What is The Commonweal?

The following is a version of the editorial from the first edition of The Commonweal where Martin Crick expresses the purpose of the publication. We have adapted that editorial for this online record.

Welcome to this online record of the Federation of New Zealand Socialist Societies Newsletter. We have adopted the title of The Commonweal, following in the footsteps of William Morris’s Socialist League newspaper in the UK, first published in 1885, and also of the New Zealand Socialist Party’s publication, which made its first appearance in 1903. Ernest Belfort Bax, a member of Morris’s Socialist League, reflecting on those years, said this:

The idea implicit in not a few of those who belonged to the Socialist League was more or less that of a federation of socialist societies throughout the country…which should educate and organise public opinion especially of the working classes, so that when the cataclysm to which the capitalist system was leading up should supervene, these societies might be in a position to give direction to the revolutionary movement.

We now have four affiliated Societies, and if this Newsletter helps to ‘educate and organise public opinion’ then it will be worthwhile.

Since starting the project we have produced two editions per year in print form, and are now serialising those editions here so they may be read by a wider audience. The Commonweal is entirely produced and written by members of the New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies. The aim is to promote discussion and debate about things political and cultural, social and economic, historic and contemporary. No party line, no censorship, unless of course something is totally outside any reasonable socialist interpretation. If you disagree with something then respond in the next issue, polemic is good! We print reports from our constituent societies, reviews of events we host etc, to keep our geographically dispersed membership in touch with each other, but we encourage members to take the opportunity to write on whatever inspires them – union activity, thoughts on NZ politics, or world affairs, Marxist theory, books you have read, films you have seen.

The articles shared to this substack are released steadily each time a print edition of The Commonweal reaches the six month mark. To read articles sooner we encourage those in New Zealand and Australia to subscribe to the print edition. To read the full text of each volume please visit the website for the PDF files of back issues.