinder Press, from which the informal tendency gets the name, and where you can get the orgs de facto magazine Militant (published by the SWP(US), and contributed to by the various Communist League groups aligned to the SWP(US)) which replaced their long running Socialist Action in 1988.

The Communist League continue to valiantly contest every general and local election in Auckland regardless of results. They’ve stood in every general election since 1990, being rewarded with 210 votes (0.01% all up) across 9 candidates, on their first and thus far most fruitful attempt. Since then, they’ve stood 2 candidates without fail every election, to which they’ve gained between 74 (2008) and 171 (2002) votes. They’ve also seen fit to stand in three by-elections over the years, first at the 1992 Tamaki by-election (at which James Robb came dead last-equal with 7 votes/0.04%), second at the 1992 Wellington Central by-election (at which Felicity Cogan came second-last with 14 votes/0.09%), and third at the 2017 Mt Albert by-election (at which Patrick Brown came dead last with 15 votes/0.12%).

They’ve also tilted at every Auckland mayoral election since 1990, at which their Peter Bradley came dead last in 20th place with 189 votes/0.15%, behind the likes of the Blokes Liberation Front in 16th place and McGillicuddy Serious Party in 17th. More recently they gained a more substantive 1,817 votes (0.46%) in 2016 with Patrick Brown placing 11th of 19, and 1,055 votes (0.28%) in 2019 with Annalucia Vermunt taking 19th of 21. Notably their council candidates tend to do better, though still coming in around last. In 2019 their Manukau Ward candidate, Patrick Brown, came third of three candidates with 4,912 votes/11.03% (which I think is their best ever result). In 2013 their Manukau Ward candidate Baskaran Appu came last of seven candidates with 1,154 votes/2.10%, while their two candidates in 2010 gained 502 votes/0.61% (Annalucia Vermunt, Manukau Ward) and 751 votes/3.30% (Patrick Brown, Maungakiekie-Tamaki Ward). Prior to the supercity merger the League ran a candidate for mayor in Manukau City and Auckland City. The League also ran a candidate for mayor of Christchurch at every local election from 1992 to 2004, which checks out with around when friends from Christchurch remember the League last being present there. In 2022 they’re standing Annalucia Vermunt in Manurewa and Patrick Brown in Manukau East.

Communist Workers’ Group

CWG are a small outfit primarily (as far as I can tell) in Auckland, who’re one of the founders (in 2010) of a small Spartacist-descended international originally called the Liaison Committee of Communists, which in 2019 became the International Leninist Trotskyist Tendency, along with the Communist Workers’ Group (USA), Revolutionary Workers’ Group (Brazil) and Revolutionary Workers’ Group (Zimbabwe). Asides the usual fare the main activity of the group is the regular publication of their magazine Class Struggle, which can be found on their blog Redrave.

The CWG trace back to a split in the original NZ Spartacist League which played out from 1972-1974 and eventually led to the founding of the Communist Left of NZ in 1981. In 1992 the CLNZ joined the (Workers Power UK-led) Movement for a Revolutionary Communist International (which eventually became the League for the Fifth International or L5I) and became Workers Power (NZ). This didn’t last long though, and Workers Power (NZ) became the CWG through 1994-1995 when they split along with the Peruvian and Bolivian sections of the then still MRCI over its position on the NATO bombing campaign in Serbia. Together they formed the Liaison Committee of Militants for a Revolutionary Communist International (CEMICOR, from its Spanish name) in 1995, which by 2004 had dissolved. For a time in the 2000s it was a member of the International Trotskyist Fraction along with a number of South American orgs, and arrived at its final form as a member of the LCC in 2010.

Federation of Socialist Societies

Slowly building its way to the point I’m comfortable saying it’s the largest of the socialist organisations in New Zealand, the Federation is formed of four constitutive Socialist Societies and at-large members attached to each depending on geography spread across the country. The Federations’ model of educational and social activity was pioneered by the original society in Canterbury, where events revolve around regular talks, film screenings, and monthly drinks. Throw in the annual State of the Unions Panel and Fred Evans Memorial Lecture; the contribution of some members to the May Day & Labour Day Committee; and publishing a quarterly zine Red & Black, the newsletter Commonweal, and a monthly podcast The End of History via PlainsFM; and you have the core of Canterbury’s yearly schedule. Playing the patience game has paid off in allowing the Canterbury society to establish itself as the center of socialist politics in Christchurch. The other societies in Otago, Wellington and Hamilton are much newer and are comparatively still getting their feet, but I would say it’s safe to say the model is exportable across the country.

The Federation perhaps benefits from a short, simple definition of socialism on which unity is based and no overseas mothership organisation directing matters from afar (or satellite groups overseas to direct from afar for that matter). On the flip side, it’s impressive that a membership with former affiliations to everything from NewLabour/the Alliance through a medley of dissolved socialist organisations to the sometimes chaotic anarchist scene has managed to stick together. Whether the ‘peace will hold’ probably depends more so on the benefits offered by membership and the organisations capacity to manage a wide variety of personalities and organising styles than in ideological disparities. At present of note is the Canterbury society’s “Winter of Discontent”, an impressive flurry of frenetic organizing which sees it hosting an event just about every week from May through August.

Fightback

Formed from the ashes of the Workers Party of New Zealand in 2013 (they’ve published a short history of Fightback’s place in the sprawling Communist Party family tree), Fightback deemed itself a ‘fighting propaganda group’ but is now denoted as a more straightforward ‘socialist media group’. Now largely confined online and in print, Fightback are among the more prominent socialist projects in terms of public awareness. Their main activity these days is the regular publication of pamphlets and the aptly named magazine Fightback.

Fightback were one of the driving forces behind the Migrant & Refugee Rights Campaign (MARRC) throughout most of 2017, supporting the candidacy of FIRST Union legal organiser Gayaal Iddamalgoda in Wellington Central. For this effort they were rewarded with 161 votes, the largest of the minor players and hilariously well ahead of the ACT candidate. Asides this, Fightback’s main distinguishing feature among the local radical left is the ‘conservative leftism’ thesis developed by member (and veteran of Socialist Worker away back when) Daphne Lawless, which has won over a variety of supporters and detractors over the years. Of some note is the org re-branding as a trans-Tasman outfit to coincide with going near fully online. They also entered brief talks on joining the 4th International, but those have since fallen through.

The Freedom Shop

Recently relocated to a corner of Book Haven in Riddiford Street, Newtown from their long standing home tucked into a corner of the Opportunity for Animals Co-op Shop right next door, The Freedom Shop are sellers of anarchist literature & knick knacks in Wellington as well as maintaining a small library. One of only two anarchist infoshops still around, The Freedom Shop one-ups BSB with the semi-regular publication of the Aotearoa Anarchist Review (or as it’s better known, AARGH!). Presently the oldest anarchist project still running in New Zealand, The Freedom Shop having been nomadically moving from address to address since away back in 1995, although as I understand it due to the pandemic they are yet to celebrate their 25th birthday (something to keep an eye out for!). Last thing to note is Freedom Shop’s ongoing collaboration with Wellington Zinefest, which has seen them produce the Radical Zine Series of reimagined and redesigned zines from the Freedom Shop back catalogue.

International Bolshevik Tendency

The IBT are one of two internationals to be spearheaded in part or whole from New Zealand, and it’s weird that both come from the post-Spartacist tradition. They like the CWG also trace back to the NZ Spartacist League, but with a mercifully less convoluted lineage. The start point being the expulsion of Bill Logan and Adaire Hannah in 1979. This little expulsion eventuated in the founding of the Permanent Revolution Group which trucked along for a decade until it linked with another dissident ex-Spart group in the US/Canada (Bolshevik Tendency) to form the IBT in 1991, they were joined by the German group Gruppe IV Internationale later that year. You’ll mostly find the IBT in Wellington on the usual meeting/strike/protest circuit, and thumping what I’m pretty sure is the longest running periodical on the radical left in this country – 1917 (in print since 1986 and impressively available in full on their website).

Recently the American section did the splits over whether or not Russia are imperialist (IBT thought so, BT thought not) – which means the BT in IBT may no longer really be applicable. You can read about the split from the IBT side of things on their website (1, 2, 3, 4).

International Socialist Organisation

The ISO are by most measures one of the longer lived among the more prominent groups on the socialist left. Based primarily in Dunedin, Wellington and Auckland; they were initially founded in 1993 before an ill-fated merger with the (renamed) Communist Party of New Zealand in February 1995 from which they would reemerge after a split in March 1997. The ISO were one of several socialist groups to throw their lot in with MANA in 2011, officially ending their support in early 2015 after Internet MANA imploded post-election. Internationally I’m unsure exactly what their affiliation status is, although they at least gravitate the International Socialist Tendency and have close relations to Socialist Alternative (Australia) and ISO (USA). As of April 2019, RIP ISO (USA).

You’ll find members on various campuses or at demos bearing ISO label placards and selling the orgs long-running paper Socialist Review – which turned 25 this year! After the split & demise of Socialist Worker over 2008-2012 and split & reorganisation of the Workers Party over 2011-2013 the ISO sat atop the greasy pole as the country’s largest socialist organisation. That spot was overcome by the growth of Organise Aotearoa and the Federation of Socialist Societies around late 2018-onward. They do remain one of the main players among the socialist left though, a position held for the better part of two decades now.

Organise Aotearoa

An organisation which has seen high peaks and deep troughs, OA are nowadays one among many organisations working toward the socialist cause in Auckland. As I understand it they trace themselves back to the intellectual political circles which began to orbit Sue Bradford and co. during the early days of the launch of Counterfutures journal, the Social Movements conferences, and the leftist think-tank Economic and Social Research Aotearoa; and drew some of its earliest membership from similar circles to that which kickstarted No Pride In Prisons (now known for some time as People Against Prisons Aotearoa), Peace Action orgs, and Auckland Action Against Poverty. Though it began to coalesce around 2016, OA was formally launched in 2018 to some hubbub.

Politically, OA are a mixed bag beyond a firm dedication to revolutionary socialism and a fairly standard body of core principles. While initially operating as a broad tent which encompassed most of the tendencies present on the socialist left in New Zealand, the organisation has drifted over time toward a conception of decolonial communism which can be incorporated into the various visions inherent to a multi-tendency organisation. Just about every tendency in New Zealand that’s gained members in the past few years can count an ex-OA member. This at one point led to some fierce internal debates, which sometimes spilled into the public. These days OA is smaller than it once was after a period of meteoric growth shortly after launching and has mostly retreated to a home base of Auckland, but it remains an important factor in socialist politics in the city.

Activity wise, OA have been notable in a number of campaigns and are a presence in the meeting/strike/protest circuit wherever there are members. Perhaps most widely covered was their occupation of the Brazilian embassy in early 2019 (though they also occupied the US consulate in Auckland a month later), which won them both admiration and bitter hatred from left & right in Brazil after the action went viral. They were also part of the supporting cast at the major escalation at Ihumātao that year which saw thousands participate in the occupation at its peak. Lately, they’ve been gearing up to launch an internal paper Organise! which I as a fan of left-wing publications am excited to one day catalogue in the distant future for the archive, and have also taken an interest in tenant organising.

Platypus Affiliated Society

An entry that’s mostly de facto rather than de jure, as it were, the Plats run a small reading group at Otago University which has warranted their entry in the list. The mothership organisation in the US is actually one of the more notable organisations stateside, and leads its own unofficial international, but not one that had much impact in the Antipodes until relatively recently with the establishment of a formal branch in Melbourne. Activity wise the Plats operate on a ‘tripod’ model that essentially boils down to a mostly campus-focused strategy of reading groups, panels & public forums, and publishing the Platypus Review and if a local section takes root that’ll be what to expect coming down the pipe.

Editors note: Since publishing this survey, I’ve been made aware of the Plats perhaps uniquely controversial status among the American and British left. Now a reputation for contrarianism I was aware of and willing to let pass without comment because they’d be far from the only people on the left to have such a reputation. However, the degree of consternation the Plats have generated feels deserving of comment, and it’s on me for not doing sufficient digging to dredge it up before publishing. Chalk it up to unfamiliarity with what is in many regards still a fairly new tendency among the international left. At any rate, rather than carping on, I figure I’d link to a couple things that seem relevant and let the reader decide. First a couple open letters, one from Marxian economist Andrew Kliman published by the Marxist Humanist Initiative and the other from former Plat Ben Campbell (co-signed by various figures of note and published on Richard Seymour’s blog). Second a couple articles, one from the Marxist Humanist Initiative and the other from the Communist Party of Great Britain’s Weekly Worker.

Rebel Press

Still going more than a decade in, Rebel Press have carved out a space as a radical left publishing & printing space among the crowded field of the Wellington left. The space itself is used as a publishing house for The Freedom Shop, 5ever, Left of the Equator Press, Lawrence & Gibson, and has a relationship with zinefest and other small publishing collectives. The folk at Rebel Press have been responsible for various titles on anarchist history, the animal rights/ecological movement and the security state over the years. They also published Imminent Rebellion, the only (irregular) anarchist journal in the South Pacific, though it’s now been defunct for some years.

Redline

Formed as a split of high profile figures from the Workers Party in 2011 (including the former National Secretary, National Organiser, and The Spark Editor), Redline is a fairly well read if controversial blog. In fact they’re likely one of the widest read socialist blogs in the country (despite not much in the way of social media presence).

Once upon a time they were most well known for their quite adversarial attitude toward much of the rest of the socialist scene, and maybe to a lesser extent their not exactly favorable position on the Labour Party. However for the last few years Redline have thrown their hat in with the TERF scene among a number of other culture warrior and SP!KEDish positions (so much so that the blog’s byline was recently changed from “contemporary Marxist analysis” to “marxist, rational, science, free speech”) that have served to alienate them from much of the socialist left. It’s been quite the schism, and although the readership is apparently up (possibly due to the heavy involvement of the UK TERF movement in the local scene) it’s come at the cost of near total isolation from just about the entirety of left-wing politics in NZ.

Socialist Aotearoa

A May 2008 split from Socialist Worker, which arguably makes them one of the last remnants of the original Communist Party, and the New Zealand affiliate of the International Socialist Tendency, Socialist Aotearoa are a central feature of activism in Auckland. Long having faced rumblings of being a little bit of a personality not-quite-cult around founding leader Joe Carolan, I hear he’s stepped back a little bit in recent years. Their Anticapitalist branded merch were for the better part of a decade a near ubiquitous feature of that scene (more so than the newsletter it was all branded for).

SA were notably embroiled in cover-up allegations after the publication in 2011 of an open letter regarding misogyny and abuse on the part of then member Omar Hamed. Though the justified uproar is now more a piece of movement history than a living problem, SA seemingly never really recovered. At one point not long after the split SA were being poached by both the ISO and the Workers Party for a merger. The former actually reached merger talks but it fell through and the 2011 allegations put the final nail in the coffin on that, while the overtures from the Workers Party were seemingly never returned.

For a time a little before and early in the pandemic there was something of a surge in young membership and an attempt to wrestle leadership for a new generation, but that too seems to have fallen through over time. Of final note is their electoral efforts. One of several groups to join MANA, eternal leader Joe stood as their candidate in Mt Albert for the 2014 general election and pulled 290 votes/0.79%, placing 6th of 8, for his efforts. He had another crack at it in the 2017 Mt Albert by-election under the banner “Socialist – People Before Profit” for which he took 5th place with 171 votes (or 1.32%). It would appear the lack of any of the main right wing parties didn’t have much effect on the various left-wing and crank candidates who threw their hat in.

Socialist Appeal

Socialist Appeal are the local franchise of the International Marxist Tendency, and have been around since about 2007. Originally based in Kaikohe (probably the only group to ever do so), this lot are scattered to the wind and count a handful of members around NZ and another couple in Sydney. They have a seasonal magazine of the same name, though it doesn’t seem to be advertised on their website or the website of the IMT.

Socialist Equality Group

SEG are the local preachers of the eternally correct line of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI, also known as the ‘Northites’), primarily via the World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) which hosts pretty much all of the ICFI’s media. Their activity mostly consists of reporting on political events and demos, via which they engage a seemingly favorite pastime of accusing other groups and figures of being ‘pseudo-leftists’. They do have a youth wing, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality at the Victoria University campus. Lately they’ve been spruiking a new book on the Pike River disaster, Pike River: The Crime and Cover-up, comprised of articles by member Tom Peters from the WSWS.

South Pacific Christian Anarchists

A relatively loose network of sympathisers with the Christian Anarchist tradition active primarily in New Zealand and Australia, the network is fairly large but there isn’t a formal membership per se. Formed in 2006, the network takes some inspiration from the Catholic Worker movement and Jesus Radicals and in New Zealand places itself in the tradition of Tohu Kākahi & Te Whiti o Rongomai at Parihaka, Rua Kēnana at Maungapōhatu, and Archibald & Hemi Baxter and their followers. SPCA (yes, the name is intentional) held an annual hui between 2006 and 2012, but hasn’t held one since, and at least at one point produced an irregular zine Co-Opted/Kia Ngātahi. If you’re interested, besides joining the open Facebook group a good place to start is this interview two members did with the Which Side podcast in 2016.

Tāmaki Makaurau Anarchists

A spiritual successor of sorts to the Auckland Anarchist Network, TMA have solidified themselves as a core puzzle-piece in the Auckland socialist scene and wider extra-parliamentary left. The official launch of TMA was postponed by the March 15th massacre until May of 2019, but hit the ground running nonetheless. Beyond the meeting/picket/protest circuit, TMA at least used to host a monthly drop-in infoshop called (A)Space (unsure if that’s still ongoing), were a key part of the now defunct(?) Tamaki Solidarity Network (modeled on the Seattle Solidarity Network), and have a long-running email newsletter the Auckland Activist which I highly suggest signing up to. It’s easily one of the most complete lefty calendars around, and a fantastic resource for keeping up with what’s happening in Auckland.

Te Pāti o Te Nuku Mauī/Left Party

Originally founded as the explicitly Marxist-Leninist New Communist Party of Aotearoa, the party has rebranded in recent months to the Left Party/Te Nuku Mauī and shed much of the overt ML trappings which once defined it. I’m curious as to whether they retain their links to the Communist Party of Australia and prior focus on working toward a relationship with the diplomatic missions of China, Vietnam, and Cuba. Prior to the pandemic it had grown to be one of the more notable organisations on the socialist left. Whether that growth has survived the rebrand and perhaps reorientation is yet to be seen. Back in the day (well, three or four years ago) when it was still quite new, the party was largely based in Wellington with contacts dotted throughout. A decent bet is that Wellington remains the orgs ‘home base’.

World Socialist Party of New Zealand

Arguably the most obscure organisation around, few believe that it actually still exists but a recent update to their website suggests at least someone still considers themselves to be affiliated with the party. Founded way back in 1930 as the Socialist Party of New Zealand (not to be confused with the earlier New Zealand Socialist Party) out of the ashes of the earlier Petone Marxian Club (f. 1912) and the Marxian Association (f. 1920), if the WSP still exists it’s by a considerable margin the oldest socialist organisation in the country. Politically the WSP is associated with the “impossibilist” tradition of the World Socialist Movement, spearheaded by the Socialist Party of Great Britain, a Second International era theory influenced by the likes of Daniel De Leon in the US, E. T. Kingsley in Canada, and Jules Guesde in France. Supposedly, the party used to have a radio station (Radio Imagine 88.3FM) and an office in Manurewa, no comment on whether either still exist.

Working Class Party of Aotearoa

Thus far the Working Class Party seems to be one of so many internet projects, and the newest one at that being less than a year old at time of writing. Supposedly formed of the merger of two minor groupings (the Working Class Party of New Zealand and an internal formation in the Labour Party called Workers Aotearoa) in August 2021, I haven’t heard nor found much evidence of their existence offline. Time will tell whether this fledgling group start cropping up on the meeting/picket/protest circuit or whether they fizzle like many projects before them in the social media era.