Harry Holland’s wartime political default
In late April 1915 the first major military engagement involving New Zealand troops took place on the shores of Turkey: a bid to open the Dardanelles Strait to allied shipping […]
Author Archives: James Robb
Brass-band jingoism at the opening of the Great War
The Great War did not arrive unannounced; far from it. Since at least 1907 the socialist movement had been urgently warning of the dangers of a war between the great […]
“Farmers’ sons with whom we have no quarrel” – workers reflect on the 1913 defeat
Last of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913 in New Zealand The day after the call for a general strike went out, five leaders of the fighting unions […]
When the countryside marched on the town: Massey’s Cossacks in 1913
[Second of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913] Both the Red Fed leadership and the IWW in Auckland proved unable to recognise the significance of the coming to […]
The other exploited producers – origins of the class of working farmers in New Zealand
(First of three articles on workers and farmers in 1913 New Zealand. Long-time readers of this blog may notice that this article overlaps substantially with a post from 2015 entitled […]
“Trotsky” : the pornographication of history
In one of the opening scenes of Trotsky, the 2017 television mini-series produced by Russian state television and directed by Alexander Kott and Konstantin Statsky,1 Trotsky is travelling on his […]
Do women exist? – the science of sex, the politics of gender, and the materialist and dialectical thinking needed to distinguish the two
With law changes pending in the UK, New Zealand and other places that will make it simpler for people to change the sex marker on their birth certificates (and moves […]
Industrial unity and a party of labour – the Red Feds’ 1913 ‘turn to political action’
At first glance, the discussion at the Unity conference in January 1913 seems to be about an uninteresting question of organisational forms. The leaders of the United Labor Party (ULP) […]
The mixed blessing of IWW influence in the New Zealand labour movement
The stirring Preamble adopted by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in Chicago in 1905, proclaiming the class struggle and the goal of overthrowing the capitalists, became the rallying […]
A book that changed the course of the class struggle
After a six-month strike, the struggle at Waihi came to a head in early November 1912, shortly after the arrival in Waihi of the Commissioner of Police John Cullen, a […]
