In the 1970s and 1980s socialism in New Zealand was much more prominent than it is now, especially through links to unions and unionists.
Have socialist ideals fizzled out? Not entirely, some activists promote something similar – somehow getting rid of capitalism and replacing our financial and political systems with something like socialism. But with previously communist countries USSR and China now embracing a lot of capitalism the socialist ideals are more low key and fringe.
Someone at Reddit was Wanting to know about communism in NZ
Does anyone have any links or info for any current communist or socialist parties in NZ ? I’ve done a bit of a search online but keep just finding info about defunct parties and terrible NZ herald articles. Anything specific to the Otago area would be amazing.
One unappreciated response:
I’ll tell you for $15
Another probably wasn’t very helpful:
Both of our major parties have been infiltrated by the Communist Party of China and we are in the process of becoming their puppet state.
Why not start by joining one of those parties?
It was pointed out that the Communist Party of China (if there is such a thing) mustn’t be very socialist these days.
There were some more helpful suggestions:
The International Socialists in Dunedin are pretty active right? Give them a yell. They like protesting.
Also:
Organise Aotearoa aren’t a parliamentary party but are probably one of the more active groups having only just kicked off last year. They do have a Dunedin branch too. Active on social media with their links at the bottom of the page, their twitter follows a lot of their members who are mostly very chatty.
The New Communist Party of Aotearoa is also a thing that exists as of last year but I’m not so familiar with them.
Organise Aotearoa (modern socialist groups seem to avoid using socialist names) explains their aims:
Organise Aotearoa is a new movement for liberation and socialism. We believe that the current political and economic system is rotten to the core. This system is killing our planet, creating massive inequalities, and undermining the tino rangatiratanga of Māori.
I don’t think the tino rangatiratanga of Māori is particularly socialist. Rangatira relates to chieftainship.
If we want to live in a truly just, fair, and democratic world, we need to do things differently. We need a system that puts people and the environment before corporations and their profits. We are fighting for socialism because we need a system that shares wealth and prosperity among all people.
We cannot simply rely on politicians in Parliament to do what’s best for us. Time after time, politicians have made promises and failed to deliver. Even worse, most politicians don’t even try.
It’s hard to see how any meaningful changes will be made to our political system without doing it through Parliament. This is no sign of any popular inclination for revolution in Aotearoa.
And it would probably have major difficulties dealing with the Treaty of Waitangi.
History has shown us that people in power only make the changes we actually need when everyday people get organised and demand them.
That’s why Organise Aotearoa wants to do politics differently. We’re committed to doing politics in a way that enables all of us to transform our living conditions together. We want to build the power of ordinary working people so that our collective needs, desires, dreams, and aspirations can’t be ignored. Together, we can make Aotearoa a more equal and democratic place, where everyone can thrive.
“Ordinary working people” is far from everyone, and it is claimed that socialism tends to discourage people from being working people.
Also r/kiwisocialists “has a list of groups around the country”:
A place for socialists, communists and anarchists to discuss current events and organise within Aotearoa.
But it’s not exactly reaching the masses:
157 Comrades
Communism hasn’t been able to prove it is a workable alternative – it has largely been a big failure – so socialist activism is a fringe idealist activity.
Socialist groups had some connections with the Mana Party (also called the Mana Movement) but that flopped when joining forces with a big capitalist Kim Dotcom and fizzling.