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Labour and the populist swamp different to Don Brashs One Nation. But honouring
the Treaty so far has just led to the formation of iwi
Labour is the rotting corpse of the First Labour capitalists exploiting iwi workers. So, Gareth
Government. Labour served a useful purpose for the Morgans Maori namesake, Tuko Morgan, head of the
City of London by herding NZ workers and small Iwi Leaders Forum and now President of the Maori
farmers away from mass rioting onto the Party, takes the interests of Maori capitalism (beyond
Parliamentary road fancy underpants) and
during the Depression. It fuses it with Mana as the
convinced the Bank of voice of working class
England that it could run Maori.
the farm and deliver
cheap food to Britain by Not hard to see what is
adopting an economic happening there, the
protectionist stance Brown Table version of
decades before Muldoon trickle down where
came along with Think working-class Maori get
Big. The Bank agreed pissed on. As if Maori as a
because British finance people can use capitalism
capital profited. to advance the people
Figure 1 Gareth Morgan speaks at Ratana Hui as a whole. This is the
Every Labour Govt since begging letter approach to honouring the Treaty
has accommodated to the demands of the dominant which was, and will always be a fraud. Maori identity
fraction of capitalists at the time including the politics are a petty bourgeois populist, nationalist
Rogernomes. From the London Bankers to the Wall St. attempt to become shareholders in a failing NZ Inc.,
Wankers, Labour has faithfully served finance when global capitalism is tottering towards an
capital. Even Labour leader David Cunliffe before he almighty crash.
was stabbed in the back failed to renounce
Rogernomics. He has now gone back to a job serving Does this mark a shift to the right for Maori? Yes, as
finance capital. Today Labour repudiates working Mana has conceded its minority status to the Iwi
class politics for a classless middle ground of petty capitalists Maori Party in all the seats except Te Tai
bourgeois greed. Tokerau which is reserved for Mana. Thats a win for
Iwi capitalists over Maori workers. Thats why we say
The Greens are a footnote to all this, arriving on the that all arguments that a Labour/Green/Mana/Maori
scene when capitalism had already polluted the coalition can form a government to get rid of the
planet. It advocates a timid utopia where capitalism NACTs are bogged down in the parliamentary swamp.
can be saved by turning it green. More like learning Populist front governments are not progressive
to live with the brown sludge of rotting life. Brown is rainbow coalitions. They mix red, green and blue into
the colour of populism, fusing bourgeois, petty the colour of mud and tie workers hands to the bosses
bourgeois and working classes into one reactionary in parliament so they drown in the swamp. No
movement. If there is one classic example of a brown- Opportunities for workers here!
sludge party in parliament it is the return of Mana to
the Maori Party! Along comes TOP
Mana/Maori populism is a disaster Along comes the capitalist entrepreneur Gareth
Morgan who obviously sees an opportunity to breathe
Gareth Morgan at the Ratana celebrations attacked life into a dying capitalism. He has learned the lesson
the One Nation populism of Winston Peters as no that to survive in Aotearoa, let alone the world,
Class Struggle 120 Autumn 2017
capitalism has to be sustainable. He is bright enough movement into the dead end of parliamentary
to know that we are all doomed by the rip, shit, bust democracy. Its political program was based on Fabian
frontier politics of the Keyites. We dont have the socialism, the British brand of parliamentary
time left to muck about with a political establishment socialism that conned workers into thinking that the
that serves up Pike Rivers, pollution, suicides, means of production, distribution and exchange could
poverty, homelessness, and the destruction of be nationalised by the capitalist state and the
nature. national income distributed fairly. It owed its
origins to that very same state using scabs, police,
Strategically, to implement his policies, it would be
army and Masseys Cossacks in 1913 to smash the
necessary to get rid of capitalism. Maybe Morgan
Red Fed the breakaway union movement that
doesnt believe it yet, so he will have to wake up too.
rejected compulsory arbitration between Labour and
I suspect he already knows that capitalism and human
Capital imposed by the Arbitration Court as labours
survival are incompatible. If he doesnt, he will soon
leg iron.
find out and its up to revolutionaries to rub his nose
in it. How to do this? Marxists dont endorse TOP but Ever since, Labour has managed capitalism in the
we challenge it to turn its program into one that belief that the working class and boss class can both
makes impossible demands on capitalism. That cant get a fair share of the national income. The Labour
happen unless the program activates mass working Party became the party of scabs and strike breakers,
class demands to expose the limits of capitalism and banning strikes, locking up strikers, imposing military
advance the transition to socialism. discipline on the labour movement during WW2, and
claiming responsibility for the welfare state when
Lets take the Universal Basic Income as one such a
in reality the boom that made it possible was the
demand. There are left, right and centre arguments
result of the massive defeats of labour during the
for the UBI. The right and centre like it because it
depression and WW2.
doesnt empower workers. Its basic limitation for the
left is that the UBI cannot be Then Labour proved it was the
turned into a transitional The transitional method can only work party that put profits before
demand because it is a top- when raised by a democratic centralist people in the 1980s when then
down state policy that does not revolutionary international that fuses end of the post war boom
require workers to self- theory and practice. We raise brought a new structural crisis
organise and fight for a living immediate and democratic demands as of global capitalism. The
wage. It is no more than a wage the basis for workers united fronts. unions that had become part of
subsidy to bosses paid for by United Fronts combine a common the state arbitration system
workers in the first place. action on such demands but where abandoned any militant actions
Revolutionaries point out that revolutionaries raise their program for in the expectation that the
the only UBI that is worth a Workers Government. Workers learn Labour Government would
defending is that which is during these struggles that to win the deliver labour reforms. They
under workers control so that most basic rights they have to organise were unprepared for
workers committees decide independently and break politically deregulation and the end of
what wage is liveable, and from both the bosses and union economic nationalism. Labour
not the bosses state. bureaucrats. Transitional Demands set about delivering a
therefore are those that cannot be compliant working class to it
As the state sends in the scabs won without overthrowing capitalism new imperialist master the US.
and police to break strikes and and building a socialist society. As a result, workers have never
occupations to impose their
been organised to fight against
demands, workers will become
the capitalist system itself and the gap between rich
conscious of the necessity for a workers government
and poor has widened dramatically. To revive itself
capable of implementing a democratic socialist plan
in the tradition of the old Red Fed a fighting,
ending capitalist exploitation and oppression, and
democratic movement the working class has to
empowered to take the revolutionary road to
break from the Labour Party and build a new, mass
communist society where income equality is defined
workers party based on a socialist program.
as: from each according to their ability, and to each
according to their need. Between the UBI and the We say break from all populist fronts with capitalist
living wage is the socialist revolution! parties, and break from the union bureaucracy that
serves capitalism by locking workers into labours leg
Fabians vs Red Fed iron. We reject any deals with capitalist parties and
Labour is NOT the mass workers party we need fight for the class interests of the working class on
because it no longer identifies with nor acts in the the basis of policies that will meet its needs. That
interests of workers and will do deals with capitalist calls for a struggle for a revolutionary Party and
parties (Greens and NZF) to form a popular front Program that can act as a guide to workers to fight
government. It is the party of the Union Bureaucracy for what we need now all the way to the formation of
formed in 1916 to steer the defeated labour a Workers Government and a socialist plan.
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by passing resolutions in democratic government attempted to placate their demands
congresses to take action, and then organises because they feared the overthrow of capitalist
to fight as a disciplined single force to test that property and state power. Lenin rapidly returned
program in action. If the program is found to to Russia to correct the program and to call for
be wrong, it is changed by passing new all power to the soviets, the organs of workers,
resolutions. peasants and soldiers that had sprung up. These
were Lenins April Theses. The Party hierarchy
The legacy of Bolshevism is that it was the key
including big names such as Stalin, Kamenev and
to the only successful socialist revolution in
Zinoviev argued for joining the provisional
history and remains the key to revolution
government.
today. In 2017 we can begin the new year by
passing a resolution to become Bolsheviks. The
first step towards that end is to celebrate the
centenary of the Russian Revolution by
becoming conscious that the '10 Days that
Shook the World' has continued to shake it for
100 years, and will continue to do so until the
failing capitalist system is replaced by a world
socialist system.
Postscript: A Comment in
Response to a Question
To assist my understanding can you give
Figure 10 Lenin announces his April Theses at the
working examples of your second to last Finland Station on his return from exile.
paragraph being applied?
The Russian revolution happened because the To change this policy Lenin went to the party
Bolsheviks practiced what they preached. The members to win majority support for his theses
application of democratic centralism as outlined which would then be raised in the soviets. Here
above is best shown in the big change in the party reality challenged the program which was then
program in April 1917. Up to that point the changed by the practice of democratic
Bolshevik program was based on the assumption centralism, so that workers and soldiers (mainly
that in Russia first the Tsar must go and a popular poor peasants) were prepared to defeat the
bourgeois government come to power. The attempted August coup of Tsarist general
assumption was that the conditions were not Kornilov. Once the regime and the Tsarist
ready for a socialist revolution. This proved conspiracy was smashed, the Bolsheviks
unfounded. continued to fight to win a majority for a workers
The Bolsheviks were taken by surprise when in and peasants state and a socialist revolution.
February a strike wave led by women textile Such was the popular support and organisation of
workers spread to other industries forcing the the insurrection in October it was almost
Tsar to abdicate in favour of a provisional bloodless.
government that would then hold a Constituent Of course, the Bolsheviks recognised that a
Assembly to establish a bourgeois government. successful revolution in Russia depended on a
Lenin in exile in Switzerland, realised that the successful German revolution to survive let alone
weak Russian bourgeoisie would use the build socialism. The failure of the German
provisional government to turn on the workers Revolution is also a test of the Bolshevik Party
and poor peasants. There was in fact a situation i.e. its absence. It led to the isolation,
of dual power where workers in the workplaces bureaucratic degeneration, and ultimately the
and streets held power while the provisional totalitarian Stalinist regime in Russia.
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