Knowing what's what:
Workers Party of New Zealand degenerates in open

The Workers Party of New Zealand has dropped some 
of its pretenses in order to openly take in pro-
Trotsky members. A merger of two organizations and 
some other individuals has created a new 
organization called the Revolutionary Workers 
League (RWL) in New Zealand according to one of 
the component parts, the Workers Party of New 
Zealand.

"The Workers Party, for instance, was a pro-Mao 
(but not Maoist) group, while revolution was a 
pro-Trotsky (but not Trotskyist) group," said the 
June 15 2004 article of Spark, the newspaper of 
the former Workers Party of 
New Zealand.

It is evident that the Workers Party of New 
Zealand always had a non-Maoist attitude toward 
ideological struggle: "Differences continue to 
exist over historical questions such as the 
degeneration of the Soviet Union and the 
Stalin/Trotsky debate and some aspects of the 
Chinese revolution. It was agreed that these are 
not sufficient to prevent principled revolutionary 
unity and can be discussed at leisure in the 
future by members of the RWL."

We also hear the typical "Committees of 
Correspondence" attitude toward political 
commitment: "We recognise that the revolution is 
not imminent in New Zealand, we are still in a 
period of downturn, and there is little point in 
hyper-activism. Hyper-activism can only lead to 
demoralisation and burn-out in this period."
In a previous dialogue with MIM, the Workers Party
of New Zealand opted out of struggle by saying the future
would tell the difference.

MIM hails the move of the Workers Party of New 
Zealand to merge with the pro-Trotsky followers as 
a bit of labor aristocracy honesty and hopes not 
to hear any more false claims in favor of Mao from 
that organization. We also call on the other 
organizations with the same line to do
the same thing and stop trafficking with Mao's name.
The RCP=U$A in particular should follow the example of the
Workers Party of New Zealand.

The open degeneration of the Workers Party of New 
Zealand casts light on the judgement abilities of 
many calling themselves Maoist lately. Several 
organizations endorsing the Workers Party of New 
Zealand also endorsed the RCP=U$A, which is not 
surprising given that they all share affinities 
for Trotskyism and have the same analysis of the 
class structures in the exploiter 
countries.

A website representing the Communist Party of 
Nepal (Maoist) has endorsed the Workers Party of 
New Zealand and the RCP=U$A by linking to them 
both on <a 
href="http://www.cpnm.org/new/links/links_index.ht
m" target="cpnm">their web page.</a> If that link 
is down now, <a href="cpnmLINKS07162004.html">read 
this.</a> In turn, the RCP=U$A links to the 
cpnm.org.

The CPNM also links to <a href="http://www.pcr-rcpcanada.org/frameset1.htm"
target="pcrcanada"> an organization in Kanada. 
That same organization also in turn links to the 
RCP=U$A and the Workers Party of New Zealand.</a> The 
same Trotskyist social basis underlies the broad 
unity of these organizations.

Another organization led by Filipino comrades 
calling themselves Maoist also accepted links and 
papers from the Workers Party of New Zealand. 
Hence, we can say there is a widespread problem. 
In the imperialist countries, of course, the 
problem is the preponderance of the labor 
aristocracy. In the oppressed nations such as 
Nepal and the Philippines, the problem is a lack 
of discernment.

We advise all those calling themselves "Maoist" 
globally--follow Mao's teaching: "no 
investigation, no right to speak." If you do not 
understand the broad social basis of an 
organization, do not endorse it--simple as that. 
It is shameful for "Maoists" to form mutual press 
release organizations and make endorsements 
without mutual investigation. As Stalin and Mao said, 
such endeavors pollute our movement and make 
attention to the concrete economic details in each 
country less likely. It's much easier to form a 
broadly opportunist mutual appreciation society 
than to know what you are talking about. MIM told 
the world in MIM Theory that the labor aristocracy 
thesis is an iron law of degeneration in the 
majority-exploiter countries. We judged this 
phenomenon correctly and never endorsed the 
Workers Party of New Zealand.

The ebb of the international communist movement as 
expressed by the restorations of capitalism is the 
punishment we receive for allowing flotsam and 
jetsam to accumulate in our movement. Someone like 
Khruschev could tell Amerika "we will bury you" 
and then clearly lick Amerikan boots. When such 
people who do not know what they are talking about 
seize the leadership of our movement, we get off 
course to the extent we have seen. That is not to 
say there is only one road forward, as the 
Liberals often criticize us, but it is to say that 
there is one best road forward and many roads, 
such as Khruschev's which are not forward at all.

The silver lining in the capitalist restoration 
and the various party dissolutions and even 
individual quitters is that eventually we will 
reach a point where the frauds will leave our 
movement as unprofitable to their career hopes. As 
time goes on, we can even expect that the only 
people remaining in the international communist 
movement will actually know what they are talking 
about. The quantity calling themselves "communist" 
will go down, but the quality will go up. At that point
we will have a firm basis for another upsurge.