http://readingthemaps.blogspot.com/2010/04/history-necessity-and-new-zealand-wars.html
"[...] Chris Trotter's belief that the defeat of Maori in the wars of the nineteenth century was ultimately progressive, despite the injustice and suffering it involved, seems to me to echo the views of Kautsky and other Second Internationalists, and the attitude that Marx expressed in texts like The Communist Manifesto.
"Trotter is no fool: he is well aware of the dubious motives of men like Thomas Russell, and he knows that Pakeha rule and capitalist economics were imposed upon the Maori of regions like the Waikato at the point of a gun. Yet he believes that the 'unitary state' and united working class allegedly achieved by Pakeha victory in the wars of the nineteenth century were essential for the development of New Zealand, and for the development of the New Zealand left. Trotter believes that the union movement of twentieth century New Zealand, with its 'homogenous' character and base in the big industrial cities of the country, was ultimately a product of the nineteenth century wars, and he rails against 'revisionist' historians and politically correct politicians who have allegedly weakened and divided the workers' movement by stirring up Maori grievances based in the wars.
"Yet, as we have noted, Trotter's view of history sometimes forces him to perform somersaults. He can slam Thomas Russell and the nineteenth century bourgeoisie as the greedy racists they so obviously were; but he must also applaud and defend Russell and his ilk, as the unwitting agents of progressive change. The contradiction at the heart of Trotter's thought has led to a great deal of confusion amongst his readers, and perhaps limited his influence on the New Zealand left. Many Kiwi leftists have enjoyed and appreciated Trotter's shrewd analyses of the New Zealand bourgeoisie, and his denunciations of the neo-liberal economic and social policies that have done so much damage to our country over the past quarter century; they are bewildered, and perhaps even offended, though, when they read Trotter attacking Maori activism and tino rangatiratanga in language that might come from the mouth of Don Brash. [...]"