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TheCommunist League is aNew Zealandcommunist party.

The party was founded in 1969 by students fromVictoria University of Wellington, and was originally named theSocialist Action League. The new party rejected the more established groups such as theCommunist Party as too authoritarian, conservative, and unimaginative, but at the same time, rejected many of the newer communist groups in New Zealand as disorganised and unfocused. It was aligned with theFourth International (FI), an international grouping ofTrotskyist parties. The party achieved a certain amount of public recognition for its role in protests against theVietnam War,^[1] and regularly engaged in protests against adventuristUnited States foreign policy, South African apartheid,^[2] in defence of thepro-choice side of the abortion debate, as well as supportingLGBT rights in New Zealand, during the 1970s and 1980s.^[3] During those decades, the SAL maintained a newspaper of its own,Socialist Action. According to theNational Library of New Zealand serials catalogue, it ran from 1969 to 1988.

In the 1980s, theSocialist Workers Party in theUnited States broke away from Trotskyism, and left the FI. A number of other parties in FI also chose to leave, including the Socialist Action League in New Zealand. Those members of the Socialist Action League who did not agree with this departure from Trotskyism and the FI were expelled or resigned. Later, the Socialist Action League renamed itself the Communist League, following the pattern of the other pro-SWP parties that had left the FI. Today, the party is still associated with the Socialist Workers Party's so-calledPathfinder tendency.

The League has held public meetings called Militant Labour Forums.^[4] TheMilitant newspaper and books published by Pathfinder Press have been distributed from the Pathfinder Bookshop in the Auckland suburb ofOnehunga.^[5]

In every general election between 1990 and 2020, at least two candidates have sought election to parliament under the Communist League name. None have been successful, with each candidate only receiving a few dozen votes each time.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]} Candidates have also stood at multiple city council elections and at least one by-election, also without success.^[15][16][17] The Communist League did not run any candidates in the 2023 general election.^[18]

The Communist League did not contest the2022 Auckland mayoral election.

• Political parties in New Zealand

• Political parties established in 1969
• Communist parties in New Zealand

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