Hedwig Ross, New Zealand-born educator and political activist, founding member of the Communist Party of New Zealand (died 1971)
Hedwig Ross
Hedwig "Hettie" Ross was a New Zealand-born Australian educator and political activist. She was a founding member of the Communist Party of New Zealand and a leader of the Australian Militant Woman's Group, a department of the Communist Party of Australia, and edited several Australian political publications including the Young Communist. Throughout her career, she was an advocate for the children of the poor, and argued for the centrality of education in raising their position in society.
Communist Party of New Zealand
The Communist Party of New Zealand (CPNZ) was a communist party in New Zealand which existed from 1921 to 1994. Although spurred to life by events in Soviet Russia in the aftermath of World War I, the party had roots in pre-existing revolutionary socialist and syndicalist organisations, including in particular the independent Wellington Socialist Party, supporters of the Industrial Workers of the World in the Auckland region, and a network of impossiblist study groups of miners on the west coast of the South Island.