Labour Party’s Communist Allies

K R Bolton

The methodology used in the following is adapted from that of journalists such as Marc Daalder, [1] Thomas Manch, et al, and their on-call ‘experts’ such as Dr Paul Spoonley. [2]

Establishment ‘experts’ (sic) use exceedingly tenuous associative phrases and symbols to link anything of the Right to ‘Nazism’, ‘white supremacy’, and ‘terrorism’. Hence, when Mosque shooter Tarrant was found to have made several small donations to Identitarians in Europe, by strained associative techniques this was linked in a vast world-wide ‘white supremacist’ terrorist conspiracy that has expanded to range from the New Conservative Party to an Asatru group in Christchurch that celebrated the old gods and customs of the English, Danes et al.

Looking into the NZ Labour Party we find a long association which, unlike anything of the ‘Right’, takes place in world-wide organisations, such as the Socialist International, and Progressive Alliance, whose affiliates include terrorist organisations such as FRELIMO, MPLA, and ANC, whose imagery includes an array of red banners, clenched fists, crossed hammers, and other symbols suggestive of ‘Communism’, whose party names often include the word ‘revolutionary’ , and others suggesting terrorism [3] whose governing parties include those with records of violence, dictatorship, election fraud, and corruption.

What might be said to be particularly significant is that many of the parties that now call themselves ‘Social Democratic’ and ‘Labour’, until recently called themselves Communist and urgently changed name and shifted policy when the Soviet bloc imploded, moving over to left-liberal positions such as advocacy for ecology and LGBTQ+; causes which were anathema to the regimes which these parties had hitherto maintained for decades. So what might we now think of those who were one minute ‘Communists’ and the next minute ‘moderate’ ‘Social Democrats’ with a sudden commitment to Snowflake causes? We might assume that they are the excrescences of the final decaying phase of the Soviet implosion; functionaries, bureaucrats, careerists, and opportunists – Ardern’s ‘comrades’.

Communist Support for Labour Government

Jacinda Ardern speaking before the International Union of Socialist Youth, of which she was president (2008-2010), whose use of the word ‘comrades’, while red flags are held aloft, albeit amidst what seems to be an inattentive audience (collective ADD among the socialists?) has been used by conservative commentators to claim this proves she is a ‘communist’. [4] One might extend allusions by pointing out that the colour of the New Zealand Labour Party remains red, that not too long ago party congresses were closed to the strains, ‘the people’s flag is deepest red, it shrouded oft our martyred dead…’ [5] Further, the Labour Party had no qualms about accepting as members veteran Communist leaders such as Pat Kelly of the Communist Party NZ (Peking-aligned), who joined the Labour Party in 1977 [6] and Ken Douglas of the Socialist Unity Party (Moscow –aligned) after their parties collapsed. Moreover the SUP, with a strong base in the trades unions, adopted a ‘popular front’ strategy of backing the Labour Party, one Trotskyist commentator stating that, ‘From the day of its birth, up to its disintegration after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the SUP … supported the Labour Party regardless of what the Labour Party did…’ [7]. Don Franks lamented that even after 1984, the year that Labour engulfed New Zealand in Roger Douglas’ Free Market revolution, ‘… virtually every left grouplet has, in practice, and often in theory, treated the Labour party is if it was something other than it is – an instrument of the capitalist ruling class’. [8] Among the Communists that Franks found promoting a Labour Government was fellow (but rival) Trotskyist Grant Brooks, a delegate of the NZ Nurses’ Organisation, who urged union support for a Labour government. [9]

‘Left grouplets’ – and we only refer to avowed Communists – cited by Franks, continue to support the Labour Party as the primary means of establishing Marxism. Socialist Appeal, affiliated to the International Marxist Tendency, a Trotskyist federation, states the first of its principles as being ‘Labour to power on a bold socialist programme’. [10]

Joe Carolan, founder of Socialist Aotearoa, interviewed in his role as an organiser for the ‘Unite’ union, replied to the question on the role of Labour under the new Ardern leadership:

‘It’s important to be clear here. If National were beaten by Labour and the Greens that would be good. That’s what working class people think. That’s not what sectarian little groups think. …What’s most important right now is that confidence has returned and people believe a change is possible. So what side are we on? Are we on the side that goes, ‘Boo, she’s shite, Joe represented the true 190 socialists in Mt Albert’ Or do we engage with those people who are looking to defeat the Nats, enthused by a new generation led by a young woman. … [11]

Ardern’s ‘Comrades’

The NZ Labour Party is affiliated to the Progressive Alliance, a breakaway from the Socialist International. The International Union of Socialist Youth, of which Ardern served as president, remains affiliated to the Socialist International, but is also a partner of the Progressive Alliance, founded in 2013. [12]

Other members of the Progressive Alliance include:

Bahrain National Democratic Action Society, banned in 2017 as a terrorist organisation.

Social Democratic Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina, successor to the League of Communists of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the regional section of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia that had long ruled Yugoslavia under Tito.

Bulgarian Socialist Party, successor of the Bulgarian Communist Party.

Chilean Socialist Party, having declared itself a ‘Marxist-Leninist’ party in 1967, in alliance with the Communist Party pushed Chile to chaos under the presidency of Allende in 1970.

Social Democratic Party of Croatia, successor since 1990 to the League of Communists.

Czech Social Democratic Party, aligned with the Communist Party, and from 1948 during the Soviet rule of Czechoslovakia, incorporated into the Communist Party.

Hungarian Workers Party, successor of the Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, the former Governing party of Communist Hungary.

Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, a terrorist organisation based in Iraq.

Mertez , Israel, a Green party formed in 1992, one of its founding constituents is the Israeli Communist party, Mapam.

Democratic Party, Italy, an alliance including the Democratic Party of the Left, the renamed Communist Party of Italy; a primary element of the process of a revised ‘Eurocommunism’..

Kososvo – Vetëvendosje (‘Self-determination’), territorial expansionists aiming for a Greater Albania.

Latvia – Social Democratic Party (Harmony) an alliance including the Socialist Party of Latvia, the renamed Communist Party.

Social Democratic Party of Lithuania, one of the oldest extant Marxist parties, formed in 1896. In 2001 the party merged with the Democratic Labour Party, the renamed Communist Party of Lithuania.

Party of Democratic Revolution, Mexico, founded in 1989 as a merger of the Mexican Communist Party, United Socialist Party, whose symbol was the Hammer-&-Sickle; Mexicans Workers Party (Trotskyists) et al.

Mongolian People’s Party, founded in 1920 as a Communist Party, it was aligned with Bolshevik Russia from the earliest days, joined the Comintern and established a Communist state, with the aid of the Red Army.

Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro, formed in 1991 as the successor to the regional League of Communists.

Social Democratic Union of Macedonia, formed in 1991 at the congress of the League of Communists of Macedonia.

Norwegian Labour Party, a member of the Comintern during 1919-1923, and the Trotskyist International Revolutionary Marxist Centre (1932-1935).

Direction – Social Democracy, Slovakia, a breakaway from the Party of the Democratic Left, successor of the Slovak Communist party.

Social Democrats, Slovenia, originating from a split by the Slovenian Communists in 1990 from the League of Communists of Yugoslavia.

Syrian Democratic People’s Party, originally named the Syrian Communist Party (Political Bureau) when it split from the Syrian Communist Party in 1973, until 2005.

Broad Front, Uruguay, among whose members are the Communist Party; and the People’s Victory Party, anarchists, whose terrorist wing, OPR-33, has been involved in kidnapping.

Yemeni Socialist Party, formed as a pro-Soviet Communist party, it moderated with the implosion of the USSR, and permitted a multiparty state in 1990. Its symbol remains the Red Star (left).

‘Communist’ symbology in the Progressive Alliance

According to Leftist smear-mongers it is enough to use a Norse rune to be called a ‘white supremacist’ and ‘Nazi’. Let’s have a look at some of the symbols used by the Labour Party’s comrades:

Socialist International

Many organisations have dual affiliation with the Socialist International and the Progressive Alliance, the later being established in 2013. Since the Labour Party was affiliated with the Socialist International (directly descend from the International Workingmen’s Association of Marx’s time), for most of its life, until recently, some of the other SI members are of interest:

People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, MPLA – originally a terrorist organisation; now the governing party.

Socialist Party of Albania, until 1991 known as the Party of Labour, the governing party of the Enver Hoxha dictatorship.

Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the terrorist organisation that established a one-party state, and subsequently a multiparty state widely criticised for corrupt election practices. Like many ‘socialist’ parties it has brought Mozambique into the orbit of international finance, via the IMF, World Bank, et al.

South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), the terrorist organisation that became the governing party of ‘Namibia’.

African National Congress (ANC), post-Apartheid South Africa’s corrupt governing party, in coalition with the Communist Party.

What’s Sauce for the Goose…

It matters not whether ‘social democrats’ object that there has been sporadic historical antagonism between them and the Communists. They have also formed many ‘popular fronts’, and have a common origin in the First International. The implosion of the Soviet bloc, and before that the phenomenon called ‘Eurocommunism’ showed that Communist chameleons enter Labour parties in a strategy the Trotskyists call ‘entryism’. Of the latter, Green parties were also targeted, in New Zealand’s case Keith Locke prior to his leadership of the Green Party, having been a veteran Trotskyist. The NZ Labour Party sees no problems in their ‘comradely’ affiliations with those who had the day before been apparatchiks of Communist states.

---

[1] Themistocles, An enemy of the people – Marc Daalder, Action Zealandia, 30 September 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeUfEDLIwCI

[2] Examples: Marc Daalder, The furious world of New Zealand’s far right nationalists, Spinoff, 2 February 2002, https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/02-02-2019/will-the-far-right-movement-rise-in-new-zealand/

Thomas Manch, ‘The ‘growing’ white nationalist group with a ‘harmful and violent’ ideology, Stuff, 26 March 2020, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111415544/the-growing-white-nationalist-group-with-a-harmful-and-violent-ideology

Andrea Vance, NZ groups committed to the ‘Survival and welfare of the Ethnic European Folk as a cultural and biological group’, Stuff, 30 March 2019, https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/christchurch-shooting/111537465/group-interested-survival-ethnic-european-folk

[3] Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dominican Revolutionary Party, Socialist Union of Popular Forces, Panama Democratic Revolutionary Party.

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeUfEDLIwCI

[5] It has been said that the anthem was used until the late 1940s, although I recall hearing it sung at party conferences decades later.

[6] Obituary: Pat Kelly, NZ Herald, 25 June, 2004, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=3574848

[7] Don Franks, Ken Douglas: Labour: Lieutenant of Capital, Redline, 11 July 2016, https://rdln.wordpress.com/2016/07/11/ken-douglas-labour-lieutenant-of-capital/

[8] Don Franks, Union movement gathers for Fairness at Work, Labour gathers for missionaries, Redline, 30 October 2013, https://rdln.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/union-movement-gathers-for-fairness-at-work-labour-gathers-missionaries/

[9] Franks, ibid.

[11] Beyond Jacindamania: an interview with Joe Carolan, 4 August 2017, https://socialistaotearoa.org.nz/beyond-jacindamania-interview-with-joe-carolan/

[12 ]List of PA affiliates at: https://progressive-alliance.info/network/parties-and-organisations/