Maoism in the Developed World

The Communist Party of New Zealand had several regular periodicals. One was the weekly People’s Voice, and another a monthly theoretical organ, New Zealand Communist Review. For some time, it also put out “bulletins” addressed to particular kinds of workers in different parts of the country.[598]

In spite of the extremism of its theoretical positions, the Communist Party of New Zealand continued for a number of years to participate in elections. For instance, in 1966 it ran candidates in nine different constituencies in parliamentary elections, on a platform centering particularly on opposition to the war in Vietnam, in which New Zealand troops were participating against the Communists. Altogether, these nominees received only 1,207 votes, as opposed to the 2,868 votes the party had gotten in the 1963 general election. Wilcox, in commenting on these results, said that “Our own vote dropped slightly, the main reason being the fact that many supporters, both old and new, voted Labor solely in the ‘bring-the-troops back’ Vietnam issue, not because they agreed with Labor policy.”[599]

In September 1968, the CPNZ carried on what the party paper People’s Voice called “a limited campaign” in municipal elections, in which it sought to work “against creating illusions on the nature of local body government.” The paper said that the parry sought seats in municipal councils “as a further base for their task of helping organize the great power of the working class that alone can bring changes.”[600]

They again named candidates in the 1969 parliamentary election, four in number. However, as usual, no party member was elected, and their total vote fell to 364, a bit more than a quarter of what they had received three years earlier.[601]

By 1972, the CPNZ was refusing to participate further in elections. Its explanation for this refusal was that “with the revolution the main trend in the world today, with struggle for both immediate gains and revolutionary policy growing every day in New Zealand, it is apparent that our forces must be used to strengthen these developments outside the Parliamentary circus.” On some occasions that year, the parry sought to disrupt election meetings.[602]

Among the most important agitational campaigns of the CPNZ in the 1960s and early 1970s was that against the Vietnam War. For instance, it was reported in 1966 that “In concentrating its propaganda and activism during the year mainly on opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam, the CPNZ particularly directed its members to be involved in ‘protest’ movements and, above all, in protesting the war in Vietnam. Wilcox stressed that on this issue the cooperation of persons of the middle classes, and especially the intellectuals, was easier to obtain than that of the workers.”[603]

The Communists had at best only very marginal influence within the organized labor movement. For instance, in 1971 it was reported that the CPNZ and its pro-Soviet rival, the Socialist Unity Party, each had only about 15 members who held executive posts in the unions.[604] For a short while, the CPNZ had substantial influence in the Seamen’s Union, but lost this to their pro-Soviet rivals when the CPNZ elements led a strike that was lost.[605]

In any case, the attitude of the CPNZ toward the existing trade union movement was a highly equivocal one. An article in the party’s “theoretical” publication, New Zealand Communist Review, said in early 1970 that the New Zealand unions were “a far cry from Marx’s schools of revolution” and were instead “schools of reformism and a bulwark of social democracy.” It claimed that the alliance of the “establishment” with the unions provided a “gilt-edged guarantee to ‘political stability’ “ and aided the penetration of foreign capital into New Zealand. However, it said that the rank and file of the labor movement were potentially revolutionary and so the CPNZ would continue to work within it.[606]

In 1973 it was reported that the CPNZ “denounces trade unions as ‘a vital and necessary part of the capitalist establishment’ and urges rank-and-file action, especially ‘short, sharp, hard-hitting struggles’ as a challenge to ‘bureaucrat unionism.’”[607]

For a few years, the CPNZ had at least marginal influence in the student movement. In 1968, it revived the Progressive Youth Movement “after several years of inaction.”[608] A couple years later it was reported that the party appeared “to have substantial influence with one left-radical group, the anti- Vietnam, war, anti-United States Progressive Youth Movement (PYM), headed by Chris Lind. The CPNZ press regularly carries reports on PYM protests and demonstrations and had defended the PYM against attacks by the pro-Soviet Socialist Unity Party.” However, the CPNZ apparently did not have full control over the PYM.[609]

Factionalism Within The CPNZ