The Fate of Labour Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future 9781442625907

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THE FATE OF LABOUR SOCIALISM The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future

Almost a century before the New Democratic Party rode the first ­“orange wave,” their predecessors imagined a movement that could rally Canadians against economic insecurity, win access to necessary services such as health care, and confront the threat of war. The party they built during the Great Depression, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), permanently transformed the country’s politics. Past histories have described the CCF as social democrats guided by middle-class intellectuals, a party that shied away from labour radicalism and communist agitation. James Naylor’s assiduous research tells a very different story: a CCF created by working-class activists steeped in Marxist ideology who sought to create a movement that would be both loyal to its socialist principles and appealing to the wider electorate. The Fate of Labour Socialism is a fundamental reexamination of the CCF and Canadian working-class politics in the 1930s, one that will help historians better understand Canada’s political, intellectual, and labour history. james naylor is a professor in the Department of History at Brandon University.

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The Fate of Labour Socialism The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future

JAMES NAYLOR

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2016 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN 978-1-4426-3112-0 (cloth) ISBN 978-1-4426-2909-7 (paper)

Printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer recycled paper with vegetable-based inks

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Naylor, James, 1954−, author The fate of labour socialism : the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the dream of a working-class future/James Naylor. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4426-3112-0 (cloth)   ISBN 978-1-4426-2909-7 (paper) 1. Co-operative Commonwealth Federation − History.  2. Political parties – Canada – History − 20th century.  3. Working class − Political activity − Canada – History − 20th century.  4. Labor – Canada – History − 20th century.  5. Socialism – Canada – History − 20th century.  6. Canada − Politics and government − 1930−1935.  7. Canada − Intellectual life − 20th century.  I. Title. JL197.N4N39 2016   324.27107   C2015-908523-3

This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, an agency of the Government of Ontario.

Funded by the Financé par le Government gouvernement du Canada of Canada

For Adrie, Keir, and Rhys

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Let our Watchword be “United we stand, divided we fall.” Our Slogan “For Socialism Now.” Our Password “Class Conscious Fighters.” Arthur Mould, President, Labour Party of Ontario, 1933.

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi Abbreviations xiii Introduction 3 1  The Legacy of Labour Socialism  17 2  The Road to Regina  66 3  Class War in the CCF  112 4  Challenges at Mid-Decade  168 5  The Popular Front and the Meaning of Class  204 6  The Problem and Consequences of War  253 Conclusion: From Socialism to Social Democracy  302 Notes  317 Index  413

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Acknowledgments

Spending too long writing a book means accumulating a list of debts that seems to stretch over the horizon and into the distant past. Added to that, the array of influences and the different sorts of supports, kindnesses, and encouragements I have received makes it difficult to decide whom to include here: I fear omitting any of the friends and colleagues who have been important to me. I will start with the obvious, by thanking those who maintain the infrastructure of research. Archivists and librarians at Library and Archives Canada, Queen’s University Archives, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, York University Archives, the Archives of Ontario, the William Ready Archives at McMaster University, the Archives of Manitoba, the University of Winnipeg Library, the University of Manitoba Library and Archives, the Saskatchewan Archives Board in Saskatoon, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, the University of British Columbia Archives, and especially the Brandon University Library were all helpful and supportive, and collectively they made this book possible. As well, financial support from the Brandon University Research Committee was important. Tight budgets and unthinking governments remind us not to take any of this for granted. Also important are my colleagues at Brandon University who encouraged and listened to me. Tom Mitchell, Lynn MacKay, Patti Harms, David Winter, Bruce Strang, Morris Mott, Rhonda Hinther, George Hoffman, Andy Pernal, George Buri, Abdella Abdou, and the muchmissed Errol Black, among many others, provided a diverse and stimulating community. Beyond Brandon, the uniquely rich collection of labour and social historians in Canada (and beyond) provided either direct comments or served as important influences on this manuscript.

xii Acknowledgments

Ian McKay, Peter Campbell, Ben Isitt, Bryan Palmer, Alvin Finkel, Greg Kealey, Franca Iacovetta, Donica Belisle, John Manly, Henry Heller, Joan Sangster, David Camfield, Ian Radforth, Barry Eidlin, Julie Guard, Seth Wigder­son, Craig Heron, Nolan Reilly, and a host of others, have challenged, informed, and encouraged me at various points during this process, in person and through both their scholarship and friendship. I have had the privilege of having worked with many of them on the Cana­dian Committee on Labour History, and particularly with Labour/ Le Travail, a journal that has provided a valuable school of both political and academic education. I need also to mention the regional historical community that meets annually at the Northern Great Plains History Conference, where I have presented much of this work. Jim Mochoruk, Bill Pratt, and Molly Rozum were particularly interested in, and supportive of, my work. Most recently, I would like to thank the peer reviewers of the manuscript, who were understanding and supportive of my project and gave me informed and useful advice, as well as Len Husband and Barbara Tessman at the University of Toronto Press, who proved the importance of professional and engaged academic publishing in Canada. Interest in the place of the CCF and the NDP on the left and in the workers’ movement far predates any idea that I would write such a study. I do have to make mention of a few of those who discussed and debated these themes during what amounted to the early pre-history of this book: Paul Peters, Robert Schwartzwald, Kath Shawcross, Mitch Podolak, and the late Ross Dowson. I could list many more. None of them are responsible, of course, for the conclusions I have drawn. Wendy Boyd deserves the most thanks, for reasons far too numerous to list. And I would like to acknowledge our three children, Adrie, Keir, and Rhys, who have shared me with this project. I see the values of those who sought a better world reflected in their lives now and I am pleased to dedicate this book to them.

Abbreviations

AACL CCF CCL CCYM CIO CLDL CLP CPC/CP CPR CYC DOCR EYWA FSU ILP LAWF LRA LSR NLP NUWA OBU POUM SPC SWL TLC TRC UFA UFM

All-Canadian Congress of Labour Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Canadian Congress of Labour Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement Congress of Industrial Organizations Canadian Labour Defence League Canadian Labour Party Communist Party of Canada Canadian Pacific Railway Canadian Youth Congress Defence of Canada Regulations East York Workers’ Association Friends of the Soviet Union Independent Labour Party League Against War and Fascism Labour Representation Association League for Social Reconstruction National Labour Party National Unemployed Workers’ Association One Big Union Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista Socialist Party of Canada Socialist Workers’ League Trades and Labour Congress Toronto Regional Council of the CCF United Farmers of Alberta United Farmers of Manitoba

xiv Abbreviations

UFO WEA WILPF WUL

United Farmers of Ontario Workers’ Educational Association Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Workers’ Unity League

THE FATE OF LABOUR SOCIALISM The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the Dream of a Working-Class Future

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Introduction

The Fate of Labour Socialism

The passage of time has done little to dull the popular image of the 1930s. The black-and-white photographs of dustbowls and breadlines, of faces of anger and despair, still haunt us. The apparently robust social order was deeply shaken, and historians still comment on the depth of the collapse. World markets floundered, jobs vanished, and, for ten years, even the iniquitous and shabby “prosperity” of the previous decade proved not to be “around the corner.”1 Not surprisingly, these events lent credence and a heightened confidence to capitalism’s strongest critics. For socialists, the Depression was primarily a crisis of capitalism. Their well-honed arguments about the injustices and irrationalities of capitalism would ring true to growing audiences and their ranks would swell. These were exciting years to be a socialist. They were also frustrating years, as building an effective political movement was difficult, and capitalism proved both tenacious and, in the 1940s, more resilient than its critics could have imagined. More­ over, the period presented an array of strategic and programmatic challenges for political movements. Canadian socialists were, in terms of the wider world, a small and fractured group. They wrestled, of course, with the issues that had long bedeviled the left: issues of organization, electoral participation, alliances with other social forces, and the like. But they did so in a world that presented a host of new challenges, particularly from other political movements, which ranged from mere curiosities such as technocracy, to the broad appeal of U.S.-style New Deal liberalism, to the deep threat of fascism. The stakes were high and the debates among socialists were both earnest and compelling. Socialists approached a broken world with a well-founded sense of urgency.

4

The Fate of Labour Socialism

We know far less about these socialists and their times than we think we do. This is often true of the past but, I would argue, it is particularly true of the history of the left. The history of the left has been written largely by the left, but with mixed results. For socialists, history is a crucial resource. They reject outright Margaret Thatcher’s infamous imperative that there is no alternative to the existing social order by pointing out the ways in which people have lived and thought differently in the past. Indeed, the era of depression, fascism, and war that is the subject of this book belies notions of bourgeois triumphalism. Things can go seriously awry. But history is important to the left in another way. In their struggles to understand and change the world, socialists look to their own histories. I use the plural – histories – because the left itself is “plural.” The long struggle against capitalism has produced various strains of radicalism. Socialists are divided by their understanding of modern society and what is needed to change it. In formulating their arguments and constructing their own identities, they look to the past. The mere quantity of historical knowledge on the part of many socialists is very impressive. This is both promising and problematic. Socialists’ intellectual heritage allowed them to understand and respond to the challenges of an era of depression, fascism, and war with clarity and a resolve that far exceeded that of the population as a whole. Their analyses, as we shall see, were often remarkably prescient, and their intellectual heirs rightly draw upon their insights. At the same time, history is also a polemical tool. Historical analogies play a major role in political debates, and the past is often constructed in a manner that justifies current positions. The various schisms that have marked the left over the decades are, of course, rooted in particular past conjunctures. Modern debates among leftists reference such events and draw heavily on lessons gleaned from the past. Understanding and using the past in such a manner is, of course, helpful in analysing current events. But, at the same time, it can flatten the past, eliding important distinctions between the past and the present, and suppressing characteristics that fit uncomfortably into the established narrative of a particular political tendency. The problem is that such a method plays down the otherness of the past. Radicals in the 1930s and 1940s lived in a world that was different from our own in myriad ways. The communities in which they lived, the language they used to formulate their ideas, the authors they read, and the future they imagined differed from ours in ways that are both obvious and

Introduction 5

subtle. The failure to recognize these differences is apparent in both popular and academic treatments of the history of the left. Such shortcomings are most apparent in the rather rigid dichotomy imposed on the left by post–Second World War historiography. The literature on Canadian socialism has looked, overwhelmingly, at ­ the two main organized currents on the left; the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF; after 1961, the New Democratic Party) are seen to have been the embodiments of the two great options that face socialists: revolution or reform. Such a view dominates, despite the fact that there is a general recognition that both organizations have travelled a convoluted road, moving far beyond their original goals embodied, respectively, in the founding documents of the Communist International and the Regina Manifesto. The perception remains, reflected in the literature, of quite distinct communist and social democratic traditions. This study suggests that such an intellectual structure poorly describes the socialist left of the 1930s and 1940s. Although they often disagreed with each other bitterly, these political currents frequently held similar assumptions about the structure of society, spoke a common language, exhibited a shared iconography, and even, begrudgingly, acknowledged a comradeship across the left. It is difficult not to conclude that, at times, the animosities amounted to a family feud. The received narrative does justice to neither of these currents. There have been attempts to challenge this dichotomy and to explore currents that do not fit comfortably within it. Peter Campbell’s important Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way, for instance, examines socialists who attempted to steer an independent course and maintained an allegiance to older principles of workingclass independence, self-education, and socialist democracy.2 My argument is, in part, that these characteristics were present on the left more broadly, including within the large parties of the left. In fact, as we shall see, many of the principles of the “third way” Marxists were precisely those that much larger numbers of socialists, including those within the major parties of the left, felt they were defending throughout the interwar years. Yet, inside both the CPC and the CCF, defining and defending these principles often led to vicious debate and schism. This book is largely the story of these conflicts in and around the CCF. I do not want to suggest that the differences between the CPC, the CCF, and other socialists were not real, but they were porous and

6

The Fate of Labour Socialism

shifting. These organizations, and particularly the CPC, tended to turn inward in their approach to political life, and debates often had an inbred character. However, party histories are often far too self-­referential. The broader context of a social movement against capitalism is lost in the minutiae of organizational life. This is not to say that such aspects of the organizations are unimportant. Socialists’ political life revolved around building an appropriate vehicle to challenge and defeat capitalism. They were party builders. This study is very much concerned with this process, less because of a desire to write a party history, but because this activity constitutes a specific feature of the left in this period. The issue for socialists in this era was what type of political vehicle to construct and how to maintain its political effectiveness. This volume is interested primarily in those socialists who were not attracted to the Communist Party – those whom I will refer to as the “labour socialists.” They were a very mixed bunch, but most found themselves somewhere in the orbit of the CCF in the 1930s. Their reasons for rejecting the CPC were varied. Some, deeply committed to electoralism and gradualism, had never accepted the insurrectionist strategy associated with Bolshevism. Others, who did consider themselves revolutionaries, rejected the organizational regime of the Com­ munist International, the famous twenty-one points, and some of the programmatic decisions of the Comintern. This group included many of the “old” socialists who had belonged to the Socialist Party or Social Democratic Party before the First World War. It also included the labour activists of the One Big Union, created in 1919, who rejected the Com­ munists’ tactic of “boring from within” the old craft unions to do political battle with conservative leaders on their own turf. Finally, it included those who were alienated from the Communists due to the growing grip that Joseph Stalin had on the Comintern and its national sections. For them, official Communism was marred by an increasingly undemocratic internal regime and a drift away from revolutionary principles. As well, the openness, even the amorphousness, of the CCF seemed to allow the existence of heterogeneous currents of opinion – though this belief was, as we shall see, often illusory. The emergence of two dominant organizations on the left was a feature of the 1930s. Much of the heterogeneity of an earlier socialism found its way into the CCF. As the name implies, it was very much a federation. Rather than an individual membership organization, it was a coalition of various types of organizations. Indeed, the CCF originally had “Farmer-Labor-Socialist” appended to its name, implying

Introduction 7

that socialists were, in some way, a subcategory of a movement that included forces that were not, at least not primarily, identified as socialist. The process by which these various interests were forged into a somewhat unified movement, and how that movement can be characterized, is a theme of this book. The number of studies of the left in Canada has varied over the decades, with somewhat of a bubble, not surprisingly, in the 1960s and 1970s.3 Much of this literature is of considerable value. Because of it, we have an understanding, however skeletal, of the organizational history of the main parties on the left – the Communist Party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and the New Democratic Party – along with some of their predecessors from the period before the First World War. As well, the programmatic evolution of these parties has generally been well described, particularly in the political science literature. At the same time, there are considerable shortcomings. For the most part, both popular and academic writers have been drawn to examining parties that reflected their own political orientation, and they often lacked critical distance from the organizations they were studying. Such a trend is perhaps to be expected, given the relative wealth of biographical and autobiographical literature that has emerged, but is also true of the broader histories of each party. What this has meant, historiographically, is that the Communists have been dubbed the revolutionary current, and the CCF the reformist. Overwhelmingly, the CCF is seen as being of the liberal political order, participating electorally and accepting the structures of the British-Canadian political tradition reaching back to the Magna Carta, the Glorious Revolution, and the attainment of responsible government in Canada.4 Although there is some acknowledgment that the early CCF – particularly in the context of the Great Depression – attracted radical ideas, what could be considered the “received” version of the CCF unduly emphasizes its continuity with mainstream ideas, painting CCFers as prescient advocates of the post–Second World War welfare state. Indeed, the consensus history of Canada, which traces the roots of the welfare state to the social gospel, follows this trend, highlighting the influence of CCF leader and former Methodist minister James S. Woodsworth on the CCF. Within the party, the historiography has it, the social gospel tradition combined with the analysis of capitalist crisis and the state that was constructed by intellectuals such as Frank Scott and Frank Underhill, who were associated with the League for Social Reconstruction, to form – in the guise of the Regina Manifesto, the

8

The Fate of Labour Socialism

foundational document of the CCF – a coherent plan for the construction of a state interested primarily in planning and social security. Moreover, the CCF would come to fruition in Saskatchewan, where, under the guidance of Tommy Douglas, the iconic social democratic touchstone of socialized medicine would later be attained. The creation and development of the CCF involved conflict, of course, but conflict contained within the constitutional bounds of the liberal democratic state. An electoral strategy combined with wise Protestant-based middle-class leadership combined to demonstrate that the CCF, as a loyal opposition to the parties of Canada’s business elite, was a credible and successful partner in remaking Canadian society. This book argues that this traditional narrative presents a very skewed picture of the CCF in the 1930s and early 1940s, dramatically exaggerating the role of middle-class leadership and liberal ideas at the expense of much of the party’s activist core and this core’s firm and widespread rejection of the idea that capitalism could be successfully reformed and that such reform should be the CCF’s goal. The progressivist narrative of CCF history is, in essence, a cold war construction, repackaging the ideas of the 1930s in a manner that would make them palatable in a very different era. It is also a victors’ history, as those who could claim victory in the ideological conflicts within the CCF had the power to reframe the past in their own image. But even as a victors’ history, it is imperfect. This received version of the party’s history, and of the history of the left more broadly in the 1930s, does violence even to the ideas of those who came to dominate the CCF. This more-or-less “official” history of the CCF is not challenged today, both because of the passage of time and because, in these neoliberal times, the idea that the precursors of today’s New Democratic Party could ever have favoured something other than the welfare state, which we now hold onto so tenuously, seems unimaginable. One trope that tends to dominate this received narrative is “Britishness.” As we shall see, the ethnic composition, as well as the largely Anglo-Celtic intellectual orientation of the CCF, differed from the Communists, who were dubbed both ethnically and politically “foreign.” Although CCFers often considered themselves internationalists and, at times, played exemplary roles in challenging bigotry and xenophobia, they implicitly used their Britishness as their ticket to the seat of power. On every front, by the 1950s, they were keen to demonstrate that there was little to fear in allowing admission to loyal social democrats.

Introduction 9

The history presented in this book is much more complicated. So­ cialists in the 1930s were, I argue, in the main both embedded in the liberal social order and outside of it. However critical they were, they worked for wages, participated in elections, used the legal system when it was to their advantage, and so on. No doubt they internalized many of its norms. At the same time, they saw themselves standing outside of it. Socialists – CPers and CCFers alike – imagined a qualitatively different social order. They overtly rejected the fundamental premises of liberal individualism, viewing property as destructive of rights and seeing the social order as constructed of collectivities – social classes – rather than individuals. They were self-conscious opponents of both capitalism and the dominant ideology of liberal possessive individualism. Central to the argument of this volume is the observation that too little attention has been paid to the language that CCF socialists actually used, for it is here that we can discern their own sense of distance from classical liberalism. Their belief in their own radicalism has been fairly consistently underplayed. Even if Louis St. Laurent’s assessment of the CCF as “Liberals in a hurry”5 was largely appropriate in 1949, it does not describe Depression-era CCFers very well. This is not to suggest that the 1930s represented a socialist golden age for the CCF. In fact, it is difficult to characterize the CCF as a whole. CCFers came from a range of radical and reform currents and organized themselves into various affiliated organizations. Also, the balance between different currents in the CCF could vary dramatically from province to province. Some, such as the United Farmers of Ontario, would even eschew a characterization as socialists, and they quickly abandoned the young CCF. As we shall see, the CCF was often at war with itself. In his widely acclaimed reconceptualization of Canadian history as a project associated with the creation of a liberal social and political order, Ian McKay points to the importance of identifying, and understanding the fate of, this project’s challengers. McKay identifies the s­ ocialist movement as the liberal order’s “most powerful ‘opposition’” in the second quarter of the twentieth century. He cites my observation that a “new democracy” was implicit in the workers’ movement at its apex following the First World War. I would suggest that, by the 1930s, socialists had continued to flush out the broader meaning of democracy and that, in the CCF, socialist and liberal ideas engaged in sustained battle. McKay nods towards this idea, as well as its historiographical legacy, in his reference to the “‘editing’ out of [the]

10

The Fate of Labour Socialism

unacceptably aliberal elements” of the CCF. We may have some disagreement over what these were. I tend to view some of the statist proposals of CCF leaders during the Second World War – the “radical planism” identified by McKay – as deeply ambiguous. While they reflected the egalitarian ethos of an earlier socialism, I would suggest, they also helped redefine the liberal order and the emergence of the postwar liberal state. Donald Sassoon has explored the central role of European socialist parties in modernizing the capitalist states of western Europe at this time, a task that the weakened and discredited bourgeois parties could not accomplish. Arguably, the pressure from the CCF and the burgeoning union movement during the war forced Mackenzie King’s Liberal government to oversee such a modernization in Canada. That said, I believe that, if we focus our gaze on a slightly earlier period, the middle years of the 1930s, we gain a much better picture of the aliberal forces that McKay rightly identifies.6 Through the 1930s, CCFers not only generally considered themselves socialists, they also had a sense that this meant articulating an explicitly non-capitalist political program. The denunciation of “reformism,” for instance, was widely undertaken by CCFers. For them, capitalism was unreformable. Rather than tinkerers, they considered themselves “revolutionaries,” in the sense that capitalism had to be replaced, root and branch. Many felt that this could be done electorally; others had their doubts. Many feared that too narrow a focus on elections would blunt their critical opposition to the social system. At the same time, many felt that reforming capitalism would result only in reformed capitalism, not socialism. This sentiment can be seen clearly in the sceptical reaction of the CCF to a range of reform proposals in the 1930s, including those advocated by Social Credit, New Dealers, and a variety of smaller movements within Canada. There was a qualitative difference – in the words of William Morris, a “river of fire” – between liberal capitalism and socialism.7 Labour socialists, then, were revolutionaries, in the sense that they believed that capitalism had to be supplanted by a working-class, socialist society. They rejected the notion that “revolution” could be reduced to an insurrectionist strategy. Indeed, an astounding array of political practices could stem from their beliefs. Some, as we shall see in the case of the Winnipeg labour socialists in the CCF-affiliated Independent Labour Party, bore few of the outward signs of radicalism. The language used since the Second World War by academics, politicians, and its own members to describe the CCF tends to obscure the

Introduction 11

party’s revolutionary ideas. Often, and not entirely inappropriately, the CCF/NDP as a whole has been labelled “social democratic.” Certainly, in international parlance, this term is consistent with the stream within which the CCF/NDP flowed. With the deep bifurcation of the international labour movement after 1917, the CCF fell in with the Second International – or the Labour and Socialist International, as it became known. But the term “social democratic” describes much less than it appears. Within this broad stream, indeed within the CCF, were currents that derived from Marxism, from British Fabianism, from pre– First World War labourism, from various brands of ethical or Christian socialism, and from theosophy. Some CCFers were drawn to monetary reform theory of one type of another; others considered themselves communists, though in opposition to Soviet-type Communists, whom they considered off the mark; others eschewed one or both of the above. In his study of popular ideology on the prairies, David Laycock tends to conflate various streams in his discussion of “social democratic populism.”8 In the European context, as Gerd-Rainer Horn has described so effectively, the fascist assaults of the 1930s sent social democrats in different directions: some rose in insurrection; others folded their tents and capitulated.9 No single strategy flowed from their core beliefs. Given that “social democracy” has come to signify post–Second World War movements defined by a commitment to state-centred social welfare, Keynesian fiscal management, and an unbending commitment to electoralism and, in essence, to liberal social values, I have chosen to avoid using the term to describe 1930s Canadian socialists. Indeed, I am interested in the process of their becoming social democrats – that is, in the process by which the challenge to liberalism was defeated or incorporated. The language of the early CCF reflects the same sensibility: “social democracy” was a term very rarely used in the CCF in the 1930s. It became more common during the Second World War, in part because CCF leaders used it to signify their distance from both the communists and their own prewar socialism.10 The other term that was very much rooted in the cold war era was “democratic socialism,” which was used in distinction to Stalinism. A highly defensive formulation, it carried with it an assumption of unbending adherence to the “constitution” and conceived of change only in electoral terms.11 Once again, socialism cannot be so easily bifurcated into two streams. Replicating the binary of freedom versus communism that was so prevalent in North America in the 1950s, it foreclosed the possibility of other models of democracy outside of and

12

The Fate of Labour Socialism

beyond liberal capitalism. By defining democracy as the existing political order, it closed the door on any alternative political and social systems. The term undermines an understanding of the range of the ideas of socialists, which included the creation of a more genuine and ethical democracy than capitalism could ever provide. Shoehorning 1930s socialists into such categories as “social democracy” or “democratic socialism” precludes a nuanced and historicized understanding of the construction of a social movement. This is not to say that the CCF has not been considered as a social movement. Most famously, Walter D. Young recognized many of the radical sources of thought that entered the CCF and analysed what he saw as its transition from an active movement to a narrowly defined party.12 For Young, these remain somewhat rigid, dichotomous categories, and several commentators have noted that the primary characteristics of both a movement and a party can be applied to the CCF throughout its history.13 Still, Young’s study highlights many of the transitions on the non-Stalinist left in ways that his critics overlook and the growing demobilization of a formerly much more engaged membership of the CCF in the 1940s and 1950s. The relatively minor role of historians in the writing of the history of the left in this period has resulted in a skewed understanding of the CCF. Political scientists have focused on the program of the CCF, while both popular and academic authors have focused on the leadership of the party, particularly federal and provincial politicians. As valuable as such studies are, they leave us with a range of questions about the formation of the left and about the CCF in particular. Most notably, the methods and insights of the new social history and the new labour history of the 1970s and 1980s have been unevenly applied to the organized left after the First World War. While there are important exceptions, such as Joan Sangster’s study of women in the CPC and CCF, there is much more to be learned about the formation of the left in the 1930s and 1940s, the ways in which it responded to the challenges of two decades of traumatic change, and how it understood society and its role within it.14 Far too much has been assumed about the left, and these assumptions have not be challenged by weak historical reconstructions that are based on the preoccupations of the period after the Second World War. I come to this period from a somewhat different direction than earlier scholars. My specific interest in attempting to understand interwar socialism was sparked by my work on the workers’ revolt that swept

Introduction 13

across Canada in 1919.15 For those who study the CCF and CPC, this is a kind of pre-history. Historians vaguely acknowledge that these organizations had their roots in 1919 and in the radicalism that had developed prior to the First World War, but their real interest is on how activists finally got their act together and formed one or the other of the two main parties of the Canadian left. For my part, I could not help but notice the continuities from the earlier period. In fact, the CCF and the CPC were both led by individuals who had their formative political  experiences in the radicalization that peaked in the First World War and immediately afterward. The power of the workers’ revolt was indelibly etched upon the generation of 1919. It had been an explicit, and in many ways spontaneous, working-class uprising. In diverse corners of the country, and the world, the general strike had been the tactic of choice, even in places where such action had rarely been considered in earlier years. And almost everywhere, Independent Labour Parties sprouted.16 The languages and symbols of the moment were specifically proletarian. Across Canada (and internationally), moderate labourists and revo­ lutionary socialists (and almost everyone in between) imagined a working-­class future. This is not to say that this generation set out, in the 1930s, to replicate the earlier upsurge in labour radicalism. The specific catalysts related to the war and to the Russian Revolution were, of course, unique. More­ over, this generation had learned from the difficult years of the 1920s, which, for the labour movement, did not “roar.” The depression of the early 1920s was accompanied by an employers’ offensive, in the form of wage cuts and union busting. Electoral advances stalled or, in the case of Ontario in 1923, collapsed. Labourism, with its clear working-class identity but Gladstonian liberal assumptions, withered.17 It was clear that new strategies were needed. As we shall see, interwar labour politics had a harder edge. International events, such as the Russian Revo­ lution, and the crisis of capitalism itself, provided an occasion for a broader acceptance of Marxist ideas. For activists armed with a “working class philosophy”18 that proclaimed labour as being uniquely capable of achieving human emancipation, class lines marked the divide between principle and betrayal. Class identity and working-class principles were the ground upon which 1930s socialists surveyed and assessed the world and considered how to change it. For this reason, 1930s socialists appeared to spend as much time arguing over social identities as they did over political programs – the

14

The Fate of Labour Socialism

two were inseparable. The events of 1919 seemed to have vindicated a generation of socialists who had stressed the centrality of class, often to the complete exclusion of other claims such as gender and ethnicity.19 The concern in this book with the construction of a class identity should sound familiar to social and cultural historians. Over the past three decades, various theorists have challenged what they consider to be an essentialist definition of working-class politics by arguing that proletarian identities were and are discursively constructed and no more fundamental or “fixed” than any number of other identities. Patrick Joyce and Gareth Stedman Jones have argued forcefully that the language and symbols of popular political and even trade union activity in the nineteenth century reveal no unproblematic working-class identity.20 Both contemporary commentators and modern historians have been accused of attempting to ascribe class to a constituency that did not speak a language of class dichotomies; identities formed through discourse have become grist for the historians’ mill. It is extremely useful to reconsider this debate in the context of the period under examination here, for class was explicitly the touchstone of socialist and labourist politics. In his insightful memoir of life in the British Communist Party, Raphael Samuel stresses the centrality of class as a political metaphor: “Every issue was a ‘class issue,’ however heterogeneous the interests which it touched,” and political parties were seen as “concentrated expressions of class being.”21 But, while the Comintern certainly honed this language, it reflected both social identities and deeply held convictions about social organization among socialists generally, and not just those who might be considered to be on the left-wing margins. It was reflected, for instance, in the refusal of local labour parties in Canada to submerge their identities in the Progressive Party of the 1920s; farmers and workers, although allies, had distinct interests. While there are many distinctions to be drawn between communism and various kinds of labourism and socialism, they shared a broad commitment to class politics and the development of a “proletarian science” of society.22 For socialists and the remnants of the labourist tradition – the people I have dubbed “labour socialists” – who responded to the new opportunities presented by the Great Depression, the operative principle of political activity was class. It was a shared concept of class and class politics that informed their behaviour and thought. In distinction to the “new social movements” of the past few decades, this is unapologetically a study of an old social movement. A

Introduction 15

“modernist” movement, it was committed to ideas of unity and totality based on broadly shared experiences. Adherents considered it possible to understand society and to imagine a rationally created future. Unen­ cumbered by poststructural debates that have challenged the objectivity of language, the socialists we are examining found words, for the most part, unproblematic. Mutual understanding was possible through communication; this was the basis upon which a formidable workingclass movement for self-education was built. Yet, particularly for the non-Communist left, the defence of class identity and class politics, and the positing of the possibility of real change – the very bases upon which they defined themselves – would prove increasingly difficult. The subsequent decline of what Stanley Aronowitz terms a workingclass “social imaginary”23 has not gone unnoticed. The “end of ideology”24 in the 1950s could be read as the end of a specifically class-based challenge and its displacement by a hegemonic “middle-class” identity. This is not to argue that this period saw the “unmaking” of the Cana­ dian working class. Like the difficult mid-Victorian period that followed the era in which E.P. Thompson’s English working class was “made,” the years following the Second World War were marked by new challenges that rattled the bases of earlier assumptions. Not only were workers present in the initial process of the “making” of the working class, as Thompson argues, they were, and are, present at its constant remaking.25 Class identities and assumptions can be undermined and rebuilt – this is the very nature of class politics. And, such processes always occur under new conditions. This latter point is crucial and demonstrates why it is important that historians continue to study class and class identity. Class divisions are endemic to capitalism and intersect with other oppressions and identities in myriad ways, at different times, and in different places. Under­ standing such changes, including the changing composition of the working class and the social identities of those who toil in a wide range of different circumstances, has been an ongoing challenge for the labour movement, as well as for other movements whose ranks are divided by class. Several decades of neoliberalism should remind us that class persists and evolves, as do other social identities. Socialists in the 1930s worked diligently to hone a working-class identity that rang true to masses of toilers and that could provide a footing to move forward against a common enemy. Twenty-first-century activists are, perhaps, more cognizant of the ways various oppressions intersect and the importance of respecting the various identities that flow from this. Still,

16

The Fate of Labour Socialism

the attempts of Depression-era socialists to defend working-class identity in the face of the threats of poverty, fascism, and war should encourage us to ponder their, and our, successes and failures. In fact, just as the labour socialists were coalescing in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, conditions that had created a working class that increasingly thought in terms of creating socialist parties that might, in some way, challenge capitalism were very much in flux. The specific character of the Depression, which saw social classes beyond labour challenged by desperate economic conditions and forced to rethink the social order, presented socialists with an array of other reform agendas. They often dismissed these as “panaceas” but were nonetheless forced to respond to those who did not share their assumptions. An expanding Communist Party, as we shall see, largely abandoned its language of class for reasons we will examine in later chapters. The threatening world political order posed its own challenges to laboursocialist assumptions, often dividing socialists about how to read politics on a global scale. Finally, when war finally came, tectonic shifts in the shape of the Canadian working class, and in the state, challenged the ability of socialists to apply their received understandings of class to a new and very different world. Generally, the apparent decline in working-class identity has been associated with the affluence occasioned by the long economic boom that followed the Second World War. My assertion is that this identity had already suffered crucial political setbacks during the Depression and the war. I argue that an oppositional class imaginary had already been seriously eroded before the 1950s, and ultimately, the movement was left without what activitists had felt to be the clear markers that a working-class identity had provided. Preserving or redefining these markers was a protracted and difficult battle. It often appeared, to participants and particularly historians of the period, as merely a debate over political programs, but I will argue that it was more fundamental. At issue for the labour socialists was the defence of their sense of both themselves and the social order; they fought to retain the ground upon which to examine, criticize, and challenge the liberal social order. It is this struggle – the struggle to articulate and win a working-class future – that this volume examines.

Chapter One

The Legacy of Labour Socialism

Standing before an audience in Kamloops, British Columbia, in midsummer 1933, William Pritchard declared that the recently adopted Regina Manifesto of the nascent Co-operative Commonwealth Fed­ eration was greater than the Magna Carta.1 Both the speaker and the reference are of considerable significance. Pritchard was British-born and well read, and his allusion to the iconic source of English democracy at Runnymede was no doubt reflexive. Pritchard’s working-class roots would have sounded in his voice: he was a child of the Lancashire textile industry, the wellspring of the industrial revolution. And, from the moment of his arrival in Canada, he was an activist in the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), the country’s most important school of Marxism before the First World War. A working-class intellectual, he did not back away from class battles, and he was tried and jailed for his role in the Winnipeg General Strike.2 In his gender, class, and ethnicity, and with his oratorical and literary skills and his experience of labour and migration, Pritchard embodied the image of the early-twentieth-century Canadian socialist. Who better to pass judgment on the founding document of Canada’s new socialist movement? And how would this new socialist movement differ from that which had shaped the speaker? What of the reference to the Magna Carta? Did that document represent the first small step in the slow but steady accretion of British democracy, or did it herald the crushing defeat of despotism? The same question could be asked of this new movement of which Pritchard was a part. The CCF was a study in ambiguity and little can be gained by attempting to proclaim on the essence of the party. Not only was the CCF a house with many rooms, its occupants were often mobile and

18

The Fate of Labour Socialism

uncertain actors in challenging times. At moments, a rough anti-­ capitalist vision was adopted. The Regina Manifesto famously ends with a ringing pronouncement: “No CCF Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Co-operative Commonwealth.”3 At the same time, it was clear to all that other elements of the CCF program, as well as the dayto-day practice of the movement, hardly reflected, much less advanced, this goal. This inconsistency is far from surprising. Even currents that claimed more revolutionary credentials – the Communists, the One Big Union, and, by the 1930s, the Trotskyists – struggled with questions of strategy in a capitalist liberal democracy. Nonetheless, the Regina Man­ifesto would come to play an extraordinary role as a marker of the CCF’s commitment to an explicitly anti-capitalist goal. Loyalty to the document was evinced by all who hoped to rally CCFers behind their arguments, regardless, at times, of logical consistency. In 1936, for instance, British Columbia CCF MLA Robert Connell, who was in the process of being expelled from the party for his opposition to “socialized finance” (incidentally, clause 3 of the Regina Manifesto), insisted on his loyalty to a curious trinity: God, the King, and the Regina Mani­ festo.4 More generally, CCF leaders would be regularly assailed by socialists in or out of the CCF for real or imagined transgressions against the document. Even in the 1950s, when the CCF’s ties to its socialist past were badly frayed and the CCF was enmeshed in debate about a new document, leaders were defensive. National secretary Lorne Ingle insisted that there was no campaign to drop the Regina Manifesto, only to supplement it “in light of ‘today’s conditions.’”5 The Winnipeg Declaration of Principles, which was eventually adopted by the CCF in 1956 after six years’ delay, was “more guarded” in its language than the manifesto. In a telling comparison of the two documents, political scientist Alan Whitehorn notes that there was only one negative reference to capitalism in the Winnipeg Declaration, compared to seventeen in the Regina Manifesto. Even more relevant for our purposes, the 1956 document contained no references to class. Interestingly, however, the Regina Manifesto contained only three.6 The paucity of references to class in the 1950s is perhaps not surprising; we shall be examining the reasons for this. The case of the Regina Manifesto is perhaps more surprising. The explanation lies, in large part, in the history of the document itself. As Michiel Horn has carefully documented, the manifesto was written by university-based



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

19

academics in the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR).7 The significance of this aspect of the development of the manifesto cannot be ­understated. Until the early 1930s, socialism in Canada was undisputedly working-class in self-identity and overwhelmingly so in terms of composition. The socialist organizations that had developed since the closing years of the nineteenth century were organically tied to the emerging labour movement. Radical groups emerged from the mines of the British Columbia interior, the slums of Winnipeg’s North End, and the Spadina garment district in Toronto. They disagreed about much. A range of political, ethnic, and generational differences, combined with the varied circumstances that different kinds of workers faced, produced vigorous and often furious polemical debate. But there was a common acknowledgment that capitalism was the problem and that the working class held the solution. This was true of the “impossiblists” of the early SPC, and of the Social Democratic Party that split from it; it was true of various radical union movements, from the American Federation of Miners to the Industrial Workers of the World; and it was true of the One Big Union. For those who considered themselves Marxists, the conscious acceptance of the historical mission of the working class was an inherent part of their perspective. Historian Ross McCormack has commented that “working class credentials became a mark of distinction” in the Socialist Party of Canada, where more than one member bragged that “our membership is composed wholly of plugs, dirty faces and all.”8 But working-class dominance was hardly a feature of only the far left of the political labour movement. The movement was also rooted in a series of common experiences that were apparent even among those whom the Marxists would have considered the fuzziest of thinkers, the labourists. By the early twentieth century, labour parties with various names emerged in towns and cities across the country. Their political programs were, for the most part, rooted in the equal-rights tradition of British liberalism, presented in the form of potentially realizable reforms, including the expansion of public works, “fair wages” in government jobs, improved access to the franchise, and the like. Nonetheless, Craig Heron convincingly argues that to dismiss these labour parties as “‘reformist’ is too easy and too imprecise.”9 They were convinced that capitalist class privilege polluted the waters of democracy and that they needed to organize, as workers, to cleanse them. Rooted in local craft unions and particularly in the trades and labour councils that brought unionists together, labourism implied that workers had been excluded from the

20

The Fate of Labour Socialism

polity by capital; the solution was collective action as a class. In the right context, this was a potentially powerful movement. This power was demonstrated at the end of the First World War. The deep alienation that workers felt as a result of the inequities in sacrifice during the war and the fear of further economic and political marginalization in the face of what they saw as unrestrained profiteering and gerrymandering resulted in a social explosion out of proportion to labourism’s limited political agenda.10 Labourism was, as well, a tide in which socialists could easily swim. While specific points of contention did not disappear, their more explicitly theorized view of the role of the working class in history was not at odds with a broader proletarian ontology whereby masses of workers identified themselves as agents of historical change. The uprising was a working-class moment, marked by a range of possibilities and variations. Other social divisions existed, of course, but they were either sublimated or redefined in class terms. Although the trade union movement before the First World War had been dominated by skilled Anglo-Celtic workers, there had been, since the days of the Knights of Labor, a current that was intent on organizing all workers as a class. The massive immigration in the two decades immediately before the war, which coincided with the “second industrial revolution” and its huge demand for cheap labour, reshaped the Canadian working class. With some notable exceptions, such as the Industrial Workers of the World, unions were unwilling or unable to organize many of these new immigrants.11 The high degree of working-class unity that was exhibited at the end of the war, then, was a particular shock to the country’s rulers. The broad message of class unity was explicit in the resolution of the famous Western Labour Conference in the spring of 1919, “that there is no alien but the capitalist,” a sentiment echoed by the leadership of the Winnipeg General Strike weeks later.12 Immigrants, streamed into the most undesirable jobs and derided by conservative forces such as Winnipeg’s bourgeois, anti-strike Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand as the undesirable “other,” were redefined by a more active and self-conscious labour movement as fellow workers.13 This is not to suggest that problems of constructing an ethnic unity among workers were “solved.” For example, although eastern and southern European workers were actively engaged in the Winnipeg General Strike, they were not part of its leadership. Nor did the demands of the strike address, in any real way, their specific concerns either in the workplace or in their communities. Nonetheless, new forms



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

21

of organization, such as the One Big Union, and a new consciousness of common exploitation at the hands of capital (which alone could explain the breadth of the labour revolt), combined to create both a powerful class movement and the space for just such issues to be addressed. The fact that workers responded primarily as workers, rather than as Britons, or as classless “citizens” (a term expropriated by the bosses – the Winnipeg Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand was but one example), shaped future possibilities. In addition to ethnicity, issues of gender challenged labour. The troubled relationship between gender and class has been the subject of considerable study. The equation of class with relationships in the paid workplace, the labour-intensive character of the working-class household, and a pervasive belief in essential gender differences collectively undermined gender-based women’s activism in the labour movement. Linda Kealey argues that the more rigidly Marxist wing of the political labour movement, the Socialist Party of Canada, in fact exacerbated this tendency with its particularly gender-blind notion of class. The “suspicion that feminism was inherently bourgeois” and a threat to the labour movement, as it could divide working-class women and men, tended to be strongest among those who most clearly self-identified as Marxists.14 It does need to be added, though, that the feeling was mutual. The main branches of the women’s movement, grouped together in the National Council of Women, were overwhelmingly middle class in their composition, were often concerned with issues that were remote from those of working-class women, and spoke in tropes of racial purity and social hygiene that would have been unfamiliar to those outside of their own elevated and Protestant milieux.15 At the same time, both the female franchise and the expansion of workingclass militancy beyond the workplace and into the community through larger, and increasingly general, strikes potentially provided new arenas for women’s activism as part of a broader working-class movement. Certainly the deep class antagonisms after the First World War convinced many women activists that their allegiances were with their own communities and their own class. Again, class identities were sharpened in the context of the labour revolt. There were, of course, other streams of reform. What is notable about this period is the extent to which the labour movement became a pole of attraction for the most radical among them, while others drifted back into bourgeois orthodoxy. The social gospel is perhaps the best case in point. Canada’s mainstream Protestant churches had engendered a

22

The Fate of Labour Socialism

wave of social reform during the Laurier era, reaching, perhaps, its apex in the Social Service Congress held in Ottawa just months before the outbreak of the First World War. The wide spectrum of topics at the congress reflected an enthusiasm to tackle an astounding range of problems rooted in industrial society, from child welfare to prison reform and from prostitution to the “labour problem.” Although there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which the social gospel actually reflected a process of secularization, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the focus of such middle-class, professional reformers, even those involved with Protestant churches, was the material world.16 Historian Richard Allen, who has explored the social gospel movement, has noted how, despite the wide range of views, from traditional evangelicalism to a real belief in the possibility of the kingdom of God on Earth, “the social gospel front had remained remarkably united” until the Great War.17 The war and particularly the general strike fractured the movement. Allen finds it “ironic” that “the postwar unrest which was subjected to such hopeful prognostications by social gospellers should have deepened the rift in the social gospel ranks.”18 Frankly, the opposite would have been more surprising. Could the churches where English Canada’s big bourgeoisie worshipped, the churches of Timothy Eaton and Joseph Flavelle, contain earnest radical dissent and action, particularly in a moment of social crisis such as 1919? The moment demanded the choosing of sides, and, for the most part, the social gospel churches did so. More or less by mutual consent, those who identified openly and actively with labour socialism found themselves on the outside. Socialist ministers A.E. Smith, J.S. Woodsworth, William Ivens, and William Irvine left the Methodist Church (the latter via the Unitarians) and joined the parties of the left.19 They, and many others, were active in establishing the Labour Church, a fascinating way station on this journey. The establishment of an institution identified in class terms suggests the salience of working-class identity and the identification of mainstream churches as non- or even anti-labour. Part church (there was no reason members would automatically reject elements of the old liturgy) and part socialist forum, the labour churches adapted elements of well-established working-class worship, education, and sociability. For its part, the Methodist Church – the church most open to the social gospel and, before 1919, keenest to address the “labour problem” – chose its own side. As the church’s general superintendent, S.D. Chown, opined, the labour uprising had made it more difficult “for the



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

23

Church to give [labour] unguarded assistance.” Two years later, even this cautious statement would be an exaggeration: the Methodist Pub­ lishing House led Toronto employers in the printing industry in a strike that challenged the very existence of a relatively conservative union through the use of strikebreakers and the demand for an open shop.20 While its union with the more conservative Presbyterian Church in 1925 can be seen as marking the end of the Methodist Church’s most intense engagement with social action, the momentum had clearly ended prior to that event. Other activists, especially lay members, may have stayed in the church, but the focus of their activity was increasingly in socialist groups on the outside: Ben Spence, Beatrice Brigden, and James Simpson are significant examples.21 Their specific interests in issues such as prohibition encouraged broader alliances beyond a labour movement that did not always share their specific enthusiasms. Still, the point remains: the political labour movement served as a primary pole of attraction for radical activists in this period. Ironically, perhaps, some similar points could be made about the most successful electoral movement of the 1920s, the farmers. On one level, the dramatic electoral breakthrough of the national Progressive Party in 1921 (which built on the Ontario farmers’ electoral victory two years earlier) demonstrated the great salience of class politics. Even more than the spotty victories of labour parties, the farmers demonstrated the diminished capacity of the Conservatives and the Liberals to present themselves as anything other than parties of social and economic privilege, as parties of capital. The farmers’ breakthrough, however, proved particularly illusory. For a variety of reasons, which commentators as diverse as W.L. Morton and C.B. Macpherson have explained, Canadian farmers proved incapable of acting as a class and developing a program that reflected a broad and clear alternative to the existing social order.22 For the most part, their adherence to classical liberalism allowed Mackenzie King to woo them back into the fold. Those of a more critical vein– best represented by the so-called Ginger Group – were increasingly drawn to labour’s political program and, at an electoral level, into alliance with Labour.23 This cooperation was, of course, part of the process that made possible the creation of the CCF in 1932, and certainly the alliance that developed in Parliament between the two-person Labour caucus and those Progressives who resisted the lure of the Liberal Party is an important part of the story. However, the focus on parliamentary alliances, and especially, I will argue, the undue emphasis on J.S. Woodsworth’s role on the left, obscures a more

24

The Fate of Labour Socialism

fundamental development. Despite the setbacks of the 1920s, labour as a potential social and political force, as well as a social imaginary, proved remarkably resilient. Assumptions about the relative organizational weakness of the political labour movement in the 1920s were somewhat misleading. When new opportunities emerged in the 1930s, the organizational base as well as the political program of the new movement was labour. The core of the new organization was composed of labour and socialist political activists who were, overwhelmingly, from the generation who witnessed the upheaval of 1919. Drawn to them were farmers’ organizations (although such alliances were, in some cases, of brief duration, as we shall see), a small cadre of academics from the League for Social Reconstruction, and other small groups of reformers from the United Church and elsewhere. This regrouping was an ambiguous achievement: the range of social forces both broadened and diffused the political labour movement. How those at the labour core came to understand this development is very much the subject of this study. They were encouraged by new organizational achievements, such as the creation of the CCF, and potential electoral gains, and, although they would not have used such language, they celebrated the increasing potential for labour socialists to act as a counterhegemonic force. At the same time, they felt deeply uneasy. They perceived that increasing numbers of groups and individuals brought alien class influences into the heart of the movement. The struggle, then, was twofold: to build as large a movement as possible and to ensure that it remained true to its working-class assumptions and its socialist goals. Historians of the left have tended to focus on elected politicians and academics who travelled comfortably in the same circles. Understanding the movement, however, requires looking at the evolution and activities of the “labour” component of the CCF. How did its adherents find their way to Regina, and what did they see there?

• For labour, the 1920s were, very much, the “lean years.”24 The defeats experienced during the workers’ revolt led to firings, blacklisting, and, in the depression of the early 1920s, deep wage cuts. Not surprisingly, the labour movement itself was fractured by the starkly different political agendas of the era. The mainstream labour movement – the craft unions of the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC) and particularly its



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

25

leadership – was deeply chastened by the events of 1919 and was soon in full retreat. The secession of many of its most radical critics to the One Big Union meant that there was little to check their defeatism. The nascent Communist Party of Canada (CPC) stayed in the established unions in an effort to maintain working-class unity and fight the conservative union leadership on their own ground. Although Communists played leading parts in important strikes across the country, they could do little to stem the tide of defeat, nor did they effectively challenge the leadership of the craft unions.25 In this context of trade union division and defeat, the prospects for the political wing of the labour movement were hardly propitious. Nonetheless, there was a considerable legacy, as Craig Heron has noted: “A substantial number of activists from the workers’ revolt chose to embrace neither narrow craft unionism nor Communism. The minority of non-Communist socialists left behind after the splits in the old socialist parties continued to find common cause with the handfuls of stillcommitted labourists.”26 This is precisely the cohort that it is necessary to study in order to determine the fate of the working-class imaginary that was so obvious in 1919 and that would reassert itself during the Great Depression. As Heron noted, this faction focused on maintaining local labour parties, but with generally meagre results. Those electoral breakthroughs that had been made, which included two federal seats as well as a smattering of victories at the provincial level and on town/ city councils, were generally held, yet the organizational base that sustained them was extremely fragile. In part, this fragility arose because electoral success was entirely dependent on the relationship between social forces in particular localities and was often tied to the popularity of individual labour politicians. In 1917, as part of a growing surge of anger at the actions of the federal government, the TLC had established the Canadian Labour Party (CLP). The CLP project, although ultimately unsuccessful, is worth considering briefly for what it reveals about class and political allegiances in the 1920s. Branches of the party eventually developed in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. The model was the British Labour Party, basically a federation of labour and socialist parties with the trade unions. The creation of the new party hardly clarified the situation, as it added another layer of organization: in many provinces, the provincial CLP functioned alongside existing labour parties. As well, the coexistence of rival labour parties at times reflected the ideological fragmentation of the movement. The CLP’s connection with the Trades

26

The Fate of Labour Socialism

and Labour Congress was of little consequence, given that the TLC had no real organizational presence between its annual meetings. Labour parties relied on the real organizational support of provincial labour federations and particularly city-based trades and labour councils for their success. In fact, given the hardening of positions in the labour movement, the CLP model proved unsustainable. In keeping with its united front policy, the Communists joined the CLP and, particularly in the context of declining activism in the 1920s, often came to dominate it, especially in Ontario. On the other end of the spectrum, the leadership of the Trades and Labour Congress had never really committed itself to independent labour political action. In the small TLC office in Ottawa, Tom Moore and Paddy Draper had ensconced themselves in the capital’s corridors and saw no benefit, personally or for the unions, of turning their backs on the contacts they had curried. They naturally re-endorsed the strategy of the old American Federation of Labor bureaucracy of searching for “friends” among the established political parties. Already by 1921, with the labour upsurge waning, Moore had publicly distanced himself even from the resolutely labourist Ontario Independent Labour Party (ILP), which had participated ineffectively in the provincial farmer-­ labour government of E.C. Drury immediately following the war.27 It is hardly surprising that the increased presence of the Communists in the CLP would alienate more conservative unionists and especially officials. The executive council of the TLC, made up largely of union staff such as business agents and international officers, were perceived as “labour fakirs” who stifled militancy in order to protect their own jobs. There was little chance here of a happy marriage with the Com­ munists. The battle between the Communists and the leadership of the craft union movement was fought on a number of fronts. Most dramatic were the confrontations in the coalfields of Cape Breton, when the Communist-led local refused to buckle under to either the employers or the United Mine Workers international leadership.28 The Com­ munists’ decision to support the emergence of a new labour federation, the All-Canadian Confederation of Labour, similarly allowed the craft union leadership to label them disloyal dual unionists. The drift of the Communists away from the united front strategy, which would culminate in its highly sectarian Third Period politics at the end of the decade, made any ongoing cooperation with other socialists extremely difficult. The leadership of the Soviet Union, now dominated by Joseph Stalin, had declared that the period of capitalist stabilization was over



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

27

and a new working-class upsurge was imminent. Those socialists who failed to see this (and the evidence was certainly lacking) were seen as objectively pro-capitalist and even, as the Communists ratcheted-up the rhetoric, effectively pro-fascist. More specifically, non-Communist socialist leaders became the main enemy of the Communists.29 Such conflict is of significance for a number of reasons. The Communist Party was the largest political formation on the left in the late 1920s, and certainly the only one with a national presence. As well, the nature of the organization itself – it demanded much more from its members than did the labour parties – meant that it was on the front lines of most of the major class confrontations that occurred through the 1920s and 1930s. For non-Communist activists in the labour movement, the Communist Party was impossible to ignore. The relationship between the Communists and the rest of the left was, as we shall see, complicated. Deep animosities combined with a broad desire to build a united political movement led to different approaches and goals. For both Communists and non-Communists, the issue was one of class. As late as 1927, for instance, Communists in Winnipeg (where the Communists had been unsuccessful in attracting the well-established Independent Labour Party into the CLP) begrudgingly supported ILP candidate John Queen in the mayoralty campaign. The Communists identified Queen’s promise “to advance and protect the interests of the people as a whole” as the “core of the I.L.P position.” Interestingly, the Communists acknowledged a shared class heritage, but criticized the ILP’s apparent drift: “Surely the I.L.P., born out of the bitter strike period of 1919, has departed more and more from whatever class position it held.” Just as notably, Queen took the platform at the city’s Communist-associated Ukrainian Labour Temple alongside Communist municipal candidates.30 But three years later, the Communists refused to support Queen’s party in Winnipeg, calling the ILP “the third party of the capitalist class.”31 Their specific criticisms of the ILP were ones they could have made in 1927; it was the Communist Party that had changed, having abandoned the last remnants of the united front policy. In province after province, beginning in Quebec in late 1925, Communists were excluded from the Canadian Labour Party.32 Because of the dominant role that the Communists had played in the Ontario CLP, their exclusion led to the party’s fracture in 1927, with the non-­ Communists forming a new organization with an old name, the Inde­ pendent Labour Party.33 In spite of the animosities reflected in this process – and more than a few non-Communists were thrilled by the

28

The Fate of Labour Socialism

split – there is also clear evidence of how troubling it was. The cause of working-class unity was a compelling one. In Alberta, the campaign to purge the CLP of Communists took the better part of two years; the policy was only narrowly adopted in late 1929, deep into the Communists’ Third Period.34 Similarly, in British Columbia, it is worth noting that in the spring of 1929, a year after seceding from the CLP, the ILP (itself formed as part of a regroupment of non-Communist labour and socialist parties) was actively debating reaffiliating.35 As protracted as it was, the process of exclusion was complete by the end of the 1920s. The advice from the leadership of the Communist International in 1929 to abandon the Canadian Labour Party was, if anything, redundant. The Communist Party, now on the outside of the mainstream political labour movement, redoubled its denunciation of the non-Communist left and concluded that its reformist leadership had led it entirely into the camp of capital.36 It is wrong to conclude, however, that this process created two homogeneous currents. Norman Penner’s conclusion that “the failure of the Canadian Labour party was the result of the incompatibility of the social democratic and Marxist-Leninist philosophies” is misleading on a number of levels.37 Despite the best efforts of the trade union leadership and, eventually, an increasingly sectarian Communist Party to scuttle it, the CLP project did have its tireless supporters. It had lasted through the 1920s despite considerable animosities and an inauspicious political climate. The Communists’ turn away from the united front was not so much a result of the CLP’s failure, or an innate feature of “MarxismLeninism,” as it was a decision on the part of the Communist Interna­ tional led by Stalin. The Communist Party was concurrently beset by its own twists and divisions.38 Penner’s comment is even more problematic with respect to its characterization of the “social democratic” philosophy. Indeed, there was a significant current in labour politics that identified itself as Marxist, and often Leninist, but rejected the Communist Party as a model of organization and had specific criticisms of its program. The Challenge, a Vancouver-based paper associated with the Independent Labour Party, exemplified this in 1931 when it appealed to its readers: “Let us take Communism from the Communists … and use it intelligently.”39 In a similar analysis, Martin Robin refers to the contest between the Com­ munists and the “moderates,” in Toronto although many of the moderates he enumerates, such as Bert Robinson and David Goldstick, were soon to form a new socialist party in Ontario, which considered itself,



The Legacy of Labour Socialism

29

as we shall see, as revolutionary, Marxist, and Leninist.40 In distinction to the clear assumption behind the use of the term “social democrats,” these were not people who would consider themselves “reformists” tout court. Despite its significance, not all leftists who considered themselves Marxists joined the Communist Party. The One Big Union (OBU) rejected the party’s requirements for affiliation, particularly the demand that it re-enter the craft unions. At the same time, however, the OBU maintained an allegiance to revolutionary socialism. By the middle of the 1920s, the OBU, which was strongest in Winnipeg, stood aloof from other working-class groups, viewing itself as uniquely revolutionary. As the One Big Union Bulletin opined in 1930, both the Communists and the ILP were reformists, with neither effectively challenging capitalism. Most telling, the OBU voiced a notion of politics that was basic to the pre-Communist Marxist formations in Canada – the centrality of education. Once “the revolution took place in [the workers’] heads the battle was won.”41 This point of view is reflected in historian Peter Campbell’s suggestion that “the differences between the parliamentary gradualists and the revolutionaries of the deed notwithstanding, a characteristic they shared was the marginalization of worker intellectuals and the idea of worker self-emancipation.”42 Only a working class that understood capitalism and its own place within it could free itself from its chains and transform society. Education was key. Campbell’s observation is apposite, but too narrowly applied. In the early 1930s, new organizations, calling themselves a “Socialist Party,” emerged in Ontario and British Columbia, explicitly adopting many of the Marxist assumptions of their eponymous forebear, the Socialist Party of Canada, which had collapsed after the First World War. But the same claims could be made much more widely, and should include various “labour parties.” The Winnipeg ILP, often thought of as quite non-Marxist in its orientation, certainly believed in working-class selfemancipation and regarded “involuntary poverty and unemployment as evils inherent in the present profit system. It believes that a more equitable distribution of the wealth created by the producers can only be achieved when those producers co-operatively own and control the natural resources of the country and the machinery of production and exchange.” To that end, education was central. It conducted a labour forum every Sunday morning, year in and year out, at the Agnes Street Labour Hall in the city’s West End. Other events were held around the city, and members were encouraged to take in OBU lectures at the Plebs

30

The Fate of Labour Socialism

Hall as well as the lectures of free-thinker Marshall Gauvin on Sunday evenings at the Metropolitan Theatre.43 Indeed, ILPers were no strangers to Marxist ideas. Lectures on the stages of capitalist development or on the exchange value of commodities were an integral part of the ILP’s menu of topics.44 This is not to deny other intellectual influences; it is only to underline that Marxism dominated some sectors of the non– Communist Party left, and had currency throughout it. Not recognizing this fact undermines our ability to understand the debates that took place on the left in the 1930s. Perhaps the most egregious use of the Marxist/non-Marxist dichotomy is apparent in Alan Mills’s examination of J.S. Woodsworth’s political thought. Whatever the strengths of his insights into Woodsworth’s intellectual development, and there are many, Mills both exaggerates Woodsworth’s role in the movement and constructs it as in constant opposition to “the Marxists.” The Marxism that Mills presents is a caricature even of “vulgar” Marxism of the mass socialist parties of the early twentieth century. Among Woodsworth’s “un-Marxist” proclivities was “a sensitivity to contingent and local variables.”45 The assumption is that class reductionism is endemic to Marxism. Although there are strengths to the claim that such reductionism was a feature of Marxism in this period, the fact is that Marxists wrestled with the specific features of the Canadian social formation in the 1920s and 1930s. That is specifically why many of those self-identified Marxists outside of the Communist Party were attracted to a multiclass formation like the CCF. Worse, Mills repeatedly reduces Marxism to the “espousal of violent revolution,” and he suggests that Woodsworth rejected Marxism “as early as 1918–1919” for this very reason.46 Not only is the putschist image of Marxism inaccurate, even for the Communist Party, the fact is that it would be difficult to equate the Marxism inherited from the prewar socialist and social democratic parties as an unqualified call to “violence.” As demonstrated by the example of the OBU in the 1920s, a brand of Marxism persisted that considered itself revolutionary and rejected “palliatives,” but that also rejected the notion that “capitalism can only be overthrown by means of civil war.”47 Many CCFers in the 1930s would agree. Most Marxists outside of the Communist Party seemed to have spent very little time considering how socialism would come about. In this sense, they were legitimate offspring of the old country. British Marxists, notes Stuart Macintyre, “spilt much ink on the iniquities of capitalism and the advantages of socialism, but were surprisingly reticent about



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how they proposed to lead Britain from the former to the latter, and so while they could inveigh at length against Labour’s political naïveté they experienced great difficulty in advancing a credible alternative.”48 The absence of dialogue on this question has made it easier for Cana­ dian historians to postulate a dichotomy between the “revolutionaries” and the parliamentarians. For an earlier generation of socialists, the issue was, at best, premature. The point was to “make socialists” through education, at which point the working class would be intellectually prepared to make the kind of strategic decisions that the socialist transformation required. William Pritchard, as Peter Campbell explains, “saw revolutionary violence as a sign of weakness in the working class, a result of workers hating the capitalist instead of hating the system.”49 The same could be said for a broad range of early-twentieth-century socialists. Only a very porous boundary separated this kind of Marx­ ism and the “ethical socialism” described by Stanley Pierson in late-­ nineteenth-century Britain. Large numbers of British working-class immigrants had grown up with the Clarion movement and the like.50 By the 1930s, the cross-fertilization had progressed considerably. The large European socialist parties of the Second International, the post– First World War labour revolt, and the Bolshevik Revolution had all left a very complex legacy. Hopes for electoral success, particularly in a liberal democracy like Canada, were prevalent, but so were the sceptics. They saw the violence of capitalism around them – in the workplace, on the picket line, and on the battlefront – and so were hardly naive about the dangers. Indeed, they were well aware of the proscriptions on free speech in section 98 of the Criminal Code, which made the mere discussion of such issues potentially punishable by imprisonment. In general they endorsed electoral action as key in the short term. At the same time, there was a feeling that the “sacred right to the ballot” was part of a “capitalist education” that fooled the working masses about the real nature of the political system.51 In the end, they were often agnostic regarding tactical questions; they believed that an educated working class of the future would choose the necessary tactics. The Communists represented a break with this tradition. Revolutions were not just the product of the unfolding of history; they had to be made. To cite Georg Lukács, Lenin had recognized the “actuality of the revolution” and seized the moment when class forces made revolution possible.52 To the Communists, such action was the antidote to the kind of fuzzy-minded utopianism that had plagued the Second International and had undermined its effectiveness as a force for revolutionary

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The Fate of Labour Socialism

change. By the 1930s, this distinction, and this debate, became even more muddied. The rise of fascism would starkly place the issue of violence back on the agenda. And the challenges of the Great Depression would raise the issue of extra-parliamentary activity for all socialists. The issue of tactics never really receded; there would be much to argue about both within the Communist and non-Communist left. Again, only an understanding of the broader intellectual context of the debate allows us to make sense of it outside of rigid and meaningless dichotomies. This was clear in the regroupments that would culminate at Regina. Mills’s notion that one can draw a distinct line between the CPC and the CCF on the issue of revolutionary action is deeply unhelpful, particularly as both parties struggled with issues of electoralism, mass action, and fundamental social change.

• The Communists and the bulk of the trade union leadership having washed their hands of the CLP project, the task of developing a socialist party was left to those most committed to constructing a broad working-­class political entity of some sort. They were not, of course, starting with a blank slate. In some provinces, Manitoba in particular, there was organizational continuity into the 1920s. Elsewhere, there was at least a long history of working-class political action as well as a fairly clear balance sheet on the experiences of the 1920s. Still, there was much to consider. What activists wrote on their slate is the best indication of the state of thinking about socialist politics across the country. The process of re-formation differed substantially from province to province. This study looks most closely at the three centres of strength for the non-Communist left: Ontario, British Columbia, and Manitoba, although examples from elsewhere confirm some general observations. In Ontario, independent political action by labour had received two severe setbacks. In the 1919 provincial election, eleven candidates from the Independent Labour Party had been elected in urban centres across Ontario and they participated as junior partners in the FarmerLabour government headed by E.C. Drury. Possessing neither a clear political agenda nor the power to compel the more numerous Farmer members of the legislature to act on behalf of workers, they quickly lost credibility and support. They all but disappeared by the 1923 election.53 The significant exception to this was in Hamilton, where



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two branches of the ILP lived on, sustained by the local trades council and buoyed by a degree of success in municipal elections. In 1930, six of its nine candidates won election to city council.54 There were a few other local pockets, including Fort William as well as a Kenora branch with 150  members.55 These were important political anomalies, which reflected a prewar labourism. Closely tied to local trades councils (the bulwark of the trade union movement in cities), they tended to eschew radicalism and stuck to a limited agenda of civic reforms that immediately benefited workers, such as fair wages on municipal projects. The Hamilton ILP confined itself to municipal politics until it elected Humphrey Mitchell to Ottawa; significantly, no Liberal opposed him.56 In 1928, the Ontario section of the Canadian Labour Party officially split, with the non-Communist members announcing their intention of forming a “Labour Party of Ontario.”57 Interestingly, the Hamilton Labor News, closely tied to the local Independent Labour Party, editorially wondered why they simply did not choose to reinvigorate the generally inactive, but still extant, ILP. Clearly, there was no great interest in inheriting the legacy of the government in which the ILP had participated. More significant, though, was the political difference; the new Labour Party of Ontario was much more explicitly socialist. The “establishment of a co-operative and socialist commonwealth,” with the “means of production” collectively owned, was the goal of the new party,58 though there was no explicit report on the means by which this goal would be achieved. As importantly, like the now defunct Canadian Labour Party, the Labour Party of Ontario was a coalition of “trade unions, trades and labour councils, local labour parties, workmen’s circles, socialist societies and co-operators.”59 These groups included some of the old ILP branches, although the Communists were explicitly excluded. Although not huge, this was a broad coalition: thirty-five organizations from nine cities were represented at the 1931 annual convention.60 The following year saw substantial, yet localized, growth. For instance, a newly founded Windsor branch grew to “two thousand active, enthusiastic members” and labour mayors were elected in Windsor and the surrounding municipalities of East Windsor, Walkerville, and Sandwich.61 There was a measure of heterogeneity in the Labour Party of Ontario, and, not surprisingly, it exploded at the annual convention on symbolic, yet important, issues. In 1931, the issue was trade with the Soviet Union. The catalyst had been the support of TLC president Tom

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The Fate of Labour Socialism

Moore for the Conservative government’s ban on trade with the USSR. The debate at the convention was over the preamble of a resolution that denounced Moore and opined that the Soviet Union was “endeavoring to build a Socialist Republic and is at this time making a valuable contribution to Socialist thought and ideology.” Only a single delegate spoke against trade with the Soviet Union, but several trade union delegates evidently thought it impolitic to directly attack the trade union leadership. After a two-hour debate, the resolution passed without the preamble.62 The following year, the big debate was over a resolution calling for non-contributory unemployment insurance. The issue itself was not particularly controversial – only one delegate voted against it. Interest­ ingly, the debate was over the rationale for the measure. The labour movement had long demanded a scheme by which workers and employers contributed to a general fund. The resolution was presented by socialists who argued that “there is any amount of wealth in Canada to take care of this non-contributory insurance.” Interestingly, those who initially felt that a contributory plan was more attainable were convinced otherwise. Given the very high levels of unemployment by 1932, a contributory scheme would fail to help the vast numbers of workers who were without jobs and needed an income immediately. As several delegates pointed out, they could not wait for industry to “stabilize.” Party president Arthur Mould added, “as to the stabilization of industry, we won’t do that until we get Socialism. Even in Russia they have been trying to stabilize industry for 13 years and haven’t done it yet.” In the context of an ever-deepening depression, such comments no doubt rang true.63 There were clear distinctions to be made, as well, between the concerns of David Croll, the Windsor “Labour mayor” who opened the convention, and the issues dealt with by the convention. In his opening address, Croll argued in favour of legalized gambling and a relaxation of the restrictions on the sale of beer and wine. This, and his defence of the importance of civic politics, took a back seat at the convention. In his welcome to the delegates, Mould took “slight issue” with the mayor, adding that “humanity today is on the edge of an abyss.” He would later add, “We’re the hammers to drive the nails home in the coffin of capitalism.” The local newspaper could be forgiven for wondering what a good Liberal like Croll was doing in such a setting, but clearly the old Lib-Lab tradition was not entirely dead.64



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In 1933, the divisive issue was even more symbolic, as some eyebrows were raised when the convention closed with the singing of the socialist anthems “The Red Flag” and “The Internationale.” This does not seem to have been a concern of convention attendees, but Mould felt obliged to explain to the mainstream press that they had, in fact, sung these songs before in convention and it did not mean that they were “any more sympathetic to Communism than they were in the past.” Even the generally unsympathetic Labor News advised against overplaying the “incident,” but added that it had been electorally unwise.65 That comment suggests that there was much more at stake here than electoral success. So, what can be concluded about this political formation? While the Labour Party of Ontario certainly demonstrated a degree of political breadth – it reflected its labourist and Lib-Lab ancestors and cited “Christian ideals,” Herbert Spencer, and, in one instance, even Detroit-based demagogue Father Coughlin – its clear goal was some form of socialism. Working-class and socialist symbols abounded.66 More than that, it wrestled with the same issues as the Communist Party, generally coming to the same conclusions on immediate issues such as unemployment, the working-class nature of the Soviet Union, and the defence of the right of working-class organizations (including the Communist Party) to function in Canada.67 The Labour Party of Ontario clearly distinguished itself from the Communists and excluded them from membership. At the same time, it did not give in to red baiting. A remarkable feature of the Labour Party of Ontario was the clear strategic direction provided by a cohesive, and relatively small, group of activists. On the eve of the 1931 convention, an editorial box appeared on the front page of the Labor Advocate entitled “The Tasks of the London Convention.” The delegates, the editorial opined, should start by “shelving time-worn ‘resolutions’” and, rather, think strategically about the world and the current shape of the labour movement. The general context was the growing social crisis and the possibilities that it presented. Arguing that the “collapse in some shape or another is inevitable within the next decade,” it followed that the central task “is to prepare ourselves and the people of this country for the transition from Capitalism to Socialism.” Overcoming the existing weakness of the socialist movement required some immediate steps. The first was to “consolidate the existing organizations of the working class movement for

36

The Fate of Labour Socialism

political action.” This meant both the trade unions and the Labour Party. Second, it was necessary to identify and cooperate with “independent factions outside of the labour movement.” Several others were identified, including the United Farmers of Ontario, philosophers, journalists, economists, university professors, religious leaders, and “many others,” all of whom should be encouraged to join the Labour Party. Finally, the further development of the “labor press,” specifically the Labor Advocate, was necessary to “carry our message to the workers of the province.” All in all, the editorial combined a sense that “militant and concerted action” towards socialism was immediately necessary and outlined the way to build a working-class movement that would also regroup significant non-working-class political figures behind it.68 The expressions of opinion in the Labor Advocate were relatively broad; its columns were opened to many, and writers came from varied backgrounds. J.W. Buckley, a long-established figure in the Toronto labour movement, explored the unemployment problem; Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath described the accomplishments of socialist Vienna; and William Moriarty, expelled from the Communist Party for his support of the “American exceptionalist” ideas of Jay Lovestone, wrote the paper’s 1931 May Day article.69 The paper was both educating its audience and sketching a roadmap to labour’s development as a universal class capable of leading society. Where did this sense of political direction come from? Reports of the 1931 convention repeatedly commented on the crucial role played by the Earlscourt Labour Party, which was based in the northwest corner of Toronto. Earlscourt was an unplanned, self-built, and overwhelmingly British working-class suburb that, according to urban scholar Richard Harris, exemplified qualities of “thrift, mutual aid, and selfreliance.” Indeed, “Earlscourt was exceptional in the degree to which local families helped one another.”70 Formed in November 1924, the Earlscourt Labour Party represented a unique constellation of socialist activists in Toronto who would, in the early 1930s, make a significant impact on the reorganization of the left in Toronto and in Ontario.71 It had been the Earlscourt group that had, in 1930, begun publishing the Labor Advocate, which it used to encourage the organizational and political development of the Labour Party of Ontario. The effort was clearly appreciated. At the 1931 convention, the Labour Party of Ontario adopted the Labor Advocate as its official organ. Despite the change, the paper continued to be managed by William Black of the Earlscourt Labour Party.72



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More than that, the twelve members of the Earlscourt Labour Party who were at the 1931 convention representing various unions “and other labor bodies” played key roles. Ten of them were appointed to conference committees, three as chairpersons. And four Earlscourters were elected to the incoming executive including, A.M. Barnetson as vice-president and Bert Robinson as assistant secretary. In part, such recognition reflected their long-time leadership roles in the political labour movement. Both Barnetson and Robinson had served on the executive of the Ontario section of the Canadian Labour Party in the mid-1920s.73 There were influential individuals in the movement who would have their differences with the Earlscourters, such as James (Jimmie) McArthur Conner, who was president of both the Ontario and Toronto Labour Parties, and Hamilton labour leader John O’Hanley. But, at the time, they were dedicated to the same project of building the Labour Party of Ontario. O’Hanley, in fact, specifically praised the Earlscourt Labour Party for its role in developing the Ontario party.74 More can be gleaned about the Earlscourters’ world view by examining their international reference point. In laying out their agenda for the 1931 Ontario Labour Party convention, they drew specific attention to the British Independent Labour Party’s “Call to World Socialism.” During the first half of the 1930s, the British ILP would play an extraordinary role as a model for a surprising range of Canadian socialists. This is the case for a number of reasons. It was immensely familiar to the large number of British-born socialists in Canada. Indeed, many had belonged to the ILP in the old country and continued to read books and articles by its leaders, including articles that were reprinted in the Canadian socialist and labour press. It also represented a relatively comfortable position between the Communists and the Labour Party, which in Britain was dominated by the trade unions. Given the recent history of labour parties in Canada, the position of the ILP was appealing, but it would not remain stable. Under the influence of international and domestic developments, the British ILP moved leftward. From its earlier position as a moderately socialist affiliate of the British Labour Party, it became the home for dissident leftist members of that party. It would soon declare itself a revolutionary socialist party and set out on its own. In early 1931, the British ILP was very much in the middle of this transition. Despite considerable dissension, it had determined that it should stay in the Labour Party in order to maintain working-class unity in the face of the escalating capitalist economic crisis. Indeed, uniting

38

The Fate of Labour Socialism

the various labour and socialist political formations and the trade unions was the task of the day. This strategy spoke directly to the frustration with the unions, the old labourists, and the Communists. “In contrast to both gradualism and violent revolution,” declared the British ILP statement, “stands forth the policy of ‘Socialism in Our Time’ – the application of a bold programme, definitely aimed at the transition from Capitalism to Socialism, by the transference of the key sources of economic power to the community and the redistribution of wealth as to abolish poverty.” How was this to be achieved? The statement spoke of “a program of planned attack,” and the “transference of the key sources of power within Capitalism to the community” as a means of replacing capitalism.75 Readers could be enthused about translating this rhetoric into a political program, if a little confused about the specifics. But the first step was to build organizations such as the Labour Party of Ontario. The strategy would encounter difficulties in both Britain and Canada. In Britain, the Labour government led by Ramsay MacDonald collapsed in the summer of 1931. Elected in 1929, it approached the crisis of the Depression with the same kind of economic retrenchment that conservative governments elsewhere were following. The costs were increasingly transferred to workers. By 1931, MacDonald abandoned Labour’s attempt to govern, and formed a coalition dominated by the old capitalist parties. In the election that followed, the Labour Party was decimated. Through this process, the ILP’s relationship with the parliamentary Labour Party became embittered. In July 1932, the ILP voted to disaffiliate from the Labour Party. It had determined that it was necessary to abandon both the professional politicians and the trade union bureaucrats who dominated the Labour Party and present itself to British workers as a clear socialist alternative.76 The situation in Ontario was, of course, different than that of Britain. Far from being a significant electoral force, the Labour Party of Ontario included only a few elected officials, mostly municipal, although the MPP for Kenora, Earl Hutchinson, represented the party in the provincial legislature. Still the limits of the labour party structure remained, as trade union political interests were not identical to those of socialists. In  fact, divisions in the trade union movement undermined the creation of a unitary labour party. Parallel to the Labour Party of Ontario, a National Labour Party (NLP) emerged in 1931. The NLP was associated with the All-Canadian Congress of Labour, which was more nationalistic than the TLC. The movement to build a labour party was



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unencumbered by the American Federation of Labor’s official policy of choosing between candidates of the established parties. “In Canada,” noted the National Labour Party’s Manifesto, “the influence exercised by United States–controlled unions tends to nullify all political effort by the workers and is an obstacle that can be overcome only by a Labour party associated with the unions not subject to this control.”77 While the NLP included important Ontario-based socialists such as Alex Lyon and Elizabeth Morton and officially called for the creation of a “co-­ operative commonwealth,” its rivalry with the craft unions of the Trades and Labour Congress precluded effective cooperation, despite efforts by the Earlscourt group to bring them together.78 Given these rivalries and the opposition of conservative craft union leaders, the goal of establishing a significant, unified labour party in Ontario with a socialist program was frustrated.79 According to Andrew Glen, this failure led directly to the decision to form an explicitly socialist organization based on individual membership.80 As an interesting footnote to the discussion in Ontario, J.S. Woodsworth opined against the British ILP model for Canada in a letter to Bert Robinson. He felt “that a Socialist Party, composed entirely of individual members, will lack the driving power which can be given through maintaining close contact with existing Labor organizations.”81 The project of building an explicitly socialist party in Ontario had its roots in the summer of 1931 at a thunderstorm-soaked picnic, attended by about a hundred representatives of “six or seven” sections of the Toronto labour movement, that took place at a rural property owned by Andrew Glen. In reporting the event, Glen typically cast an eye to British developments and particularly the model of the British Labour Party. Explaining the failure of the MacDonald government, he argued that the problem was not so much with the government itself, but with the lack of political maturity of British workers: “If Britain had been ready for Socialism, she would not have elected almost as many Conservatives as Labor and put the Government in an impossible position… When a country is ready for it, it will come.” The focus was electoral, but winning elections was insufficient, as was education. Rather, the picnickers proposed the creation of “a council of action [that] should put the emphasis not on speeches, but on action.” The relationship between venues of political action, the ballot box, and the street would challenge socialists through the decade.82 Plans for the new party came to fruition in February 1932, with a conference at Winchester Hall in Toronto “called to consider the

40

The Fate of Labour Socialism

formation of a Socialist Party.” It was “initiated” by the Earlscourt Labour Party and attended by delegates from half a dozen labour ­parties in and around Toronto, as well as the Socialist Labour Party and the Young People’s Socialist League. It was chaired by Thomas Cruden, another Earlscourter. There were indications of connections with American-based socialist groups, as the small Young People’s Socialist League was affiliated to the Socialist Party of America. But the real connection was elsewhere. The main guest speaker was Jennie Lee, a member of the British ILP and, until very recently, a member of the British House of Commons. There were two features that recommended her to the audience and through which they expressed their shared identity. First, Lee’s working-class credentials were highlighted. Her father was a miner and she “preferred that the delegates should understand that as her real background.” Second, she presented herself as belonging to “the extreme left.” Indeed, she no longer sat in Parliament, as the British Labour Party had refused to endorse her “because of her failure to sign the standing orders of the official party.” Her assessment of her task (and that of the new Socialist Party of Ontario) stands as a concise statement of the world view of the collected group: “She felt that the day of social reform was passed, and that the socialist movement must prepare the masses for the collapse of Capitalism, and make definite plans for the period of transition.” Like Lee, a broad current of socialists in Canada considered themselves revolutionaries rather than social reformists, in the sense that capitalism needed to be replaced “root and branch,” not merely tinkered with. As well, there was a sense of predestination. Capitalism was collapsing. In keeping with the One Big Union’s notions, this was a natural process: socialists needed to understand it, even if they could not precipitate it. They were not insurrectionists, but they needed to be prepared to act and “make definite plans,” in order to ensure the victory of socialism. It is worth noting that there is no particular suggestion in Lee’s speech as to whether the transition was to be primarily electoral or not. There is little to be gained by attempting to foretell how events would unfold. In reply to her comments, “Chairman Cruden … stated that the Socialist Party now being formed felt exactly the same way about these things as our British comrade.”83 There was no dissent among the delegates. From the podium, Cruden alluded to “influential leaders” of both the socialist and trade union sections of the Labour Party of Ontario, as well as the National Labour Party, who were undermining the movement



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towards unity.84 The need for a focused organization had been noted months earlier: David Goldstick had argued in the Labor Advocate that the socialist “need not set himself the task of building a large party able to win elections, on the contrary a compact group, but one thoroughly conscious of the demands which history will make upon it, will be infinitely more effective and meritorious than a numerically large group hesitating to reckon with its Socialism for fear of losing public favor.”85 As its future within the Ontario Labour Party and then the CCF will suggest, this group did not abandon the fight for a united front of unionists and socialists, but it thought it wise to ensure that the socialists themselves were a cohesive force. In the party’s own words, it rejected a “mushroom organization” and instead sought “the whole-hearted support of a consecrated few who know what Socialism is and intend to stay in the fight until it is won.”86 The new Socialist Party of Ontario became active very quickly. It elected delegates to the Labour Party of Ontario, which was about to meet in convention in Windsor. Interestingly, there was some concern that their presence at the convention would be opposed by Conner, the  secretary of the Labour Party of Toronto (and of Ontario). J.F. Thomson, a London, Ontario, labour political activist, worried that “owing to the situation in Toronto there is danger of very bitter con­ troversy.”87 These concerns quickly blew over and animosity was not a visible feature of the convention in Windsor. The Socialist Party put forward three resolutions, all of which were adopted: for non-­ contributory unemployment insurance; for the repeal of section 98 of the Criminal Code, with its broad definition of seditious libel; and an explicit call for “socialism in our time.” The first of these was passed despite the initial opposition of veteran Toronto labour figures John W. Buckley and James Simpson. None of this was enough to seriously damage the Labour Party of Ontario; all currents were represented on the newly elected executive.88 An initial public meeting of the Socialist Party featuring former leftwing British member of Parliament Oliver Baldwin (the son of the former Conservative prime minister Stanley Baldwin) was a financial failure; its loss of $300 was a significant setback for the group, which, based on membership figures from limited sources, probably numbered between one hundred and two hundred, with each paying three dollars per year in membership dues.89 Indeed, money was a serious handicap, given the fact that most members were unemployed. More­ over, the few members who had had cars had lost them by 1932, and

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The Fate of Labour Socialism

gas money was hard to come by.90 A rummage sale run mostly by women members would have added little to the coffers.91 But regular educational meetings, door-to-door canvassing, and, once summer came, street corner meetings, were more successful, despite police harassment. The East Toronto branch (one of five in and around Toronto, plus one in Hamilton) held its street meetings in York Township, where it encountered less police presence.92 Three candidates ran in municipal elections, “all of whom received a substantial increase over the vote polled by labor candidates in previous years.”93 A mass meeting on non-contributory unemployment insurance was planned.94 As well, an important recruit was gained in Elizabeth Morton, secretary of the National Labour Party.95 The commitment to building a unified socialist party implied only limited agreement on several issues. Although the details are unclear, there was a prolonged debate that continued for two weeks beyond the founding convention of the Socialist Party of Ontario over a “Statement of Principles” that had been produced by the U.S.-based Young People’s Socialist League. Following prolonged discussion, it failed by a vote of twenty-two to thirty.96 Similarly, the new party had difficulties feeling its way in relationships with the rest of the left and the labour movement. For unexplained reasons, the general membership voted to table a recommendation from both the York Township branch and a subcommittee of the party’s executive to cooperate with the West York Labour Party’s campaign to elect John W. Buckley in a provincial by-election. In the end, Buckley, who had been a leading figure in the old Indepen­ dent  Labour Party, placed a respectable third after the Conservative and Liberal.97 More divisive was the debate over the Socialist Party’s role in May Day events. An executive recommendation of “holding of May Day demonstrations under the auspices of the party” was defeated in favour of cooperating with the broader “United Front May Day Confer­ ence.”98 In response, Thomas Cruden and Bert Robinson, respectively the president and secretary of the Socialist Party, submitted their resignations, declaring that the vote betrayed a lack of interest in building an independent party. What followed was a small crisis, as fifteen different people, including Cruden, were nominated as secretary. At a subsequent meeting, the executive’s unanimous request that Cruden and Robinson return to their posts, given that the issue was one of tactics and not principle, was accepted. Interestingly, the event was chalked up to “an alleged antagonism toward the Earlscourt Group.”99 Shared



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perspectives on the new opportunities that arose in the next year served to cement the Socialist Party of Ontario and, most significantly, the party dedicated itself to unifying the political labour movement in Ontario and served as the focus of just such a renewed effort.

• A notable feature of the new Socialist Party of Ontario was that its horizon spread beyond the immediate region; not only did it look for co-thinkers across Canada, it also looked to London and New York for activist connections, intellectual insight, and political comradeship.100 In Canada, the labourist political tradition had produced only provincially based parties, and the trade unions in which many were active, while often strong regionally, provided few pan-Canadian links. For such activists, little existed beyond the level of the municipal trades and labour council. It is true that the Communists had a national ­organization, as had the Socialist Party of Canada and the Social Democratic Party before it, but local roots ran deep. Only a few militants in each organization (more in the Communist Party, certainly) operated at the national level. The desire to construct a national movement explains why Socialist Party of Ontario secretary Bert Robinson wrote to J.S. Woodsworth, who had considerable national presence due to his decade-long tenure in the House of Commons. Woodsworth particularly encouraged the socialists to focus on constructing the Labour Party of Ontario.101 It was with considerable excitement, then, that the Socialist Party of Ontario received a letter from Ernest E. Winch, the provincial secretary of the Independent Labour Party (Socialist) of British Columbia, proposing the establishment of a national organization. Winch spoke directly to the contradiction between Canadian socialists’ geographical weaknesses and the demands upon the movement. “It is so obviously illogical,” he noted, “that activities, fundamentally based upon class issues, should in the past – at least within the Dominion – have been carried on as if wholly of local, municipal or provincial scope. Few of us knew whether the others existed and certainly little of what each was doing.” Winch informed Robinson that his organization had decided to “undertake and assist in the formation” of a “Dominion-wide ‘Independent Labor Party of Canada’” and that such an organization would “endeavor to bring about unified activity by all organizations having a Marxian basis.”102

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In contrast to the dominant image of non-Communist socialism in the rest of Canada, the historiography acknowledges the strength of Marxism within the British Columbia movement. Explanations are rooted, in part, in the western exceptionalism thesis, now largely discredited, which sought to explain the apparently greater radicalism of B.C. workers in terms of frontier conditions.103 It is difficult to argue that such conditions continued to obtain in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly in the lower mainland and on Vancouver Island. Certainly, though, Marxism had developed strong roots in the B.C. political labour movement over the course of the previous decades. The same could be said, though, for other regions of the country. The significant difference is that an explicitly Marxist current had achieved significance within the B.C. movement, and its dominance into the 1930s had been ensured. A very similar current existed in Ontario in the Socialist Party of Ontario, but, despite the key role the party was to play in that province, the influence of the Marxists would prove more tenuous. A specific feature of the socialist movement in British Columbia is its direct roots to prewar socialist organizations. Despite considerable organizational disarray, and furious contests between the Communists, the OBU, and other socialists, organizational continuity was an important feature of the B.C. labour political movement. As Ben Isitt has noted, the founders of the British Columbia CCF were the central figures in the post–First World War labour revolt in that province: Victor Midgley, Bill Pritchard, Wallis Lefeaux, and Ernest Winch, among others.104 In particular, many of the militants of the old Socialist Party of Canada were active in the B.C. CCF, which briefly went by the name of Inde­ pendent Labour Party (Socialist). That organization was formed in late 1925, as the Independent Labour Party, by the regroupment of several labour parties and the remnants of the SPC. The class basis of the B.C. ILP was second nature to its proponents, who wanted to amalgamate “the various existing political labour groups in some organization that would appeal to the great mass of the workers.”105 Among its first acts was to buy the library of the old SPC and to affiliate to the Canadian Labour Party.106 In 1928, the young party left the CLP, citing the departure of many trade unions from that party, but the decision was far from unanimous, and some wished to reconsider it the following year.107 The precipitating event, it is worth noting, was a debate over campaigning in favour of voting rights for Asians in British Columbia. This was a point of principle for social­ ists, who sought to build class-based solidarity across racial lines. The



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Communist Party was steadfast on this issue, as were the socialist leaders of the ILP such as Wallis Lefeaux. But race had re-emerged as a divisive issue, particularly in the economically difficult 1920s, and many of the largest unions, along with the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, pulled out of the CLP because of its defence of Asian voting rights. The tensions inherent in attempting to maintain the alliance between socialists and the broader trade union movement were laid bare, and this debate was the occasion, as much as the cause, of its collapse. Interestingly, the ILP revisited the possibility of working with the Communists the following year, but there was limited interest in reengaging at that point.108 This is not to suggest any knee-jerk anti-­ communism among the ILP. The criticisms were more specific, that existing Communism fell short. The task, as already noted, was to reclaim the mantle of “communism” from the Communist Party.109 The ILP was most biting about what it considered the Communists’ empty militancy, which preached “class hate” rather than class struggle.110 For more reflective socialists, this debate no doubt carried a warning about the pressures of maintaining both broader trade union and electoral support, as reflected in the model of the British Labour Party. Although there was little in the way of an explicit balance sheet, and many non-Communist socialists were no doubt pleased to be done with a political alliance with a Communist Party that was quickly heading in a sectarian direction, the event did eventually seem to have an effect on the ILP. Slowly at first – the 1929 and 1930 conventions had few programmatic debates – the ILP reshaped itself as a more explicitly Marxist party with a well-educated individual membership base.111 Alliances with both the less radical trade union leadership and the Communists were each problematic in their own right; a three-way ­alliance had proved impossible. The 1931 convention issued a call to press for the creation of a federal ILP (no doubt, in part, because of recent election of B.C. ILP candidate Angus MacInnis as a member of Parliament) as well as a call to unify all organizations “having a Marxian basis” across the country.112 The party appended the “Socialist” tag in February 1932, and, having made successful contact with the Socialist Party of Ontario, the parties in both provinces adopted the moniker the Socialist Party of Canada by the end of that year. (It is worth noting that, despite the common name, there was no real national organization, and the Ontario party functioned entirely separately.) Interest­ ingly, Wallis Lefeaux noted that much of the hesitation about adopting a new name arose from a sentimental attachment to the British

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Independent Labour Party.113 The name change in British Columbia was a portent. As Ernest Winch explained, somewhat vaguely, they had “crossed the Rubicon… There are changes also taking place in tactics, all tending to clarify and stiffen the revolutionary position.” He added, though, that “this cannot be accomplished all at once but we are most decidedly on the way.”114 In fact, much of what was new was old. The B.C. party’s roots in the old prewar Socialist Party were readily apparent; its main theoretician, British-born Wallis Lefeaux, had been in the old SPC since 1905.115 The party’s rather short manifesto, adopted in 1932, was a barebones explanation of the Marxist labour theory of value and an explanation of the class struggle as being caused by the appropriation of the value of  workers’ production. As far as strategy, the document echoed the Socialist Party of Ontario: the system was heading towards a potentially terminal crisis. The B.C. manifesto more clearly ascribes this crisis to overproduction rooted in the law of value. At the same time, urgency was not reflected in a clear political strategy: “The workers must obtain control of the machinery of government and use it to support the introduction of socialism.” The implication is an electoral strategy, but there is no suggestion that it would be limited to action at the ballot box.116 In other publications, there was a willingness to recognize the limitations of the electoral system. Capitalists “control the whole works,” making “our so-called democracy a farce.” What this meant, though, was characteristically unclear: “No one knows how things will go. Canada is not Revolutionary France or Revolutionary Russia.” There is less “demarcation of class” than elsewhere, but it was getting sharper. At the same time, the “function of the party” was to find the “surest and safest” route to power.117 Electoral means were preferable, not because members held illusions about the ability of the capitalist state to be transformed, but because it made sense to try to use tactics that would avoid bloodshed. As Lefeaux made clear, they considered communist and socialist synonymous terms, and they had shared a central goal with the Communist Party – the common ownership of the means of production.118 Running in elections, then, was deemed to be an appropriate activity, but, as a commentator had argued before the name change, better a few  well-chosen candidates “than a full slate of office-seeking, vote-­ catching, weak-kneed parasites, who try to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds by advocating such specious theories as the ‘inevitability of gradualism.’… ‘Socialism, Here and Now’ must be the slogan



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of the I.L.P. and whatever means necessary to attain the goal must be used by the revolutionary working class whenever the time arrives for decisive action.”119 This combination of an electoral strategy and a sustained critique of electoralism reflected an objective problem: how to build a revolutionary party in a non-revolutionary context. The short answer was simply to get on with the job of creating socialists who would be immune to the dominant ideology. Implied in this was a criticism of the Communist Party, whose vanguardism, they believed, reflected a twentieth-century Blanquism (named for Louis-Auguste Blanqui, the French revolutionary conspirator). Such tactics were particularly ill-advised, given the vast military superiority of capital. “Why, today,” asked the B.C. Socialists, do they charge us with cowardice because we will not, without further ado, get down into the street where we are sure of our defeat in advance? Why are we so persistently importuned to play the role of cannon fodder? The time is passed for revolutions carried through by small minorities at the head of unconscious masses. When it gets to be a matter of the complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must participate, must understand what is at stake and why they are to act.120

Lefeaux in particular took pleasure in comparing Lenin’s practicality to the “ultra-left-wing” in Russia and beyond.121 Little good could come from threat or promises of violence. At the same time, violence was certainly possible, and capital was entirely to blame: “they have driven men and women and their children into hopeless destitution, and expected them to endure it quietly.” And the capitalist state was itself physically preparing for such a confrontation.122 Workers needed to know how to avoid this deadly trap. As in the prewar SPC, this strategy implied that the greatest energy went not into determining the appropriate response to “current issues,” or even to collective action, but to education. Little could be gained, socialists regularly warned, in creating a “mushroom party of ignoramuses” made up of “stomach rebels” instead of “head revolutionaries,” and so the first task was to ensure that all party members had a strong grasp of the Marxist basics.123 This was no marginal task. The party’s president (Lefeaux), vice-president (Robert Skinner), and secretarytreasurer (Ernest Winch) were elected as a committee to establish an “Educational Centre” with study classes “in Economics and other

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Educational subjects.”124 At their first meeting, the committee ordered twenty copies of the first volume of Capital for economics classes, which were led by Lefeaux every Thursday evening. Tuesday evenings were dedicated to Alexander M. Stephen’s classes called the “Materialistic Conception of History.”125 At least fifty students attended each series, and these classes would continue for several years, with their content being published in the party’s press.126 The model was followed elsewhere. A Prince Rupert Labour College was established, with courses in writing, public speaking, and “Orthodox and Marxian Economics (Advanced Course).”127 In addition to classes, within a year at least a thousand pamphlets were purchased and distributed, including 470 from the British ILP and 250 from the Socialist Party of Great Britain (an organization much less favoured by the B.C. group).128 As well, B.C. Socialist Party of Canada’s monthly paper, the British Columbia Clarion was soon selling over two thousand copies per issue.129 It offered a recurring primer in Marxism, declaring “that the acid test for all who profess the name of Socialist is their reaction to Marxian theory. Bour­ geois philosophy – Working Class philosophy? Capitalism or Social­ ism? A choice must be made between these viewpoints. No compromise is possible.”130 In January 1933, the annual convention of the B.C. Socialist Party of Canada revealed the extent to which the membership shared a common concern with an educated Marxist movement. No fewer than four branches submitted resolutions urging the party to establish structures to ensure that candidates – the public face of the party – be politically capable of their task. The preamble to the resolution from the Vancouver Centre branch, the party’s largest, captured this concern: “That any member of the Socialist Party, contesting for election any public office, must have the following qualifications: A thorough knowledge of the Class Struggle, Marxian Economics, Materialist Conception of History, and should be a capable speaker. The only function the candidate can perform in our capitalist form of society at present, whether contesting or elected, is educational.” A streamlined resolution, simply declaring that candidates would be examined for their “general knowledge of Marxian principles of Socialism” was passed by the convention.131 It would be easy to conclude from this focus that the B.C. Socialist Party of Canada was an isolated and inward-turned political sect. This would be quite wrong on three grounds. First, the party was emerging from the doldrums of the 1920s, growing rapidly and developing a presence throughout the province.132 Second, the party’s notion of



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education went far beyond the rote study of texts from a narrowly Marxist tradition. A two-week summer school, which had been held every August since 1923 at Summerland in the Okanagan Valley, reflected the broad autodidactic sentiment that can be seen among socialists and labourists across Canada. The 1925 school provides a case in point. Organized by long-time social activist Rose Henderson, it featured lectures on Thoreau, Gandhi, art and music, Irish literature, and the “Poets of Revolt,” as well as on evolution, psychiatry, the plight of farmers, and capital and labour since the war. Such a program was very much in keeping with an extensive history of working-class self-­ education that peaked during the 1919 labour revolt and was reinvigorated in the new radicalism of the 1930s.133 Third, party members were willing to engage with other forces and were keen to participate in broader movements, although all such participation brought challenges. They discussed and supported a range of issues, from birth control to the independence of India.134 Although the SPC, and the ILP before it, had its own history of activity on unemployment, including conferences that raised practical issues of relief, medical care, and the like, the broader unemployed movement was dominated by the Communist Party, which was particularly strong in Vancouver, leading some SPC branches to work with the Communists, while others acted independently.135 The party also faced a challenge attempting to combine anti-capitalist propaganda with slogans that could motivate a broader movement. Although they participated in the movement for non-contributory unemployment insurance, the Socialists felt compelled to add that “demands for ‘unemployed pay’ and ‘a living wage to all’ are simply begging petitions for hand-outs from those who through ownership of the means of production acquire the surplus wealth which the workers produce.”136 The task of socialists was to educate workers about the nature of the wage system, not provide means to perpetuate it. As well, an Anti-War Conference in the summer of 1932 apparently saw “resolutions passed and attacks made upon trade unions, socialists, and working-class political parties,” which led to a debate over whether the Socialists should continue to participate.137 The Depression, as well, prompted the emergence of other, nonworking-class organizations with which the socialists were willing to make common cause. The People’s Party emerged in 1931 out of the United Farmers of Canada, B.C. Section. The ILP (as it still was called at that point) welcomed the chance to work with farmers who had been

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hard hit by the economic crisis. “As long as the political activity of the farmers is socialistic,” read the motion adopted by the ILP convention, “all members of this Party are instructed to give it its whole hearted support.”138 That support, of course, would be open to interpretation. Although the goal of the People’s Party was to establish a “co-operative commonwealth” the program looked little like that of the socialists. Indeed, it eschewed any notion of class action and focused the party’s efforts on promoting a highly technocratic state, with power concentrated in a very small cabinet and a series of commissions and marketing boards.139 It soon emerged that the People’s Party was very much the instrument of a single individual, J.E. Armishaw, who eventually proved to be an anti-socialist, pro-monetary reform thorn in the side of the future CCF.140 Nonetheless, like its counterpart in Ontario, the B.C. Socialist Party of Canada proved quite willing, when the opportunity presented itself in 1932 and 1933, to build a movement far broader than its original constituency.

• Elsewhere in the country, there were other working-class-identified organizations that could be convinced that the time was ripe for much broader organization. The most significant of these was in Manitoba. The Manitoba Independent Labour Party, as the home base of future CCF leader James S. Woodsworth, is closely associated with the future Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. The image of the CCF is very much based on this fact, the alchemy of a labourist tradition associated with the ILP and the social gospel tradition personified by Woodsworth. And certainly the electoral successes of the Manitoba ILP in all three levels of government are important to an understanding of the evolution of this particular political formation. On closer inspection, though, the ILP cannot be reduced to a precocious social democratic party. Its roots were planted deeply in the labourist soil that, as Ross McCormack pointed out, was particularly rich in the prairie metropolis.141 The continuity could be seen in the social composition of the ILP. Very much in keeping with the labourist tradition described by Craig Heron, ILP adherents were (judging, at least, by the more identifiable elected members) consistently and overwhelmingly British in origin. Indeed, of the nineteen labour aldermen elected in Winnipeg during the interwar period, most came from Great Britain: 85 per cent in the 1920s and 70 per cent in the 1930s.142 These figures belie, to a great



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extent, the impression of Winnipeg as being locked in a Manichean battle between a bourgeois, British, conservative South End and a polyglot, immigrant, working-class North. The British character of the trade union movement and leadership of the general strike has, of course, been long recognized. The strongholds of the ILP were in the centre and west of the city, in industrial or railway neighbourhoods like Weston, Brooklands, St. James, Elmwood, Fort Rouge, and Transcona, and it was there that its main institutions existed, particularly the West End Labour Hall on Agnes Street. And, much more than the Communists, it was frustrated by the tendency of “our foreign-born citizens” desiring to be represented “through members of their own race.”143 Attempts were made to broaden the ILP’s appeal through collaboration with the Jewish Workingmen’s Circle and the publication of a Ukrainianlanguage periodical, both projects of the North Winnipeg ILP branch.144 The Manitoba ILP had deep roots in Winnipeg’s prewar labour and socialist past; among its leadership, many names would have been familiar before and after the Great War. This evolution, though, was indelibly marked by the Winnipeg General Strike. The June 1920 provincial election represented an electoral breakthrough for labour – eleven MLAs – and created the basis for a new political party. Several of the parties that ran in alliance in that election quickly disap­peared: the Dominion Labour Party, the Socialist Party of Canada, the Social Democratic Party, and a very small Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Labour Party. Interestingly, the election campaign, just a year after the general strike, focused on class more than organization. Election posters urged working-­class Winnipeg to “Vote for the boys in jail,”145 referring to those imprisoned as a consequence of the strike: William Ivens, John Queen, William Pritchard, R.J. Johns, R.B. Russell, and George Armstrong. Also on the slate was Fred Dixon, who had heroically won acquittal at his trial.146 A vote for labour candidates was a vote for justice and for a future defined by the working class.147 The years after the strike were acrimonious ones for Winnipeg labour. The old Dominion Labour Party had represented an organic connection between electoral activists and the trade unions. In the ensuing battle between the Trades and Labour Congress craft unions and the OBU, the Dominion Labour Party was a victim of the increasingly conservative stance of the former. The debate, which was explicitly over the meaning of the general strike, erupted in the municipal elections at the end of 1920. The new ILP, formed in November 1920 was based on individual membership, studiously attempting to avoid serious injury

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in the ongoing contest between the TLC and the OBU for the loyalty of Winnipeg’s workers. The ILP’s paper, the Weekly News, very consciously appealed to both currents in the labour movement. Under the title “For a Militant Labor Movement,” the paper ran a series proposing a general council of labour organizations as a way of responding to the cycle of depression and defeat.148 Despite any animosities, the electoral success of the ILP indicates that it had the electoral support of large numbers of workers who were deeply divided on the industrial front. The ILP was, like the Dominion Labour Party before it, a mixed bag. But, like the OBU, it very much carried the mantle of the general strike. Even the Communists acknowledged that the ILP was “born out of the bitter strike period of 1919,” though they argued that it had departed “from whatever class position it held.”149 Overall, the strike presumably had a radicalizing effect; it certainly cemented class identity, although that could take many forms. In fact, the ILP could appeal to socialists and to old-style labourists. For example, although he had rejected the ILP initially as too radical, A.W. Puttee, the mainstay of prewar labourist politics, former labour MP (with Liberal support), and the editor of the former labour paper the Voice, joined the ILP in 1925 and was treasurer of the North Winnipeg branch at the end of the 1920s.150 This broadening out of the ILP, though, did not detract from some of the characteristics it shared with the socialists in Ontario and Brit­ ish  Columbia. One was its vision of its own class-based mission. Other identities were subsumed to the centrality of class. Multi-ethnic Winnipeg voters, for instance, were congratulated for setting aside “national prejudices” in electing J.S.Woodsworth and A.A. Heaps to Parliament. Workers were urged not to “scab at the ballot box” by voting for the “bosses’ man,” a deed even worse than scabbing on the job. The political task was clearly one of replacing one class by another. Editorially, the ILP’s press explained the election in clear class terms: “The laws – made by the class in control – administered by the class in control – jail for all those who rob the banks from the outside, honors for those who rob it from the inside! The Military? Who ever heard of the soldiers sent to help the workers?”151 Many of the specific characteristics of the ILP derived from the fact that the Winnipeg left was particularly crowded, and the ILP had achieved dominance within the electoral movement. The Communist Party had a strong presence, especially in the North End. The ILP had little reason to enter into an electoral relationship with the Commu­ nist Party, given its own success, and a functioning Canadian Labour



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Party therefore never emerged. This did not stop the Communists from using the CLP label to run a candidate against ILP incumbent MP A.A. Heaps, an action that reflected the acrimonious relations between the CPC and the ILP in Winnipeg. By the mid-1920s, the Manitoba ILP had gone its own way, separately from the Communists and the trade union leadership. The One Big Union was, in many ways, a more natural ally for the ILP. And, indeed, OBU leader R.B. Russell ran for the ILP in the 1927 provincial election, although electoral politics held little appeal for the OBU.152 As Russell had told an ILP audience following his return from a trip to Britain, electoral victories on their own were insufficient. If the British Labour Party were to win the election, it would still have to administer capitalism and would consequently disappoint and demobilize its working-class supporters.153 One Big Union Bulletin editor and “orthodox Marxian” Charles Lestor urged the creation of “a strong working class political party with the abolition of the wages system as its main plank.” While a questionable electoral strategy, Lestor pointed to the successes of socialists in Alberta and elsewhere in using the opportunity of an election to educate the working class on the nature of the capitalist wage system.154 As the OBU was fond of stressing, “the social revolution was a necessity, but it had first to take place in the heads of the workers.”155 Ontario and British Columbia socialists would not have disagreed. Lestor, along with old Socialist Party of Canada stalwarts Helen Armstrong and George Armstrong (the latter had been elected to the Manitoba legislature for one term in 1920), formed the new Winnipeg-based Socialist Party of Canada, although that tiny ­entity would remain aloof from the movement towards national regroupment undertaken by other organizations on the left and quite insignificant compared to the ILP. Like the new Socialist Party of Canada in Ontario and British Columbia (and the old national party as well), the Manitoba ILP did not entirely disagree that the revolution had first to take place in the minds of workers. When an “active member of the ILP” stood up at an OBU forum in late 1930 and declared, in agreement with the speakers, that “the only answer is education,” he was advocating a truism.156 Per­ haps more interesting is the fact was that he was an active participant in the OBU’s educational meeting, and that R.B. Russell himself made the same point some years later as an invited speaker at an ILP labour forum.157 This speaks both to the positive relationship, for the most part, between the two organizations and the intense educational and

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cultural world of Winnipeg workers in the period. This relationship existed despite the fact that the OBU considered the ILP an irredeemably reformist, as opposed to a revolutionary, organization. Certainly the relationship between the OBU and the ILP was better than that between the OBU and the Communists, particularly as those two organizations would jeer at each other in Winnipeg’s Market Square and, at least on one occasion, Communist “thugs” attacked the OBU speaker.158 In fact, the OBU considered both the Communist Party and the ILP to be reformist, “but it was shown that the Communists were far worse than the Labor Party.”159 The Communists combined revolutionary rhetoric with “a reform political program that any liberal reform party could embrace without losing either votes or prestige.”160 Like its socialist colleagues in British Columbia and Ontario, the OBU used the term revolution to refer to the full transformation of society, the replacement of capitalism by socialism. In its own words, the OBU “stood for the complete abolition of the wages system and aimed at the conquest of power with the idea of taking possession of those things necessary to the production and establishment of the co-operative commonwealth.”161 It is worth noting that, for the OBU, like other socialists of the time who considered themselves revolutionaries, no distinction was drawn between the “co-operative commonwealth” and socialism. The OBU, like other socialist organizations, was frustrated by the equation drawn between revolution and violence, a connection encouraged by the “ill-informed” Communists. They pointed out that Marx considered the possibility of electoral change. Violence was a real possibility, but it was a product of the impending collapse of capitalism and something to be avoided, if at all possible, by educated workingclass action.162 The ILP and, as Peter Campbell points out, a somewhat resurgent OBU worked together at times in the early years of the Depression.163 In early 1932, in response to cuts in wages and mothers’ allowance payments, the ILP organized a collective protest that included the OBU, along with the Women’s Labour Group, the Unemployed Conference, and the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees.164 Moreover, the One Big Union Bulletin commented favourably on the Brandon ILP’s work on “unemployment problems.”165 For its part, the OBU avoided personalizing political differences. Even in relation to class opponents, it argued that there was no use blaming unemployment on the capitalist, who was just seeking profits in the same way the worker sought wages. Rather, the system was to blame.166 It was not surprising, then,



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that the OBU’s political criticisms of working-class opponents were similarly respectful, if sometimes humorous. One comment at an OBU forum was that the Winnipeg ILP had seven members on city council, three in the provincial legislature, and two in the House of Commons, yet “all they had accomplished was to emancipate those elected representatives.”167 More generally, the One Big Union Bulletin spoke highly of the personal qualities of Woodsworth and Heaps, but felt compelled to add that, “there is something wrong with a policy … that fails to arouse the workers or to bring anything to them in the way of a gain from a class standpoint.”168 Much in the tradition of labour socialism, the OBU poured considerable effort into education, carried out through the Bulletin as well as talks at the Plebs Hall, which the ILP press acknowledged were “usually well attended.”169 The hall’s decor, which included photographs of Debs, Lenin, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and Trotsky, was no doubt indicative of the broad Marxist politics of debate.170 Wider audiences were found Sunday evenings in Market Square, where crowds of a thousand attended the open-air OBU forums. Such events provide but a small window on the broader world of the radical working-class search for entertainment and enlightenment, which often went hand in hand. All left-wing organizations seemed to attract audiences of a reasonable size when propagating their own messages, and audiences also attended independent events. One of the most important speakers in Winnipeg was Marshall Gauvin. He had originally been brought to Winnipeg by the OBU in 1926; by 1940, he had given an estimated 560 lectures in the city.171 Both unions and ILP notables contributed financially to the lecture series.172 Sunday afternoons or evenings, he attracted crowds often topping a thousand to the big theatres in downtown Winnipeg, the Metropolitan, the Garrick, and the Dominion. He is best remembered as an outstanding critic of religion, becoming one of North America’s best-known ­rationalists of the mid-twentieth century. James Gray described him as “Canada’s Anti-Christ” in the Canadian Forum.173 The astounding popularity of Gauvin’s denunciations of religion provides an insight into both the centrality of religion in the period and also the willingness of audiences to hear it effectively denounced. Gray describes the theatrical debates between Gauvin and defenders of fundamentalist Christian­ ity, including one event in 1929 that filled two theatres. As significantly, although we may take issue with the precise characterization, Gray argued that Gauvin was “the outstanding protagonist of small ‘l’

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liberalism in Canada” in the mid-1930s.174 Although expertly self-taught in issues of theology and more, Gauvin was no Marxist, as Lestor pointed out to Gauvin when rejecting one of his submissions to the One Big Union Bulletin.175 But the subjects of Gauvin’s talks suggest that Winnipeg’s workers were interested in topics both broad and sophisticated. He enthralled his audience with talks on dozens of subjects, including the death penalty, the Ku Klux Klan, the League of Nations, Thomas Paine, William Shakespeare, and economic planning. Although he did not seem to explicitly use the term, one of his favourite topics was “fordism,” an explanation of the nature and the potential of the highwage, highly efficient, mass production economy that could allow capitalism to prosper.176 For a great number of Winnipeggers, the focus of autodidactic working-­ class counterculture was the Independent Labour Party. Winnipeg was most famously the home of the Labour Church movement, which was closely associated with the general strike. The origins of this movement were, in part, in the labour or people’s forums that proliferated in Canada in the decade before the war and that were ubiquitous in the British, working-class, ethical socialist culture out of which so many Canadian labourites and socialists emerged.177 William Ivens, the prime mover of the Labour Church movement, was also, by the mid-1920s, both an ILP MLA and an organizer of the ILP.178 At its peak, the Labour Church met in several venues around Winnipeg and expanded into other parts of the country. Yet, by the mid-1920s, it had “dwindle[d] out of existence.”179 Richard Allen suggests that the movement faded in the absence of “a large, self-conscious working class,” but just the opposite seems to have been true.180 Allen argues that the Labour Church was the “last formal religious expression” of the most labour-oriented leaders of the social gospel movement before they turned towards more explicitly political activity.181 In fact, what had taken place within the Labour Church continued almost unchanged within other venues. R.B. Russell observed that the views of free thinkers such as Marshall Gauvin (himself, a regular speaker at the Labour Church) became increasingly prominent.182 Their transformation into ILP events was seamless. Vera Fast notes that “the Independent Labor Party advertised lecture forums were almost identical in format and content to those of the Labour Church, often with the same speakers in the same locations.”183 Among these, the ILP West End Labour Forum on Agnes Street, held every Sunday morning, year in and year out, dealt with a vast range of topics. Local neighbourhood branches



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followed suit. At the same time, an adult education class was organized in conjunction with the University of Manitoba, and the loosely affiliated Women’s Labour Federation was extraordinarily active in social and education functions. A typical issue of the ILP’s Weekly News in January 1927, even as the Labour Church was apparently in sharp decline, speaks to this ongoing culture. The paper reported that, in the previous week, 1,400 people had attended Marshall Gauvin’s talk entitled “Is There a Real God?” As well, Professor Kirkconnel of Winnipeg’s Wesley College spoke to the ILP forum in Fort Rouge on “The End of the Middle Ages.” With the aid of lantern slides of architectural designs of the period, he spoke about the expansion of art and learning in the face of poverty and superstition. Elsewhere, William Ivens spoke on the situation in China, supporting the role of the Communists in joining with the Guomindang in opposing imperialism. The following week, it was announced, R.B. Russell was slated to speak on his recent meetings with labour figures in Britain, Emma Goldman would be appearing to speak about Europe, and Agnes Macphail would be speaking twice, once under the auspices of the ILP and again for the United Farmers of Manitoba and the peace study group. At the same time, E. Hayakawa, a young Japanese student, was slated to speak to the West End ILP on the economic situation in Japan. To add to all of this, the ILP had already begun educational radio broadcasts in Winnipeg and Brandon.184 As well, many events were not announced or reported in the ILP press. The Communist Party and organizations close to it would have sponsored events in English and other languages. All of this was during the “lean years,” the apparent doldrums in the working-class movement between the upsurges of 1919 and the 1930s. To these lectures and debates could be added more explicitly social or cultural events and groups. These may have paled beside the workers’ cultural movements associated with European working-class parties, but they were, nonetheless, not insignificant. Some were clearly didactic in purpose, such as the ILP dramatic society, the “progressive players” which explicitly copied the British ILP’s model and seemed to specialize in anti-war plays.185 ILP social events included both speakers and music, and the occasional film. These were often small, but over 3,000 attended a Winnipeg ILP “Cabaret, Dance and Get-together” in 1932.186 Picnics were at times on a similar scale.187 ILP forays into athletics, however, couldn’t match the OBU’s Amateur Athletic Association, which included boxing and wrestling every Friday and a huge sports

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day held every August in Gimli, although the ILP did inaugurate an annual field day in the mid-1930s.188 Charlie Biesick remembered nightly meetings of forums, debating clubs, and study groups, all of which deepened participants’ critical understanding of the present and fuelled the potential of the future: “We would have far-ranging debates about how life could be organized differently so that it would be more interesting and livable. We often discussed the idea of having communal kitchens or dining halls where people could come to eat regularly. This would free women from being enslaved to the kitchen.”189 In its own way, then, education was as important to the Manitoba ILP as it was to the OBU and the socialists of Ontario and British Columbia. Editorially, in the Weekly News, S.J. Farmer explained the connection between labour’s fight for a “new social order,” where the producers “co-operatively own and control the natural resources of the country and the machinery of production and exchange” and the dense network facilitating workers’ self-education. Education not only built class consciousness, but it also helped to unify the movement and enable it to determine the most appropriate strategy to build socialism. More open to gradualism, the ILP was less sanguine about the likelihood of such transformation in the short term than were what Farmer termed the “Socialism in Our Time” folks. In an accompanying editorial, he pointed to the recent title match between boxers Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney as evidence that we “might do well to take a little breathing space and reflect upon the famous encounter in Philadelphia last week in which two finely developed human animals slugged one another for the space of an hour or so.”190 It was hard not to despair of the state of human evolution, but the solution for the ILP, in the tradition of pre-Bolshevik socialism generally, was social change undertaken by a self-educated working class. The Weekly News, along with the array of socialist newspapers across the country and other educational forums of all sorts, was an integral part of the self-education process. Just as the One Big Union Bulletin both criticized Woodsworth and printed his regular report from Ottawa, the Weekly News was remarkably open in its editorial policy, reflecting in part some of the diversity to be found in the ILP itself and the dichotomy between its educational and electoral roles. The Manitoba ILP is probably best remembered for its electoral success, electing members municipally, provincially, and federally. Not surprisingly, much of the paper’s reportage, and many ILP forums, saw MLAs or aldermen discussing often mundane issues of public policy. Material on the ILP in



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the Weekly News (and its successor, the Manitoba Commonwealth) focused overwhelmingly on the minutiae of civic and provincial governance; its tenor was reflected in the title of the regular city hall column, “As the Clock Ticks.” Despite the ILP’s near majority on city council, and John Queen’s two terms as mayor, the ILP proved unimaginative at city hall, focusing almost entirely on issues of working conditions for municipal employees and arguing for the expansion of municipal ownership.191 This approach reflected both the limited political capacity and finances of municipal governments, but also the ILP’s inability to address broad economic realities. For instance, in late 1931, as the Depres­ sion was deepening, the Weekly News editorialized that “there was no sharp issues [sic] before the electors… Unemployment has been the overshadowing problem at the City Hall. To solve such a deep-rooted disorder was utterly beyond the power of the City Council.”192 The impression of the ILP as an ineffective, as, at best, a “gas and water socialist” organization, is not entirely wrong. In Vancouver, the B.C. ILP was not very different. In the same month as it was adding the “Socialist” moniker to its name, the B.C. ILP put forward a municipal platform that focused on efficiency and improvement of conditions for civic workers. The platform was prefaced with the statement that, in “putting forward our candidates for municipal offices we realize the limitations of these offices and do not wish to convey the impression that we think we can revolutionize economic conditions through municipal activity.” Elsewhere, in the same publication, the ILP appealed for “a militant, revolutionary party, taking part in everyday struggles of the workers.”193 Even a more explicitly revolutionary Marxist party had trouble imagining how to make this link. To them, the state was the national state; city-based electoral politics fit uncomfortably into their agenda for socialism. The presence, at the top levels of the Manitoba ILP, of a considerable number of long-term incumbents of the legislature and city hall certainly blunted the organization’s militancy. Certainly the ILP’s self-perception was not entirely constrained by its electoral role, particularly at the municipal level. The transition to socialism meant more than just elections, and the ILP suggested that if “you are afraid your piano or car might be scratched in the change from capitalism to socialism,” the ILP was not for you, although with no further elaboration.194 Whatever reforms were won, though, were seen as steps towards a qualitatively different society. To cite William Ivens, “there was no half-way house between capitalism and socialism.” Con­ tinuing, he pointed out that the ILP provincial caucus fought for

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pensions, the eight-hour day, and public ownership, but these were “only steps toward the goal, but that goal was a clear demand for the ending of the competitive system.”195 Historian Brian McKillop, assessing the “ethos of political Winnipeg”between the wars, and commenting on the election that resulted in an ILP mayor and labour majority on city council concludes: “At the time of the 1919 General Strike the community had divided; now … the community was once again split. But where the division of 1919 had largely been that of ‘Capital’ against ‘Labour,’ the bifurcation of 1933 was in fact of larger dimensions. It represented not a division of classes but a difference in fundamental conceptions on the way a humane and free society should be run.”196 ILPers would differ with McKillop only to the extent that they saw the division of classes as intrinsic to their perceptions of contemporary and ­future societies. To cite the preamble to their Winnipeg civic election platform, “the Independent Labor Party seeks the working-class control of municipal government as a necessary part of the national and ­international struggle of the working classes for the attainment of Socialism.”197 Socialists across the country would not have dissented from this aim. Manitoba ILPers were, in their own minds, revolutionary socialists in the same sense as their B.C. and Ontario comrades. The educational programs of the Manitoba party, which were so central to this aim, offered a wide view of social and cultural issues and raised many questions, including with regard to socialist theory. Titles included the “Essence of the Marxist Theory of Crisis” and “Merchant, Industrial, and Financial Capital,” and even future ILP mayor John Queen spoke on the labour theory of value.198 And, like its labour-­ socialist counterparts across the country, its political vision reflected that of its leftward-travelling British counterparts; the Weekly News regularly reported on the British labour movement and increasingly reprinted articles from the British Independent Labour Party.199 By the end of the 1920s, the identification with the British ILP was becoming stronger; the Weekly News pointed out that the Manitoba ILP and the British ILP were both socialist parties (no similar claim was made for the British Labour Party).200 Editorially, the paper argued that it was entirely appropriate for H.N. Brailsford and the British ILP to criticize the Labour government on a range of issues, from its support for German reparations to its refusal to allow Trotsky into England and from its non-support of striking workers to its refusal to increase the school-leaving age. As labour organizations are “a means to an end,”



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and not the end themselves, they must be judged on their contribution towards a new social order, the paper argued.201 When the Labour government of Ramsay MacDonald collapsed in 1931, the assessment of the Weekly News was stark: “The real problem with the MacDonald Government is that it had failed to do anything really radical.” The unemployment crisis called for action; better to face defeat than demonstrate inaction.202 On another occasion, the paper specifically criticized the British Labour Party’s policy of “gradualness,” reflecting a highly critical view held by Canadian labour socialists generally.203 The regular contributions of British ILPers Fenner Brockway and Brailsford in the Weekly News echoed the paper’s sentiments when they denounced MacDonald and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden, as traitors to the workers’ cause.204 Such criticism could be viewed with irony, given the failure of ILP politicians to propose “anything really radical,” yet it speaks to the party’s identity as socialist and the feeling that workers’ elected representatives in Canada were constrained by their minority status, particularly in the provincial and federal houses. With sufficient representatives, they would act differently. It should be noted that the OBU did not share this infatuation with the British ILP, identifying more with the smaller and more isolated Socialist Party of Great Britain. However, the OBU did acknowledge that some British ILPers recognized the Labour Party’s role in preserving capitalism.205 In Canada, too, members of the OBU drew a line between the “reformist,” and those who supported the socialist cause. They felt themselves resolutely in the latter camp.

• It would not be difficult to find specific political differences between these groups of socialists. What is significant, though, is what they had in common. While individual members had their own histories, they collectively shared a lineage tracing back to prewar socialism and, beyond that, to the experience of the British labour and socialist movements. This background produced a common set of reference points and a common language. In a broad autodidactic culture, references to European history and its artistic and revolutionary moments, to champions of liberty from Tom Paine to Robbie Burns, to parliamentary figures from William Gladstone to Keir Hardie, to thinkers from Karl Marx to Herbert Spencer, were ubiquitous. Attitudes towards religion varied

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but, with a common Protestant heritage and awareness, all were familiar with Biblical references, the social gospel, and critiques of organized religion and debated them openly. Even the Manitoba ILP, with more than its share of alumni from Wesley College, with its Methodist affiliation, in its leadership, defended “blasphemy”: “the church has been traditionally so blind and deaf to the aspirations of the great mass of the workers that a fierce flame of resentment has been kindled in their minds against it. And they have deserted it.”206 To be sure, there were debates, but they were conducted within the context of a common culture. Socialists also shared common reference points to recent political history. The explosion of 1919 was loudest in Winnipeg but, as recent historians have recognized, it was part of a nationwide barrage.207 Although the intensity of the stuggle varied according to the specific characters and histories of different locales, the failure of working-class aspirations resulted in broad debates and arguments in the labour and socialist movements, and these debates transcended locality. The defeat of the general strike strategy, along with the unpropitious conditions caused by unemployment and a climate of reaction, led to a focus on electoralism, with some small but highly localized successes. In several provinces, the vehicle of this movement was the Canadian Labour Party, which was formed in the course of the First World War, and promised to reunify a fractured labour movement, bringing together the trade unions and a range of labour political currents. Although a defeat, 1919 had not shattered the hopes for a workingclass future, a future in which the dominant class in society would somehow be displaced and a more just social order established. These hopes had also been fed by the Russian Revolution, in which monarchy and capitalism had, indeed, been overthrown. There were debates about how applicable the Russian model was in Canada and, for a variety of reasons, many socialists did not throw their lot in with the newly founded Communist Party of Canada (CPC) and the Communist International. But the presence of the Soviet Union and the CPC had several effects on Canadian socialists, some of which would become apparent by the mid-1930s. Through the 1920s and beyond, workers, including those outside the Communist Party, could feel that they were living in a revolutionary age, and they watched the Soviet experiment closely. The party itself, with its centralized apparatus and program, presented a challenge to the rest of the left, placing many issues of policy and organization on the agenda of the labour movement generally.



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During the “united front” years of the early 1920s, large numbers of Communists and non-Communists alike participated in the Canadian Labour Party. Ultimately, that party would prove unsuccessful, as, by the late 1920s, neither the Communists nor the trade union leadership were particularly interested in maintaining the alliance. Although the specific narratives varied from place to place, by the eve of the Great Depression there existed a current of self-identified working-class socialists who had determined to build specifically socialist organizations, independent of the organized trade unions and the Communists. While their political practice varied, they considered themselves revolutionary socialists, in the sense that they understood the aim of socialism as being a specifically non-capitalist society led by the working class. This aim was expressed in a common, albeit sometimes sophisticated and other times rough, Marxist language. How socialism would be achieved was rarely debated; instead, the ­focus was educational, combined with immediate campaigns that focused on building a political organization and participating in elections. In these campaigns, there was a considerable programmatic uniformity. For i­nstance, despite the tendency to equate the demand for “non-­contributory” unemployment insurance with the Commu­ nists, all socialist parties supported such a measure.208 Depending on specific local histories, their message may have resonated loudly or appealed to only a few. In some localities, they won elections; in others, they appeared marginalized, at least by this measure. In the three regions we have examined so far – Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia – they either had a significant impact electorally or, at least, had the ear of a large group of socially active workers. In 1932 and 1933, another feature of commonality became apparent, at least for most of the socialists examined here. Although some appeared to talk in the old Socialist Party of Canada “impossiblist” tongue, stressing programmatic allegiance to Marxism and ignoring the “dayto-day” struggle, these socialists were cognizant of new opportunities for socialist organizing and for building a mass movement. Equally, their rejection of “reformism,” in favour of revolution did not preclude their participation in campaigns for immediate goals. This was already apparent in Manitoba, where ILP practice and theory seemed on oddly divergent roads. Long active in all three levels of government, and pushing for the meagre concessions that seemed possible in this period of reaction, the Manitoba ILP, like the B.C. and Ontario socialists,

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drew the same conclusion from the collapse of the Ramsay MacDonald Labour government in the United Kingdom. Trying to manage capitalism through a period of profound crisis does not work. Piecemeal reform, masquerading as socialism, only misleads workers and achieves nothing of permanence. “Radicalism,” sometimes very vaguely defined, was the answer. Significantly, the socialists in all three provinces were drawn to the British Independent Labour Party as it tried to navigate a course separate from both the British Labour Party and the Communists. Yet staying the course would prove its own challenge, both in Canada and Britain. In Canada, two huge tasks confronted the small phalanx of socialists: education and organization. Their goal was to build an effective political movement based on an understanding of and commitment to socialist principles. The approach could vary from place to place; for example, the level of understanding of working-class politics demanded of new members varied by locale and would continue to be an issue in the years that followed. At the same time, all agreed on the necessity of the broad, ongoing education of members and of workers generally. The demand for a dedicated and educated membership could easily have been a recipe for dogmatism and isolation, but socialists were wary of this trend. The other commonality among most of these socialists would soon become apparent: when the opportunity came to build a new political organization – one that would include a considerable membership from outside of the working-class socialist current that they had built and protected so carefully – they were willing to participate. They recognized that social change required just such a mass movement. It was among these organizations, and like-minded ones in other provinces, that the idea of what would emerge as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation would take shape. They would approach the project with a combination of enthusiasm and trepidation. It would represent, on one hand, a reflection of the ways in which the ideas and aims of working-class socialists had broken out of the milieu that had incubated and sustained them. Socialism promised to become a mass movement. On the other hand, though, it meant welcoming into the fold large numbers of individuals who lacked working-class socialist credentials. More than that, it meant opening the movement to those they considered non-workers, in both a sociological and political sense. The experience of wage labour was crucial, they felt, to the creation of



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a socialist vision. They held an essentialist view that workers, freed from the ideological influence of capital, were naturally socialists – although they recognized the necessity of education in focusing this sentiment. Those outside the working class potentially brought alien class identities, and politics, into the socialist movement. Socialists felt that in any broader movement they would have to be on the lookout for alien class politics. The creation of the CCF could provide the occasion for the victory, or the defeat, of working-class socialists. The moment was opportune, but the stakes were enormous.

Chapter Two

The Road to Regina

Various streams converged in the creation of the Co-operative Com­ monwealth Federation in Calgary in 1932 and at the 1933 convention that produced the central programmatic statement of the CCF, the Regina Manifesto. The importance, particularly somewhat after the fact, of the Regina Manifesto, the central icon of “CCF socialism,” has tended to focus attention away from the core founders – the early mainstream – of the CCF and direct it towards others. Much has been written on the manifesto’s authors, academics associated with the recently formed League for Social Reconstruction (LSR). As well, much impetus came from the small group of labour members of Parliament and the Ginger Group of Progressive MPs who were increasingly interested in a national organization. According to McNaught’s biography of J.S. Woodsworth, which, naturally, focuses on Woodsworth’s role in the creation of the CCF, “a specific point of origin can really be established” for the new movement: a forty-minute meeting of these parliamentarians and some LSR members in William Irvine’s office in Ottawa.1 The impression is created that the CCF was created from above, by federal politicians and by academics. Even the League for Social Reconstruction did not quite make this claim. “It is worth emphasizing,” noted the LSR, “that it was the farmers and workers themselves, not some group of ‘academic theorists’ from outside, who created the new movement, gave it its name and form – a federation of autonomous farmer and labour organizations – and its first program, of which later programs were simply detailed expansions.”2 Even the role of the farmer organizations has to be queried. While this is not the place to examine closely the farmer affiliates



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to the CCF, it has to be noted that, over the course of the 1930s, this was, with the notable exception of Saskatchewan, a relatively unsuccessful alliance. The political and cultural conflicts between the labour and farmer groups will be explored below, mostly for what they tell us about the character of the former. Certainly the working-class organizations that gave birth to the CCF felt that they constituted its core, in two senses. First, the CCF was very much the linear descendant of the labourist and socialist tradition that was explored in chapter 1. Second, they saw socialism as a specifically working-class ideology; among those who spoke in a more Marxist vernacular, it was a “proletarian science.” This essentialist connection between class and ideology was a defining feature of interwar socialism. Inside and outside of the CCF, socialists would fight to preserve this connection from what they considered to be alien class influences that would see it replaced by various forms of liberalism masquerading as socialism. The dislocation of capitalism during the Great Depression led all sorts of people to search for alternatives. Socialism was but one, but it offered hope and security to a growing and diverse audience. As Calgary CCFer Fred White, who had sat as an elected representative of labour since 1918 on both city council and in the Alberta Legislature, noted, “in the thirties, lots of people were made socialists without too much of a fundamental basis for it.”3 The absent “basis” was both membership in a social class – labour – that had the power to understand and change society, and a knowledge of the history of socialist movements. Working-class socialists had long been suspicious of social movements rooted in other classes. An important example of this was feminism: such supicions explain why socialist organizations played, for the most part, only a marginal role in the “first wave” of the women’s movement in Canada. The deep sentiment among working-class organizations that they embodied the natural source and repository of socialist ideology could have resulted in political isolation from other developing social movements. During the 1930s, various groups of people from a variety of class origins debated the nature of the crisis and set out to organize themselves. Remarkably, given their class essentialism, working-class socialists tended to see this broader radicalization, with all of its weaknesses, as an opportunity to build something much more effective than any previous socialist party. At the same time, they would measure their steps carefully, feeling that they were uniquely qualified to provide this

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movement with its ideology and strategic direction. Otherwise, a watered down or bogus “socialism” would swamp the working-class movement and wreck any real prospect of qualitative change.

• The main stations directly on the road to Regina were the annual conferences of western labour parties. These began in 1929 at the instigation of the provincial board of the Manitoba Independent Labour Party (ILP) and were specifically intended for elected labour representatives, of whom they estimated there were over sixty, not including “public representatives in the small towns who hold office and who are labor in principles but did not run on a labor ticket.” The goal was to unite the parties in the four western provinces, as the first stage towards creating a national organization. Although the call specifically mentioned both the ILPs and the Canadian Labour Party, it explicitly commented that the Manitoba ILP preferred a labour party based on individual membership rather than one “built up of affiliations.”4 The parties met in Regina in 1929, in Medicine Hat in 1930, and in Winnipeg in 1931. At the Winnipeg meeting, more definite plans for a national organization were put into place. As well, the process for political alliance with the farmers was addressed. Representatives from the United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM) were present, but not very enthusiastic about the idea of such an alliance. Their position contrasted with a push for unity coming from Saskatchewan, where farmer-labour unity was more advanced and would result, within the year, in the formation of the Farmer-Labour Party in that province.5 Certainly, in that case, the Manitoban ILPers felt that a major section of farmers had been won over to labour’s way of thinking: they noted that, in a speech, the president of the Saskatchewan section of the United Farmers of Canada, A.J. MacAuley, sounded “as if a radical Labor man were setting forth the aims and ideals of the workers.” His speech was in tune with the main “resolutions galore” that were offered “to the effect that capitalism must go and socialism be established.” In the case of the Albertans, Fred White insisted that the Alberta farmers that were attracted to the CCF in 1932 possessed a working-class consciousness: “almost without exception you found these people who were active in the farmers movement had been ex industrial workers.”6 Greetings were read from the Labour Party of Ontario and plans put in place to invite eastern



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labour parties, specifically from Ontario and Montreal, to take part in the process of creating a movement for a cooperative commonwealth.7 It was this movement, led by the working class, that the politicians and academics who met in William Irvine’s Ottawa office identified and sought to encourage. This support provided extra steam for a fourth conference, held in the Calgary Labour Temple in 1932, and the formal establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. At its core were the labour parties from the three prairie provinces, plus the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) from British Columbia; they were joined by the United Farmers of Canada, Saskatchewan Section, and the United Farmers of Alberta (and specifically the Ginger Group). Woodsworth moved that representatives of the League for Social Reconstruction be allowed to sit in, without voting rights. Aaron Mosher represented the All-Canadian Congress of Labour (ACCL), the “alternative” labour federation to the Trades and Labour Congress (TLC). There were various orders of business, not the least of which was choosing a new name for the organization. Much has been made of the choice of “Co-operative Commonwealth Federation” over “Socialist Party of Canada” or Queen’s idea of a “United Socialist Federation,” although the terms were quite interchangeable to those discussing them. Rarely noted were two other proposals, the “National Workers’ Political Federation” and the “United Workers’ Commonwealth.” In the minds of some among this small gathering, despite the alliance with farmers and others, a socialist organization was, by definition, essentially a workers’ movement.8 But the new organization was, formally, a federation, as was reflected in its full, official moniker: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labor-Socialist).9 As quickly became clear, the CCF could exist only because it was a federation. Because component organizations did not have to relinquish their autonomy, the federation had a kind of dual role. It was, itself, a political party, of sorts. At the same time, it was a venue in which political parties operated, trying to influence it; if that failed, they might leave and build their own organizations. For some, the connection was quite tentative. This was particularly true for farmers’ organizations. The United Farmers of Manitoba were firmly on the margins. The UFM did not attend the Calgary conference. When prompted, it applied to affiliate, but “not for political purposes.” This puzzling response suggests that the UFM was willing to take part in CCF educational activities and the like, but was not willing to

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participate in its electoral campaigns. The national council of the CCF effectively rejected these terms.10 The United Farmers of Alberta and of Ontario each affiliated, but the latter, as we shall see, left fairly quickly, and the former later in the decade. For labour and socialist organizations, support for the CCF was often provisional as well. This was particularly true, at the outset, for the SPC in British Columbia. As Ernest Winch explained, “the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation may amount to something,” but the real issue was building the Socialist Party itself and developing its “revolutionary line of tactics.”11 In October, the B.C. SPC voted 325 to 51 to affiliate to the CCF. Many branches voted unanimously, although the Vancouver Centre branch was evenly split on the issue.12 Explaining the strong opposition to affiliation in some quarters, Winch was straightforward about his own qualified support. Pointing to elements in the CCF whose understanding of socialism was close to non-­existent, he commented: “Strange bed-fellows for Socialists ’tis true and methinks unless the former elements change very radically the C.C.F. will be short-lived or, if it continues to exist, it will become a mere officeseeking, vote-catching, reformist group of use neither to God or man – (or at least not to those seeking emancipation from capitalist exploitation). We recognize there are some splendid members within it and it is our hope and intention to work with these to mold the organization into a straight revolutionary socialist movement.”13 The potential for future disputes was apparent, not just with non-labour members of the CCF, but also with the likes of the Manitoba ILP and even within the B.C. SPC. Exploring the complex origins of the CCF raises two overlapping issues: the social composition of the CCF and how radical the federation was – or was not. The latter has been extensively debated, but not in a manner that takes full cognizance of the nature and centrality of the working-class current within the federation or of what it considered “radical.” Scholars, particularly political scientists, have placed great emphasis on programs determined by conventions or put forward during election campaigns and have dissected them in order to measure their proximity to some socialist or liberal ideal type. But the reality was that the CCF was often programmatically careless. Many members came from a labourist tradition in which programs were secondary to the main goal of electing working-class representatives. Similarly, the goal of socialists was to educate workers and lead the transformation to a socialist society; specific directions as to what elected representatives



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could or could not do regarding some particular issue was not their primary concern. Often socialists – and the CCF itself – would argue that they did not believe in palliatives or reforms, but, if pressed, they would come up with an “immediate program,” a few measures that they would push for in the assembly to which they were elected. A quick review of a number of such programs (and there were hundreds issued by municipal and provincial labour or socialist organizations over the first decades of the century) reveals a couple of facts. First, quite different organizations often had quite similar election platforms. Demands for improved living standards, public ownership of utilities, access to education, and the like, were pervasive. But such demands were less a reflection of the goals of the organizations than of the issues that were seen to be in the immediate purview of municipal councils or provincial legislatures. Second, even a quick overview reveals internal contradictions: socialists who denounced the wage system often demanded better wages, and the like. If demands that seem radical were combined with others that were clearly less so, this was partly because socialist organizations were stymied by the problem of determining how to relate immediate demands to their goal for a total restructuring of the social system – that is, to revolution. But it is also because they saw political change as part of a process. In this sense, they were gradualists who believed that mobilizing and educating workers had its own dynamic that would lead, in the end, to socialism. To understand how they viewed this process, and how they conceived of their own organizations, it is necessary to look at their educational programs and their debates, much more than lists of their election demands. In the end, however much socialists participated in elections, theirs was a movement that was not narrowly electoral. They could raise certain issues in a particular election, and they may even believe that the new society could be achieved through the ballot, but that was only after a much more intense process of working-class education, which included the foundational idea that a qualitatively different society was possible. The above assessment is quite at odds with the main current of CCF historiography, which seeks to stress the benign character of the very early CCF. Walter Young, for instance, argues that the people who met at Calgary in 1932 “were not revolutionaries in the ordinary sense” a phrase that obfuscates the changing meaning of the word. “They did not want to overturn the system entirely; they wanted to reform it along the lines dictated by the social gospel and the doctrines of Fabian

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socialism.”14 Alan Whitehorn concurs, based largely on a textual analysis of the program adopted by the CCF: “The classical Marxist language of revolution, violence, and class conflict is completely absent.”15 There is considerable historical carelessness here. The “social gospel,” a vague category in the first place, is assumed to be pervasive through the multitude of movements that led to the CCF, and Fabianism is seen simply as a synonym for gradualism. In fact, the Calgary program differed very little from literally hundreds of labour party programs dating from early in the century. Those whom Young and others identify as the real Fabians, the League for Social Reconstruction, were late arriving at the table and had little influence in 1932. As far as the “classical Marxist language,” violence was rarely a theme, particularly for the Second International tradition, which formed the background for most of the socialist participants (although the old SPC had refused to affiliate to the Second International due to the latter’s reformism).16 Indeed, opposition to what socialists considered the Communist Party’s immature braggadocio was a hallmark of this current. But so was a belief in what they considered revolution: the replacement of capitalism by socialism. No doubt the social gospellers and Fabians had had their influence, to different extents, among the delegates, but the conclusion Whitehorn reaches is ahistorical and cannot be sustained even with reference to the Calgary program. He argues that they proposed “a moderate form of socialism with emphasis upon greater use of government planning [and] increasing social ownership within the confines of a mixed economy balancing public and private ownership.”17 This description, which fits post–Second World War social democracy like a glove, would have appeared nonsensical to those who were actually in Calgary. It is hard to see how their call for “the establishment of a planned system of social economy for the production, distribution, and exchange of all goods and services” was consistent with such a mixed economy. More­ over, Ivan Avakumovic points out, to his own apparent surprise, that even the least “radical” of the labour socialists, the Manitoba ILP, was keen on “public ownership,” despite that “missing from the ILP program and election manifestos [was] the emphasis on planning.”18 To the extent that it is possible to find references to support for a mixed economy as a principle of the future state, historians of the CCF tend to reference the endorsement of cooperatives, which, Young and Whitehorn point out, assumes some private ownership. But whether or not small, presumably agrarian, producers held title to their own land, which has been much debated in the literature, is a minor issue. Indeed,



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the Calgary document famously called for “security of tenure for the farmer on his use-land and for the worker in his own home” rather than specifically promising “ownership.” In any case, the “commanding heights of the economy,” to cite a different tradition, would be under popular control and not subject, to use the Marxist term, to the law of value. More importantly, the labour organizations that were present in Calgary and Regina, admittedly to varying extents, all warned their members regularly about the perils of mere “reformism,” which, to them, meant a failure to eliminate capitalism. To all of this, it is important to add the context of the Great Depres­ sion. The depth of the economic crisis, the heavy-handedness of the state, the example of the Communists, and the emerging threat of fascism – a movement that could potentially close the door on electoral change – meant that strategy, as a response to political conditions, was open to being reassessed. Nothing was carved in stone in Calgary in 1932 or even in Regina in 1933 regarding the direction of the movement. The behaviour and the possibilities of the CCF in the early 1930s were more open-ended than the literature implies. This is clear from the actions and debates of the labour and socialist organizations that would constitute the core of the CCF. In keeping with the history of the Cana­ dian labour movement, and the structure of the CCF, the struggles of labour socialists in the CCF to adapt to the challenges of the decade played out somewhat differently in each province.

• In practical terms, the creation of the CCF had no immediate effect in British Columbia. The Socialist Party of Canada was, for the moment, the only CCF affiliate in that province and, consequently, carried on much as before.19 Indeed, references to the CCF were rare. Internally and externally, socialists in the province thought of themselves and presented themselves as the SPC. If anything, the emergence of the CCF forced the B.C. SPC to clarify its own politics and attempt to create a more homogeneous organization capable of intervening in the CCF in an effective manner. In the autumn of 1932, the SPC’s Committee on Party Policy led a debate and vote on a series of issues, which were presented to the membership as a series of statements that members could vote for or against. They focused on the appropriate activities to be undertaken by members of the party elected to government. Essen­ tially, any elected members were to support measures that “increased

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workers’ standard of living and return to workers a greater percentage of the values they have produced,” a nod to the labour theory of value.20 As expectations of provincial and federal governments in a capitalist society were extremely limited, the SPC proposed only two basic activities: taxing surplus value and ensuring free speech. Interestingly, and most notable in regards to other “socialisms” they would confront in the CCF, the SPCers were wary of nationalization, particularly within a capitalist state. Public ownership of public utilities was a “principle of Socialist advocacy,” but “our members shall always point out that State ownership in Capitalism does not necessarily mean direct benefits to the working class, indeed, such proposals may tend to develop a more efficient Capitalism and a more ruthless class war instrument. Benefits accruing from State ownership depend largely, if not solely upon their administration. Viewed as steps towards Socialism they are desirable. If they are merely moves to bolster Capi­ talism we must prepare to meet a probably paternalistic and feudal ­industrialism.” Such a distinction would serve socialists well in the 1930s, as various movements that aimed at rescuing capitalism, ranging from liberal New Dealers to forms of right-wing authoritarianism, would stymie analyses oriented towards responding to nineteenth-­ century liberal capitalism. All things being equal, though, “it must be recognized that an industry or public service having been nationalized under Capitalism can be more easily socialized than if it is still oper­ ating privately with multiple managements and administrations.”21 The B.C. SPC clearly discerned a qualitative difference between capitalism and socialism, which has already been noted. It is also worth observing the difference between “nationalism” and “socialization.” Alan Whitehorn argues that “socialization” was used in the Regina Mani­ festo (and presumably elsewhere) “hoping that [the term] would be less intimidating to potential supporters.”22 In fact, “socialization” implied a more all-encompassing transformation than did “nationalization.” The latter was undertaken by capitalist governments at times, but they could not “socialize” the economy. That was the task of a working-class movement, or at least one with working-class socialists providing the direction. Among the questions specifically posed to the SPC membership was one directed to mass action such as demonstrations. Almost unanimously, the party voted in favour of a statement that read, “We favour all action, mass or otherwise, within constitutional limits.”23 This seems to confirm the party’s commitment to legality, if not strictly a narrow



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electoralism. Curiously, this question opened, rather than closed, a debate. The Committee on Party Policy drew up three further statements for consideration, one of which elaborated on the process of transition: “While emphasizing the necessity of capturing control of the State by means of the present electoral system we point out that the duty of the socialist does not begin and end at the ballot box. On the industrial field the workers outside of the socialist party must be continually reminded of their part in the social fabric; their attention must be drawn to the demands of society upon industry and the consequent implications in the event of a social revolution or economic breakdown; also that their active co-operation may be necessary to oppose any seditious attempt to set up a dictatorship in opposition to the Socialist State.”24 This is the clearest articulation yet regarding their perception of social change and informs an understanding of the B.C. SPC’s role in the CCF. The party certainly focused its attention on trying to win elections. Victory at the ballot box would start the process towards a socialist state. This position was due less to a belief in the fairness of elections under capitalism than to an understanding that the process of revolutionary transformation requires majority support. As Wallis Lefeaux explained, the transition from capitalism to socialism will see considerable “inconvenience.” Thus, “attempting to install it with a small number of real supporters would mean certain disaster. The mass inertia would be easily stirred to blame the Socialists for the failure of reform and halfway measures and for the confusion caused by sabotage and folded hands.”25 Such mass support would necessarily result in electoral victories. At the same time, as the SPC statement for consideration noted, the SPC was aware of the potential for counterrevolution and that it could be contained only by a mass mobilization of workers. Only a partial tally of votes on this statement is available, but the first thirteen branches to respond voted 180 to 13 in its favour.26 The second supplemental statement spoke to maintaining the party’s relationship with the organized working class, not by affiliation, but by regular attendance at union meetings and appeals to “rank and file” unionists at those meetings. The third statement was particularly interesting. It spoke to a range of issues, including the principle that socialists should refuse to participate in coalition governments with capitalist parties, and the importance of international solidarity with the Soviet Union and in support of “colonial and semi-colonial countries.” Addressing a theme that would become increasingly important in the immediate future, it sounded a warning against militarism arguing that

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it could only be fought by “mass action of the workers, rather than by international ‘disarmament’ conferences and pacts of capitalist governments.”27 Again, this is not a repudiation of an electoral strategy, but suggests that the broader, active mobilization of workers was both appropriate and perhaps necessary to save society from war and reaction. Opposition to affiliating with the new CCF was small, but it was concentrated in the Vancouver Centre branch, which, with 183 members, was the organization’s largest. Vancouver Centre harboured a greivance from at least the autumn of 1932, as it repeatedly requested the mailing lists of all branches from the provincial executive, who, in turn, insisted that debate should be coordinated by the provincial office. In the end, the dispute led to the suspension of ten members of that branch “for conduct calculated to have a disruptive influence on the Party and its growth.”28 After a full evening’s debate, the suspension was upheld at the SPC’s provincial convention.29 Despite the suspension, Vancouver Centre continued to allow the dissidents full membership rights, and they participated in a debate that resulted in the branch both condemning the leadership of the party and voting to repudiate the affiliation to the CCF. In turn, this led to the suspension of the entire branch. A.J. Turner, the newly elected president of the B.C. SPC, ordered the building at 666 Homer Street, which was the home of the dissident branch, closed, but the suspended members “raided the hall” and took possession of it.30 The result was the creation of a second “SPC” in Vancouver, which affiliated to the Socialist Party of Canada group based in Winni­peg and was closely associated with the OBU. To avoid confusion, the dissidents tended to be known as the 666 Homer Street group. Sid Earp, their secretary, explained that “the little group” was rooted in the principles created by Marx and Engels and that its twice weekly propaganda classes “in History, the Science of Economics and the Dialectic are fully up to the standard set in previous years by the old Socialist Party of Canada.”31 Like the larger party from which it  had split, the group was rooted in prewar Canadian Marxism; the difference was its unwillingness to make the compromises that the B.C. SPC majority felt necessary in order to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the broader radicalization that seemed to be occurring in Canadian society. Along with the Winnipeg SPC, the 666 Homer Street group became “a little sect grandiloquently calling itself the ‘Dominion-wide Socialist Party of Canada.’”32 In fact, the larger party went from success to success, at least in terms of membership. It emerged from this relatively small fissure more politically



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focused and it continued to grow rapidly. At the time of its annual convention in January 1933, the party had forty-six branches (double that of a year earlier) and about 1,600 members. Over the next year, the total would grow to sixty-four branches and the party would experience some considerable electoral success.33 It was clear that wariness continued to exist in the mainstream of the B.C. SPC about the CCF and about finding partners for the federation in the province. As the new CCF appeared to catch fire in other parts of the country, Ernest Winch was sceptical of the new recruits. “Honestly, there’s too much of a mushroom growth and too many utopian elements in the C.C.F. to make it a reliable instrument in the emancipation of the working class.” He added that, “despite our personal regard for some individuals associated with it, we see the time not far distant when they and we will repudiate each other’s tactics.” He specifically targeted those who repeatedly spoke in terms of “sentiment,” “pacifism,” and “constitutional means,” and he suggested that Prime Minis­ ter Bennett’s “iron heal of ruthlessness” will force a real test of power.34 There was not a great deal of confidence apparent here that the CCF would prove to be an appropriate vehicle for political action over the long term. Beyond the SPC, groups in British Columbia that were apparently interested in the CCF were either scarce or problematic. Although the January 1933 SPC convention adopted a motion supporting “a monopoly of Political activity in this Province for the S.P. of C.,” the issue was immediately forced when the People’s Party called a public meeting of groups interested in affiliating with the CCF.35 As an indication of the extent to which the SPC had kept its CCF connections under wraps, the Vancouver Sun reported on this event as the arrival of the CCF in British Columbia. In response, the following month, the B.C. SPC executive board met with a smattering of other small groups, including the LSR, the People’s Party, the Army of Common Good, and groups indicated in the minutes as “C.C.B.C.” and “the Four-Point Planners.” Of these, the People’s Party proved the most persistent. It had roots in the farmers’ movement but a program that had more in common with the future social credit movement, calling for government austerity and the vast expansion of government credit to undermine the power of the banks. It was willing to support government industries and encouraged marketing boards,36 but it was deeply anti-socialist. It posited a future based on “Christian ideals” that were “directed towards the general good of mankind irrespective of class, color, creed or nationality.”

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Such a “Co-operative Commonwealth” the People’s Party suggested, was distinct from socialism, which it described as both atheist and unfree, in that “the individual belongs to the state and must produce for the state.”37 And, indeed, it proceeded to lecture the SPC on its “confusion” between the two.38 At least one prominent CCFer saw in this group the seeds of a potentially fascist organization.39 The SPC shunned the People’s Party both on ideological and personal grounds. Very much the creation of an individual, J.E. Armishaw, the People’s Party engaged in petty manoeuvring that could only antagonize the larger organization. It began to engage in “name snatching,” dubbing itself the “Co-operative Commonwealth Association.”40 It then, very briefly, affiliated with a group associated with Col. H.E. Lyon, to form the “Independent Co-operative Commonwealth Federa­ tion.”41 This process continued over the next year until the national CCF finally rejected their appeal for CCF membership in the summer of 1934 despite the fact that the People’s Party presented itself as “the political mouthpiece of the United Farmers of Canada, B.C. section” which would allow it to affiliate as a farmer organization.42 The result was to sow considerable confusion as to who or what constituted the CCF in British Columbia. Even the People’s Party felt compelled to run a notice in its paper, distancing itself from something called “the People’s Movement of the Co-operative Commonwealth” that had recently been formed in Vancouver.43 The B.C. SPC clearly had to act in order to prevent the continuing debasement of the CCF name as well as to maintain the connection between the name and workingclass socialism, as opposed to the various reform schemes put forward by the likes of Armishaw and Lyon, whose actions had led Robert Skinner to opine that “there were more political adventurers in British Columbia to the square acre than most places have to the square mile.”44 The confusion was manifest in the provincial elections in November 1933. Of the twelve candidates who ran in the two-member Vancouver Centre riding, two were official CCFers, two ran for the Independent CCF, and two ran as SPC candidates (representing the 666 Homer Street group). As well, there were two “United Front” candidates.45 These small skirmishes were important because they spoke to the diversity of the radicalization of the 1930s and the difficulty that groups like the SPC, or the CCF itself, would have in defining and containing it. This was immediately apparent in British Columbia, but would be a national issue throughout the decade. For the moment, the SPC could and did publicly repudiate such groups, pointing out, for instance, that



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the People’s Party was not affiliated to the CCF “nor is it ever likely to be.”46 The SPC provincial executive took control of the situation by formally creating the B.C. CCF, establishing a committee of eight SPCers to serve as a provisional CCF council, adopting a constitution, and stipulating that, for the first year of provincial CCF’s existence, the provincial president and secretary-treasurer were to be members of the SPC. At its next meeting, Robert Skinner (a twenty-year veteran of the SPC and ILP) and John Price (who had been on the street railway workers’ strike committee in 1919) were appointed to these posts.47 The provincial CCF would be established, but it would be under the guidance of B.C.’s Socialist Party of Canada. The SPC recognized that there were groups with whom it could work. That, of course, had been the logic of participating in the formation of the national CCF in the first place. The best strategy was to encourage the grouping of the best elements and then find an affiliate that could absorb these diverse radical strands and shape them more effectively. The Reconstruction Party was selected, as Dorothy Steeves reports, “probably because it was the least objectionable of the postulants.”48 Steeves was a founding and prominent member of the Recon­ struction Party, but recognized its flaws considering it “a motley group indeed.” It included, among others, “Social Crediters, supporters of the Gesell monetary system and other species of monetary reformers” as well as “crypto-communists, four-pointers and others.” But the “core was made up of genuine converts to socialism, mostly belonging to the middle class, who had been voting labour for years.” Many had been active in movements such as the International Club of Vancouver, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the Theosophical Society (which also had some influence in the Socialist Party), and church groups, as well as the ABC Society, a discussion group that overlapped with the LSR.49 This connection to broader social movements was exactly what attracted working-class socialists and was central to the whole notion of the CCF. The appellation of “middle class” is, of course, a vague one, but would become central to many of the conflicts that would emerge in the CCF in British Columbia and beyond. Several of the leading figures of the CCF came to the federation through the Reconstruction Party including Steeves herself, who was a founding member of the Vancouver LSR.50 Also central were James S. Taylor, a realtor with interests that included economics, sociology, “comparative religions and the occult and psychic sciences,”51 and Mildred Osterhout (later Fahrni), a teacher and social worker educated at UBC

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and Bryn Mawr, who had a range of experience in the YMCA, the Student Christian Movement, and most recently Kingsley Hall in East London, where she worked with and became a devoted follower of Gandhi.52 The Reconstruction Party also included some who had significant labour credentials but whose experience and ideas were foreign to the SPC. Helen Gutteridge, for instance, had travelled in Socialist Party circles shortly after arriving in Canada in 1911, and she had worked as a tailor and sat as the only woman on the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council, but her world was a much wider one, as she was a central participant in the suffrage and other movements. Her identity as “labour” did not preclude her participation in much broader social and political circles.53 Interestingly, the Reconstruction Party also included William Pritchard, who of course had considerable legitimacy as a working-class orator and SPC leader of the 1919 generation. By the late 1920s, he was winding up a term as reeve of North Burnaby, where he had, according to historian Peter Campbell, “taken a Fabian turn and was now a man who often talked of planning, efficiency, and administration.”54 There was also the matter of a dispute with Ernest Winch over the nominations in the 1931 provincial election in Burnaby.55 In the end, little united the Reconstruction Party except a general agreement with the program of the CCF adopted at Calgary, and the fact that they were not part of the Socialist Party of Canada. By March 1933, the CCF had taken on a pragmatic form in British Columbia, and this model was emerging elsewhere as well. Given the federated nature of the CCF, it seemed necessary to find an organizational solution to the growing interest in the movement among those who could not be primarily identified as “labour” or, where such affiliates existed, “farmer.” Almost by definition, given the alternatives, such forces were considered “middle class.” As early as October 1932, the provisional national council of the CCF began to consider what to do about small organizations that “are not apparently in touch with or sufficiently integrated in a province-wide movement.”56 The solution, originally broached by national CCF secretary Norman Priestley in October and announced by Woodsworth in December, was the creation of “C.C.F. Clubs” in every city “so that people not feeling at home in Labor, Socialist, or Farmer groups may belong to the movement.”57 The response was impressive: a meeting of a thousand in Calgary, eight hundred in Toronto.58 Given that this process was, in effect, similar to what had occurred in British Columbia, it made sense for the Reconstruction Party to adopt



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the nomenclature of the national movement in order to absorb these diverse elements. In August 1933, the Reconstruction Party united with a few autonomous CCF Clubs that had emerged in British Columbia and became the Associated CCF Clubs.59 At the founding convention of this group, SPCer Arthur Turner acknowledged that the SPC had sought to control the CCF in British Columbia, but largely because it was necessary “to prevent the Federation from being overwhelmed by elements seeking to ride what was to become a fast growing and popular movement.” The SPC made “no apologies for zealously assuming guardianship of the lusty infant.”60 His address to the “Amalgamating Conference” reflects both the SPC view of social change and the willingness to work with others: “We must make due allowance for different concepts, as inevitably appear in all human movements, but so long as the common objective is the social ownership of the means of life, we are prepared to consider of less importance the means by which we arrive at the conclusion.” Given the vagueness about which the SPC had always approached the “means,” this was an easy concession to make.61 Dorothy Steeves, arguing that the SPC had little reason to be apprehensive about the new affiliate, notes that the SPC’s “educational zeal was penetrating steadily into the CCF Clubs by means of study classes, pamphlets and broadcasts.”62 As well, an assessment of the CCF written by a leader of the clubs reflected SPC “means”: F.J. McKenzie warned about the failures of German Social Democrats, “which lacked the courage to carry out its policy when it had the power,” and of the British Labour Party, which had accepted “the forms of power without the reality thereof.” He added that the greatest menace to socialism was “state capitalism” and its assumption that there would always be a capitalist class and a working class, and he specifically cited Mackenzie King’s postwar tome Industry and Humanity, which argued for cooperation between the classes. The assumption was that real socialism meant the destruction of capitalism, and therefore of the classes that existed within it.63 Nonetheless, SPCers still worried about CCF Clubs, feeling that their social composition undermined their socialism. Ernest Winch, for instance, not only worried about “those whose knowledge & contact with the real situation is very limited,” but also about the influence on the SPC itself, as some “of our own members are in favor of conceding points to these very new proletariat upon the grounds that it is necessary to appeal to and conciliate them.”64 Even the “realist” (according to Walter Young) Angus MacInnis felt that it was necessary to educate

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club members and not let them “use us.”65 The clubs quickly became a formidable factor. At the founding of the Associated CCF Clubs, there were 34 clubs; eight months later there were 170.66 Part of the reason for the large number was that more than one club could be organized within an electoral constituency. The concern of the Associated CCF Clubs that education and activism would be undermined if individual clubs became “too large and impersonal” was a trait shared with the SPC.67 It also suggested that an electoral focus, at least for the moment, was secondary. Another source of concern for the SPC, though, was the small but steady pull that the clubs seemed to have on the older organization. Some members belonged to both, as reflected in measures to prevent dual members from voting twice at nominating meetings. As well, a small but steady stream of SPCers left to join the clubs. Some were well known, such as North Vancouver MLA H.C.E. Anderson. And, in a few cases, SPC branches quit and became CCF Clubs, a tendency the SPC leadership attributed to opportunism and a failure of education, although the SPC itself did continue to grow.68 Although there was considerable grumbling within the SPC about the political neophytes in the clubs, and some club members considered the SPC stuffy and doctrinaire, the relationship between the two organizations was strong, belying the notion that they simply represented potentially opposing social classes.69 A full convention of the B.C. CCF, comprising the SPC and the Association of CCF Clubs, was held in Victoria at the end of September 1933. Robert Skinner’s presidential address placed the movement in the history of great revolutionaries from John Ball to Robespierre, from Eugene Debs and Lenin, and explained the differences between reformers, who tried to alleviate the effects of capitalism, and revolutionaries (including those of the CCF) who would eliminate the causes of poverty and injustice.70 The arrangement in British Columbia worked surprisingly well. Even the old SPCer Wallis Lefeaux reported “surprisingly little friction” between the two organizations on the CCF provincial executive after several months of operation.71 Yet the distinctions remained important – at least to the SPC, which steadfastly held to its mission of providing the working-class ideological direction to the CCF. The clubs, for their part, did not understand this mission and from the outset foresaw the day when there would be a single, merged organization in British Columbia. This issue belonged to the future; for the moment, there was a consensus that the existing arrangement was successful and facilitated both the growth and the education of the movement as a



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whole. Helena Gutteridge, long active in the B.C. labour movement, joined one of the clubs, but her experience was not very different than what it would have been in the SPC. Her biographer describes local clubs “engaged in different activity almost every night of the week,” including public meetings, business meetings, and, most often, ardent discussions of economics and philosophy at CCF study groups.72 Clear­ ly influenced by the credibility, traditions, and size of the SPC, the CCF in British Columbia was led by, and deferred to, a well-­established labour-socialist tradition.

• The same was not true elsewhere. In Ontario, especially, this type of conflict was more intense and is less understood by historians. In that province, the relationship between forces differed from that in British Columbia. The labour-socialist organizations were weaker and more divided, while the main forces behind the clubs movement, the League for Social Reconstruction as well as a number of “political adventurers” (who, as it turned out, did not exist only in British Columbia), were more powerful than on the west coast. The national leadership of the CCF, in particular Woodsworth and the former Ginger Group members, had a greater ability and, to some extent, a greater interest in intervening in the direction of the movement in Ontario. In the end, these factors would create an impression that the British Columbia CCF was much different from the organization nationally. While this impression with not entirely without basis, the currents that dominated in British Columbia existed elsewhere, and would continue to shape debate within other provincial sections. For this reason, debate within the CCF was not only between “left” and “right,” but also between very different notions of society and of politics. If there was a founding organization of the CCF in Ontario, it was the Socialist Party. Discussions in the Ontario SPC about the need for a broader federation with those sympathetic to working-class interests clearly had deep roots. In 1931, several members of the Earlscourt group had travelled to Brantford to hear Woodsworth deliver his message regarding a broader organization. In preparation for the 1932 convention of the Labour Party of Ontario, Bert Robinson of the Ontario SPC had initiated a correspondence with Woodsworth over building a national movement.73 Immediately following the 1932 Calgary conference, the Ontario SPCers contacted their comrades in the B.C. SPC,

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indicating their interest as well as describing their notion of the relationship between the SPC and the CCF. They indicated that they were interested in organizing an “Eastern Labour Conference” as part of the CCF project. They felt that the CCF would not “interfere with the necessary work of building a membership Socialist Party throughout the country,” because the CCF “merely is a loose Federation for united action.”74 Next, Bert Robinson, on behalf of the Ontario SPC, sent letters to labour parties in Hamilton and Windsor, the LSR, the Maritime Labour Party in New Brunswick, the ILP of Cape Breton, the National Labor Party (the secretary of which was Elizabeth Morton, and which had been represented in Calgary by A.R. Mosher), the Labour Party of Ontario, the United Farmers of Ontario, and the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order.75 Very quickly, the provisional national council of the CCF informed Robinson that it had “some plans along these lines,” and that a committee comprising Woodsworth, A.R. Mosher, and William Irvine was charged with undertaking promotion of the CCF in the east.76 From this point, central members of the League for Social Reconstruction became more active in promoting the project. Some interest in the process had been reflected in Canadian Forum, a magazine closely associated with the LSR in this period. Commenting on the 1931 Labour Party of Ontario convention discussed in chapter 1, the Forum argued that socialism in Canada needed to “draw into its ranks other classes” that could bring “a touch of universalism” apparently lacking in the working class.77 The seeds of a future conflict with those who considered labour a universal class capable of leading the revolutionary remaking of society were apparent. It was a sign of the links between the CCF provisional national council (or at least Woodsworth) and the LSR that the result of these informal discussions was a meeting on 25 September 1932 at the house of Frank Underhill with representatives of all of the interested Ontariobased organizations. Two members of Parliament were present, Irvine and Agnes Macphail, although the commitment of her organization, the United Farmers of Ontario, was tenuous as long it was led by J.J. Morrison. In any case, the meeting was “amicable,” and the movement seems to have been launched.78 The next step was a more formal conference of delegates of “political labour and socialist groups” which met at Cumberland Hall in Toronto on 27 November. J.S. Woodsworth and SPCer Bert Robinson were acclaimed the meeting’s chair and secretary, respectively. The conference underlined the labour-socialist character of the CCF in Ontario and



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reflected both the central role and the credibility of the SPC in its formation. Of the close to two dozen organizations represented, all but two – the LSR and a branch of the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order – were labour parties, workers’ associations that had arisen during the Depression, or branches of the SPC or of a Jewish socialist organization. Confirming the SPC’s central role was the fact that one of the three LSR delegates, Roger Guyot, was a prominent member of the SPC, and the branch of the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order represented the SPC’s home ground of Earlscourt. The conference agreed to continue functioning (it became known as the Labour Con­ ference of Ontario) and to organize the CCF in Ontario. A committee of twelve was elected to oversee this process. Its composition suggested that the CCF in Ontario would be safely in the hands of the extant leadership of the labour-socialist organizations in the province. Arthur Mould, president of the Labour Party of Ontario, acted as convener. He was joined by SPC figures Bert Robinson, Thomas Cruden, and Elizabeth Morton, as well as key leaders of labour parties in Toronto (James McArthur Conner and George Watson) and Hamilton (John Mitchell). Rose Henderson, who had attended the conference as a delegate of the Labour Party of Toronto, was also elected. Of the twelve, only Frank Underhill and E.A. Havelock, as university professors, were “middle class.”79 The working-class credentials of the new “loose federation” seemed assured. Very quickly, though, this was challenged. The idea of CCF Clubs, of which Woodsworth was the chief promoter, arose in response to the Ontario situation. Clearly the labour-socialist character of the movement did not sit well with all, for, as Woodsworth explained, the clubs would be formed to provide a place in the movement for those outside of the labour-socialist tradition.80 Not surprisingly, the labour and socialist groups had mixed opinions. It is worth noting that the SPC, a key supporter of the CCF project, was most easily convinced of the value of the clubs. With the double track strategy of building a revolutionary socialist party and a broader movement, the Ontario SPC reasoned that the “cities are largely composed of white collar workers, salesmen, small businessmen, clerks, etc… Our method of approach in the past has not succeeded in attracting the class who compose the majority here.”81 Such a perspective reflected the broadly shared view of the clubs as “middle-class” entities. While the SPC saw the formation of the clubs as an opportunity to address a section of the middle class “eager for education” and thus

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broaden support for an essentially working-class movement, others saw it as a potential middle-class putsch.82 James McArthur Conner, the central figure in the Toronto Labour Party and secretary of the Labour Party of Ontario, was most dismissive. He pointed out that the labour and socialist parties had funded and organized the conference with the expectation that newcomers would join their parties; “several hundred names” had been gathered on this basis. Yet Woodsworth “or his appointees” had kept the names and handed them to a committee that was hand-picked by Woodsworth.83 Besides criticizing the process – he noted that Woodworth’s committee stood in contrast to the “council of twelve” that had been elected by the labour and socialist parties to build the CCF in Ontario – Conner pilloried both the leadership and composition of the emerging CCF Clubs. According to Conner, the committee appointed by Woodsworth included no labour representatives. Rather it was made up of three academics, three manufacturers, and an MP, Agnes Macphail. Appointed as secretary of the clubs was erstwhile Liberal Donat M. LeBourdais, journalist, arctic explorer and, most recently, secretary of the Canadian Mental Hygiene Association.84 It was an interesting background, to be sure, but one devoid of socialist credentials. The membership of these new clubs was little better. A “loose aggregation of discontented professional or small business people who are neither Labour nor Socialist,” they “constitute a danger to the Labour Movement.” To add insult to injury, these “middle-class” organizations, which included “certain people who had hitherto opposed the Labour movement,” succeeded in appropriating the CCF name for themselves by forming “CCF Clubs.”85 It is worth noting that the decision to support or oppose the creation of the CCF and, subsequently, the CCF Club movement is not easily characterized as a fight between those on the “left” or the “right” of the political labour movement. Even assuming that one can draw a political map of the various labour and socialist parties in this way, it becomes clear that all segments of the older labour movement were, to some extent, suspicious of the “middle-class” elements that were being attracted by socialism, but some had made a strategic decision to encourage this process and to attempt to shape it. Other organizations with a clear lineage to the old SPC current – the OBU in Winnipeg and the 666 Homer Street group in Vancouver – chose to remain isolated from it. They were content to insolate workers from the bourgeois ideologies – “Nationalism, Patriotism, Libralism, Toryism, The Grace of God, Tariffs, Immigration, New Deals, etc.” – and teach “the average



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worker to distinguish the weak and obsolete ideas from those consistant with his class position,” rather than to do battle with these ideas among those alien class elements that were potentially sympathetic to labour.86 While they shared the same history and some of the same trepidations, the B.C. and Ontario SPCs jumped in with both feet. Groups considered less radical, the Toronto Labour Party (who the SPC considered “recognized right-wingers” within the labour movement) and, as we shall see, the Manitoba ILP, were much more circumspect. Yet, they tended to go along, at least with the general CCF project, if not necessarily the idea of the club movement.87 The terms in which the debate over the club movement took place suggested what these groups felt was at stake. The issue was how best to build a large movement while at the same time preserving its working-class, and therefore socialist, character. So, for instance, Woodsworth and Conner got into a debate about the class credentials of individuals. When Woodsworth argued that the inclusion of SPC president Thomas Cruden on the CCF Clubs executive committee demonstrated its labour connections, Conner replied that Cruden was a “manufacturer.” In response, Woodsworth asked if Dr Rose Henderson, the wellknown social worker, pacifist, and women’s rights activist who had been the Toronto Labour Party delegate to the Labour Conference, was herself a worker.88 There is more than a bit of ambiguity here, playing on the dual meaning of class that both sides shared. Sociologically, neither Cruden nor Henderson seems to have been a worker or at least, an industrial worker. On the other hand, their organizational and ideological class credentials were strong. They were committed to workingclass organizations and had dedicated themselves to the “proletarian science” of socialism. However essentialist 1930s socialists’ view of class, they did not feel that one was condemned by birth to middleclass status; one could join the working-class fight for socialism. This did not mean, though, that such credentials could not be challenged. The dispute sparked by the organization of the clubs in Ontario gave pause to at least one national figure – Angus MacInnis, B.C. SPC member and MP – although mostly for reasons related to the situation in British Columbia. MacInnis was a no-show at the eight-hundredstrong debut meeting of the clubs in Toronto, chaired by Cruden and addressed by J.S. Woodsworth, on 14 December 1932. MacInnis explained to Robinson that publicly supporting the clubs in Ontario but not in British Columbia (this was before the formation of the Amal­ gamated CCF Clubs in BC, and the SPC still held a monopoly in that

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province) would be inconsistent. As well, Robinson knew that J.M. Conner “had been in close contact with MacInnis” and, on the day he was to speak in Toronto, had dissuaded him from giving the Ontario clubs his public support.89 Disputes over support of the clubs had little impact on their growth, although it is difficult to measure the size of this emerging movement. Six months after their formation, Bert Robinson felt that they were smaller in Ontario than the labour and socialist parties grouped in the Labour Conference, with the possible exception of in greater Toronto, where there were about twenty-five clubs.90 In Toronto, more than anywhere, the clubs were associated with the League for Social Reconstruction; in fact, the clubs were seen by both their labour-socialist supporters and detractors very much as a franchise that, in Ontario at least, Woods­ worth had unfortunately handed over to the LSR.91 Moreover, the clubs exhibited what socialists considered “mushroom growth,” and included a considerable “numerical paper membership” unschooled in socialism.92 Certainly, their public face reflected this. In early 1933, LSR notable Graham Spry started a small “independent” but pro-CCF paper in Toronto entitled Change. Spry had been a protégé of John Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, had studied at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and, as late as November 1931, described himself as a “respectable agitator with a political position somewhere between the farmer movement and the liberals.”93 The image of the CCF presented in Change was a benign one. He measured the new movement against a stereotypical communism: the CCF “does not mean revolution, or Russia, or riot, or bloodshed, or dictatorship, or any other foreign amusement.” Rather, it “is just an honest federation of ordinary Canadians.” Hypersensitive to potential red baiting, Change spoke in a language quite alien to labour socialism. For instance, rather than explaining Canadian politics in terms of social class, Spry explained that the Liberal Party was a “middle party” whose “policies change as the policies of the other two parties change… In itself, therefore, the Liberal party has no meaning, no position, no fixed policy.” It simply adjusts to the “force of Fascism as represented by the Conservative Party” and the force of socialism represented by the CCF. Forces such as the SPC saw the Liberals as one of the two parties, along with the Conservatives, of Canadian capitalism. They presumably would have also pointed out the exaggerated characterization of the Conser­vatives as “fascist,” although Bennett’s “iron hand” would enliven that debate in the first half of the decade.94



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By the beginning of 1933, there were three affiliates of the CCF in Ontario: the labour and socialist parties who had formed the Labour Conference, and whose “council of twelve” had voted eight to four to affiliate; the United Farmers of Ontario, who had voted to join at its convention at the beginning of December 1932; and the CCF Clubs.95 On 5  February, representatives of the three bodies met and determined the structure of the provincial CCF. They agreed to establish a pro tem executive comprising five members from each of the organizations, a measure that the Labour Conference considered a major concession to the small and barely organized club movement and to the wavering Farmers’ organization. The Labour Conference was represented by Arthur Mould, Bert Robinson, Elizabeth Morton (a “thoroughly working-class woman, and we are proud of her class position”), Hamilton ILP alderman John Mitchell, and Rose Henderson.96 The clubs’ representatives were D.M. LeBourdais, Frank Underhill, E.A. Havelock, E.A. Beder, and Bryer Tandy; all five were members of the LSR.97 Following a “considerable discussion” about the clubs, it was agreed that they could not organize in a constituency without consulting the other affiliates.98 These developments could have been derailed had the issue of affiliation been delayed until the convention of the Labour Party of Ontario, slated for April. At least, that was the hope of James McArthur Conner, who was the secretary of that organization and clearly felt that it should be the umbrella group for working-class political action in the Prov­ ince. He had little use for those middle-class “socialists” who were “too respectable” to join the Labour Party.99 Interestingly, this view of the middle-class clubs was shared by the Hamilton ILP, which did not understand the need for separate organizations and resisted competition for members in a city where they had a long and successful record of electoral action.100 The structure of the Ontario CCF was the main item on the agenda of the Labour Conference, which met on 26 February. This was a diverse gathering of 159 delegates representing sixty organizations. Besides the thirty delegates representing the Labour Party of Ontario and its branches, there were delegates from other labour parties, from the SPC and its branches, and from various Jewish organizations, unions (particularly those affiliated with the ACCL, rather than the TLC), Workers’ Associations, and “miscellaneous groups” including the United Women’s Educational Federation – a labour women’s organization that dated from 1919 – and the League for Social Reconstruction. Some of these organizations, such as the SPC and the LSR, were also active in the clubs section, complicating our understanding of debates

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perhaps, but confirming the central point that the relationship of forces was different in each affiliate section of the CCF. The debate at the Labour Conference was fascinating. In response to the motion that the labour and socialist organizations affiliate to the CCF through the Labour Conference, the Labour Party of Toronto presented an amendment “that this convention go on record making it a condition of affiliation with the C.C.F. that the C.C.F Clubs should have no voting power when C.C.F. principles are being discussed unless they are affiliated with farmer, labor or socialist organizations.” This debate took up five hours of convention time, and the amendment, which would bar “white collared ‘pinks’ masquerading under the name of ‘Labor’,” was relatively narrowly defeated by a vote of seventy-six to fifty-seven.101 In the context of this debate, individuals’ working-class credentials were important currency – and the subject of considerable bickering. Clearly a substantial minority questioned the “principles” of a non-working-class bloc within what had been a proletarian movement. Middle-class newcomers to the movement, inexperienced in wage labour and uneducated in socialism, could not be expected to defend working-class principles. They could support the movement for socialism, but allowing them to determine its direction would potentially undermine the possibility of a working-class future. By definition, a socialist movement was a working-class movement. One guided by the middle class was simply something else. Once the amendment was defeated, the main motion, to affiliate with the CCF, passed. But there was one more hurdle. According to J.M. Conner, the Labour Party of Ontario delegates voted for the amendment almost unanimously. This meant that the largest and most inclusive labour party in Ontario could derail the CCF project, or at least confine it to the social layers that were joining the clubs section. The battle began even before their convention met. The convention call, which was no doubt written by Conner, who was party secretary, announced that delegates would be considering their relationship to the CCF and “whether we are prepared to hand over the function of the Labour Party of Ontario to a New Labour Conference over which we have no control.” In response, party president Arthur Mould, a supporter of affiliation and of the Labour Conference, issued a “Presidential Call for a True Perspective” in which he pointed out that the majority of the delegates at the Labour Conference did belong to the Labour Party of Ontario (even if they were there representing other bodies). As well,



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he outlined his strategic thinking, which was very much in line with that of the SPC. In Mould’s opinion, the Labour Party of Ontario had failed to hegemonize the labour-socialist movement. As well, the fight against capitalism required socialists to provide direction to workers before they are fully educated and before they join a socialist party. It was possible to accomplish this through the CCF, which “happens to be the people’s choice as an army.” “Shall we be in the vanguard or at the rear?” of this movement, he asked. These themes were developed in his presidential address at the convention in Brantford. The opportunity existed to move from socialist propaganda to the actual organization of a mass movement. This meant organizing workers with a less developed sense of socialism. But, “must every musician learn to play grand opera before he plays a march? The worker can learn to march in step for Socialism long before he can learn to sing the International or understand Karl Marx. For those who know all these things and know why and how to get there, be ready to lead the rest.”102 This was an interesting articulation of a development among labour socialists across the country. Without abandoning their commitment to the education of the working class, there was an increasing willingness to acknowledge their role, and the role of their parties, as leaders. Peter Campbell defines this group, collectively, as anti-vanguardist and unwilling to assume a leadership role, yet there is a clear evolution from the old SPC in this regard, as reflected in Mould’s statements and the actions of the SPCs in British Columbia and Ontario.103 Although there was widespread concern about the CCF Clubs, the general sentiment of the Labour Conference was in favour of the CCF movement as a whole. Motions to force the clubs to change their names (and thus not appear to be appropriating the CCF label for themselves) and to compel them to affiliate to the CCF through the labour and socialist groups were ruled out of order by Mould. These were CCF decisions beyond the purview of a single affiliate, and the chair’s ruling was upheld. In the end, despite Conner’s observation that labour groups in western Canada played a larger role in the CCF, and Rose Henderson’s “sentimental appeal against the middle class,” the motion to affiliate with the CCF through the Labour Conference passed overwhelmingly. In fact, rather than remaining isolated from the movement, Conner voted in favour. Afterwards, a separate motion calling on the CCF Clubs to change their name also failed.

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“It is conceded,” claimed Bert Robinson in a letter to J.S. Woodsworth, “that the Socialist Party’s influence in favour of C.C.F. Affiliation from the commencement has been the largest factor in effecting this last triumph for labour.” In this accomplishment, he pointed out, they had had important allies, such as Arthur Mould and Hamilton’s John Mitchell. For the SPC, affiliation was part of a strategy to build the CCF but, at the same time, maintain the Labour Conference and particularly the SPC as the ideological and moral compass for the broader movement. Others seemed to be on the same page. The SPC noted the importance of the united front, which had been created despite differences. Robinson added that, “peculiarly enough” it was their opponent James Conner who had read the British ILP call for unity between the Social­ ist  and Communist Internationals, which was unanimously supported.104 The influence of the Socialist Party of Canada was reflected in the composition of the new Labour Conference provincial executive: in a “heavy competitive list” of nominees, six of the sixteen members elected were members of the Socialist Party. Mould had been re-elected president. Although James Conner had very narrowly defeated SPCer A.M. Barnetson as secretary, it was felt that, had Robinson or Cruden run, an SPC member would have held this central post as well.105 There was every reason to think that the labour-socialist currents would be able to shape the broader movement and to enlist and educate CCF members generally to become, in the “password” Mould used in his presidential address, “Class Conscious Fighters.”106 The one other event worth noting, in part due to the important role it would play in subsequent disputes in the CCF, is the founding of the Toronto branch of the Labour Conference, known as the Toronto Regional Labour Council of the CCF, on 29 June 1933. The twenty-one organizations represented in the local council – SPC branches, labour parties, workers’ associations, ACCL unions, the United Women’s Edu­ cational Federation – were largely the same that had attended the Labour Conference in the past. As well, the SPC continued to play a major role, at least in initiating the organization of the body, and the meeting was run by party members Bert Robinson, Thomas Cruden, and A.B. Downs, Jr. The regular officers elected at the meeting were more diverse: T.F. Stevenson of the Canadian Electrical Trade Union was president, George Watson of the Toronto Labour Party was vicepresident, and A.H. Downs, Jr. of the SPC was secretary. Interestingly, the executive committee included William Moriarty, who had represented the Marxist Educational League at the conference. Moriarty had



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been a leader of the old SPC in Toronto and a founding member of the Communist Party. In 1930, he was expelled from the Communist Party as a “Lovestoneite,” – reference to American Communist Jay Lovestone, who had objected to the application of the Comintern’s sectarian Third Period line in North America.107 The Toronto Regional Labour Council’s ideology, and its view of the CCF, was reflected in two resolutions proposed by the East York Workers’ Association (EYWA). The EYWA had been founded in 1931 and had a considerable resonance in the Depression-ravaged township. By 1934, it had 1,600 members and was attracting between four hundred and five hundred people to its weekly meetings, at which it planned campaigns for improving relief payments and opposing foreclosures and listened to a diverse array of visiting speakers, including Woodsworth, Angus MacInnis, Frank Underhill, Agnes Macphail, Thomas Cruden, social gospeller Salem Bland, Trotskyist Jack Mac­ Donald, and J.L. Cohen, the lawyer associated with Communist Party causes. There were also ongoing educational groups discussing Marx­ ism, including one run by Moriarty. Among the organizers of the EYWA were Elizabeth Morton, a member of the SPC, and Alex Lyon, a well-known Toronto-area radical who had briefly been a member of the One Big Union and then the Communist Party, although by 1931 the Communists had dismissed him as “a Fabian” in large part because of the EYWA’s failure to fall in with the Communists’ unemployed association.108 The EYWA proposed a motion before the Toronto Regional Labour Council, slamming “reforms and reform movements” and arguing that “palliative legislation” is designed only to buy workers’ support for capitalism and to allow capital to have “control of workers’ lives through the control of the state” without addressing the chaotic system as a whole. The resolution concluded that the “Toronto Regional Labor Council of the CCF urge all Farmer, Labor, and Socialist organizations affiliated with the CCF to wage the Class War at all times with the slogan – ‘No Compromise, No Political Trading,’ with a view of taking over the means of wealth production (factories, railroads, etc.) so that all may collectively use and enjoy the wealth produced.” A second resolution specifically called for the repudiation of “the propagation of inflation and other monetary reforms by CCF speakers” because they miseducated workers, “thereby erecting a very formidable obstacle to the achievement of a Socialist regime.”109 Both of these resolutions, directed at “reformists” in the clubs and Farmers sections of the CCF,

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were adopted by the conference as a whole. The stage was set for “class war” within the CCF itself.

• The tensions sparked by the organization of non-working-class elements and the formation of clubs existed across the country, if not to the same degree as in British Columbia and Ontario. Differences were owing, in part, to the ongoing dominance of the older, labour-oriented organizations in some provinces and their weakness in others. In Alberta, for instance, the CCF continued to be represented in the cities by the Canadian Labour Party (CLP) and in the countryside by the United Farmers of Alberta. This, in itself, created tensions, given that the UFA, which formed the government in depression-ravaged Alberta, was desperately short of ideas for addressing – and, some felt, short of sympathy for – the plight of urban workers. Moreover, the CCF failed to take root in rural Alberta in the way it would in Saskatchewan, in large part because of the declining interest in, as well as the ossification of, the UFA organization. By the mid-1930s, the Social Credit movement would benefit greatly from this failure. As Alvin Finkel explains, unlike the UFA, the Canadian Labour Party was perhaps at the peak of its popularity around the period of the CCF’s formation. It did well in provincial by-elections in Calgary and Edmonton and won the mayoralty, as well as control of the city council, in Edmonton. In Calgary it had about half the seats on city council. But the CLP was constrained by its inability to criticize its UFA partners running the provincial government. Also, in keeping with its colleagues across the country, it was limited in its notion of ways of using civic government to improve workers’ lives and win support for their party. The CLP was niggardly on the issue of cash relief payments and downright hostile to the Communist-associated unemployed movement.110 The CCF movement, then, was associated with two political organi­ zations that were relatively dominant on the farms and in labour halls, but were widely considered spent forces. In the fall of 1934, the provincial council of the Alberta CCF, which still included only the UFA and the Labour Party, agreed to allow the establishment of “Economic Reconstruction Association” branches. These were, in effect, CCF Clubs but were not allowed to use the name, although they could point out that they were “affiliated to the C.C.F.” Two locals of the Economic Re­ construction Association were led by William H. Alexander, a classics



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professor and member of the LSR111 and seem to have absorbed an earlier movement in Calgary known as the Cooperative Commonwealth Association. These locals were “temporarily” affiliated to the CCF, but, their membership never surpassesed the benchmark of 750, the number required by the provincial council of the CCF for formal affiliation with the provincial CCF.112 In Manitoba, the Association of Social Reconstruction Clubs affiliated to the CCF in early 1934.113 At its peak, there were some twenty-five clubs with about six hundred members, although it is difficult to discern the character of their relationship with the Independent Labour Party, in part because of the paucity of Manitoba CCF records. Certainly the issue of the clubs does not appear to have been as conflictual as elsewhere, probably at least partly because of the dominance of the ILP in Winnipeg. Most references to the Social Reconstruction Clubs in the Weekly News – or, as it was renamed in 1934, the Manitoba Common­ wealth – simply note their participation in street meetings or in constituency nominating meetings around the city.114 That there was some conflict is suggested by an observation by Angus MacInnis around the time of the Regina Convention that the ILP was very strong in Manitoba “and not very enthusiastic about the C.C.F.”115 It would be clear throughout the decade that a substantial number of ILPers, who had experienced considerable success in the city in both educational work and elections, did not see the advantage of attracting untested, nonworking-class members to a broader movement. Nonetheless, they not only worked with the Social Reconstruction Clubs (although, given what we know about the rich intellectual life of the Winnipeg labour movement, they would have been appalled by political scientist Nelson Wiseman’s comment that the LSR gave the CCF “intellectual content and leadership”), but also actively attempted to build a farmers’ section of the CCF.116 Although this farmers’ group had a solid leader in Jock Brown it was not able to make much of an impact on the United Farmers of Manitoba.117 Eventually, in both Alberta and Manitoba, CCF Clubs would emerge, but their creation would be marked with significant conflicts fuelled by other challenges and debates in the mid-1930s. In Quebec and the Maritimes, CCF Clubs might have made up for the absence or weakness of working-class socialist organizations. In Quebec, as any number of commentators have pointed out, the CCF never took root. It was, in a large number of ways, an English-Canadian movement. Of course, the CCF in English Canada was far from a homogeneous organization, but its major currents either did not really run

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into Quebec or were marginalized by linguistic and other cultural differences. There was some interest in the new movement: over a thousand people turned out to hear Woodsworth speak in the province in March 1933.118 But Woodsworth was indicative of the problem. With his deeply British, anglophone, and Protestant roots and aura, he represented a public face of the CCF with which most Québécois would be unlikely to identify. Moreover, rural support for the CCF, not particularly strong in English Canada, was non-existent in Quebec, where the political and cultural history led in quite a different direction. In fact, the CCF had any resonance at all in only two quarters of Montreal society: the anglophone intelligentsia and the Quebec section of the Canadian Labour Party which, in Woodsworth’s dismissive words, “is confined to Montreal and is not very strong.”119 Still, there were some initial signs of life. The CLP did relatively well in this period, at least in particular neighbourhoods, electing municipal councillors in St-Louis and Verdun.120 Overall, though, party members were divided over whether to throw their lot in with the CCF, leading CLP secretary and CCF supporter Jean Péron to appeal directly, and successfully, to the executive committee of the Montreal Labour Council to send delegates to the “C.C.F. Organizing Committee.” As well, he sent a letter to fifty francophone labour leaders to invite them to a meeting in April 1933 to discuss, interestingly, the possible formation of a CCF Club.121 The absence of reliable core support from significant farmer or labour organizations seemed to leave the CCF with one alternative in Quebec, the creation of CCF Clubs. Woodsworth floated the idea to several individuals in Montreal, while acknowledging that, elsewhere in the country, labour was cool to the club movement.122 However, the gulf between the labour and club sections in other provinces would be considerably greater in Montreal due to a combination of class and ethnic differences. It is significant that the latter were most apparent to organizers. Only two of the nine-member Montreal council of the CCF were francophones and expanding this number seemed an impossible task.123 In the council’s report to the CCF national executive, the problem was described, albeit with some understatement: “Our activities have not as yet been able to arouse the necessary enthusiasm in the hearts and minds of the majority of the French speaking population to make it a mass movement. Nor have we been able to recruit sufficient intelligent French speakers possessing the qualifications of leadership to create a large following.”124 As Andrée Lévesque effectively argues, the issue arose largely from English Canadians’ perception of



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Quebec francophones as incapable of understanding the socialist message. As E.E. Haydon, an initial leader of the Montreal clubs saw it, French Canadians were illiterate, emotional, and under the thumb of the Catholic Church.125 Such attitudes were the product of both ethnic and class prejudice. Haydon’s comment that the voters of Notre-Dame-de-Grâce in the West End of Montreal would prove more intelligent than their counterparts in other communities spoke to both their ethnicity and the fact that this was a solidly middle-class neighbourhood. As Lévesque argues, at its outset, “le parti possède … un organisateur qui favorise les recrues de la classe bourgeoise anglo-saxonne, au point parfois de mépriser les masses ouvrières francophones.”126 Consequently, other leaders of the CCF in Quebec reflected this preference. Key were George Mooney, a senior officer of the YMCA, vice-chair of the Montreal Coun­ cil of Social Agencies, president of the Montreal Lions Club, and one of the first members of the LSR, and Lloyd Almond, the Quebec representative on the CCF national council, employed by the Montreal Life Insurance Company.127 Several years later, Jean Péron¸ alienated from the CCF for a number of reasons, diagnosed the sources of the Quebec CCF’s isolation: “During my activity in the CCF I have attempted to get the Provincial Council to pay more attention to the organisation of the French-Canadian workers, but the majority of the Council preferred to concentrate on certain clubs, [such] as N.D.G. [Notre-Dame-de-Grâce] for example, which can be explained by their conception that the working class is ignorant, and that socialism will be achieved by the educated middle class. It is such ideas that are responsible for the weakness of the CCF in the province of Quebec.”128 This perception of the francophone working class was reflected in the CCF’s strategy. Viewing members of this class as subject to the dictates of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the CCF discussed several means of convincing the church of the federation’s benign character as well as painting CCF policy as being generally in keeping with papal encyclicals. In 1933 the party issued a pamphlet entitled A Catholic Can Belong to the CCF Party, which was quickly translated into French. Various CCFers suggested quiet negotiations with the church; one suggested offering to print bilingual money if the CCF were to form the federal government.129 Not surprisingly, none of these strategies had any impact, except on the CCF itself. The argument that the CCF had to abandon explicit references to revolution and to socialism in order to placate the Quebec clergy and its flock was made by several CCFers, including

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J.L. Whitty, one of the few Quebec delegates to the Regina Convention.130 The image that many labour socialists had within the CCF that the club sections were particularly eager to abandon socialism could only be reinforced by the behaviour of the club-dominated Quebec wing. On top of all of this, a CCF dominated by the League for Social Recon­ struction was particularly unlikely to succeed in Quebec because of the specific deafness of the LSR regarding the national question. This is not to argue that other Canadian socialists were any more aware of the problem, but the LSR, and particularly Frank Scott, is especially identified with a very centralist form of federalism, one very unlikely to receive a positive hearing in any section of French-speaking Quebec. Scott and the university-based LSR members were involved in a panCanadian movement while recognizing that their efforts in Quebec would be unlikely to succeed. As Andrée Lévesque has argued in her important study of the challenges facing the left in Depression-era Quebec, the possibilities of building a movement were tightly constrained, regardless of strategy. Nonetheless, it is difficult to imagine a group having less potential for success than the specific individuals who made up the core of the CCF Clubs in that province. Their failure would relegate the CCF to a permanently marginal status in Quebec. The CCF in the Maritimes was a thin reed indeed. Despite the popular notion that the region was generally conservative, there was a legacy of labour and farmers’ parties upon which to build, although their distribution was geographically uneven. As Ian McKay points out, the CCF, such as it was, had its roots in the labour movement in the region.131 But in Nova Scotia, the Communist Party was particularly strong in the coalfields. Largely as a result of this dominance, the CCF emerged as a force in that province only in the late 1930s. In contrast, initial developments in New Brunswick seemed auspicious. At the New Brunswick Federation of Labour convention in March 1933, a motion from a delegate of the Moncton Trades and Labour Council that the Federation of Labour sponsor the creation of the CCF in the province was adopted by a vote of twenty-one to nine.132 As it turned out, the centre of support for the idea was Moncton; according to one commentator, labour in Saint John was indifferent, with the exception of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, which A.R. Mosher “appears to have educated a little.”133 The support of this union is consistent with the fact that the movement took off in Moncton, a railway centre. There were also two small labour political organizations interested in the new CCF, an Independent Labour Party in Moncton and a Socialist



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Party of Canada in Saint John. The latter group communicated with its counterparts in Toronto to determine a strategy regarding the founding meeting of the New Brunswick CCF, which was held 23 June 1933 in the Moncton Labour Temple. The event reflected broad interest in the new organization. There were ninety-eight delegates at the convention and about a thousand people showed up to hear Woodsworth speak in the local stadium.134 An executive was elected, but it seemed to have a great deal of trouble determining how to capitalize on these initial events. The SPC was somewhat marginal to this process, as it was confined to Saint John. There, it undertook the organization of two “very successful” meetings for Woodsworth in the Opera House. The SPC noted that most of the audience were “middle-class people” and that it had no support from the local trades and labour council – “in fact they did all they could to hurt us.”135 The very small New Brunswick SPC had adopted the strategies of its Ontario and B.C. comrades with respect to organizing the CCF, by attempting to build a base of working-class support but also attract the “middle-class people” who were clearly open to its appeal. Having done so, the SPC were troubled by the lack of activity on the part of the new CCF executive. Although the SPC were not represented on that body, it did attempt to prod the executive into action. The SPC quickly happened on the idea of building CCF Clubs, a logical tactic given the lack of any province-wide organizations that could affiliate to the federation. The SPC wrote to the Ontario CCF Clubs but received no response. Ontario SPC secretary Bert Robinson’s explanation of this reflects that group’s frustration with the clubs section. Although the SPC in Ontario had been a supporter of the idea of the clubs, Robinson pointed out that, despite the clubs’ facilities (they had an “office, with paid stenographer, and all-day help” – a clear contrast to the Labour Conference’s class-induced poverty), they had proven themselves “incompetent.”136 Within a year, it was apparent that the New Brunswick CCF Clubs had not taken root. Like the Quebec clubs, they lacked a sufficient critical mass to inspire activity and to focus members on the real tasks of building a social movement. In New Brunswick, SPC activists reported an apathy that “envelopes us like a fog” as well as “endless wrangles, disputes, and split-ups” that dashed their hopes “that a less doctrinaire spirit had now come about than the old pre-war days of the S.P. of C.”137 This contrasted with British Columbia and, to a lesser extent, with Ontario. In those provinces, SPCers felt that, whatever the hurdles, they could hold on to their principles and build a much broader movement.

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The issue, in the summer of 1933, was whether it was possible to build a pan-Canadian movement on that basis.

• Given the diversity within the Co-operative Commonwealth Federa­ tion and the deep tensions that were inherent in both its composition and the perceptions that affiliates to the CCF had of each other, the Regina Convention in July 1933 was remarkably congenial – or at least restrained. Certainly it was not entirely reflective of the dynamics of the CCF in general. There were several reasons for this. The movement itself was still very much on an upswing; possibilities were open, delegates were waiting to see how it unfolded, and few wanted to provoke serious debate for fear of alienating other constituencies that they felt were necessary to the success of the project. In addition, there was relatively little to debate. For the most part, as its authors pointed out, the Regina Manifesto was an elaboration of earlier labour and socialist programs, although much longer and more elaborate than its predecessors. Both “revolutionary” and “reformist” readings of most of its clauses are quite possible. Indeed, the document, in keeping with the Second Inter­ national tradition generally, combined “immediate” and ultimate goals in a way that often appeared internally contradictory. It spoke of the attainment of socialism, but also protection for workers and farmers under capitalism. For the most part, the manifesto describes the policies of a future socialist government. How that government might come into being and the class structure of the future society are not extensively explored in the document. Despite the attention that the Regina Manifesto would receive over time, the 1933 convention focused to a large extent on the process of regrouping very different organizations. William Irvine was quite right in commenting at the time that “we can’t make a program that will reflect all the opinions of the various groups.”138 Delegates had to measure their dissatisfaction with elements of the program against the potential consequences. Not surprisingly, the main concern among those most committed to the project was to placate the most skittish delegates, those representing farmers’ organizations. Walter Young suggests the farmers “are perhaps best classified as liberal reformers in the populist tradition,” a description that, although overly general, certainly described many of their contributions to the debates.139 Repeat­ edly, delegates representing the farmers told others what would, or



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would not, sell in rural Canada. For the most part, the issues raised were not substantive enough to endanger the fledgling CCF, and debate, such as it was, focused on remarkably few specific issues. The balance of forces in Regina also inhibited debate. If the labour socialists objected to any parts of the proposed program of the CCF, they had to measure their chances of rallying sufficient votes to amend the proposed manifesto. The issue of votes raises the question of who was at the convention. The composition was determined by two practical issues: the allotment of delegates to the various affiliated organizations and the ability of delegates to actually make the trek to Regina. Questions of clarity and fairness plagued both of these issues, but it is difficult to see how they could have been avoided. The allocation of delegates was based on the number of federal constituencies in each province.140 Table 1 clearly shows that the distribution was not related to the strength of the movement in various provinces. Provincial councils determined the status of affiliates, and they did so by different rules. As well, it was very difficult to measure the relative size of affiliates and so there was no easy formula to determine representation. In some cases, at least, places were simply divided among affiliates. In the case of British Columbia, the provincial executive committee decided, just a month before the convention, that the province’s sixteen delegates would split in two: eight representing the SPC and eight “others.”141 This appears to have been a magnanimous gesture on the part of the SPC, given the rather small and inchoate nature of the “others” at a time before the Associated CCF Clubs of Brit­ ish  Columbia had been formed. For the working-class SPCers, there was another problem: how to get to Regina. Railway fares were “prohibitive,” and some thought was given to attempting to get hold of a truck.142 Once there, Ernest Winch, for one, slept under the stars.143 In Ontario, the process was similar, but the inequities even more pronounced. The allocation of delegates was discussed at the first full meeting of the Ontario CCF provincial council on 5 June 1933. The structure of the council had been determined at a meeting only a month earlier, at which it had been decided that each section – the Labour Conference, the clubs, and the United Farmers of Ontario – would each have equal representation. The executive committee reflected this decision, with Agnes Macphail of the UFO as president, E.A. Beder from the clubs section as vice-president, and Bert Robinson of the SPC as secretary, all selections subject to ratification when the full council met. A sign of the uneven organization in each area was that the provisional

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Table 1 Provincial delegates to the Regina Convention Province

Number of delegates alloted

Number of delegates in attendance*

Nova Scotia

11

0

New Brunswick

10

0

Quebec

65

5

Ontario

82

40

Manitoba

17

17

Saskatchewan

21

21

Alberta

17

17

British Columbia Total

16

16

239

116

* This number does not include MPs or members of the federal executive. Source: Regina Star, 21 July 1933.

council immediately decided to approach the UFO leadership in an attempt to organize the CCF in rural Ontario.144 Privately, Arthur Mould voiced frustration at the arrangement: “If the Farmers don’t attempt to organise, and still want to lay down the terms, it’s the tail wagging the dog.”145 At the subsequent meeting, E.A. Beder resigned from the executive, the significance of which would become clear later. The same meeting decided to allot the eighty-two Ontario delegates to the Regina Convention more or less evenly: each section was alloted twenty-six, plus four from the provincial council. The council delegates were Macphail and Robinson, Kitchener alderman John Walter (a prewar Social Democratic Party of Canada member and self-described Marxist), who represented the clubs, and Elmore Philpott, a prominent Liberal recently recruited to the CCF Clubs, whose presence would soon have an explosive effect on the Ontario CCF.146 The problem, once again, was actually getting to Regina. Members of the Labour Conference were either employed and had to work (and leaders of the movement, including Robinson and Mould, described this as a period of exhausting activity) or were unemployed.147 In either case, there was a problem with funds. Although there was some discussion of how to allot the twenty-six Labour Conference positions between cities and among organizations, it soon became clear how difficult it would be to send a contingent. The Toronto Regional Labour



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Council (that city’s branch of the Labour Conference) elected three delegates with solid labour-socialist credentials – Bert Robinson, William Moriarty, and Elizabeth Morton – to represent them in Regina, and immediately issued an appeal for funds from their affiliated organizations, since they were the council’s only source of income.148 The three, along with Thomas Cruden, the Earlscourt CCF Club delegate, planned to drive to Regina, via Chicago, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis, raising money by speaking en route.149 When Arthur Mould asked Robinson how delegates were getting to Regina, he was told that, “like everything else, we are dependent on MONEY. [Elizabeth Morton’s] organization has a little money (East York Workers Assn) and were able to donate $35.00 towards expenses.” Lamenting the challenges of raising money from working-class organizations in the depths of the Depres­ sion, he added, “I am as sorry as you that the Clubs are going to send likely about 25 to Regina, and we can only muster three, but I’ve done all I can – Sent out letter after letter for Fees – and another letter re financing delegates – response in Toronto – a little – outside, as usual – none.”150 Clubs were often challenged as well. John Walter relates how money for his trip was financed by “local citizens” who were part of the People’s Forum that had evolved into a CCF Club.151 Individual groups, whether CCF Clubs or affiliates of the Labour Conference, had considerable demands on their limited funds and were hard pressed to send a delegate to Regina without outside support.152 While we know the provincial distribution of delegates, the tenor of the convention was set in part by the large number of observers, overwhelmingly from rural Saskatchewan. Yet, determining who was actually at the convention is a challenge, as lists published in the local newspaper did not distinguish between delegates and visitors. An attempt to determine the rural or urban background of attendees has concluded that a small majority were from the countryside.153 While William Godfrey, who has closely studied the event, takes issue with Paul Fox’s comment that “most of the 130 founders of the CCF at this meeting were prairie wheat farmers,” the perception was rooted in the skewed attendance in Regina.154 In any case, it was a poor reflection of either the composition or the history of the fledgling movement. For a range of reasons, then, the Regina Convention appeared surprisingly distant from the urban working-class roots of Canadian socialism, both in composition and in language. The distance arose partly from the manner in which the convention was planned. The CCF was, of course, a federation of provincially based

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organizations. The only bodies that transcended this (outside of the rather tenuous connections the SPCs had made) were the federal caucus, the provisional national council, and the League for Social Recon­ struction. These were arenas where working-class traditions were weakly reflected. The planning of the convention was in their hands and, fearful of the divisions that might tear the new federation apart, they orchestrated it with some care. Most importantly, and famously, they came with a fully developed program, the production of which has been fully explored by Michiel Horn.155 In Regina, they played a leading role. Each section of the manifesto was introduced and explained by either a member of either the provisional national council or the LSR (which had no official standing in the CCF).156 The role of academics without knowledge or experience in socialist movements was at odds with the tradition of socialism in Canada, which was solidly proletarian. More than that, in a remark that smacked of considerable class arrogance, George Ferguson of the Winnipeg Free Press had allegedly dubbed this group the CCF’s “brain trust” although he insisted that LSR figures Graham Spry and Escott Reid used the phrase first to describe themselves.157 The implication was that the movement had lacked, and finally found, intelligent leadership. The remark, much echoed by historians of the CCF, displays an ignorance of the richness of the labour-socialist autodidact tradition in Canada and of the dense network of working-class educational activity in Ferguson’s own city. It ignored the vast reading that working-class CCFers, particularly those from the labour-socialist tradition, undertook, buying and borrowing books from a range of party-sponsored distributors and libraries, and sharing subscriptions to a range of British, American, and Canadian periodicals.158 Ignorance of these traditions was also betrayed by Frank Underhill, who noted with disdain that he (and no doubt his colleagues) had been “completely ignorant about little Socialist Labour Groups that there were around Toronto till I began to run into them … after 1931.”159 He added that such encounters were the first he had heard of laboursocialist activities going back to the First World War and earlier. At the very least, as William Moriarty commented, the behaviour of the LSR in Regina implied that the “the untrained masses are incompetent to pass judgment upon the complicated problems of capitalism.”160 The sensitivities of working-class socialists, who had for decades dedicated themselves to the making of socialists through education, were deeply offended by such attitudes.



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Taken together, these features of the Regina Convention suggest a strategic moment in an ongoing coup, as the contingent of workingclass socialists were marginalized at an important moment in the creation of the new movement. The only substantial bloc that was at all prepared for the event was the British Columbia SPC. It had generated a list of resolutions that spoke more directly to its campaigns than did the Regina Manifesto, although they were not entirely inconsistent with this document. The SPC called for action for the repeal of section 98 of the Criminal Code and sections 40 and 41 of the Immigration Act, important legacies of the period of repression in response to the labour revolt of 1919. It called for unrestricted trade with the USSR and support of the Canadian Labour Defence League (CLDL), the civil rights organization associated with the Communist Party. It went beyond the Regina Manifesto in specifically calling for a ban on CCF representatives accepting office in coalition governments with capitalist political parties. And it called for the pooling of travel expenses, so that working-class delegates could, in fact, attend CCF conventions.161 To the B.C. CCF executive council, SPCer Angus MacInnis explained that the main aim at Regina should be to ensure that the CCF was opposed to “continuing to administer capitalism.” Generally, the goal of the SPC was “to place the Federation in a definite, progressive channel.”162 These were not isolated sentiments. The Saskatoon branch of the Independent Labor Party sent a resolution arguing that the goal of the CCF was socialism, not maintaining capitalism, and it should therefore never align itself with the two capitalist parties in Canada, the Liberals and Conservatives. As well, it proposed that the convention “endorse the study of the Materialist Conception of History.” The Toronto Regional Labour Council proposed that the point be specifically made that inflationary policies were not a cure for the evils of the system.163 Why did these groups have so little effect? Of course, the goal to push the CCF in a more socialist direction was a vague one, and it was difficult to articulate the distinction between reform and revolution (although they were careful to avoid the latter term) to those schooled only in liberalism. Angus MacInnis’s declaration that the choice was “capitalism versus socialism,” a truism for labour socialists, brought consternation from farmer delegates and from J.L. Whitty, a delegate from Quebec. Agnes Macphail declared, “I heard nothing else but ‘socialism’ and ‘socialization’ since I came to Regina and I’m sick and tired of it.” Whitty simply argued that the language would not fly “because

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Quebec is not ready for it.”164 The demand not to support Liberal or Conservative governments brought objections from members of Parlia­ ment William Irvine and Agnes Macphail, as it seemed to prohibit the political trading that, in the past, helped to win measures such as old age pensions. Such concerns highlighted the differences between parliamentary politics and the labour-socialist world of educating the masses in the need for a new society. The issue was, of course, rooted in a fear that socialist representatives would be co-opted into the world of elite politics where workers’ interests were regularly traded away and workers learned no lessons that would bring them closer to socialism. Those either uncritical of, or immersed in, liberal parliamentarism did not seem to understand the problem. Regina was a difficult terrain upon which to have this debate. The toughest questions were posed by William Moriarty who, although persona non grata in the Communist Party, was subject to red baiting. Many years later, John Walter referred to him as a communist “stooge.” Later he claimed, “I understood Moriarty’s language and had to keep him in check… I remember on several occasions I took Moriarty aside and I reasoned with him privately that he can’t throw this kind of language around this group because we have people there that were terrified of the word socialism. Still they were dissatisfied with the Liberals and Conservatives of the day.”165 Perhaps more sceptical of the project of including such a wide array of forces in the CCF, Moriarty was more willing to raise issues that could divide the convention. The first was a motion by Moriarty and E.E. Winch to remove the words “We do not believe in change through violence” from the manifesto. This was hardly an issue upon which the labour socialists could agree and certainly one that would rile liberal sentiment. But Moriarty explained it in defensive terms, pointing out the tactics used by capital and specifically referring to the failed attempt by the German Social Democrats to stop the Nazis by constitutional means. Irvine essentially agreed, pointing out that, “if such an event arose, what is now unconstitutional would become the right and proper method for the people to follow.” But most of the delegates only seemed to have heard what they thought was an appeal to violence and a reference to events that seemed outside of the British political tradition. Winch’s own feeling that the major issue facing the convention was the threat of fascism and the importance of working-class unity – issues that may have dominated an SPC-led debate – found no echo among those who considered British



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Canada remote from such threats and who lacked a proletarian identity.166 Some from the SPC tradition had their own qualms, based on their concept of social change that seemed to proceed by stages through broader and more effective education. Bill Pritchard, apparently missing the terms of the debate laid out by Moriarty, suggested that, “if the people will not use their intelligence to mark the ballot, I would not trust them to use any other means.”167 The issue of compensation for socialized property seemed to fall on similarly deaf ears. For socialists, the issue seemed straightforward: paying capitalists for their property would only perpetuate the material bases of their social power. B.C. SPCers such as Angus MacInnis and Robert Skinner spoke against compensation, as did B.C. club delegate Dorothy Steeves. She pointed out “that if properties were confiscated outright they would be merely returning to the workers the rights to which they have been deprived by capital.” Favouring some compensation, Norman Priestley suggested that the labour socialists were speaking as if society were entirely polarized and the middle class and farmers did not exist. As he and others pointed out, the “intermediate class” and the “white collar class” would lose their very small investments. The debate quickly seemed to divide the convention not just on political lines – many farmer delegates explicitly defended liberal property rights as they understood them – but also by class. The labour-­ socialist delegates could feel themselves stymied by an alliance of the farmers and the urban middle class.168 The controversies, then, really centred on issues of class identity and perception. Did capitalists or parliament run Canadian society, and what lengths would capitalists go to defend their class position? Would a CCF government expropriate or defend the small capitalist? It would be a mistake to suggest that the delegates from the labour affiliates were of one mind on these questions. John Queen, for instance, stood up strongly in favour of compensation, and it is unlikely that most urban socialist delegates had a strong position on the fate of the individual family farm.169 But the general outline of the division was clear. What is just as interesting, though, is the number of issues that were not the subject of debate. Aside from a limited number of hot points, most clauses of the manifesto were passed with minimal discussion. As William Godfrey comments, “considering that conventions of the CCF have quite often been marked by debate, dissension and delay, this first national meeting of the CCF seems to be somewhat out of step with its

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successors. The approval of well over half of the Manifesto after sessions lasting only one and a half days was a rather substantial accomplishment.”170 In the end, the labour-socialist group, key to the CCF in the cities of English Canada, had been marginalized at Regina. To an astounding extent, the farmers, whose commitment to the CCF was at best marginal, controlled debate at the convention. The small socialist contingent, itself not particularly unified on several of the issues that did come up for debate, tended to be seen by observers, and by some historians, as peripheral to the emerging movement. The event, then, was a frustrating one for working-class socialists. Woodsworth commented that the socialists had made major concessions in Regina, but they were hardly voluntary.171 It was possible to be philosophical about the event. Building a socialist movement had never been easy. Labour socialists had gone into this with their eyes open, with an understanding that their non-working class partners had a feeble understanding of socialism. The Regina Convention had demonstrated the CCF’s ability to attract new forces from across the country; the goal remained educating them in the meaning of working-­ class socialism. Dorothy Steeves suggested that the B.C. delegation, on the whole, was energized.172 Indeed, the reporting in the B.C. SPC’s Clarion is a study in how to put the best face on the event. In the edition preceding the Regina Convention, an article entitled “Lenin on Opportunism” critically considered the CCF project, presenting Lenin’s portrait of opportunists as always finding a “pretext to prohibit the mention of class hatred and class struggle.”173 Certainly, the Regina meeting could be evaluated on these terms, but the August issue, reporting on the event, was entirely uncritical: “The C.C.F. went into the convention a loose organization of parties with nothing definite except the general acceptance of the central idea upon which it was founded; it emerged, a solidified organization with a definite Program, Manifesto and Consti­ tution clearly stating, not only the objective, but the means whereby it is proposed to accomplish the transition to the new social order.”174 The two faces of the B.C. SPC could not be more clearly contrasted. And there were more private acknowledgments of the challenge. Ernest Winch denied that there was a split in British Columbia between SPCers and those who were in the process of forming CCF Clubs over some of the issues raised at the convention. But he did suggest that there were political opportunists in the B.C. movement generally and that, “sooner



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or later,” there would have to be some kind of “house-cleaning.” He concluded with a depiction of both the road to socialism and of the character of that socialism, which was very different from the technological and managerial solutions posed by the LSR and the Regina Manifesto: “For the attainment and maintenance of economic freedom we fully realize the probable necessity for ruthlessness – as we said at the Convention; ‘we are more concerned with ends than means’ but the ends are something more than food, clothing and shelter; upon that assured basis we will build life – which is self-expression in its fullest essence.”175 It is worth remembering this position when considering the “social democratization” of the CCF in the decade to follow. There were other hints of dissension. Harold Winch, Ernest’s son, was called before the B.C. CCF executive to explain “statements purported to have been made relative to the general movement and its leaders,” but the issue seems not to have been pursued.176 The Ontario SPC was more incensed. Not only did it feel that the socialists had been outmaneuvered, it were unimpressed with the ability of even the SPCers to present a united front. Not surprisingly, there was some stocktaking. In fact, the Ontario SPC wrote to the 666 Homer Street group, explaining that it was disappointed in the behaviour of the B.C. SPCers in Regina and suggesting that only the party members from Ontario had consistently taken “true socialist stands.”177 Indeed, there was a crack in the Ontario CCF itself. Thomas Cruden, who had attended the convention as a CCF Club delegate, was criticized for opposing other SPC members in Regina and resigned from the SPC.178 The leadership of the CCF celebrated the Regina Convention, and the Regina Manifesto was printed and broadly distributed. Among the labour socialists, the assessment of the manifesto was more varied, ranging from William Pritchard’s comparing it to the Magna Carta to the contention of Fred Hodgson (of the Ontario SPC) that it “reveals a strong middle-class character.” Hodgson clearly anticipated the potential reformist reading of the document among those advocating a social democratic mixed economy: “the CCF … speaks only of the socialization of things valuable to the petty bourgeoisie – banking, insurance, etc. The socialization of banking would strengthen, rather than weaken, the hold of capitalism by providing a medium of stabilization.”179 Party colleague Bert Robinson had a more nuanced view, pointing out that the program was “more advanced” than that of the British Labour Party. He clearly felt that the CCF was a broad movement whose final

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character was undetermined and that it was one in which socialists ought to participate.180 Although Robinson did not make explicit reference to it – indeed, almost nobody did at the time – the final clause of the manifesto, promising that “no C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative Commonwealth,” was at the heart of the sentiments he expressed. Historians of the CCF are generally at a loss to explain the inclusion of the final clause. Michiel Horn suggests that it made the manifesto “sound more radical than it was,” and Walter Young largely ignores it in his dubious argument that “the CCF was less socialistic than either the Labour Party or Fabian Society” and that “there was little Marx in the Regina Manifesto.”181 This speaks, of course, to the alternate readings of the manifesto, but the final clause deserves a bit more attention. It is part of the section on the CCF’s “emergency programme,” which deals with the measures a CCF government would undertake to deal with the immediate issues of unemployment and poverty. It acknowledges that there would be a “transitional period” in which the CCF would have to manage capitalism but that such measures would be of “temporary value” as only the eradication of capitalism would cure the illness.182 This section of the manifesto is not particularly amenable to a “socialdemocratic” reading. It speaks to the influence of the labour-socialist tradition and suggests a qualitative difference between capitalism and socialism. Of course, it does not sit comfortably with everything else in the manifesto, nor does it really address the process or the timeline of this transition. Nonetheless, it reflected the influence at the Regina Convention of the long socialist tradition and provided a rationale for socialists to continue in the broader movement. Those labour socialists who saw in the nascent CCF the movement of the masses towards socialism had some acknowledgment of their influence. It would be a difficult struggle, but there were signs of movement. At the same time, labour and socialist affiliates generally rejected the argument that they should give up their own organizations and disappear into the morass of the CCF. They, along with the Farmers, who had the opposite reasons for wanting to limit their participation in the CCF, felt that their unique class interests could be smothered within a unified, rather than federated, organization.



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Whatever construction labour participants in the Regina Conven­ tion put on the proceedings and on the manifesto, it must have been clear to them that there would be tough slogging ahead. Even if small concessions they had won, labour socialists were generally marginalized in the process. Woodsworth and the LSR ran the show, the convention generally capitulated to those farmers’ organizations that still held to liberal notions of property and politics, and labour-socialist delegates struggled even to have a debate on issues of significance to them. It should have come as no surprise that these issues, which the labour socialists read as issues of social class, would explode in the next few months. The main battlegrounds would be Ontario and British Columbia.

Chapter Three

Class War in the CCF

The Regina Convention and the adoption of the Regina Manifesto had given the young CCF a national profile and seemed to indicate a programmatic consensus around which to build the new movement. De­ spite the absence of delegates from east of Montreal, the convention had been an event of national significance. Most impressively, the CCF had regrouped organizations from a range of labour, farmer, and “middle-class” constituencies and had avoided a public airing of a variety of differences among and between these groups. For all of its wariness about the alien class forces that came to populate the CCF, the labour socialist forces were unprepared for the onslaught that came in the aftermath of the Regina Convention. To the extent that they were visible, the battle lines in Regina seemed to have been most clearly drawn between the labour socialists and the farmers, most specifically those from Ontario. The views of the Labour Conference delegates and those of the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) could hardly have been more divergent. In fact, the UFO’s commitment to the project was tenuous, at best. The experience of the UFO in provincial government from 1919 to 1923 had not been particularly positive, and its engagement with independent electoral politics did not really extend to adoption of “socialism” of any hue.1 Although a catalyst for the battles that ensued, the UFO quickly found itself outside the CCF. The other most experienced provincial farmers’ organization, the United Farmers of Alberta, was, as a result of its governance of Alberta at the outset of the Depression, a spent force as well. The real contest was between the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) and the CCF Clubs, on one hand, and labour socialism and particularly the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) on the other. For the most



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part, historians have viewed the entry of the LSR into the CCF benignly. But historians’ implicit assumption (mimicking the LSR’s own self-­ perception) that the LSR brought university-based social science into the political labour movement, modernized CCFers’ attitudes towards the state and social reform, and made the CCF more palatable for a broader range of Canadians contains an implicit condemnation of the labour-­ socialist project. Certainly the assumptions brought to the CCF by the “Fabians” of the LSR contrasted with the experiences and analyses of those whose history was rooted in the labour movement. Understanding this requires some digression into a consideration of “Fabianism” in Britain and in Canada, and some examination of the LSR’s program, which was developed in the early 1930s and most completely presented in its 1935 book, Social Planning for Canada. The battlelines that emerged in the CCF in the aftermath of Regina, then, will make more sense.

• Studies of the nascent CCF generally acknowledge the diverse genealogy of the organizations within the federation and how they reflected various strains of social protest that were situated in different social milieux and raised a variety of demands. Yet, attempts at political categorization reveal a marked tendency to reduce CCF ideology to a single, allegedly dominant, current: Fabianism. Because of its safe, British roots, the term was popularly used by some in the federation to stress the reformist character of the CCF and to distinguish it from various forms of socialism, and particularly from communism. So, for instance, Frank Underhill argued in 1960 that “the CCF was an attempt to adapt … European ideas, primarily Fabianism, to Canadian conditions.”2 Most blatantly, Walter Young writes in regard to the CCF founders in Calgary, “They did not want to overturn the system entirely; they wanted to reform it along the lines dictated by the social gospel and the doctrines of Fabian socialism.”3 Not only is this view an injustice to the ideological diversity of the CCF, but it also ignores the rich history of the labour-socialist currents that dominated at Calgary and that, quite explicitly, spoke of a “revolution” in social relations. Moreover, it exaggerates the role of the LSR – the one self-identified Fabian current in the CCF – which was, in 1932, very much watching from the sidelines. Generally speaking, the analogy with the British Fabian Society is less helpful than it first appears. The British body had been in existence for half a century at the time of

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the CCF’s founding and had experienced myriad changes in its activity and politics. As a regroupment of a number of highly individualist writers and social scientists, it developed a structure that militated against it ever producing a clearly delineated program with which comparisons could be drawn. Canadian studies do not address the historiography of the British organization, although, given their claims regarding the CCF (and particularly the LSR), such a task is clearly appropriate and overdue. This gap has resulted in an inability to assess the nature of Fabian influence in Canada. Some statements are clearly misleading. For instance, in his appraisal of the Regina Manifesto, Young notes that the “desire to reform through constitutional means a system gone wrong is distinctly Fabian.”4 Admittedly this is descriptive of the Fabians, although explicit reference to “constitutional methods” was not added to the Fabian Basis until 1919.5 But, it is hardly distinctively Fabian, being instead common to all forms of reformist socialism. In Britain it was the dominant attitude among the majority of the currents that came together in 1900 to form the Labour Representation Committee (later the Labour Party). The Fabian Society, although present, played little part in this process, the prime movers being the Independent Labour Party and a section of the trade union leadership. Young states explicitly what is assumed in other studies, that “Fabianism” is reducible to, and hence synonymous with, gradualism. This is why he could, without evidence, describe the Saskatchewan Independent Labour Party as “distinctively Fabian in outlook” but at the same time point out that they read old copies of Robert Blatchford’s Clarion newspaper, which suggests a quite different orientation.6 The fact is that both the Labour Party and the CCF were fed by other streams of non-revolutionary (and revolutionary) socialism distinct from Fabianism. As Norman Penner commented in the 1970s, most British socialists who immigrated to Canada were “staunch opponents” of Fabianism.7 A recognition of the ways in which Fabianism was a distinctive current on the left is necessary in order to assess its impact on the CCF. When the CCF was formed in 1932, the fortunes of the British Fabian Society were at low ebb, a situation that would soon lead to a rethinking of its activity and the emergence of the New Fabian Research Bureau. The popular perception of the Fabians, which Young and others often invoke, had been formed in the period prior to the First World War. Those were the days when the most well-known Fabians, such as Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Olivier,



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Graham Wallas, and Annie Besant, had formulated and popularized their ideas in a flurry of Fabian tracts and pamphlets. It was at this time, as well, that the distinguishing characteristics of the Fabians became clear. What most marked the Fabians among socialists was their separation from the mainstream of the working-class movement, both socially and politically. Eric Hobsbawm argues that the Fabians “must be seen not as an essential part of the socialist and labour movement (however effective or ineffective, reformist or radical), but an ‘accidental’ one.”8 Their composition was that of a new professional and administrative social layer – a new, and distinctly non-proletarian, middle class – that both rejected and was rejected by a late-Victorian social order incapable of accommodating them. The fact that so many British socialist leaders (Keir Hardie, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, Fred Henderson, and Robert Blatchford among ­others9) were members of the Fabian Society in the 1890s does not necessarily suggest a close tie between the Fabians and a developing working-class socialism. This situation preceded a period of political differentiation and, after 1893, the society lost, without undue concern, most of its members outside London to the Independent Labour Party (ILP). Of greater importance to the Fabians were their attempts to “permeate” or influence the Liberal Party. The Fabians played only a marginal role in the 1893 founding of the ILP, largely confining themselves to fighting against the “Manchester Fourth Clause” which would have prohibited lending political support to Liberal or Conservative can­ didates. Despite its gradualist view, popular socialist leader Robert Blatchford supported the clause, exhibiting a measure of recognition of the class basis of political parties. In contrast, Margaret Cole, writing a semi-official history of the Fabians seven decades later, continued to refer to it as “a foolish proposal.”10 The clause was indicative of the Fabians’ hesitancy to identify socialism with the working class, a corollary of their rejection of fundamental class antagonisms. Hobsbawm argues that early Fabianism can be regarded as a form of socialism only in the very broadest sense of the term (in use at the time), which regarded “socialism” simply as the rejection of laissez-faire liberalism.11 On this level there was general agreement among Fabians, and they consistently counterposed state control to the inefficiency and poverty created by existing economic relations. But such a proposal implied, for the Fabians, no critique of the state as such. In contrast to Marxism, Fabianism did not argue that the state existed to maintain unequal property relations. If a particular government did so, it was

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because of the myopic wrong-headedness of those in power. Margaret Cole identifies as “one of the most important parts of the Fabian creed” the argument that “no reasonable person who knows the facts can fail to become a socialist.”12 Such beliefs clearly opened the way to the Fabian policy of permeating existing parties, as there was no structural impediment to convincing the political leaders they addressed. The Fabians’ class background and experiences led them to discount the working class as an instrument for change, as workers were generally not cognizant of, or fundamentally concerned with, the issues central to the Fabian Society. The Fabian position provoked a parting of the ways with the mainstream of reformist socialism, of which the dispute regarding the “Hutchinson Trust” was indicative. The Webbs, in particular, sought to use this bequest to establish an apolitical educational institution (the London School of Economics). Ramsay MacDonald opposed this, hoping to use the funds to organize a broader political working-class movement. Beatrice Webb summarized the differences that eventually led to MacDonald’s departure from the society: “The truth is that we and MacDonald are opposed on a radical issue of policy. To bring about a maximum amount of public control in public administration, do we want to organize the unthinking persons into Socialistic Societies, or to make the thinking persons socialistic. We believe in the latter process.”13 Given Fabian prejudices, the “thinking persons” emerged to be state bureaucrats and political leaders, for these were defined as the “key persons”14 the Fabians sought to influence. Often such perceptions led them far afield from predictable arenas of socialist activity, such as their tendency to intrigue on behalf of the Liberal imperialists at the time of the Boer War. They had sensed in the “Limps” a sympathy not only for imperial expansion but also for an expanded role for the state domestically.15 Certainly, the Fabian Society was not a working-class political organization in the same manner as the Independent Labour Party or the Social Democratic Federation, two British organizations whose partisans had fed the emigration stream to Canada, and Canada’s labour-socialist movement, in considerable numbers.16 The Fabians also distanced themselves from the dominant ethos of much of the British socialist movement, providing the antithesis of the ethical critique of capitalism that was pervasive in varied forms, from the Labour Churches to Robert Blatchford’s Clarion movement, and from the ideas of Keir Hardie to those of William Morris.17 Theirs was a phlegmatic socialism that focused on administrative problems rather than painting a “utopian” (in the



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broad sense used by E.P. Thompson) picture of a post-capitalist world. William Morris’s critique of Fabianism was that it proposed changing only administrative procedures, rather than social relationships.18 Po­ litically it reflected the aspirations of a new middle class, somewhat fearful of “fanning the flames of discontent” that burned among British workers and that contributed to the emergence of the new unionism at the end of the nineteenth century. In fact, as Alan McBriar notes, Fabians were suspicious of working-class activity and were “inclined to treat strikes, lockouts, and unemployed unrest as nothing but manifestations of the injustice of Capitalism, or a warning of the unpleasantness and chaos that might ensue if Fabian advice were not heeded.”19 Rather than being a positive, or even a neutral force, Fabian ideology was prejudicial to independent working-class activity. The overt Fabian denial of fundamental class antagonisms prompted the society to make theoretical distinctions that separated it from the rest of the socialist movement. Most notable was its denial of an economic basis of working-class exploitation. The labour theory of value was jettisoned in favour of Jevons’s marginal utility theory, which focused on the distribution system, as well as a semi-Ricardian theory of rent, which posited “unearned increments” originating outside production. In effect, Fabians came to deny that profit originated in the expropriation of a portion of the product of human labour within the production process. Instead they developed a critique of the inefficiencies and stupidities of the distribution and financial systems that was not class specific; all would benefit from positive state intervention. As historian John Saville noted, “the Fabians rejected any theory of the state as a coercive power and thereby fully accepted all of the implications of parliamentarianism.”20 This included working closely with, and even attempting to “permeate” all existing parties. Keir Hardie, dedicated to the construction of an independent working-class party, perceived the Fabians’ manoeuvers with the Liberals and Conservatives as “a positive danger to the Socialist Movement.”21 After 1919, when the Fabian Poor Law proposals were rejected by the Liberal Party, a growing and apparently ideologically open Labour Party drew the Fabians into its fold. For the Fabians, this association did not require a wholesale conversion to independent working-class political action. A “self-constituted” Reform Committee made up of younger Fabians argued for a Labour Party “composed of all classes” and having a national audience.22 As late as 1931, Sidney Webb still felt that Britain would “slip into the egalitarian state” as it had “into political

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democracy – by each party, whether nominally Socialist or anti-­Socialist taking steps” towards it.23 The Fabians were preoccupied with social engineering through piecemeal reforms that could create the conditions for a healthier and better-informed general populace. From this flowed their policy of a “national minimum” in the face of the social abyss that threatened late-Victorian workers. Arguing in favour of gradual change, they posed such measures as the extension of existing factory and public health legislation.24 Although critical studies of the Fabians tend to conclude at the time of the First World War, there is no evidence that they made a volte-face in terms of their suspicion of popular participation in government. In fact their obsession with “experts” tended to preclude this (in 1918 an important Fabian tract suggested replacing the House of Lords with a body of “experts”).25 A decline in rank-and-file activity in the Labour Party can be linked to the participation of the Fabians, as well as the party’s growing electoral success and the development of a bureaucratic Labour apparatus. Fabians like G.D.H. Cole who had been influenced by syndicalism and the social explosions before the war were rapidly marginalized within the society.26 And the Fabians continued to reify “facts,” which they believed were the agents of social change. As bearers of such valuable currency, they came to play a significant role in the Labour leadership. It is therefore hardly surprising that the situation described by Margaret Cole continued to obtain for many years: “however much Fabianism was accepted at Labour Party headquarters in London, the ancient prejudice against Fabians as superior, smug, interfering intellectuals whose loyalty could not be relied upon was still very much alive in many provincial towns.”27 This is in keeping with an historical perception of the Fabians’ “top-down ‘mechanical,’ brand of reformism” with an “aversion to open, democratic debate.”28 The League for Social Reconstruction in Canada never had an official connection to the Fabian Society, but it is difficult not to see kindred spirits at work. The LSR clearly identified itself with Fabianism. Frank Underhill, the prime author of the Regina Manifesto, had belonged to the Fabian group at Oxford in his student days and, as if to emphasize the borderline existence of Fabianism, he had also joined the Russell and Palmerston Club, “it being possible in those days to be both a Liberal and a Socialist.”29 An obfuscation of the class differences among political parties was reflected in the LSR’s own manifesto, which pledged the league to support “any political party” whose program



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furthered the aims of the LSR.30 It was clear that the central figures in the league had assimilated, to a degree, the negative lessons of “permeation” of the old parties that had been drawn by their British colleagues, and they responded to the emergence of the CCF “with enthusiasm.”31 Yet they were initially hesitant to identify themselves too closely with the new party for fear of alienating potential support, and they therefore hedged on the question of affiliation. Nevertheless, the relationship soon became even closer than that of the Fabians to the Labour Party at that time. The LSR’s most obvious similarity to the Fabian Society was its nonproletarian character. Michiel Horn has noted the “distinctly donnish flavour”32 that permeated the LSR, particularly among its central leadership. Although academics were not as numerically significant among earlier British Fabians, their weight soon began to grow. Certainly there is a parallel in Canada to the “nouvelle couche sociale” of which Hobsbawm speaks.33 The LSR shared many of the same features, particularly its “confidence in expertise and social engineering.”34 Conse­ quently, the first measure directed towards the “new social order” in the LSR Manifesto was the creation of “a national Economic Planning Commission.”35 An obsession with socio-economic engineering, clearly “Fabian” in character, is reflected in the title (and in the substance) of the major publication of the LSR, Social Planning for Canada. Interestingly, that volume argued that “no group would stand to gain more from an intelligently planned national economy” than professionals.36 But it would not be accurate to view the LSR as a mirror image of the Fabians. For instance, it is possible to distinguish the specific impact of strains of Canadian protest, and in particular, the social gospel. As Horn notes with reference to the LSR membership, “too many of them were children of the manse or belonged to the Fellowship for a Chris­ tian Social Order for the historian to ignore.”37 Yet despite a thread of Protestant morality, which damned the necessity of serving mammon and tended to call upon individual responsibility, LSR literature bore little resemblance to the “religion of socialism” theme widespread in late-nineteenth-century Britain, nor even to the more direct appeals to Christian morality one finds in Salem Bland or James Woodsworth.38 In fact, the LSR seems to have clearly rejected many of the prime concerns of the populist and labour currents that preceded the formation of the CCF. It exhibited neither an acceptance of the necessity for more direct governmental forms that marked the agrarian critique of parliamentary democracy, nor an espousal of specifically working-class interests that

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were characteristic of the small labour parties of the previous decades. The LSR represented a distinct social and political current. The most significant difference between the LSR and the earlier Fabians was its more radical critique of capitalism, a tendency shared by a current of the Fabians that had found its way into the British So­ cialist League in the 1930s.39 The LSR overtly criticized the British Labour cabinet of 1929–31, charging them with “reform” rather than “reconstruction”; “it was not their socialism which destroyed them, but their lack of it.”40 Moreover, the LSR specifically described the Canadian state as “capitalist”41 and each of the major parties as “dominated by the business interests of the great Eastern industrial and financial centres.”42 Consequently, the LSR made a distinction that consistently eluded the Fabians: it stated its opposition to “state-capitalist planning” which failed to address basic inequalities and tended to undermine democracy.43 Also, it described capitalist social legislation as merely insurance against social revolution.44 The LSR appeared to be thinking along similar lines to the laboursocialist currents in the CCF by pointing towards a moment of qualitative social change; it argued that the economic crises besetting Canada “are the inevitable results of the working of our economic system. For that reason they cannot be solved piecemeal and within the limitations of that system.”45 Clearly the international economic and political catastrophes of the 1930s had affected several of the Fabian conceptions the league had held. The Depression obviously called into question Sidney Webb’s “irresistible glide”46 into socialism. By 1935, the fascist dictatorships signalled an expanded role for the state and for planning, but the LSR recognized them, and the pro-business New Deal in the United States, as “being a far cry from socialism.”47 Concrete experiences had pushed the LSR to make some clear ideological breaks with an earlier version of Fabianism. Nevertheless, Social Planning for Canada is hardly as unambiguous as such statements might suggest. The book clearly lacks a perception of a strategy for change or, indeed, any idea of who the social agents of change might be. It is clear at the outset in the desire for “democratic and orderly” procedures, and it describes the process of a “socialist government” gradually expanding its perimeters and “extending its control step by step, consolidating each advance as it is made”48 Horn accurately summarizes the means by which a socialized economy is seen to emerge: “Compensation will be paid to those who are expropriated, but in such a way as to make them sitting ducks for the tax-man.”49



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The potential consequences of such a strategy are not examined in Social Planning for Canada. In fact, probable sabotage against a program of socialization “fatal to the profit making interests vested in the present system” is recognized only as an administrative problem requiring “drastic steps through orders-in-council.”50 The perceived threat to such a process comes from foreign (particularly American) capital; in the LSR analysis, Canadian business appears quite benign. A broad social mobilization to block the actions of the “interests” is not suggested. Such a distrust of mass action is in keeping with the LSR’s Fabian heritage. The reference to orders-in-council is revealing in itself, for it was largely in opposition to such governmental forms that the labour and farmer unrest erupted after the First World War. The LSR did not propose any significant alteration in state forms, arguing strongly for the maintenance of Parliament51 and observing that the British North America Act is “not inextricably tied up with a particular economic system.”52 Such views place the LSR within the conservative Fabian tradition that failed to formulate any criticism of parliamentary democracy. In diffuse and pragmatic fashion, earlier social movements in Canada sought to overcome the individualist, atomizing effect of the parliamentary process that had acted to mute class-based political action. Direct legislation, recall, group government, and the like, in different ways, can be seen as attempts to institutionalize class activity in the political structure. The LSR’s failure to assimilate this tradition was consistent with its view of an undifferentiated “public.”53 The absence of class-based mass political action in the achievement of socialism and of direct popular participation in its functioning are two sides of the same coin. The fetish with administrative problems, which is characteristic of Fabianism, is revealed in the fact that the final two-thirds of Social Planning for Canada – some three hundred pages – is little more than a description of the administrative structure of the “socialist state” right down to the number and function of government ministries and subdepartments. And, with the partial exception of the House of Commons (even here the cabinet is strengthened), it is a massive bureaucratic apparatus headed by the “National Planning Com­ mission” and its “auxiliaries.” Each succeeding page strengthens the impression that the task of running society is best left to those especially trained to do so. Even at the lowest level of community planning, the “Federal Housing Authority” rather than locally based mass organizations emerges as the key player. Although popular input is

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somehow assumed, workers and farmers are clearly the “people planned for.”54 This contrasted deeply with more radical democratic proposals associated, for example, with the “Albertan” wing of the agrarian movement in the 1920s.55 Rather, there were ominous similarities with the “plebiscitary” schemes of that province’s emerging Social Credit movement: “Democratic decision on highly technical points as whether tariffs should be high or low, or what the percentage of bank reserves should be, is naturally absurd. The value of a true democracy … largely lies in the fact that it provides potential machinery through which the people may put on record their fundamental aspirations and select men who express those aspirations.”56 Although Social Planning for Canada contains a long critique of Social Credit economic theory, there is a clear echo here of the substitutionist impulse to rely on coteries of experts rather than popular participation in governance. Perhaps the best evidence of the league’s distance from proletarian experiences was its failure even to contemplate social relations at the point of production. It foresaw workplace relations as being essentially unchanged, as control was transferred from private owners to the state: “The transfer of share ownership and the reconstruction of the board of directors into a public agency need not affect the routine of the factory.”57 For the most part, explicit discussions of workers’ control of the production process was not a theme of 1930s labour radicalism, but the LSR specifically proposed to maintain some of the most objectionable forms of management strategies inherited from capitalism, including piecework and bonuses.58 Its blindness to the nature of earlier labour struggles, as well as its “administrative” bias, precluded any critique of Taylorism. The LSR took sides with scientific management, perceiving it merely as the struggle against “inefficiencies” rather than an attempt to undermine workers’ control of production. Clearly there was little to distance the league from the captains of (capitalist) industry on questions such as these. Social Planning for Canada paints a conservative picture of the Cana­ dian trade union movement that was, at least to some extent, accurate: the organization of industrial unions still, for the most part, lay in the future. But the LSR denied even the potential leadership capabilities of the working class. The organization of society cannot be undertaken by a class, because any “modern industrial society” is of such a complex nature that it can be guided only by specially trained individuals. The focus therefore repeatedly returns to the “experts.”59 The LSR’s proposed labour code was merely “the extension and amplification of



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measures already present in Canada.”60 “Industrial democracy,” one of the five responsibilities of the Department of Labour, would be modelled on Whitley Councils, which had provoked the resentment of the British shop stewards’ movement because they undermined autonomous class action.61 It is clear that there was a reasonable basis for A.A. Heap’s distrust of the LSR academics, “whose pleasant, academic isolation was a long way from the labour battlefields.”62 In the end, the LSR’s interest in workers was generally confined to maintaining efficiency and social peace while attending to the fields of health and welfare through which a paternal state could improve the general well-being. Representing the intellectual and social evolution of the LSR by 1935, Social Planning for Canada is a remarkably ambiguous work. Its critique of the anarchy of capitalism is generally clear, and there is much with which any socialist would agree. Yet it avoided challenging any institution if it were in any way possible. Parliament, the cabinet system, even the BNA Act, emerge barely scathed. One is reminded of the Fabians’ early accommodation to a hereditary monarchy, a substantial concession given the republican tradition out of which many of them emerged.63 Perhaps to overcome the scepticism of an audience familiar with, yet largely uncritical of, the functioning of major parts of the state apparatus, the LSR stressed continuities. “Commissions similar to the existing Board of Railway Commissioners, the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission or the Public Utilities Commissions of the Prairie Prov­ inces, will be established for each industry or group of industries.”64 It would be incorrect to suggest that these commissions were listed solely for didactic convenience, for LSR notables displayed a remarkable proclivity to be drawn into the governmental apparatus. Although they eschewed a formalized “permeation” policy with respect to the Liberal Party, they instinctively sought openings in the Liberal bureaucracy for their ideas and, eventually, for themselves. Michiel Horn notes that “Eugene Forsey, King Gordon, Carlton McNaught, Louise Parkin, Escott Reid, Frank Scott, Graham Spry – these and other members had connections within that network of Canadians who dominated the worlds of religion, education, politics and business.”65 Over the course of the next few decades, several of them would play key roles in the Canadian federal bureaucracy. Of the authors of Social Planning for Canada, for instance, J.F. Parkinson played an important role in spreading the influence of Keynesianism in Ottawa, as did Leonard Marsh, author of the King government’s Report on Social Security for Canada, the CCF reaction to which is the subject of a later discussion in this volume.

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F.R. Scott and Eugene Forsey, of course, were key public intellectuals in the period after the Second World War. Not surprisingly, however, their political trajectories would vary in the context of Depression-era pressures and social movements. In the end, though, the essence of the LSR’s critique of capitalism was that social and technological change had made the capitalist superfluous, as in “our present complex system, as a matter of fact, this great middle class of professional men and technicians are performing more vital functions than the capitalist.”66 In “socialism,” the activity of this “middle class” would not be substantially altered, only broadened. The LSR’s focus on “expertise” and tendency for high-level manoeuvring could only have a negative effect on self-confident class-identified mobilization. Like the Fabians, the LSR, to the extent its ideas gained a hearing, muted the developing class consciousness evident in the various forms of political organizations rooted in events such as the Winnipeg General Strike (which goes unmentioned in Social Planning for Canada). Its ideology (especially in Ontario, where the LSR had the greatest weight) could only militate against any attempt to emphasize the unique working-class character of the CCF. In coalition with the CCF Clubs, which had in many cases emerged out of branches of the LSR, the league provided an alternative vision of the CCF that was deeply troubling to those working-class activists who had initiated the federation only a year earlier. It is worth noting that the cultural chasm between the labour-socialist currents and the LSR was felt on both sides. Decades later, Underhill, who had felt far more at home with the Farmer delegates, was still struck by it.67 Over the next few years, LSR members would partake in a political journey that would lead them far from some of their original ideas, leading Frank Scott to brand them the CCF’s “dangerously bourgeois element.”68 But was this a danger to capitalism, or to socialism? Indi­ vidual LSR members felt that they were sacrificing potentially successful careers in joining the fight for socialism; this was a sentiment privately expressed by Graham Spry, whose small and irregular salary he would soon be receiving from the Ontario CCF no doubt made life tenuous. Moreover, King Gordon’s dismissal from his teaching position at the United Theological College demonstrated the risks of political action.69 But the particular challenges they faced were ones of lost or foregone social privilege; indeed, Spry’s subsequent business career and Gordon’s editorship of the American magazine the Nation demonstrated how quickly they could land on their feet. Their biographies



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only underline the differences between their lives and those of the labour socialists. Both politically and materially, the breach between the  LSR notables and the earlier generation of labour socialists was never surmounted.

• In retrospect, the seeds of this confrontation were apparent in Regina. A clear alliance had been formed between federal members of Parlia­ ment, the CCF national council, the League for Social Reconstruction, the clubs sections and, more tentatively, the Farmers. Their goal was to isolate the labour socialists, de-emphasize the working-class identity of the federation, attract dissident Liberals, and create an electoral party that would attract middle-class voters. Consequently, Ontario labour delegates had been shut out of the convention proceedings. Club and LSR members, many with only a few months’ experience in the movement, were chosen to address public meetings and to sit on important convention committees. Besides the “eastern professors,” the convention had showcased a small group of newcomers to the movement, mostly from Ontario. They included D.M. (Donat) LeBourdais, a newspaper reporter, publicist, and, for the previous several years, education director of the Canadian Committee for Mental Hygiene;70 Lorna Cotton, who held a doctorate in economics;71 and, most notably, the leadership’s new “pet boy,” Elmore Philpott.72 The meteoric rise and fall of “Captain” Philpott, more than anyone else, epitomized the proximity of this alliance to the Liberal Party and revealed the machinations of the CCF national council and the LSR. Educated at the University of Toronto, Philpott worked for five years as associate editor of the Toronto Globe. In 1930, he ran second to Mitchell Hepburn in the race to lead the Ontario Liberal Party. The following year, prominently wearing his military honours and his war-inflicted disability, he ran for the provincial Liberals in Hamilton West.73 He joined the Ontario CCF Clubs in the spring of 1933 and became its most public spokesperson; a year later, he was out of the CCF and back in the Liberal Party. He might simply have been seen as an errant Liberal who had wandered in, and out, of the CCF. Rather, he was actively recruited to the CCF, defended by Woodsworth and Agnes Macphail, and placed in a central and public leadership role. He also precipitated a purge of the central core of activists who had, in fact, founded and built the CCF in Ontario.

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Philpott was solidly situated in the reform wing of the Liberal Party. In the 1931 election he had campaigned on a program of unemployment insurance, fair wages, and the eight-hour day.74 As he explained in a letter to Mackenzie King in the spring of 1933 (pledging his loyalty to the prime minister and to the Liberal Party, just as he was joining the CCF), his goal was “to correct the evils of ‘capitalism-gone-crazy’.”75 Reform Liberalism had been, until very recently, the home of most of the prominent figures in the LSR, and Ontario Liberal leader Mitchell Hepburn had communicated with early LSR notable Harry Cassidy and Graham Spry hoping to shore up the left wing of the party.76 Cassidy had indicated some interest in a deal, and in early April 1933 Hepburn met with CCF Clubs secretary LeBourdais, hoping to arrange some means of preventing the Liberals and CCF from splitting the antiConservative vote in Ontario. LeBourdais refused to make any formal agreement, recognizing that the CCF as a whole would reject any challenge to its independence. As John Saywell, an historian of Mitchell Hepburn and the Ontario Liberal Party explained, Philpott quit the Liberals at this point.77 He had clearly recognized that a CCF-Liberal alliance would require working within the CCF. It is noteworthy that the intermediaries in this arrangement were prominent LSR members, both because of their access to the political elite and because of their programmatic proximity to “left-wing” Liber­ als. In fact, Toronto LSR leaders, sensing an opportunity to attract reform-minded Liberals to the CCF, were formulating their own plans. In an editorial in the Toronto newspaper Change, which Graham Spry and others published briefly in early 1933, the invitation was extended and the move justified. Criticizing the CCF News for dismissing Philpott ­because he is one of those who “thinks our present difficulties can be cured by further patching,” Spry and others argued that Philpott “and a vast number of like-minded Christian people” were “sufficiently advanced” to be admitted into the CCF. To justify this, they pointed to the program of the CCF-affiliated United Farmers of Ontario, which, like Philpott, called for “control of finance and propose[d] the reorganization of industry and commerce along cooperative lines,” but stopped short of calling for socialism. In a revealing moment, the editorial cast its net broadly to include the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party: “This platform should form the basis of an alliance of all progressive forces, including Capt. Elmore Philpott, Mitchell Hepburn and Harry Nixon.”78 In the eyes of labour socialists, of course, a line had been crossed. Although unhappy with the UFO’s program, labour socialists



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could recognize the farmers as an exploited social class. Connections with Liberals were another thing entirely. Even the less radical of the labour socialists, those in the Manitoba ILP, had repeatedly pointed out that Gladstonian Liberalism and the Lib-Lab tradition that derived from it were long dead, and they denounced those, including advocates of the Progressive movement, who flirted with the Liberal Party.79 For socialists, the Liberal Party was simply an instrument of capitalist rule. As noted in chapter 2, such a class analysis was not to be found in Change, arguing as it did, that the Liberals were a “middle party” that could be split between the Conservatives and the CCF, and not, at their roots, a party fundamentally beholden to capital.80 On 10 April 1933, six weeks into his one-man campaign “advocating a New Social Order,” Philpott addressed the Toronto branch of the LSR; the minutes noted that he was “not yet decided what his future political alignments would be” but that he was sympathetic to the CCF.81 Agnes Macphail was very much part of the plan to secure Philpott, and perhaps other prominent Liberals, for the CCF. Shortly afterward Philpott’s address, she set about attempting to arrange a meeting of the Provisional CCF Provincial Council with Philpott and Humphrey Mitchell, the MP for Hamilton East. (Mitchell was a member of the Central Hamilton ILP, which was unaffiliated to the CCF; the Liberals did not run against him, and he would eventually become King’s minister of labour.)82 She suggested that MPs J.S. Woodsworth and William Irvine be invited as well. This was to be a high level discussion. Bert Robinson, temporarily acting as secretary of the provincial council, pointed out that this meeting was problematic, given that Philpott was not a member of the CCF and had made no public statements in that regard. He suggested that the council meet first to consider the matter. In reply, Macphail announced that Philpott had quit the Liberals and she “understood” that he had applied for membership in one of the Toronto CCF Clubs.83 Woodsworth quickly added his voice in defence of Philpott, suggesting that Robinson was “technically” correct to hesitate in inviting Philpott to the provincial council but that Woodsworth personally vouched for Philpott’s “high ideals and considerable ability.”84 The provisional council meeting took place as Macphail had proposed, with Woodsworth, Irvine, Mitchell, and LSRer E.A. Havelock as guests. Philpott, inexplicably, attended as a regular delegate representing the clubs section. A member of the CCF for only a matter of days, Philpott took centre stage. He was assigned to almost every important committee: a deputation to work with the UFO in developing a strategy

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for organizing rural Ontario, a committee to report on organization, a committee to produce the provincial election platform, and the finance committee.85 This same provisional council meeting voted to establish a regular council. At its first full meeting, held a month later, Philpott was elected to the provincial executive committee and was chosen as one of the four delegates the provincial council could send to the Regina Convention.86 Philpott’s promotion did not end there. The president of the Ontario clubs section was Edward Arthur (E.A.) Beder, not at the time a member of the Socialist Party of Canada, but clearly open to its ideas. The same provisional provincial council meeting that welcomed Philpott into the leading circles of the CCF had elected Beder to the vice-­ chairmanship of the new, permanent council, but Woodsworth and LeBourdais found an occasion to move against Beder. E.A.’s brother, Monte, had been arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit arson and insurance fraud relating to an explosion at his fur company on Yonge Street in Toronto several months earlier (he was subsequently acquitted).87 Acknowledging to E.A. that he had “no knowledge of your relationship to the firm,” Woodsworth suggested that it “would be a very great handicap indeed if your name should appear as one of the officers of the C.C.F.” Although the details of the discussion are unclear, Beder conceded the issue and resigned the clubs’ presidency as well as the vice-chairmanship of the provincial council.88 The provincial council supported him, refusing to accept his resignation. When it was pointed out by the clubs that he had become ineligible for a provincial elective position after resigning as president of the clubs section, the council protested the whole process by which Beder had been drummed out, suggesting that, in the future, it was up to the council, “rather than individuals,” such as Woodsworth and LeBourdais, to act.89 Then, in a process that once again raised questions about the internal functioning of the Ontario CCF Clubs, Philpott was quickly named president of the clubs section. As Bert Robinson complained, the structure of the provincial council, with each of the three sections having equal representation regardless of their active membership, meant that the clubs and the UFO dominated.90 Next, it was on to the Regina Convention, where, Calgary socialist Fred White remembers, it was “Philpott this and Philpott that.”91 In the few debates that emerged there, Philpott played a central role in taking on William Moriarty and Ernest Winch.92 Afterwards, Philpott toured much of the country with his own interpretation of the movement’s



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message, that the CCF was a Christian movement with “no sympathy for communism.”93 Even from within the clubs movement, there was concern about Philpott’s role, particularly in Toronto. In early Decem­ ber 1933, the Toronto Council of the CCF Clubs complained, for instance, that the Halton County CCF Club had held a meeting featuring Philpott at Toronto’s Massey Hall without informing them, presumably hoping to avoid a debate among the Toronto clubs over the speaker.94 Philpott’s star billing at a London CCF meeting also led to “quite a spat.”95 Philpott’s incessant anticommunism led Robinson to brand him as a demagogue.96 It is with some justification that Elizabeth Morton argued that the “crux of the situation is that certain influential and opportunist elements in the C.C.F are endeavouring to bring that organization to the Hon. Mackenzie King on a political platter, they are intrigued by the successes of that gentlemen’s party in two provincial elections held recently, and they see an opportunity for a liberal party success in Ontario and will do what they can to achieve co-operation with that Capitalistic machine for their own purposes.” The strategy of Philpott, LeBourdais, and the UFO leadership, Morton argued before the CCF Clubs’ convention, was in line with that of the Toronto Star, which had, editorially, called for such an alliance as long as the CCF were purged of “communists and socialists.”97 Such a purge was indeed on Philpott’s agenda from the moment he returned from Regina. This would prove no small task, given that the bad apples Philpott and the UFO had identified included the Labour Conference as a whole, as well as a sizable portion of the CCF Clubs, particularly in Toronto. Some proposals were surgical in their precision, such as a motion originating with LeBourdais and Philpott to ban former officers of the Communist Party (CP) from membership. This would include Moriarty; Alex Lyon, who was active in the East York Workers’ Association and one of the leaders of the National Labour Party, two important affiliates to the Labour Conference; and Jack Macdonald, a former key CP leader who was engaged in building a Trotskyist left opposition and who was the Patternmakers’ Union delegate to the Labour Conference.98 They, and a few others, had rejected, among other things, the Communists’ Third Period isolation from the mainstream of the labour movement, and were active in their unions and the labour and socialist groups. The labour members present at the meeting at which the Communist ban was proposed suggested that the ban also apply to former members of capitalist parties as well, but “this was not favourably received.”99

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At the same meeting, foreshadowing a debate that would recur across the country over the next few years, Philpott proposed restructuring the CCF, arguing that, with the emergence of the CCF Clubs, the Labour Conference was redundant. Those primarily interested in the electoral movement, like much of the clubs’ leadership, tended to prefer a constituency-based structure. This was, of course, inconsistent with the federated nature of the CCF and with the Labour Conference notion that different organizations, both within the CCF but also within the Labour Conference, had their own political constituencies and could better educate their membership. As Arthur Mould expressed it, the Labour Conference saw any such restructuring proposal as an attempt to “get” labour.100 A special convention of the Labour Conference was called for 29 October 1933; as Bert Robinson explained, “We are very much disturbed about the ascendancy of the middle class elements in the C.C.F. movement in Ontario as evidenced by the determination of Philpott, LeBourdais, and Macphail to strengthen their hold by elimination of radical working class elements.”101 The view that the proposals emanating from Philpott were, in Elizabeth Morton’s words, “advantageous to the middle class elements” in the CCF was ubiquitous among those in the Labour Confer­ ence. As the Labour Conference leadership sought to explain in an open letter to the clubs, the working class – organized in the Labour Conference – had an historic role to play that contrasted with the marginal role of the middle class: “It is fundamental,” the letter declared, “that in the transformation of our society from its capitalistic form to the Co-operative Commonwealth form, labor has an historical role to perform; it is further fundamental that this role must be performed by labor and cannot be performed by anyone else; when we say ‘labor’ we mean political organized class-conscious labor. It is incorrect to assert that the C.C.F. Clubs as constituted answer this description.” While the commentary on the clubs “is not intended to be derogatory,” there was nothing in the thinking of the leadership of the clubs that could lead them to understand why they were being relegated to the margins of history.102 As well, there was real anger among the old labour socialists, who were outraged that “the junior partner wants to take over the firm.” “As you know,” complained Morton to Woodsworth, “the Labour section has shown a spirit of co-operation with the Clubs from the outset. Even tho we disapproved of their direction being left with the L.S.R. group, we refrained from interference, and were prepared to concede them equal representation with the U.F.O. and ourselves in



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Ontario.” Now the CCF Clubs, based on a “paper membership” of uneducated recruits of diverse class origins, sought to dominate the movement.103 She was echoed by Mould, who wrote to Woodsworth, appealing both to their long experience in the labour-socialist movement and to a shared working-class pride: “You know as well as I do that in Ontario the leaders of the C.C.F. are chiefly so because they happen to have the time (of which I am glad, also for their enthusiasm) but to suggest that they are able, capable, or even possess the necessary knowledge (and this is not said disparagingly) to properly understand and build a working class struggle against Capitalism, is foolish.”104 The potential exclusion of the Labour Conference, the reservoir of working-class knowledge and experience in Ontario, was tantamount to destroying any revolutionary potential the CCF possessed. This raised the question of whether it would be worthwhile for labour socialists to continue in a unified, as opposed to federated, organization that would allow no space for labour to organize independently. Members of the Socialist Party of Canada in Toronto felt that, if Philpott got his way, the Labour Conference should quit the CCF and function as an independent entity. In a debate that foreshadowed recurring socialist discussions over the next decades, members of the London branch felt that leaving the CCF to the clubs and the UFO would mean abandoning it to “reformism pure and simple,” particularly as socialists who were members of the clubs would be more vulnerable to being disciplined or expelled by the leadership. As well, it would have a negative effect on the Socialist Party itself, for the “place of the revolutionary socialist is in mass movements and…, without our scant contacts with other mass movements (not already dominated by the Communist Party), our party would become sectarian.”105 The comment spoke not only to the SPC’s attitude towards the CCF but also towards the Communist Party. Both were seen as conduits to broader working-class movements that were key to the development of an effective socialist movement in Canada. The threat of restructuring into a unified entity quickly passed, as reorganizing the Ontario CCF in such a manner was in direct violation of the organization’s constitution, which defined the CCF as a federation. As well, the United Farmers of Ontario clung tenaciously to its independence, a position that was reiterated at its December 1933 convention.106 Although unknown at the time to Ontario CCFers, Woods­ worth’s own opinions portended future developments. Writing to national CCF secretary Norman Priestley, Woodsworth denounced the

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“communists, or near communists” in the Labour Conference, eliding the distinction between members of the Communist Party and radicals outside of it. However, he felt that the clubs’ leadership had been impolitic in their actions: “Mr. Philpott and Mr. LeBourdais, in their anxiety for a more efficient organization, went perhaps too far in advocating a new set-up. This was taken by labor as an attempt to eliminate the labor section.” Subsequently, the Labour Conference passed a motion of non-confidence in both Philpott and Macphail. The fight became increasingly open, as Philpott and Macphail called a public meeting at Massey Hall to defend themselves and to denounce communism. According to Woodsworth, the solution to this escalating conflict was to support the essence of Philpott’s plan: “Probably, the Labour Con­ ference will have to be re-organized and an individual membership basis arranged. Without this, I do not very well see how we can exercise very much discipline.” He added that private letters would be forwarded to Priestley and Underhill, which they should read and then destroy. Woodsworth, and by extension, the federal caucus, had clearly made the decision to organize a purge in Ontario when the time was right.107 Sentiments were hardening and it was only a matter of time before a question would arise that could serve as an issue of principled difference between opponents in the CCF and provide the occasion for a purge. The issue, not surprisingly, was participation in broader struggles that included the Communist Party. Within the labour and socialist movement there was, of course, a range of opinion about the Commu­ nist Party, and few would want to have thrown their lot in with it as they had with the old Canadian Labour Party. But the SPC, at least in Ontario, felt that working with all other working-class currents was a matter of principle. In its willingness to participate in united fronts with Commu­nists within mass movements in support of working-class principles, the SPC pointed out that it was following the example of the  British Independent Labour Party and not the Socialist Party of America.108 The willingness to cooperate did not imply an uncritical attitude towards the Communist Party. Even though the SPC was among the strongest supporters of a united front policy, its political universe was quite distinct from that of the Communist Party. In fact, the SPC pointed out that it was among those who had led the political labour movement out of the Communist-dominated Canadian Labour Party over the objections, at the time, of the Toronto Labour Party. For the SPC and the Labour Conference, the policy was to “forget the communist bogey, and go on with our job of organizing the workers.”109



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The first example of a successful united front including Communists and CCFers was in London in September 1933. In preparation for an impending railway strike, an impressively broad united front was organized; it included unions, CCF Clubs, the London branch of the Labour Party of Ontario, unemployed organizations, women’s auxiliaries, and ethnic organizations that were mostly associated with the Communists. The Socialist Party of Canada played a key role, with Arthur Mould and Fred Hodgson acting as pro tem officers. In the language that came to prevail in such cases, the united front prohibited “political questions,” and limited itself to the issue of the strike, thus circumventing CCF prohibitions on political alliances with Communists.110 A strike was certainly one of those moments where workingclass solidarity trumped partisan concerns, at least for the labour-­ socialist current. The provincial club leadership did not pass judgment on this case. Union struggles were, for the moment, beneath the radar of those, such as Philpott and LeBourdais, who were remote from the labour movement. The same could not be said of what became a national cause célèbre, the indictment of A.E. Smith, the secretary of the Communist-associated Canadian Labour Defence League (CLDL), on a charge of seditious conspiracy. The CLDL had been attempting to free the leadership of the Communist Party, who had been arrested in 1931 under section 98 of the Criminal Code. Passed in the context of the repression of the 1919 labour revolt, section 98 was a particularly reviled piece of legislation, which the CCF caucus in Ottawa repeatedly sought to have repealed. By late 1933, the action against Smith was widely seen as a transparent attempt to silence the movement against Prime Minister Bennett’s “iron fist.” Participation in such a movement against state repression was seen as a working-class duty. On the eve of the Regina Convention, the Ontario Labour Conference had promised “the organizing of a nationwide campaign for the release of [Communist Party leader] Tim Buck and all class-war prisoners,” and did not hesitate to join the movement to defend Smith.111 As well, several CCF Clubs in Toronto responded positively: in early February 1934, five CCF Clubs in the west end of Toronto passed resolutions calling for a protest meeting to be held under CCF auspices. To the surprise of some, LeBourdais agreed and passed the organizing of the event onto the Labour Conference. A joint committee was formed, consisting of three representatives from the CCF Clubs (LeBourdais, Beder, and Thomas Cruden) and three from the Labour Conference (A.M. Barnetson, Elizabeth Morton, and A.H. Downs, all

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SPC members). Following discussions, the Labour Conference members convinced the clubs representatives to include Smith on the platform at the protest, while the club representatives persuaded the committee that Cruden would be a “stronger” chair than Morton. LeBourdais booked Massey Hall for the meeting. Woodsworth was invited to speak but responded that he did not think the event was a good idea. At this point, Philpott and Macphail demanded that the meeting be cancelled. LeBourdais backed down, but the other five organizers continued on, and a successful protest meeting was held.112 Associating with the electorally unpopular Communists, regardless of the issue, made no sense to the United Farmers of Ontario, or to Philpott. For many in the labour movement, though, this was a case of morally compulsory working-class solidarity in the face of state repression. At CCF provincial council, a motion to censure the trio of Macphail, Woods­ worth, and Philpott was debated. Labour Conference member and SPCer David Goldstick argued that, regardless of whatever crime Smith did or did not commit, “he would uphold him or any other working class representative right or wrong.” As Philpott reported to Woods­ worth, “you will appreciate the reaction of the farmers and some of the rest of us to this attitude.”113 Rather than recognizing an ethical stance rooted in solidarity, they simply saw a connection with Communism that was, at worst, a treasonous betrayal of British values and, at best, electoral suicide. In spite of support for the CCF at the UFO convention at the end of 1933, the connection had always been unstable, and the liberalism of the leadership of the UFO led that party to exhibit little understanding of or patience for either the assumptions or the actions of the laboursocialist forces.114 Woodsworth himself would later describe the affiliation of the UFO to the CCF as merely “conditional” with “little sense of corporate responsibility” towards the federation as a whole.115 Although different notions of socialism circulated within the CCF, the UFO subscribed to none of them. In Regina and afterwards, UFO leaders H.H. Hannam and R.J. Scott, as well as Agnes Macphail, had repeatedly opposed the use of the word “socialist” to describe the CCF’s program. Ted Garland, who was sent to report on the Ontario situation to the CCF national council, similarly described the UFO as “nominally affiliated” to the federation without having “become incorporated for political action” or paying its membership fees: “In short it has exercised full powers without having been actually in membership.”116 The UFO’s



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threat to secede in response to the Smith campaign was entirely in keeping with its behaviour during and after the Regina convention.117 The threat certainly provided Philpott and LeBourdais an opportunity to act that had been lacking in their attempt to take on the Labour Conference the previous autumn. Woodsworth promised the support of the national leadership: “We will follow the tactics of the Communists and have a ‘cleansing,’ forcing out, both of the conference and the Clubs, individuals and groups that will not prove amenable to discipline.”118 With this understanding, the executive committees of both the UFO and the clubs formally asked the national council to expel the Labour Conference. In explaining this precipitous action to the individual clubs, LeBourdais later observed that there had not been an opportunity to have an open discussion within the clubs section, given “the grave danger that the U.F.O. would withdraw altogether from the C.C.F.” as well as the fact that the clubs’ executive members “knew, from our year’s association with the group,” that it was impossible to work with the Labour Conference. In response, Woodsworth pointed out that CCF affiliation was a provincial matter and it was up to the provincial council to deal with the Labour Conference. Both the clubs and the UFO hoped simply to write the Labour Conference out of the CCF. LeBourdais and Philpott argued that a provincial council meeting was unnecessary to expel the Labour Conference; if two of the three affiliates were willing to take such an action, convening a council meeting was an expensive technicality.119 Although entirely onside with the purge, Woodsworth insisted on the appearance of propriety. Consequently, a provincial council meeting was planned for 10 March 1934. Before the meeting could be held, though, events took a sudden turn. At the beginning of March, the United Farmers of Ontario quit the CCF. In the long run, this may have been seen as a blow to CCF efforts to organize in the countryside, although even Woodsworth played down the event, pointing out that the “stigma of the failure of the Drury Government” still hung over the old party, and “even the U.F.O. would hardly dare to run a candidate under their own name.”120 In reality, everyone was thinking of the more immediate consequence; it was now impossible to proceed with the expulsion, as the remaining two affiliates, the clubs and the Labour Conference, would now be stalemated. On top of this, the president of the Ontario CCF, Agnes Macphail, was no longer a member, because her organization was no

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longer affiliated, and Elmore Philpott, the president of the clubs section, announced that he was resigning, “to continue the work under the banner of ‘independence’.”121 As a peculiarly Philpottian footnote, when seeking the CCF nomination in the summer of 1934, Philpott would deny having quit the clubs, claiming that he had only resigned as president. Nevertheless, he soon made his way back to the Liberal Party, telling Mackenzie King that leaving the Liberals had been an error on his part. Despite assurances from the prime minister, Philpott received few favours from the governing party, leading him to describe them as the “dirtiest bunch of sons of b’s I have yet encountered.”122 Philpott’s journey through the CCF was brief yet crucial in its development. When questioned at a meeting about why Philpott had left the CCF, Angus MacInnis, MP and member of the national council responded, “I don’t know the answer to the question as to why he ever left the Liberals.”123 A more pertinent question may have been why he was welcomed into the CCF with such open arms, at least by its national leadership. Given Woods­ worth’s comments about the weakness of the leadership of the UFO, the strategy of the national leadership and the LSR of entrusting the Ontario CCF to the UFO and to Philpott seemed both opportunist and shortsighted.124 With Philpott gone, few options remained for those who supported the purge. Woodsworth acted quickly, immediately suspending the Ontario Provincial Council of the CCF. The action, though precipitous, required only some revisions to the earlier plan. Graham Spry was brought in by Woodsworth first to report back to the national council on developments in Ontario and then to take charge of the sole remnant of the CCF in Ontario, the clubs. National Secretary of the LSR, Spry had deep Liberal roots.125 A well-connected protégé of John Dafoe of the Manitoba Free Press, Spry had been a Rhodes scholar before working first for the League of Nations and then spending five years as the national secretary of the Association of Canadian Clubs. In late 1931 he had, on the advice of Dafoe, acquired the weekly Farmers’ Sun, which had been established nearly forty years previously by Goldwyn Smith and was, in the 1920s, the organ of the UFO. About the same time, he had been approached by Mackenzie King to serve as national Liberal Party organizer, and Spry gave some thought to combining the two functions. Along with Spry’s entry into the provincial CCF leadership, the Farmers’ Sun would be transformed into the New Commonwealth, becoming the Ontario organ of the CCF and providing an important



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means of shaping the movement along new lines.126 Frank Underhill helped raise money for Spry’s new “radical newspaper under L.S.R. auspices.”127 Privately, Spry was clear about the shift in power: the LSR was “bearing the burden of reconstructing the C.C.F. in Ontario.”128 It is far from surprising, then, that many saw the CCF purge as an anti-working-class assault on socialist politics in Ontario. As was often the case, Socialist Party members articulated this most clearly. As events were unfolding, SPC secretary A.H. Downs, Jr. wrote to a colleague in Galt that “we will fight to the last ditch to stay in the CCF, but if we are forced out we will go down with our principles intact and the Red Flag of the working class flying to the last. I am not getting poetic, but from all indications it would appear that there is a definite class struggle taking place within the CCF at the present moment, between working class elements and the middles.”129 This struggle was not as straightforward as Downs suggested. His description of the social composition of the “middles” as “small business men, petty shop keepers, etc.,” was overdrawn and no doubt reductionist; his SPC colleague Howard Huggett remembers the clubs as being made up mostly of workers.130 Yet, it does reflect a feeling of a loss of control by the old labour-socialist contingent that identified with the working class. At the same time, the SPC executive’s analysis of the “new set-up indicated clearly that the C.C.F. leaders intended it to liquidate the Labour Conference and to proceed along the lines of a social democratic party.”131 Clearly this statement reflected more than a programmatic judgment. It implied that a social democratic party – a category rarely discussed in CCF circles at the time – was a multi-class formation without an autonomous labour presence. It is worth adding that the perception that the federation had conducted an anti-working-class purge was not confined to the Socialist Party and its immediate circle. Hamilton Labour alderman and future Ontario CCF president John Mitchell had a similar assessment of these events.132 And even the conservative Labour Leader, while always keen to red bait and to dismiss the entire CCF project, had a class-based view of the purge: “The few Labor men who joined the C.C.F. do not like the attitude taken by the C.C.F. leaders who want to expel all Labor men solely because a gang of communists were rapidly getting control of the party.” As the paper explained, the “communists” were simply those who took the basis of the CCF (to which the Labor Leader objected) to its logical limits.133 In fact, the new leadership did not wish to entirely exclude labour; rather, it wanted both to choose which labour elements to include and

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to subsume them under a leadership that was more interested in building a less class-identified electoral party. This required splitting the Labour Conference and readmitting those who Philpott had termed “responsible labour leaders.” With Spry’s “consent” LeBourdais approached selected labour leaders, particularly the leadership of the Toronto Labour Party, which included the SPC’s old nemesis, James McArthur Conner. Conner was also secretary of the Labour Party of Ontario. When Authur Mould demanded that a provincial convention of the Labour Party of Ontario be called, Conner refused, arguing that the party was defunct. Indeed, its place had largely been taken over by the Labour Conference, of which it was a major part. Instead, Conner created a new organization, the Independent Labour Party, and brought it into the newly reorganized CCF.134 Interestingly, Conner had previously been relatively cool to the CCF; some months earlier the Toronto Star had accurately described him as pro-CCF but independent.135 The Labour Conference itself was left hanging. It met in convention, protested its “liquidation” and sought readmittance into the CCF.136 At the convention called to approve the new Ontario CCF non-federated structure, the Labour Conference executive was refused permission to state its case and the chair refused any discussion from the floor on the issue.137 In both individual communications with the national council and at the national CCF convention in the summer of 1934, Ernest Winch attempted to raise the issue of the Labour Conference in Ontario, defending the principle of federation and proposing a special investigative committee, but to little effect.138 After some debate, the Labour Conference in Toronto was transformed into the “Toronto and District Workers’ Alliance,” which was to focus on specific issues such as mobilizing “all sections of the working class” against unemployment and the threat of war. Such a mandate was clearly not enough to sustain an organization and it quickly vanished.139 The exclusion of the Labour Conference did not entirely solve the new CCF leadership’s problems, as the Clubs themselves, particularly in Toronto, included many members of the Socialist Party of Canada as  well as others who objected to the new regime led by Spry and LeBourdais. Indeed, the Toronto District Council of the CCF Clubs had voted ten to seven in favour of ongoing collaboration with the Labour Conference in regards to the A.E. Smith issue, even after the opposition of Woodsworth, Macphail, and Philpott had been noted.140 A provincial CCF convention was quickly organized. Conducted under the direct control of the national council, it was chaired by Angus MacInnis,



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assisted by Woodsworth and Garland. It instituted a centralized card system, whereby individual memberships were vetted by the provincial office of the CCF.141 The newly selected provincial council decided to dissolve a number of Toronto CCF Clubs, decisively shifting the balance of power in the Toronto movement. An attempt by LeBourdais to personally “reorganize” the St. Paul’s Club in Toronto, “leaving out the Labour members,” nearly provoked a “riot,” according to the Toronto Star.142 Although members decided “to ignore the C.C.F. dissolution of the Club,” there was, of course, little they could do about it.143 Along with two other suspended clubs, Woodbine and Woodsworth, the St. Paul’s Club called a special meeting, which was attended by members of seventeen other clubs, but their protests that they had been denied any recourse to appeal their fate fell on deaf ears. Neither the “dictatorship”that they felt had been established in the Ontario CCF nor the national council responded.144 As we shall see, though, the outcome of the CCF reorganization was not entirely clear-cut with respect to the clubs. The confidence of the leadership of some of the clubs had grown as they rapidly expanded during the summer of 1933. The Ontario clubs alone claimed 6,000 members on the eve of the CCF’s largest event of the decade, a rally of 30,000 at Lambton Park in Toronto.145 However, the Labour Conference had been quite right to point to the ephemeral nature of this “mushroom growth.” The actual number of paid-up members in the Ontario clubs in March 1934 was 967.146 Having been reduced to a core of the most active members, the clubs’ reaction to the machinations of the CCF leadership was unpredictable. This unpredictability was demonstrated by the actions of the East York Workers’ Association (EYWA). A large and dynamic organization – attendance at its meetings regularly numbered in the hundreds – it had played an important role in the Labour Conference. With the reorganization of the Ontario federation, it had to decide whether its future lay with the CCF, with the Labour Conference cum Workers’ Alliance, or even with the Communists in the Workers’ Unity League. The discussion was a tense and painful one, as the EYWA embodied the spirit of working-class unity. Members of the Socialist Party as well as Com­ munists, Trotskyists, Lovestonites, and others had coexisted in the EYWA in large part because of its activism in confronting issues that all could agree upon, particularly evictions. It was apparent to all that sectarian infighting would scuttle the EYWA, perhaps divide it, and isolate those who were seen to be responsible for its potential demise.

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But the fracturing of the CCF forced them to take sides. At an EYWA meeting in the immediate aftermath of the April 1934 reorganization convention of the CCF, Alex Lyon and Elizabeth Morton made the case for the now-expelled Labour Conference. They pointed out that it was that body that had brought the CCF into existence; that the politics of  labour, more than anything else, was reflected in the program adopted in Regina; and that, in the Ontario provincial council, “the efforts of labour had always been thwarted.” Arthur Williams made the case for affiliating with the CCF, arguing that the freedom of action of the workers’ associations to fight evictions would continue under the program of the  CCF. After a string of amendments and counter-­ amendments, the EYWA voted 111 to 50 to affiliate to the newly reorganized CCF.147 The decision reflected the interest of the association in retaining ties to broader movements; the rump Labour Conference’s isolation must have been apparent. But it also suggested that, if the reorganized CCF wished to retain its connections to working-class activists such as these, the types of labour socialists who had caused them so much trouble in the past would flow back into the federation. Spry and LeBourdais had not really solved their problems, and East York would be one of the centres of debate in the CCF in the years ahead. More generally, ongoing Depression-era radicalization and pressures for labour and socialist unity to confront the challenges of unemployment, fascism, and war would undermine any attempt to prematurely foreclose on the vision of a working-class future in Ontario. Over time, many of the excluded individuals drifted back into CCF Clubs. “Class struggle” would continue in the Ontario CCF, but without an organizational structure that highlighted these differences. The contest in Ontario was particularly explosive, due to the relationship of forces representing the older tradition of labour socialism and the newcomers who rejected its class-based epistemology. Both groups were large enough to try to force their claims and self-confident enough in their own world views to reject compromise. Both the labour and middle-class components considered themselves as naturally embodying social evolution. Such an assumption was clearly a feature of the labour-socialist current, but in remembering the role of the middle class in the clubs movement, Frank Underhill made parallel claims in an interview several decades later: “Yes, they are the universal class. They are the creative class, they think. That’s how we thought of ourselves undoubtedly.”148 The assumptions that led to an inability to share the guidance of the CCF are clearly apparent.



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For the most part, historians have misunderstood this relationship, relying on a teleology that saw non-liberal forces as quixotically marginal and historically doomed. Terry Crowley, for instance, in his biography of Agnes Macphail, dismisses much of the early CCF (outside of the LSR and UFO) as “opportunists, cranks, and secret agents,” failing to properly attribute the phrase to E.B. Jolliffe, a young lawyer and later Ontario CCF leader who made such an assessment several years later as he wished to distance the movement from its origins.149 Simi­ larly, Gerald Caplan tends to dismiss the earlier generation of radicals that had formed the basis of the Ontario CCF as a “destructive crew: inflexible, uncompromising, [and] utterly dogmatic.” Ironically, he aims these barbs at the Socialist Party of Canada, despite the fact that the SPC had effectively organized the Labour Conference as a whole and convinced it to adopt a strategy of constructing the CCF as a means of broadening the audience for socialist ideas. Caplan continues, pillorying the labour radicals’ “conviction of their righteousness and … delusion of their self-importance which were totally unshakable.”150 The comment does speak to belief in a working-class morality and destiny to which they did hold dear, but it would be quite wrong to attribute it to the peculiarities of a political sect. It was a sentiment broadly held among the generation of 1919 and could be seen, in different ways, across the labour political spectrum, from old ILPers, who sought to vanquish the immoralities of partyism, to the Communists and the One Big Union. Curiously, historians of the Ontario CCF invariably cite Agnes Mac­ phail’s comment about how the usage of “comrade” infuriated the UFO representatives, as if implying that this was the practice of a small, isolated sect out of touch with the demands of a broader polity.151 In fact, along with singing the “Red Flag” and attending May Day marches (as we shall see), such markers of class autonomy and proletarian loyalty were pervasive, if contested, features of the labour-socialist movement and would persist in the CCF for some time at all levels. In Ontario, for instance, throughout the 1930s, circular letters from CCF leaders were regularly addressed “Dear comrade,”152 even though such language was unfamiliar to middle-class recruits to the CCF. Again Frank Underhill’s memory is telling: “It used to make me uneasy to be called comrade, too. I had middle class prejudices, I wanted to be called Mr. Underhill, or Professor if you like.” He added, probably not inaccurately given the tenor of relationships in the early CCF, “I always had a feeling that people who called me comrade were getting ready to stab me in the back.”153

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A final comment on historical amnesia and the cold war rewriting of history. In 1947 Blair Fraser retold, or re-created, a story in Maclean’s magazine: “When the CCF was trying to organize in Ontario 12 years ago, Communists wrecked it so efficiently that J.S. Woodworth, then leader of the party, had to dissolve the whole provincial organization and begin over again. The Reds became members of the new party, one or two to each club, and they paralyzed it at birth.”154 There is an array of historical inaccuracies here, but two are particularly worth highlighting. The cold war bifurcation of the world into “Communists” and “democrats” is clearly at play. The idea of a non-Communist radical socialist (and largely Marxist) existing in the CCF is beyond the thinking of Fraser. In this sense, he had inherited the lack of understanding exhibited by Philpott and Macphail, who did not distinguish between the official Communist Party and those very large numbers of workingclass radicals who also foresaw the revolutionary transformation of society. Even those who clearly knew better, such as Angus MacInnis, had reported the entire event in the national CCF press in the context of “Communist-inspired activities,” even suggesting, again quite disingenuously, that the “Regina Conference revealed quite clearly that the Communist elements had successfully bored from within.”155 Such a wild accusation was aimed at isolating the dissidents more than accurately describing them. Despite his clear antipathy to the labour socialists who made up the Socialist Party and the Labour Conference, Gerald Caplan correctly refers to the “non-existent Communists” that Philpott hunted in the CCF. Also missing in Fraser’s tale is any mention of the Labour Conference, a broad and diverse movement that identified with the working class and was generally quite unenamoured with the Communist Party and that, rather than infiltrating the CCF, took the lead in its formation in Ontario and worked hard to attract other forces to it. Fraser’s account was not unlike the official CCF version of these events. Although the struggle was not entirely decided by the spring of 1934, it is a clear sign of defeat that the memory of a labour-socialist alternative was so quickly fading.

• Although the players participating in the British Columbia movement had roles analogous to those in Ontario, the relationship of forces dictated quite different developments. On the west coast, the labour socialists, and particularly the explicitly Marxist forces of the Socialist



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Party of Canada, were clearly dominant within the CCF. Battles would be fought, but outcomes and memories were quite different than those in Ontario. The B.C. SPC was, if anything, even more insistent on its class mission than was the small Ontario party. The same month as the Regina Convention, the B.C. SPC argued in favour of the CCF in these terms: “while it would not be very clever to refuse a temporary alliance with the other groups comprising the C.C.F., the Socialist party must be wary, must preserve its identity and function as the mouthpiece of the proletarians, as distinct from other groups who do not recognize the class struggle.”156 The alliance proved not to be as “temporary” as this appraisal suggested; in other regards, however, the relationship between the SPC and the CCF persisted as described. The SPC perceived itself to be the socialist “leaven to the ‘lump’ – the heterogeneous mass that is groping towards clarity of thought.”157 The attitude of many B.C. SPCers to the national CCF seemed to herald future conflicts. Delegates reporting back from the 1934 federal convention in Winnipeg considered that it was “far from being revolutionary” and felt that the national movement was moving to the right.158 According to local Communists, Ernest Winch “was near a point of making a break with the CCF” and was meeting with small groups of SPCers to discuss the future of the movement.159 Locally, there were also indications of exactly the kinds of differences that appeared in Ontario. The Advance Club, the CCF Club in the Mount Pleasant district of Vancouver, which was led by a businessman and a former minister, took direct aim at what it termed the “hackneyed and retarding ideas of ‘Class War’,” arguing that such ideas would “alienate the sympathies of that vast army of farmers, salesmen, storekeepers, office workers, technicians and even rentiers and coupon-clippers who occupy a middle ground between actual laborers working for wages and the small group of ‘successful’ business men who now control the major portion of Canada’s wealth.”160 Such notions, not surprisingly, offended SPC vice-president (and soon-to-be provincial CCF secretary) Herbert (Bert) Gargrave, who pointed out that this petit-bourgeois element was both “large and dangerous.” Although the labour movement has drawn some of its “finest leaders” from the middle class, the bourgeoisie was also a breeding ground for fascism. For the CCF to alter its program to suit this class was “the height of folly.”161 To a wary SPC, the potential for such folly appeared substantial. Over the winter of 1933–34, the B.C. CCF Clubs grew rapidly, expanding from

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34 to 170 clubs in a mere nine months.162 Although the SPC was growing as well, it was doing so at a slower pace, and, in a few cases, SPCers had quit and joined clubs.163 Nonetheless, there were few, if any, other CCF Clubs that openly rejected the SPC’s ideological lead in the way the Advance Club had. In early 1934, SPC president A.J. Turner celebrated the B.C. CCF’s “consistency in maintaining Socialist Clarity and at the same time holding together the somewhat heterogeneous elements of its composition.”164 As well, the old veteran of the SPC, Wallis Lefeaux, commented on how “surprisingly little friction” existed between the SPC and the CCF Clubs.165 Initial fears, he commented on another occasion, were unfounded, as “our education and propaganda has almost completely permeated” the CCF Clubs, as SPC speakers dominated the provincial lecture circuit.166 Lefeaux qualified his remarks, noting that, while many club members did not have a “high order” knowledge of socialism, “the same can be said” for many SPCers.167 The reference was to divisions that occurred within, as much as between, the two B.C. CCF affiliates. Internal divisions were apparent on the eve of the 1934 federal convention, when, to cite Eugene Forsey (who was, in collaboration with the CCF MPs, attempting to ensure a high attendance of LSR notables at Winni­ peg), the “B.C. extremists” refused to nominate SPCer and member of Parliament Angus MacInnis as a delegate.168 Despite his background, MacInnis had been active, as a member of both the federal caucus and the national council, in the purge of the Ontario CCF, an issue that would arise in Winnipeg. Each of the two B.C. affiliates to the CCF sent eight delegates to the convention and, despite the apparent care taken in choosing them, the SPC complained that two of its delegates broke ranks and voted with the B.C. clubs’ delegates in Winnipeg.169 Although frustrating to the SPC executive, such diversity of opinion in the B.C. SPC was of little surprise. The SPC had been fed by various streams of labour and socialist politics in the province; for some, their experiences further exacerbated differences. “A Proletarian in Politics” according to the B.C. CCF’s short biography of important figures in the 1930s, MacInnis had spent much of his adult life as an elected politician. Never a member of the original SPC, he was first elected as a Federated Labour Party candidate for the school board in 1920. Subse­ quently he was on Vancouver city council from 1925, and then in the House of Commons from 1930 to 1957.170 In many ways he represented a labour reformist current that insisted, as he said at the Regina Con­ vention, that it is not the job of socialists to administer capitalism, but



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that was, at the same time, deeply committed to parliamentary processes. Along with his father-in-law J.S. Woodsworth, he was very much a party disciplinarian. He took the lead in opposing E.E. Winch and William Moriarty when they sought to remove the phrase “We do not believe in change through violence” from the Regina Manifesto, and then he helped direct the purge of the Ontario Labour Conference.171 In studying CCF personalities, Walter Young contrasted MacInnis with E.E. Winch, noting that, although both were B.C. SPC leaders, MacInnis “understood more readily the rules of the game.”172 The “game,” it is clear, was parliamentary democracy, and, as Ernest Winch overtly acknowledged in his own report of his year’s activities as a member of the provincial legislative assembly, parliamentary venues nurtured a “reformist complex.”173 No doubt the different milieux of Parliament Hill and the socialist clubrooms on Vancouver’s East Side can explain some of the divergence, but there were certainly those in the B.C. SPC who thought the same as MacInnis – later scholars would term them “moderates.” It is important to recognize, though, that a “moderate” wing did not imply abandonment of SPC assumptions tout court. A few prominent examples will suffice. Robert Skinner, a Scottish-born former CPR carman, had joined the old SPC in 1910. After some globetrotting, he became a departmental manager at Woodward’s department store, and subsequently a health inspector.174 His personal trajectory led him out of the working class, but he clearly saw the CCF standing in a long tradition of plebian revolt that included “Robespierre in France, John Ball in England, Lenin in Russia and Eugene V. Debs in the United States.” As he explained in his presidential address to the 1933 B.C. CCF convention, the CCF rejected political platforms that comprised “mere reform” proposals, which accounts for the “fundamental difference between the C.C.F. and the capitalist parties.”175 Similarly, former OBU shipbuilders’ leader Arthur Turner, however “moderate,” was quite clear in his speech as SPC president to the founding convention of the Amalgamated CCF Clubs: he stressed that it was important that the SPC acted as “guardian” to the emerging B.C. CCF in order to prevent the “lusty infant” from straying from socialist goals. At the same time, he articulated a view of politics that was common to an entire generation of labour socialists: “So long as the common objective is the social ownership of the means of life, we are prepared to consider of less importance the means by which we arrive at that conclusion.”176 Turner was among the most imaginative in

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trying to determine effective means of propaganda, turning much of his attention to the development of local drama groups in local SPC chapters and, subsequently, CCF clubs.177 His focus on education, much more than strategy (which, of course, infuriated the Communists), was reiterated in his SPC presidential speech in 1934. The growing popularity of the CCF made it increasingly imperative that preparations be made for the possibility of a CCF government. The potential “debacle arising out of an insufficient preparation for the great change” required sustained educational activities. As a counter-example he pointed to the United States, where the lack of political understanding was allowing capital to “prolong the profit-making system by state regulation” through the vehicle of the New Deal.178 Clearly, the “moderates” of the SPC represented a variant of old labour socialism, and not (as Young and others suggest) a form of future “social democracy.” They were well versed in Marxism, and the themes of class and education permeated their discourse. As well, they saw a qualitative distinction between capitalism and a new social order. While scholars such as Walter Young have argued that they were distinguished by a kind of pragmatism, they were not really alone in such an approach. The entire CCF project, which was spearheaded in British Columbia by the SPC as a whole, demonstrated an openness to new strategies and new forms of organization. The “moderates” were not very distinct in this respect. Nor did the deciding factor in disagreements within the SPC arise entirely from a focus on parliamentary tactics. There was little dissension from the notion that electoral politics were of central importance, although occasionally the SPC leaders that historians have tended to call “the Marxists” (failing to acknowledge that the SPC “moderates” considered themselves Marxists as well) would acknowledge that the socialist movement would have to counter bourgeois reaction to revolutionary change. As J.O. Cloutier reasonably asked in the leftist British Columbia Clarion, “if peaceful demonstrations on the part of workers for minor concessions for relief are broken up by savage force, how can it be assumed that the milk of kindness will flow when we demand abolition of the entire profit system?”179 Generally, though, the SPC was officially agnostic on the issue of the potential for violence in the revolution, and the B.C. Clubs do not make an issue of this. As Ernest Winch commented to E.A. Beder, “‘by constitutional means’ is – NOT accidentally – omitted” from the 1935 constitution and provincial platform of the B.C. CCF.180



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This omission did not, however, mean very much in real terms. When faced with the possibility of forming the government in British Colum­ bia, the “Marxists” were surprisingly reluctant to anticipate engaging in radical transformation of the social order. Although “our ultimate objective” continued to be “a system of society that implies a revolutionary change in the present economic system,” Wallis Lefeaux was clear that the revolution was not on the agenda any time soon. If elected, the task of the CCF would be simply to administer capitalism. This was because the masses, given their state of political consciousness, were unable to give a “mandate” to institute socialism and pretending otherwise would be to mislead them. Rather, Lefeaux suggested, that “vague promises” about “production for use” or “plenty for all” would only discredit socialists who would not be able to deliver. Moreover, the idea that one could create socialism in one province, given that “we are not an all-sufficient unit in British Columbia,” was a pipe dream.181 While the disputes among different currents within the SPC were often sharp, the distinctions in their everyday practice, and even in their potential activities in power, were overdrawn. Nor were the debates between CCFers from the SPC and CCF Club backgrounds necessarily any more distinct. Rarely did debates neatly fall along organizational lines. The president of the Associated CCF Clubs at the time of the Regina Conference, and one of the central “moderates,” was William Pritchard, whom historian Peter Campbell has identified as an archetypical “Canadian Marxist of the Third Way” – a current Campbell closely identifies with the SPC in the era of the First World War.182 As a prominent member of the old SPC and a key OBU advocate imprisoned in the aftermath of the Winnipeg General Strike, Pritchard effectively embodied the experiences of the generation of 1919. Deeply demoralized by his political experiences and personal challenges, Pritchard moved from socialism to what can best be described as a kind of labourism. His centrality to the CCF project in British Columbia derived, to some extent, from his control of the Com­ monwealth, which was, nominally, the B.C. CCF’s paper. The CCF executive had been wary of committing the federation to a new publishing project, so it allowed Pritchard to sell shares to CCF members and run the paper under the “supervision” of the executive.183 The Commonwealth reflected both Pritchard’s own ideological wanderings and an individual deeply rooted in the old SPC’s brand of socialism. Within the same pages, the Commonwealth would adopt the most naive notions that the “vested interests” would resign themselves

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to the challenge of electoral socialism while, arguing that an “enlightened” majority would lead to a CCF government “PLEDGED TO TAKE CERTAIN REVOLUTIONARY STEPS in regard to the socialization of money, credit, production and distribution.”184 At other times, he suggested that socialists should appeal to sentiment over reason – an odd position for a scientific socialist of Pritchard’s heritage.185 Peter Campbell’s observation is appropriate: “At times it seemed as if the Pritchard of SPC days had gone forever; at other times it seemed as if he had merely gone into hibernation, to emerge on occasion like some irascible Marxist bear to defend his lair, only to slip back into a deep sleep once more.”186 Pritchard, and his newspaper, seemed to embody the tensions that tore at the CCF itself. A twenty-first-century reading of the Commonwealth uncovers a severe disconnect between moments of the most liberal acceptance of the parliamentary system and others of a radical rejection of liberal capitalism itself. But this very much reflected the position of the B.C. CCF in the mid-1930s, as it attempted to reconcile a language of revolutionary Marxism with a practice that led to considerable electoral success (if not government), all the while dealing with the same kinds of challenges that faced CCFers across the country. Many CCF Club members in British Columbia did not fit neatly into a SPC/club dichotomy. Most prominently, Dorothy Steeves apparently belies the Ontario model. Daughter of a doctor, and holder of a law degree from “dreadfully conventional” Leiden University, she had worked as a governmental adviser on food and commodities distribution in her native Holland during the First World War. Immigrating to Canada with her Canadian husband, she became secretary of the local League of Nations Society, sat on the Point Grey town planning commission, and participated in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. The “Fabian” discussion group that led to the creation of the Vancouver branch of the League for Social Reconstruction took place in her living room. Both her background and bourgeois reform activities placed her squarely in the middle class. Initial contacts with the SPC reinforced this notion. Steeves remembered that “they didn’t regard us with very great kindness. They thought of course that we were just a group of amiable, pale pink, very pale pink, reformers, and they said that really we would do the new CCF harm, that the CCF through our influence might get to be just another reformist party, which would compromise with the capitalists and never get anywhere at all, and we did have a lot to learn, I’ll admit.”187



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Steeves was willing to place herself under the tutelage of SPC notables and to learn from the challenges of building a political movement in the 1930s and 1940s. Although she greatly admired many of the old B.C. socialists who had suffered for their beliefs and their militancy, she initially felt alienated by their Marxism, which was “strange to us and we had to learn what they meant.” Interviewed by Paul Fox late in her life, she criticized the “old socialists” for their overemphasis on education and their belief that “until everybody had been educated well you couldn’t do much with society.” However, when Fox attempted to push her to paint the Marxists as “unreal and doctrinaire” she responded by speaking of their sincerity and of their success in preventing the CCF “from losing sight of the goal, which was the Co-operative Common­ wealth.”188 Despite her political successes – she was vice-president of the B.C. CCF from 1933, an MLA from 1934 to 1945, and provincial party president in the 1950s – Steeves attached herself to the left wing of the CCF. Most particularly, as we shall see in the context of later debates, she took a strong anti-imperialist position at the outset of the Second World War and against the establishment of NATO, and she often defended those on the far left of the CCF against attacks by the federal and, later, the provincial party hierarchy. Not surprisingly, Angus Mac­ Innis came to view her as “far from responsible.”189 In 1960 she published a biography of Ernest Winch, which continues to stand as one of the most insightful studies of CCF history and fully acknowledges the significance of the strain of Marxist labour socialism, which Steeves increasingly appreciated and with which she identified.190 This, of course, all lay far into the future, and in a very different context. Yet, it indicates an orientation very different from the national leadership of the CCF and LSR members in Ontario; Steeves was increasingly at ease in a movement dominated by labour socialists. The indeterminacy of the club/SPC distinction in British Columbia is further reflected in the career of yet another popular figure in the province, Dr Lyle Telford. Ontario-born and a former student of Woodstock Baptist College (“a good training ground for a Bolshevik,”191 according to Telford), he, like Angus MacInnis, came to the SPC via the Federated Labour Party and its subsequent incarnations. In the early 1930s, Telford published the Challenge, which functioned as a voice of the ILP as it transformed itself into the SPC.192 Very much in keeping  with this current, it proclaimed itself in favour of “intelligent” communism, by which was meant an understanding of “the Law of

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Surplus Value, the Class struggle, and the Materialist Conception of History,” rather than the Communist Party’s “fanatical … idolization of Russia and all things Lenin.” Although it acknowledged the class consciousness of the Communist Party, it lamented that the CP saw education as “in the more strict sense of the word, a minor issue” and used “revolutionary catchwords and phrases without regard to their meaning.”193 Not surprisingly, then, the Challenge published “Questions for Socialists” to provide fodder for individual and group study (examples included the following: “Describe briefly the chief forms through which society has evolved”; “Why must the emancipation of the workers be the work of the working class itself?”; and “What is meant by socially necessary labor?”194). A working class thoroughly trained in the science of society – Marxism – it regularly explained, could lead in the revolutionary transformation of society without, Telford hoped, resorting to violence. “Aping Russian revolutionary methods,” which, he acknowledged, might be appropriate in some places, could well be disastrous in others. Telford’s interest in the paper lagged as he turned to radio, and Chal­ lenge began to appear simply as a section of the Commonwealth in August 1933.195 The radio venture was particularly successful. According to one report, “on the farms of the Fraser Valley, there was a ‘Telford Time’ – a brief interlude which saw the labourers leave the chores to gather about the radio and listen with great interest, to the words of one of the most effective evangelists of socialism to appear on the B.C. scene.”196 By 1935, the CCF had a considerable range of radio shows overseen by Telford: a half-hour twice a week on CJOR, the same on CMO, thirty minutes a week on CRCV, as well as a fifteen-minute “Women’s Point of View” on CJOR.197 Even W.W. Lefeaux came to consider “radio work” more important than the local educational activities that were so fundamental to the activity of the SPC and then the CCF, and he, along with many other SPC and CCF leaders, shared the airwaves with Telford.198 The popular and charismatic Telford had his own political trajectory that was not easily contained within the SPC or even the broader CCF. Robin Fisher’s comment that Telford, “the party’s most ardent campaigner … moved so fast that no one knew where he stood,” particularly in relationship to socialist principles, is not entirely unfair.199 He had to be reined in by the SPC executive for his support of “work and wages” on his radio show, a violation of the party’s opposition to the “wages system”; on another occasion, he allegedly made an independent decision to support Gerald McGeer’s law-and-order campaign for



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Vancouver mayor.200 In the spring of 1936, in violation of the CCF’s position, he publicly opposed a provincial health bill.201 Despite such lapses, Telford was elected president of the provincial CCF a few months later without, it appears, any opposition. Nor was there any concern expressed about his explanation of why he had chosen to keep the radio programming under his personal control for the preceding six years – to maintain continuity in a movement that inevitably would undergo a process of change.202 Telford’s failure to toe the official line finally became an issue towards the end of the decade. In 1938, after the CCF had chosen not to run a candidate for the Vancouver mayoralty, Telford (still an executive member of the B.C. CCF and an MLA) chose to contest the race as an independent, a move accepted by the provincial executive after considerable debate.203 After he won the election, Telford, in a move that hardly ended the controversy, resigned from the CCF. He continued to have considerable support in the party, and many felt that he had been forced out.204 The CCF’s official position was that it made little difference whether Telford was in or out of the party, since close cooperation would doubtlessly ensue.205 Besides the issue of Telford’s personal ambition, this incident speaks to CCF’s problems in developing a strategy for civic politics. In the 1930s, CCF candidates were elected as mayor in several large cities, including Vancouver, Toronto, and Winnipeg, but they had considerable difficulty in implementing anything approaching even a reformist program. Clearly, there were significant differences among Steeves, Telford, and many other B.C. CCF leaders, but they cannot easily be interpreted as falling along SPC/CCF Club lines. Appropriately, then, there was relatively little opposition to the idea of the two bodies merging into a unified provincial party, despite the erstwhile self-identification of the SPC as the unique reservoir of working-class socialism in the province. Whereas in March 1934 the SPC’s Clarion had defended the preservation of separate organizations within the B.C. CCF, arguing that the “aims of conflicting groups” in the party “were only superficially identical,” by October of that year it was signalling its acceptance of the fusion by reappraising the ideology and, as significantly, the class character of the clubs. The Clarion now argued that the two wings of the movement did not differ greatly in terms of class origin or ideology.206 The second annual convention of the B.C. CCF, in September 1934, agreed to a referendum on amalgamation. The clubs accepted the proposal “almost unanimously.” Although the majority of SPC members

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also voted in favour, they failed to obtain the two-thirds threshold by just twenty-three votes out of a membership of 1,333.207 At the SPC convention four months later, President Wallis Lefeaux spoke in favour of the fusion but also remarked on the strong state of “the real Proletarian Philosophy” within the movement.208 A subsequent referendum cemented the amalgamation, although, among the celebrations, there were signs of hesitancy. Fewer SPC branches took part in the second referendum, many no doubt considering it a foregone conclusion. Of those that did participate in the referendum, there remained a significant number of holdouts – almost a third of the voting branches opposed the merger, and the two-thirds plateau was surpassed by only seventeen votes.209 Even this razor-thin endorsement was based upon the condition, agreed to by both the club and SPC executives, that the  SPCers could back out of the deal: “should the socialists in the Movement find that the merger results in a constitution not acceptable to them, they shall be at liberty to withdraw and re-form as a strictly socialist organization.”210 The SPC planned to continue publishing the Clarion under a board of trustees.211 Suspicions that the clubs lacked a class-based adherence to socialist principles continued to echo, despite relatively scant evidence of such assumptions. Indeed, the merged CCF executive was dominated by notable SPC leftists such as Wallis Lefeaux. While some historical commentary suggests that the merger was an opportunist move by the SPC to avoid isolation and defeat – that it was merely a “change in tactics, not tack”212 the central role SPCers continued to play in the party is reflected in the Clarion’s optimistic assessment: “The merger has resulted in the whole of the movement in this province swinging definitely into line with the former Socialist Party and becoming a revolutionary classconscious organization.”213 A single example will suffice for the moment to illustrate the tenor of the organization and the perpetuation of the SPC’s brand of labour socialism, which made the B.C. wing of the CCF so distinct from that in Ontario, which was dominated by its clubs section. Lefeaux panned the LSR’s Social Planning for Canada as nonsocialist “muddled thinking” by experts whose notions about planning were generally indistinguishable “from the proposals of present-day radical liberals.” The best he could bring himself to say was that the the volume was “welcome … as a sign that bourgeoisedom is awakening to the fact of the social problem.”214 The B.C. CCF’s Education Commit­ tee refused to add Social Planning for Canada to its list of readings for club discussions, a decision upheld by the provincial executive.215



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None of this should suggest that the B.C. CCF was without internal conflicts – these will be examined in the next chapter – only that laboursocialist assumptions, often originating with the SPC, were dominant within the provincial party. This view allows us to make sense of the most divisive event in the B.C. CCF during the decade, the so-called Connell affair of 1936. A Scottish-raised Anglican minister teaching in a boys’ school, Robert Connell was active in the Victoria LSR and was elected to the provincial legislature in 1933. Soft-spoken and bearing a strong resemblance to J.S. Woodsworth, Connell was chosen leader of the seven-member CCF caucus over the more experienced Ernest Winch. According to Dorothy Steeves, Connell seemed to offer a combination of “bourgeois respectability” and a “genuine knowledge of socialist classics” that could appeal to both the club and SPC wings of the movement.216 It quickly became apparent that the “bourgeois respectability” side of Connell’s personality led him into regular conflict with Ernest Winch and his son Harold, both members of the CCF caucus. Historians have generally defined Connell’s socialism as “pragmatic, Fabian and anticommunist,” in contrast to the “dogmatism” of his CCF colleagues such as Lefeaux and the Winches.217 Certainly, the Connell affair could be seen as a conflict between the left and right of the CCF, exacerbated by the personality differences between the polemical style of the SPCers and the “quiet, scholarly Anglican minister.”218 But the conflict cannot be entirely explained in these terms. To Connell’s surprise, the party did not divide neatly on Marxist versus “Fabian” lines, and Connell ultimately was more isolated than he would have been had the split been on programmatic bases alone. Ernest Winch focused on class differences, explaining that “I learned my socialism not merely from books, but from the bitter experiences of life.” After elaborating on his experience of wage labour and the trials of working-class organizing on the job, he concluded that, “when I speak of capitalism and socialism, I am giving voice to the experience and aspirations of the ever growing mass of workers who are so often referred to – frequently in scathing terms – as the proletariat, to which I belong.”219 In contrast, Connell was an outsider, an alien class influence within a working-class movement. As well, the precipitating debate in the Connell affair is more complex than a straightforward left/right dichotomy would imply. The issue was a plank to “socialize finance” in the provincial CCF program. The plank contained no details and could be read either as a socialist measure to plan the economy or as a social credit–type measure to

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spur spending through the expansion of credit. The policy, although adopted, was opposed by a range of members from left to right, including Wallis Lefeaux and Angus MacInnis. Connell’s objections were not raised at the convention. He was not an effective convention debater and had just finished defending himself against a censureship motion based on his legislative behaviour. Rather, a month after the convention, he issued a press release denouncing the financial plank as “fantastic and impracticable,” and publicly red baited his left-­wing colleagues. While the CCF executive tried to manage the crisis, and Telford even offered to resign as CCF president, Connell and two other MLAs, having publicly denounced the CCF’s platform, were expelled from the party. They continued to sit in the legislature, but as “Social Constructives.” There are a number of significant features of this episode. The fissure did not occur neatly along either SPC/club or left/right lines. Program­ matic differences proved to be the catalyst for, but not the cause of, the dispute. Differences over the offending plank were heated, and many besides the future Social Constructives objected to it. To the chagrin of the B.C. CCF, Connell made good use of a letter from LSR notable Frank Scott, who endorsed his criticisms and suggested that Connell was in line with the national CCF.220 It is worth noting that the B.C. CCF dropped the plank, after Connell’s departure, without particular difficulty. Interestingly, Angus MacInnis and the “right-wing” of the SPC,  although politically sympathetic to Connell’s complaints about both the plank and the rhetoric of individuals such as Lefeaux and the Winches, rejected Connell’s attempts to build a less working-classidentified political party. A potential wrinkle in this analysis is the decision of a couple of old working-class socialists, William Pritchard and Vic Midgley, to support Connell, but Peter Campbell considers this the result of a conscious decision (at least on Pritchard’s part) to abandon his SPC past. That very few followed Connell’s lead, despite the qualms that a significant minority had regarding elements of the influence of the SPC on the CCF program, suggests a loyalty to class and to party that transcended political differences. This applied not only to the party but also to its electoral base.221 In the ensuing provincial election, the Social Constructives were easily trounced by CCF candidates, and, overall, the CCF held its support at between a quarter and a third of the provincial voters. Connell’s class-free, anti-communist brand of gradualism had no significant resonance within the CCF or with voters. The argument that a move towards liberalism was necessary for electoral



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success was, as yet, not applicable to British Columbia. The new B.C. CCF paper, the Federationist (which filled the void that appeared with the collapse of Pritchard’s pro-Connell Commonwealth), drew a similar balance sheet. A broad movement was necessary, and most of those who came into the CCF through the clubs movement did not support Connell in the end. His compromises, not unlike the “votes first” principle of the British Labour Party “and kindred movements,” were deemed undemocratic and unnecessary.222 The events of the mid-1930s would continue, as we shall see, to challenge the B.C. CCF, and any number of debates would ensue, but a broad labour socialism dominated the federation under the hegemony of those who had been identified with the SPC. Connell’s disgrace came from his failure to acknowledge this dominance. Left wingers, such as the Winches and Lefeaux as well as figures such as A.M. Stephen and Colin Cameron, who challenged the liberal paradigm were solidly ensconced in the leadership of the party. It is therefore curious how the historiography has treated them. The labour socialists have been presented by scholars of the B.C. CCF as fundamentally wrong-headed and incapable of responding pragmatically to the opportunities liberal capitalism seemed to offer. Although insightful in a number of ways, Walter Young, the main scholar of the CCF writing in the 1960s and 1970s, seems to view their dedication to Marxism as a form of personality disorder. However “humanitarian” their goals, they were “self-­ righteous to the point of arrogance and intolerance.” Curiously, given the B.C. CCF’s deep roots in a long history of working-class radicalism in the province, Young considers SPCers such as the Winches as the “outsiders,” motivated to build a party with a platform that “legitimized their personal discontent.”223 In spite of Young’s accusation of dogmatism, their opposition to liberalism was a principled one. No doubt their personalities reflected a confidence in their world views, but the same could be said of liberals, who had the luxury of defending a hegemonic ideology.

• In British Columbia, the Socialist Party of Canada, like the Ontario grouping that went by the same name, represented the left wing of the CCF in this period. Our argument, though, is that the labour-socialist current was considerably broader, encompassing the range of heirs of the labour revolts of 1919. In Ontario, the SPC managed to provide

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leadership to a broader current that flowed into the Labour Confer­ ence; in British Columbia, the SPC was, in fact, quite a broad grouping that included those who had joined through other labour parties, such as the Federated Labour Party, and found themselves in the SPC in the 1930s. What about places where the political labour movement, or at least its elected representatives, appeared to act in a more narrowly “labourist” manner, or where a significant segment of the left – the OBU and/or the SPC – had decided to opt out of the CCF movement, as was the case in Winnipeg? Do they fit this pattern of class conflict within the movement? As we have already seen, the Winnipeg Independent Labour Party was a curious mixture of political quietude and radical rhetoric. Certain­ ly the historical image of ILP politicians is one of earnest, yet generally unthreatening, gradualism. This reputation adheres to representatives in civic government, the provincial legislature, and – with old ILPers J.S. Woodsworth, A.A. Heaps, and Stanley Knowles – the House of Commons. The social gospel roots of Woodsworth and Knowles, the United Church minister who later succeeded Woodsworth in his riding, have been highlighted in the historiography as well as in the selfimage of the CCF and NDP. Yet an overemphasis on gradualism would be at odds with key characteristics of the 1930s movement. The image of Knowles as the dour and ministerial arch-parliamentarian of the 1940s and 1950s is quite at odds with his language in the 1930s ILP, which constituted the labour section of the Manitoba CCF. To ILPers, capitalism was unreformable; only a working-class society could ensure both security and democracy. This belief is evident in Knowles’s 1935 campaign in Winnipeg South Centre. On winning the nomination, he declared that he was not a reformist; rather, he was a “supporter of a better social order – not reform, but the replacing of capitalism by a socialistic order.” Moreover, he felt that the threat of fascism was endemic in both capitalism and capitalist parties, warning his audience, as the Manitoba Commonwealth paraphrased his speech, that “both Liberals and Conservatives leaned towards fascism.”224 Further, as we shall see in chapter 4, the ILP shared some class-based assumptions with the Communists, which raised the possibility of some kind of relationship between the CPC and the ILP. Finally, it should be noted that the LSR’s Eugene Forsey did not consider the ILP to be simply an electoral appendage of the essentially reformist corps of labour politicians that Winnipeg regularly elected. He privately worried to Frank Underhill that the Manitoba ILP could link up with



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the B.C. SPC at the 1934 national CCF convention in Winnipeg to play a role similar to that of “Moriarty and Co. at Regina” the previous year.225 The working-class ethos that characterized the ILP tended to undermine its relations with other sections of the CCF in Manitoba. The Manitoba Association of Social Reconstruction Clubs had affiliated to the CCF in early 1934 and a Farmers’ CCF emerged, led by Jock Brown. At first, there were few signs of conflict between these groups and the ILPers. The Social Reconstruction Clubs participated in ILP educational and social activity, as well as in municipal election campaigns.226 The farmers’ section was relatively weak, given the hegemony of the United Farmers of Manitoba and the close connection between the UFM and the provincial government headed by John Bracken. Jock Brown concluded the Farmers’ CCF founding convention by specifically, although vaguely, addressing the relationship between the new group and the ILP, commenting that “their interests may seem different, but with closer contact between the two groups, the relationship between them will be clear and any existing friction will certainly disappear.”227 The evasiveness of such comments characterized the discussion between the sections of the provincial CCF, leading one to conclude that something other than programmatic differences lay behind the relationship. In the summer of 1935, the Farmers’ CCF and the Social Recon­ struction Clubs fused to form a single organization: the CCF Clubs in Manitoba.228 The ILP, while still affiliated to the CCF, did not take part in this reorganization. In an “acrimonious” debate in 1936, the Manitoba provincial council of the CCF decided to reorganize the federation as a unitary, as opposed to a federated, provincial organization, without a separate ILP section.229 What followed seemed, at one level, to be largely a war of terrain. Despite the decision of the provincial council, the ILP balked at merging with the CCF Clubs. The ILP, having built a political organization in Winnipeg and Brandon, felt it should be allowed to carry on as before, and it resisted its proposed integration into the CCF and consequent loss of identity. This period was marked by ongoing negotiations between the CCF Clubs, speaking through the provincial council, and the ILP that were never clearly reported in the press. The CCF national council dealt with the conflict in February 1937, asking each side to back off and sending A.A. Heaps and M.J. Coldwell to broker a compromise, which apparently they succeeded in doing.230 Any agreement was short-lived: the October 1937 CCF convention turned into a showdown between the ILP – particularly the Winnipeg North Centre branch – and the provincial

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council, which was dominated by CCF Club members. One fight was over constituency autonomy and the right of constituencies to bar new affiliates (the ILP clearly wanted to avoid being swamped by CCF Clubs). A second was over the question of autonomy in elections: the ILP agreed that the CCF banner be used exclusively in provincial and federal elections but it wanted autonomy in the civic elections in Greater Winnipeg. The ILP was defeated on both issues. Notably though, the main spokespersons for the ILP – Mayor John Queen and aldermen James Simpkin and Matthew Stobart – reflected the fact that the ILP was much more rooted and better known to a wider audience than the figures in the CCF Clubs. While S.J. Farmer spoke for the provincial council, he in fact was in the ILP; the CCF Club members on the council were relative unknowns, never having won elective office. The Manitoba Commonwealth’s headline, which declared the convention “successful,” was clearly shortsighted.231 The ILP would not live with its defeat and, by early 1938, was debating its options.232 In February, by a two-thirds vote of its delegates, the ILP walked out of the CCF. The demand of the ILP was complete autonomy in Winnipeg. Also, according to the Manitoba Commonwealth (which opposed the ILP within the CCF), it demanded that the CCF Clubs in Greater Winnipeg be “wiped out” – an unlikely outcome, given that, the previous year, the  Greater Winnipeg CCF Clubs council had determined that they would stay in operation.233 The departure of the ILP from the CCF led to the somewhat peculiar situation that both the leader of the CCF in Parliament – J.S. Woodsworth – and the leader of the CCF in the Manitoba Legislature – S.J. Farmer – were, in fact, no longer members of the CCF. They were both members of the ILP, which was disaffiliated from the CCF. For the time being, they decided to keep this inconvenient fact under wraps, which they seem to have done relatively successfully. Such a situation, of course, created a potential electoral nightmare, and it was not surprising that things were quite quickly patched up. A year after his first rosy assessment of CCF/ILP relations, Ted Garland opined that any lingering differences involved “no matter of principle.”234 Woodsworth agreed.235 In November 1938 the ILP re-applied for affiliation to the CCF.236 The considerable “bitterness” that Angus MacInnis noted in his report on the Manitoba CCF convention was assuaged by amending the constitution along the lines proposed by the ILP.237 Yet, in February 1939, Harold Winch, touring the country for the  CCF, reported from Winnipeg that the ILP, “not having fulfilled its obligations as per last Fall’s agreement … are actually not a part of



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the Federation.” As earlier, the fact that Farmer and Woodsworth were still not members of the CCF would have “serious ramifications” if it ever became “public knowledge.”238 And so, once again, differences were ironed out, and the ILP message to the CCF provincial council suggested that all the organizational problems were resolved.239 But were they just organizational problems? Differences over war policy a couple months later, as we will see, suggest otherwise. What was behind this conflict? Certainly it is possible to view it entirely in terms of class identity: the ILP was a working-class party that saw the world in class terms. It was suspicious that those joining the CCF did not share this view and that newcomers would be more susceptible to liberalism. There were, however, crasser explanations. The local Trotskyists suggested that ILPers were merely trying to protect their elected offices.240 Several CCFers, particularly Provincial Secretary Beatrice Brigden, agreed with this view, telling David Lewis that the “I.L.P. is willing to sacrifice the whole National movement for the Winnipeg Civic Field, which they claim for all time.”241 King Gordon readily declared the ILP “a definite nuisance to the movement,” an observation that reflected his LSR persuasion.242 Yet, even those more familiar with the labour-socialist tradition elsewhere, like Angus Mac­ Innis, agreed. He suggested that over “the past few years … [ILPers] were more intent on building a political machine than in furthering the cause of Socialism.”243 ILPers, naturally, shot back at those who openly expressed such views, recording a “strong objection” to Brigden, who, as CCF provincial secretary, headed the confrontation with the ILP. She was seen nationally as an obstacle to reconciliation and was soon replaced by Charlie Biesick.244 Interestingly, her memory of the conflict focuses on class identity: the ILPers, she observed, felt that “the people living in the city who hadn’t come in with the British labour group were very, very, middle class in their outlook.”245 Behind the personalities and machine politics, then, were differences of social background and of program. Here the debate contains echoes of those in Ontario and British Columbia. Such differences were most provocatively expressed by the chair of the Manitoba CCF Clubs section, Charles G. Stewart, who threw down the gauntlet at the end of 1936. He acknowledged that the clubs section perceived its task as mobilizing “Anglo-Saxon” middle-class support for the CCF, and asked why it was having so much trouble. The reason was “extremism.” He explained: “I am heartily in accord with the CCF manifesto as an ultimate objective, but a review of our three years of experience with the

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public tells me that the sooner we stop trying to make the middle classes jump a dozen hurdles at one time the sooner we can start exercising a little political influence.” His model was Robert Connell, the B.C. caucus leader who, as we saw, found himself ejected from the CCF when he expressed similar sentiments, although Stewart was uninterested in claiming the mantle of the Regina Manifesto for himself as Connell had. As if to confirm all the ILP’s fears, he argued that the CCF should be more open to middle-class reformists, from local progressive lawyer Lewis St. George Stubbs to the renegade reform Tory W.D. Herridge. For good measure, he added that it should focus on courting Social Creditors, playing upon the anti-banker and anti-­ finance feeling he saw as strong among the middle class. Indeed, the Social Credit’s program that Stewart called “the socialization of finance” “would pull most of the teeth of the bulldogs of oppression and would give a power to the common people to move ahead without much organized opposition.”246 To make matters worse, Jock Brown, the head of the Farmers’ CCF chimed in, largely expressing support for Stewart’s views. He distanced himself from the comments about Social Credit, pointing out that it did not propose to socialize anything and was “purely reformist in character.” But in the same breath, he suggested that, when an election campaign started, “I would suggest that we forget the [Regina] manifesto. It is not, in my opinion, a program designed to catch votes and that is  the job in an election campaign.” No more should be promised than can be delivered in a single term of office without “revolutionary methods.”247 He suggested that urban socialists focus on building consumers’ cooperatives, copying what “the supposedly hidebound individualist farmer has already done in large measure.”248 Winnipeg CCF Club chair E.J. Peto agreed: the “Co-operative” in the CCF’s name reflected the political side of the commercial development of co-ops (the Manitoba Commonwealth editor would point out his error, explaining the socialist etymology of the term).249 In practice, ILP politicians could hardly be accused of extremism, at least on city council and the school board, where they defended the quality and quantity of the services working-class citizens received. Even at the provincial level, as Brown pointed out, they focused on “public works and vast increases in social services” as opposed to socialism.250 But that was hardly the point. Stewart, Brown, et al. spoke an alien class language. The dovetailing of their appeal to the middle class with their rejection of “100% socialism”



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confirmed ILP fears that the “middle-class” CCF Clubs could spell the demise of a working-class political movement built over decades. Not that any segment of the CCF spoke with a single voice. Some in the Farmers’ CCF, particularly in Marquette, spoke out strongly in favour of socialized agriculture.251 A correspondent from Rorketon, near Dauphin, spoke in favour of “100% socialism” over the reformism Charles Stewart and company were proposing but exempted, curiously, “Mr. Woodsworth, by far the greatest reformer of recent times [who is] far from being petty and insipid.”252 For the most part, though, the main critic of the “middle-class” current led by Stewart was Fred Tipping, a veteran of the Social Democratic Party and former Trades and Labour Council leader, but long discredited because of his lack of militancy in 1919. “It was bad enough when Mr. Brown advocated a 50% socialism movement,” but now the Browns and Stewarts of the CCF were advocating dropping socialism altogether. In its place they proposed little more than co-ops, but Tipping pointed out that Premier John Bracken himself was a “firm believer in co-operation.” Socialists, he added, must join unions and co-ops, but “these agencies should be used by him to show their limitations and as points of contact for the education of workers.”253 An educated working class remained the goal of real socialists interested in the complete transformation of society. It is notable how the disputes between the ILP and CCF were almost always expressed in organizational terms. But at their core, they reflected a clash of world views. Stewart more or less closed the debate, arguing that “50%” and “100%” socialists had to unite – this was the rationale for the CCF project in the first place – but more than a few did so with gritted teeth.254 It is, of course, easy to point out that, in its day-to-day practice, the Manitoba ILP did not jibe with any reasonable notion of “100% socialism,” but that is not my point here. What is of note is that Manitoba fell in with Ontario and British Columbia, where class identity and politics were inexorably mixed; Manitoba ILPers considered themselves to be defending a heritage of working-class political action. They were labour socialists.

• What many CCFers, both from labour and “middle-class” backgrounds, considered to be a form of class struggle within the movement was most apparent, not surprisingly, in areas with a history of a strong

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working-class political movement. Alberta confirms this pattern. At the outset, the Alberta CCF comprised, in essence, the Alberta branch of the Canadian Labour Party (CLP) and the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA). The Economic Reconstruction Associations were small and marginal and their relationship to the later emergence of CCF Clubs is unclear.255 In Alberta, the primary issue in the early years of the CCF was its relationship with the farmers. The connection to the UFA was a troubled one: the UFA was a broad and politically heterogeneous organization that was, by the early 1930s, well past its prime. While CCF ideas had a strong hearing in the UFA, they mixed there seamlessly with Social Credit and other notions. Even more significantly, though, the UFA government of Alberta had proven ineffective in dealing with the Depression and had become increasingly conservative and scandal prone. Indeed, the CCF’s connection with the UFA was one of the factors that facilitated the Social Credit onslaught in 1935, as it precluded the emergence of the CCF as a fresh alternative in rural Alberta. At the same time, the other component of the provincial CCF, the Canadian Labour Party, was quite successful municipally. As historian Alvin Finkel notes, the fate of civic labour candidates was often the product of their militancy in challenging the provincial UFA government, with Calgary labour politicians proving more willing to support the unemployed movement than their Edmonton counterparts.256 Given that the UFA and the Canadian Labour Party continued to run candidates under their own names provincially as well as civically, the CCF gave the appearance of being even more loosely federated in Alberta than in other provinces. The badly defeated UFA was torn by debate about the future of political action. Its indecision weakened the CCF in Alberta. Finally, in 1937, the UFA abandoned provincial politics but maintained its affiliation with the federal CCF; two years later it abandoned political activity altogether.257 By that time, Saskatchewan CCF notable M.J. Coldwell expressed the sentiment of most of the federation leadership, that the CCF functioned better as a unitary organization with the support, it was hoped, of individual farmers but without the affiliation of the politically heterogeneous UFA or the Saskatchewan section of the United Farmers of Canada.258 In the immediate aftermath of the disastrous 1935 Alberta election, the provincial CCF leadership undertook to construct CCF Clubs around the province, not only in the cities but also in rural areas where potential CCFers were not attracted to the UFA. The latter field of ­activity expanded after the UFA dropped out of the CCF entirely, and



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at their peak there were at least a hundred clubs around the province.259 The president of the Association of CCF Clubs in Alberta was William Irvine, suggesting that at least some of the clubs were the progeny of the existing provincial organization, rather than having been spawned by political neophytes, as in other provinces.260 The Alberta clubs tended to see themselves on the left of the provincial CCF; one correspondent to the Alberta CCF’s paper, the People’s Weekly, argued that neither the UFA nor the Canadian Labour Party required that members be socialists.261 Relations between the clubs and the CLP in the Alberta CCF were troubled. In many ways, the clubs were developing more dynamically. They organized educational speakers on an array of topics – “Tactics in Social Struggles,” “The Workers’ State,” “Fascism and the Middle Class” – not very different from those offered by, for instance, the SPC in British Columbia.262 Most notably, the clubs section was more willing than the CLP to enter into arrangements with the commu­ nist Party. This may appear to be distinct from other attitudes in other provinces, particularly in Ontario, where the clubs were dead set against any dealings with the Communists. But the events in Alberta occurred a few years later, when the policies of the Communist Party had changed dramatically and, under the guise of the popular front, it was making overt overtures to middle-class allies and its policies were no longer clearly to the left of the CCF’s. In any case, Ted Garland, touring Alberta on behalf of the national leadership of the CCF, described the situation in Calgary as “war” between the Labour Party  and the clubs.263 Harold Winch, interestingly, viewed the CLP as being most at fault in this conflict.264 The story in Alberta is confusing, because neither the clubs nor the CLP had a clear and consistent political program or practice. Alvin Finkel is quite correct in pointing out that the issue was not programmatic, but one of class identity: “The middle-class character of many of the CCF Clubs alienated some of the CLP’s veteran members, who clung to the view that the party’s class composition was as important as its policies.”265 This is, of course, precisely the same phenomenon that has been observed across the country. But in Alberta, the conflict tended to occur later and the shift towards the clubs was in large part due to the demoralization and depoliticization of the unions in that province. As Finkel points out, union after union allowed their affiliation to the CLP to lapse; by the end of the decade, the party lacked any organic  connection with the labour movement. By the onset of the Second

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World War, labour had ceased to have the weight to direct the political movement in Alberta. The story in Quebec was confounded by the overlapping nature of class and ethnicity. Clubs in Quebec were overwhelmingly anglophone and rooted in the West End of Montreal, particularly in Notre-Damede-Grâce, although there was also a strong presence in the workingclass neighbourhood of Verdun, where the clubs contributed to a strong federal campaign in 1935 for George S. Mooney, who was active in the LSR and epitomized middle-class anglophone reform in the city.266 Certainly the LSR, with a strong presence at McGill University, played an important role not just in setting up the clubs but also in the provincial CCF as a whole. Andrée Lévesque notes that “c’est le groupe d’intellectuels et non les représentants de la classe ouvrière urbaine, comme en Colombie-Britannique, ou des fermiers … qui constitue le premier centre CCF au Québec.”267 But, she adds, this group had negligible impact upon the francophone middle class, both because of the weakness of the left in Quebec generally and the failure of the CCF to speak to Québécois national issues. The labour group in Quebec, the Parti ouvrier du Canada, was largely francophone, “anything but strong,” and confined to Montreal.268 Not surprisingly, the cultural gap within the CCF was enormous, and the labour section was, at best, divided on the utility of the connection  to the federation. The CCF poured speakers and organizers into Montreal at the outset of the movement, but to little effect; although the Parti ouvrier did affiliate to the CCF, relations were “delicate.” Interest in the CCF depended upon the opinions of individual leaders.269 Jean Péron, for example, was a popular and important ally in the Parti ouvrier, but relations broke down over the refusal of the LSR-dominated provincial council to allow for autonomy of francophone clubs in central Montreal and around Péron’s interest in working more closely with the Communists. Péron eventually left the CCF and joined the Com­ munist Party.270 In some ways, the Quebec CCF experience exemplified the cultural gaps across which the CCF sought to build bridges, although in Quebec the gaps were attributable to nation as well as class. In Saskatchewan the specific configuration of forces appears to have precluded these kinds of conflicts. While specific policy differences developed in the provincial CCF, particularly later in the decade, they did not follow the same pattern as in other provinces. The Saskatchewan CCF seems to have been marked by a clear modus vivendi between farmers, who served as the backbone of the organization, and labour,



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which was a minority partner. The contrast with farmers’ organizations in Alberta, Manitoba, and particularly Ontario suggest that there is some strength in Seymour Martin Lipset’s argument that the emergence of the CCF in Saskatchewan “was not the local extension of a new national movement, but, rather, an endemic movement having its roots in Saskatchewan.”271 This is true at least with respect to the specific form of the farmers’ radicalization, as the dominant farmers’ organization in Saskatchewan tended to eschew classical liberalism. This radicalization is clearly rooted in the specific history of agrarian movements in that province, which is beyond the scope of this study. Suffice it to say that both the rich history of farmer organizing in Saskatchewan and a growing understanding of the challenges farmers faced had led them to adopt a platform more closely resembling those of labour socialists than those of United Farmers in other provinces. In the early 1920s, the farm movement had been split between two organizations, the older Saskatchewan Grain Growers’ Association, which was very much a part of the Progressive revolt and continued to focus on issues such as the tariff and currency issues, and the newer Farmers’ Union of Canada, which, although open only to “dirt farmers” was sympathetic to the labour movement. The Farmers’ Union often sent fraternal delegates to union meetings, and it openly acknowledged the influence of the OBU, referring to itself as “the one big union of farmers.” The existence of the class struggle was basic to its understanding of the social order.272 The two organizations amalgamated in 1926 to form the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) and, although the new organization was rather heterogeneous, the left-wing group emerged as the dominant force.273 It was this current that advocated the controversial “use-lease” policy, calling for the public ownership of all land, that became the official policy of the merged organization in 1931.274 The popular new leader was George H. Williams, formerly of the Farmers’ Union. Labour political organization in Saskatchewan was far weaker. There do not seem to have been continuous labour parties in the province’s cities through the 1920s, and certainly there was no provincial organization. A Regina Independent Labour Party was formed in 1929 and a provincial organization two years later. The provincial leader was M.J. Coldwell, a Regina school principal who had, notably, some political history in the Progressive Party.275 The unification of this small group and the United Farmers into the Farmer-Labour Party in the summer of 1932 appears to have proceeded with little hesitation.

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The Farmer-Labour Party (the Saskatchewan section of the CCF ran under this name during the first two years of its existence) was clearly a pro-labour party consisting overwhelmingly of farmers. Indeed, the CCF was particularly weak in the cities. Although it would have some impact in municipal politics, the CCF polled behind Social Credit in the cities in the 1935 federal election and did not even bother contesting Saskatoon and Regina in the provincial contest that followed.276 There was little in the Farmer-Labour Party to provoke conflict, or even a distinct class identification. Labour was very much in a minority. There were individuals such as Melville ILPer Fred Fix, whose politics closely resembled that of the Socialist Party in Ontario and British Columbia and whose comments to rural comrades led Williams to comment that “it seems that it is unwise for us to send industrial speakers to farmer meetings.”277 But this arm of the party lacked sufficient weight to develop and express a class identity separate from the movement as a whole. Nor were labour concerns qualitatively different from those of some farmer members. For instance, Geordie Cole, a farmer from Semans, Saskatchewan, wrote Williams in early 1935 decrying not only Communist methods of organizing and what he considered their dogmatic Marxism but also about “pussy footers and reformists” in the CCF.278 Such language and concerns are not very different from those that emerged among labour socialists across the country. The boundaries were not clear enough to force a debate on class differences within the Saskatchewan CCF. As importantly, there was, as yet, no LSR in the province, although such a circle would form around University of Saskatchewan English professor Carlyle King later in the decade.279 In other provinces, the “middle-class” radicalization expressed through the LSR and the clubs had been key to conflict within the CCF. In those cases, a pre-existing labour-socialist identity was offended, and then honed, in response to what adherents saw as an alien imposition that might undermine the cause of socialism itself. This was not at all the case in Saskatchewan, nor, indeed, was it reflected in other parts of the country outside significant industrial areas such as Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Toronto. It is not surprising that conflict was focused in those cities, though reflected in the provincial federations. As we have seen, these conflicts varied in intensity and outcome across the country. Largely remembered as debates over policy, they were experienced as debates over class. At stake was whether socialism, as a working-class politics and epistemology, could survive the



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arrival of a wave of new, and self-confident, “socialists.” While they may or may not have been “middle class” in any objective sense, they were identified as such. The composition of the clubs is not very clear, nor necessarily consistent. They included professors, church leaders, white-collar workers, and, in some cases, as Toronto Labour Conference member Howard Huggatt conceded, wage workers.280 Even if some members were wage workers, the clubs accepted the leadership of nonproletarian elements, particularly the academic elite associated with the LSR. In doing so, the clubs challenged what the labour-socialist current felt was fundamentally important: the political leadership of the movement by class-conscious working-class socialists. The CCF labour socialists were not alone in such beliefs. They were part of a broader current that included the One Big Union, that other “Socialist Party of Canada” based in Winnipeg, and most significantly, the Communist Party of Canada. However, in the mid-1930s, under the direction of the Moscow-centred Communist International, the Com­ munists appeared to abandon their class assumptions. In the era of the popular front, alliances were to be built with liberals and “progressives” of all sorts, regardless of class. For a number of reasons, this would send shock waves through the CCF and challenge deeply held class-based assumptions. The ground upon which labour socialism stood would be shaken.

Chapter Four

Challenges at Mid-Decade

The CCF did not, of course, exist in isolation. As the 1930s wore on, events external to the dynamics of the federation itself impinged upon its future, and members responded in what often appeared to be unpredictable ways. As we shall see, such developments conspired to challenge the labour socialists’ attempts to identify and defend the bastions of working-class political struggle. Most importantly, the CCF did not monopolize the response to the crisis of capitalism. The Communist Party of Canada (CPC/CP) grew in importance in the 1930s, particularly after it abandoned its “class versus class” strategy of the Third Period and sought out new allies in hopes of building a broad popular front. Other movements emerged as well, often stealing the stage from the CCF. Social Credit developed an important presence in the West, while the Reconstruction Party and New Democracy provided other challenges. In many cases, these were movements that appeared as the extension of forceful personalities who gained audiences in the 1930s: William Aberhart, H.H. Stevens, and W.D. Herridge, along with any number of provincial and municipal figures, garnered a share of the spotlight. They represented responses to the Depression that CCFers found inadequate but that they also considered significant ruptures with the old-line capitalist parties. Other international movements were important as well. For the most part, CCFers inhabited an English-speaking world and they closely followed the deliberations of their confrères in the United States and, even more so, in the British Empire. Developments in Australia and especially New Zealand were of interest, but eyes were focused on Britain. The level of detail about developments and debates in Britain, gleaned from speakers, books, and periodicals from what most CCFers still



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considered “the old country” was remarkable.1 Canadian socialists generally were cognizant of international discussions and often framed their analysis in a broader context, with reference, in particular, to Brit­ ish writers. J.S. Woodsworth’s plea for a specifically “Canadian” socialism was rooted in his attempts to insulate the CCF from international debates that promised to push the Canadian movement to the left.2 All in all, Canadian socialists had much to ponder in the mid-1930s, and no lack of sources for ideas with which to reinterpret their world. This was a complex moment, and the historical narrative of socialism, which focuses on the grand bifurcation of the movement into revolutionary and reformist wings in the aftermath of the First World War, is far too simplistic in its disregard of other tendencies and its essentialization of “revolution” and “reform.” It does, however, speak to an observable organizational development. Two major left-wing currents did emerge and, in Canada by the mid-1930s, they were the CCF and the Communist Party. In their efforts to stake positions and to claim as large a section of radicalizing forces as possible, they defined themselves in relation to each other. Part of the problem of naming – as revolutionary or reformist – is that meanings are both fluid and contested. As the Communist Party followed the shifting political direction of the Russian-based leadership of the Comintern (often characterized as zigzags3), and the CCF was torn by regional peculiarities and internal dissension, it is difficult to develop definitive descriptions that accurately characterize either party over time, and it is certainly wrong to assume unchanging relationships between them. The historical narratives that rely on a simple binary of reform and revolution do great damage to any understanding of the trajectory of both movements. In general, CCFers were unsympathetic to the Communist Party; they had chosen a different political path, although their reasons for doing so varied. Many, of course, rejected the violence that they had associated with the Russian Revolution as foreign to British ways. Many others, rooted in the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) tradition, rejected what they saw as the centralization and rigidity of the Commu­ nists’ political structure. Some had previously joined or flirted with the Communists, only to be repelled, by the early 1930s, by its twists and turns of policy and slavishness to the Stalinist Soviet leadership or, in a few cases, expelled from the party. Nonetheless, CCFers could not help but define themselves in relation to the Communist Party. The Communists were the “other” socialists against whom the CCF was often measured.

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After some decline in the early 1930s, the Communist Party began to grow again in size and influence. In fact, by the mid-1930s, the Commu­ nists threatened to outflank the CCF. This was of particular concern because, following the initial enthusiasm, CCF recruitment and electoral results began to stagnate. The number of adherents is particularly difficult to measure, as there were wide provincial variations in membership and, perhaps most importantly, different affiliates had quite different notions of the very character of membership. In British Columbia, enthusiasm for the CCF seemed to last longer than elsewhere. The B.C. SPC, as we have noted, took membership very seriously, emphasizing an understanding of socialism and commitment to further self-education. Still, after an initial spurt in numbers from 1931 to 1933, B.C. SPC membership slipped back from a peak of about 1,800 to 1,400 members in mid-1935.4 In an oblique criticism of the clubs sections, the executive of the B.C. SPC commented that “the consistent policy of the Party has always been opposed to ‘per capita hunting’,” and they suggested that the quality of their membership, developed through education, had been well maintained.5 The Associated CCF Clubs in the province did grow rapidly, increasing in number from 34 in the summer of 1933, to 185 the following summer, to 232 in July 1935.6 But this was the kind of “mushroom growth” of uneducated and uncommitted members that SPCers had worried about, and many of these clubs did become inactive over time, although the relative success of the CCF in the province probably delayed their decline. The new federation rode a wave of enthusiasm in the November 1933 provincial election, winning a third of the vote, although electing only eights MLAs – all SPCers.7 Still, in 1937, the B.C. CCF reported that 20 per cent of the clubs were inactive. Even more significantly, only 136 clubs were represented at the provincial convention that year. The following year, the party noted declining club activity generally but particularly in Vancouver, which had been a centre of strength.8 Still, these trends were far from disastrous and contrasted markedly with much more worrisome developments in Ontario. In that province, the labour section – the Labour Conference – had been read out of the federation by the national leadership, and the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) had departed, leaving the clubs in control. The rapid growth of the clubs, particularly in Toronto, had clearly suggested to Woodsworth et al. that the Labour Conference was expendable and that  the CCF could prosper without it. Indeed, the national council



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saw the Labour Conference as deadweight when compared to the kind of growth that the clubs seemed to promise. But such growth was a flash in the pan. Reporting from Ontario to the national secretary, Ted Garland (who came out of the Alberta Ginger Group) commented that “the C.C.F. Clubs are organized on too loose a basis and have in part lent themselves to the exploitation of the views of eccentrics to the detriment of the movement.” He added that membership of the Toronto Clubs had reached 10,000 in 1933; a year later it was “nearer to 900.”9 The bubble of the clubs membership could not survive the mediocre results of the 1934 provincial election, which saw the CCF receive only 100,000 votes and elect a single MPP – Sam Lawrence, the labour warhorse from the East Hamilton ILP.10 Elsewhere, the clubs were less significant, but even the labour components of the CCF seemed to run out of steam. Manitoba exemplified this trend. In spite of its electoral success – always electing a contingent to the legislature and representing close to half of Winnipeg city council (including ILPer John Queen as mayor) – as well as its political events, educational programs, and ability to rally thousands to its cultural and sporting events, the Manitoba ILP never built a substantial membership base.11 This seems to have become a concern only later in the decade, when the provincial secretary of the Manitoba CCF, Beatrice Brigden, who was admittedly unsympathetic to the ILP, painted the latter as little more than a machine to elect politicians and added that “the outside world cannot realize that what passes in their eyes for a large Labor organization is really about twenty people.”12 However exaggerated her claim (and ILPers took “strong objection”13 to Brigden), CCF membership in Manitoba was weak, and declining. In 1933–34, the Social Reconstruction Clubs claimed 600 members and a newly formed Cooperative Commonwealth Youth Federation another 500. Four years later, the membership of all wings of the Manitoba CCF combined was 600.14 Electorally, the results were mixed. In the 1936 provincial election, the CCF vote grew significantly, but in the multi-member constituency of Winnipeg, where there was a preferential voting system, the popular anti-establishment jurist Lewis St. George Stubbs placed first, far outpacing the other candidates, and Communist candidate James Litterick came second. The potential for the CCF to monopolize the electoral response to the crisis of the 1930s seemed to be fading. Interestingly, although the CCF was publicly opposed to any political cooperation with the CPC, it was not entirely disappointed with Litterick’s election, as

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“we prefer to see the voters elect a Communist instead of Liberals or Tories.”15 Capitalism remained the enemy of the two working-class parties, regardless of their differences. Surveying developments at mid-decade, then, the CCF could hardly be confident that the initial enthusiasm for the new movement could be sustained and many feared returning to the marginal status of the municipal and provincial labour parties of the past. More than this, CCFers worried about the social consequences should the CCF project stall or fail. The human devastation wrought by the Depression showed little sign of dissipating, and the dangers of fascism and war seemed to grow. There were, as well, other significant developments. Starting in Alberta, Social Credit had taken root among many of the same constituency that the CCF and its farmer wing, the United Farmers of Alberta, felt was rightfully theirs. William Aberhart spoke a language appropriated from the CCF, denouncing the “fifty big shots” who dominated the Canadi­ an economy and promising, in his case through a social dividend, to support those ravaged by the Depression.16 Maverick Tory member of Parliament H.H. Stevens took on the country’s big retailers and organized the Reconstruction Party to do something about the collapse of ordinary people’s capacity to buy the necessities of life. Liberals such as B.C. premier T.D. Patullo called for “definite and concrete” action by his federal party on “finance, social welfare and public works” in contrast to Mackenzie King’s vagueness and preference for procrastination.17 In addition, judging by the number of forums and discussions organized by the CCF, technocracy, which peaked in the United States in the  1930s, was showing “considerable life,”18 particularly in western Canada. While it appealed to those, particularly professionals, who sought a technological fix to the problems of the Depression, its focus on planning found echoes in and around the CCF. A range of notables in the Manitoba CCF – S.J. Farmer, Stanley Knowles, and Beatrice Brigden – all addressed meetings on the topic.19 In British Columbia, the Technocracy Society inquired about affiliating to the CCF, pro­ vincial CCF Clubs were permitted to establish technocracy study groups, and, at one point, the B.C. CCF executive met with technocrats to discuss the proposed restructuring of government.20 As always, the SPC pointed to the class issues at stake: “To fight for the removal of a ruling class, whether that class be barons, priests or financiers, merely to establish another ruling class – even if that class be ‘highly intelligent’ engineers and technicians would be to repeat the age-old tragedy, to discard the old chains merely to rivet on the new. Technology,



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yes; technicians, yes; Technocracy, No!”21 As a correspondent to the Edmonton-based People’s Weekly commented, technocracy “does not understand the private profit system or its inherent contradictions.”22 Curiously, the profusion of such movements led large numbers of CCFers to reconsider their relationship with the Communists. Of course, the Communists had attributes that appeared to be valuable assets in the context of the Depression. The discipline and the courage of Com­ munists as anticapitalist militants seemed beyond question. They had been associated with the most difficult labour battles in the late 1920s and early 1930s, just as the mainstream labour movement was in its doldrums, transfixed by the difficulties of confronting employers in a period of reaction and mass unemployment. What strikes there were in these years were hard fought, and in most cases led by Communists.23 The same was true, for the most part, of organizing the unemployed, and Communists were active in unemployed councils across the country and were central, in 1935, to the On-to-Ottawa Trek.24 Such militant, extraparliamentary activity appealed to those who recognized that the power of the masses lay not just at the ballot box, but also at the point of production in workplaces, and in the streets. This was particularly true in this fateful decade, as the agonizingly slow electoral schedule seemed to provide opportunities for reactionary governments and movements to act without effective popular opposition. On top of all of this was the example of the Soviet Union itself. Whether or not it could be seen as a model society or was in any way a workers’ state, it was clear to a broad range of CCFers that the Soviet Union was not susceptible to the same kind of economic crisis that was plaguing the capitalist world. Moreover, the evident success of the fiveyear plans appeared to validate the superiority of a planned economy over the free market. This seemed to signal the victory of planning, which appealed to a section of the middle class – including some members of the League for Social Reconstruction – as it did to more seasoned supporters of the Russian Revolution. A pro-Soviet attitude was not necessarily consistent with support for the Canadian Communist Party, and in many cases the distinction was clearly made. In other instances, though, the party’s new openness during the popular front period encouraged cooperation, especially around popular issues such as the defence of Republican Spain. For the most part, the CCF avoided any formal relationship with the Communists. There were a number of reasons for this. Some CCFers did not want to be associated with Communists; others were highly

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suspicious of the Communists’ motives. Moreover, those – particularly in the CCF leadership – who viewed the CCF fundamentally as an electoral force saw little benefit in associating with the Communists. Nevertheless, understanding the relationship between the two forces is important for understanding not only the CCF’s identity but also the broader impact the Communists and popular front sentiments had on the CCF. In the 1930s, the Communist Party’s working-class identity was increasingly muted, as it sought to build broad coalitions among opponents of political reaction. And, as we have seen, the CCF’s own working-class identity, as well as its political identity generally, was deeply contested, for the CCF was itself a coalition. Both parties faced the same dilemmas. The 1930s presented great dangers and enticing possibilities for parties of the left that identified with the working class. If they allowed themselves to remain small and isolated, the outcome could potentially be the victory of the most vicious oppression, in the form of hunger, war, and fascism.25 In this context, the Communists’ appeals for a broader unity were attractive to many. The appearance of widely disparate social reform movements could, undoubtedly, be seen as a threat to socialist forces. But to the extent to which they could be mobilized to challenge the power of capital – or at least its most vicious form, fascism – they were potential allies. Attempting to cooperate with a broader range of forces, as we have already seen in the case of the early CCF, potentially undermined the parties as mechanisms of real social change. But the Communists’ argument during the popular front period, that the immediate dangers posed by fascism outweighed everything else, led to the creation of wider coalitions, which, in turn, various wings of the CCF had to address. As we shall see, these attempts at coalition building created huge dilemmas for labour socialists. For the most part, they had been partisans of the broadest possible working-class unity, including joint activity with that other important working-class current on the left, the Communist Party. At the same time, the Communists, in search of liberal allies, would often stray furthest from the working-class principles that socialists as a whole had embraced, complicating even further the challenges confronting labour socialists. The “middle class” within the CCF grappled with its relationship with other movements as well. While wary of working with the Communists, it occasionally reached parallel conclusions, and significant differences emerged within the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) and the national CCF leadership with respect to tactics for responding to the popular front. The



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class struggle that had emerged in the CCF in the period immediately after the Regina Convention became increasingly muddy. Navigating the stormy waters of the 1930s was a challenge for all socialists. Allies were necessary, but so too was a fidelity to the project of making real social change – a change labour socialists understood as “revolution.” Survival was at stake, both in the immediate sense of life and limb in the face of war and fascism, as well as with respect to the ultimate goal, a society in which hunger, war, and fascism no longer threatened humanity. Every decision carried enormous weight.

• By the mid-1930s, nearly every decision taken by the CCF seemed to involve the Communist Party in some way. The relationship between the CCF and the CPC is a complex, indeed byzantine, story. This is the case for several reasons. First, the dramatic shifts in Communist policy in the 1920s and 1930s make it difficult to speak of any real continuity. The united front policy that had led the CPC into the Canadian Labour Party in the 1920s had ground to an end by the last years of the decade. As we have already noted, this had been a difficult relationship, although some non-Communists held onto the connection with tenacity. Beginning in 1928, the Comintern leadership argued that the short period of capitalist stability had come to an end, and a new moment of protracted class rivalry – the Third Period – had arrived.26 In Canada, internal dissension and the ascension of the Stalinist faction of the party led by Tim Buck and Stewart Smith led to expulsions and resignations. As well, the growing isolation of the party, along with often adventurist tactics, combined to erode membership: the majority of the CPC’s membership was expelled or quit between 1929 and 1931.27 The party would grow again in the 1930s, but under very different conditions. Lost was part of that generation of 1919 who had forged the party in the 1920s, who had debated with the Industrial Workers of the World and the One Big Union (OBU) and the Socialist Party, who were the product of a lively and well-informed intellectual working-class culture. Those who joined in the 1930s became part of a very different formation. Theirs was a generation of Communists very much isolated from a broader left and its experiences, and schooled in what had become a Stalinist party uncritical of the leadership of the Soviet Union. The prognosis of impending revolutionary confrontations was broadly accepted in the Communist Party, partly because its critics were

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isolated and the Wall Street crash gave an air of prescience to the Comintern’s analysis.28 Not only were new struggles just around the corner, but the façade of bourgeois democracy was about to fall, revealing a growing fascist state. Most significant, for our purposes, was the CP’s attitude towards its erstwhile allies on the left. In the growing “class against class” struggle, social democracy (meaning, in the Communist Party of Canada’s eyes, the nascent CCF) represented a particularly grave danger, which minimized the significance of class struggle and disarmed the Canadian masses in the coming revolutionary crisis. Such ideas were elaborated in a substantial tract penned by “G. Pierce” and published at the outset of 1934. Socialism and the C.C.F. was the Communist Party’s official response to the emergence of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Political scientist and former CPC member Norman Penner describes it as “probably the strongest attack by any Communist Party in the world” on what the Communists, and Penner, describe as “social democracy.”29 Pierce was, in fact, Stewart Smith. Freshly returned from two years studying at the Lenin School in Moscow, Smith represented the new Communist Party leadership, more closely attuned to the “theory of social fascism” and the Comintern antipathy towards other working-class movements. Applying Stalinist ideas to Canada, Smith posited that “a fundamental community of ideas exists between the Fascism of Hitler and the social-fascism of the C.C.F.”30 While not “identical” with fascism, he argued that “social fascism” facilitated the former by demobilizing and misleading the masses. As an “indispensable instrument of the bourgeoisie,”31 the CCF represented, in the eyes of the Communists, the “main and best bulwark against revolutionary Marxism.”32 It followed that revolutionaries had to concentrate their efforts against the CCF, which, of course, made the possibility of cooperation minimal. The nature of both organizations, however, complicated this story considerably. Although increasingly uncritical of the direction of the Soviet Union under Stalin, the CPC cannot be reduced to an instrument of Soviet policy. In criticizing the CCF, it spoke to concerns that were shared by Marxists generally, including those in and around the CCF itself. Its concerns were based partly in the CPC’s own origins in the radical labour movement and were expressed so as to convince not only its own membership but also a broader audience schooled in the axioms of working-class socialism. Although the identification and dismissal of the CCF as “social fascist” was central to the Comintern’s



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views, the bulk of Smith’s book-length critique focused instead on the CCF’s weaknesses as a working-class party and particularly on its alleged abandonment of class politics. The charge of “social fascism” is barely mentioned before the concluding section of the book, tacitly acknowledging that it was an unconvincing argument. The debate focused on whether the CCF had promised, and betrayed, a working-class future. If Smith’s polemic was somewhat restrained, the CPC was generous with its epithets elsewhere. By 1933, the CPC’s newspaper, The Worker, was “calling the C.C.F. ‘Fascist’ without even the courtesy adjective of ‘Social’ to temper it.”33 For the most part, the Communists’ critique focused on the Regina Manifesto and on the statements of the most public leaders of the CCF, including J.S. Woodsworth, Elmore Philpott, and Agnes Macphail. As such, their criticisms paralleled those coming from the labour-socialist ranks within the CCF. The CPC took direct aim at Woodsworth’s attempt to create a “Canadian Socialism” pointing out the international character of the struggle for socialism and reiterating the class character of any such movement: Woodsworth’s “Canadian Socialism,” commented Smith, “is foreign to the working-class because of its class content. We shall see that it is imported into the working-class from an alien class, the capitalist class, whose interests are hostile and foreign and in direct conflict with the working class.”34 The instruments of this transmission were the petty-bourgeois leaders of the CCF, the wealthier farmers, and the “bourgeois ‘expert’ general-staff” of the League for Social Reconstruction.35 Its alien class character was revealed programmatically. For instance, Smith argued that the program of the CCF, along with the speeches of CCF leaders, consisted of panaceas that ranged from controlling credit and planning the economy to specific nationalizations that, collectively, fell short of socialism. As he explained at length, they amounted to a program of “state capitalism,” an idea with a long heritage under the rubric of “public ownership” that has proven quite compatible with capitalist social forms. While perhaps unfair to many CCFers’ hopes for a future workers’ state, Smith was able to cite several vague and contradictory statements by CCF leaders. Prominent Alberta CCFer Elmer Roper, for instance, downplayed ownership of the means of production in his commentary on the Regina Manifesto: “It does concern itself with a planned economy which can only be accomplished through the assumption of absolute social control of the means of life in the nation. And if that control is assumed what does it matter who holds the nominal ownership of factories and

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farms? … It is the products of the factories and farms that men are interested in.”36 Monopoly capitalism, Smith explains, requires a more active state in the interests of capital generally. The critique of “organized capitalism” parallels that which the labour socialists in the CCF would make with respect to the LSR’s Social Planning for Canada. Among the broader labour socialist milieu, the official stance of the CCF and the pronouncements of its leaders made easy targets for the Communist Party, as they stood outside of a shared socialist tradition and their class identity was readily questioned. The CP was well aware that there were others in the CCF who could not be dismissed so easily, and the critique of the “fake ‘Marxists,’” as the likes of the Socialist Party of Canada were dubbed, was more forced. “Its stock-in-trade,” Smith argued, “is the utilization of Marxian phrases, while distorting the real essence of Marxism and emasculating it of all revolutionary content.”37 Statements that recognized the inexorable conflict of classes and the incompatibility of capitalism and rational planning, including those made by figures such as Angus MacInnis and William Irvine, who had represented labour in Parliament, “are obviously in formal contradiction to the statements of the C.C.F. programme.”38 Nonetheless, Smith argues (without much explanation), such statements simply confuse nationalization and socialism. A bit more realistically, Smith notes that the conflict between the two main currents in the CCF – the “Marxists” (for the most part, our “labour-socialists”) and the pettybourgeois liberals – “is a reflection of a deep-going and growing crisis in social-reformism.”39 The Communists’ critique of the Marxism of the labour socialists in the CCF could be easily refuted, particularly by those SPCers (and others) who felt that their knowledge of scientific socialism far surpassed that of the minions of Moscow. In a direct response to Smith’s book, the official organ of the B.C. CCF (dominated, of course, by the SPC) assailed the primary assumption of the attack, explaining that they sought not to “plan ‘capitalism’ but to establish a planned socialist commonwealth just as the Soviet Government is attempting to do for Russia.”40 However, when the Communists criticized the CCF for demobilizing the masses through their fixation with electoral politics, they potentially hit a nerve. Although CCF-oriented labour socialists were hardly dismissive of electoral politics, they were sensitive to the charge that they were armchair socialists, pontificating about change rather than leading it. And, while elections were an important moment of workingclass education, they recognized that they took place within the context



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of broader social struggles that needed to be pursued. At the very least, comments such as the following tapped a debate about mass extra-­ parliamentary action that was driven forward, in large part, by the example of the Russian Revolution: The struggle against hunger and for unemployment insurance, the struggle against wage cuts, the struggle of the farmers against debts and seizures, are today all part of the working-class struggle against the capitalist way out of the crisis and are inseparable from the fight of the revolutionary working class way out of the crisis. The C.C.F. tactic of long range parliamentary promises and renunciation of the immediate struggles is the instrument of capitalist deception, calculated to imbue the masses with passivity, to cause sections of the masses to split away from the immediate struggles, to prevent the united front of the masses and thus to promote the capitalist offensive and the capitalist way out of the crisis.41

This challenge would be received sympathetically by those in the CCF who were experienced in the politics of the picket line and the street, cognizant of the power of mass action, and frustrated by the challenges of electoral politics. Labour-socialist CCFers did, in fact support and participate in broader movements, although this won few kudos from the CP. In Hamilton, for instance, Sam Lawrence’s support of the unemployed was dismissed as “a ‘left’ role” played “in order to hold the unemployed under reformist influence.”42 The Philpotts and the Macphails, on the other hand, would make little sense of the challenge, and dismissed the criticism of electoral politics, as much because of its source – the Communist Party – as its anti-electoralist message. Such divergent responses would only add fuel to the internal CCF debates we have already described.

• From the outset, the CCF project was undertaken with an eye to the CP; some asserted that the CCF movement could re-invigorate those who had rejected the “romantic and even silly” tactics forced on the international movement by the Comintern.43 It is important, too, to recognize the depth of animosity many CCFers felt towards the Communists. In Winnipeg, for instance, not only did the Independent Labour Party (ILP) feel that the CP had deliberately targeted it in the electoral campaign of 1931, it were appalled by the physical attacks by CP “thugs”

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against Socialist Party and OBU speakers in Market Square, the city’s main venue for soap-box oratory.44 At the least, the adventurism of what the B.C. CCF called ”ill-considered demonstrations,” which led the Communists and “our unemployed citizens” into repeated confrontations with the police, opened them to the charge of acting like agents provocateurs.45 To the untrained eye, it appeared that little love was lost between the two organizations. Even at the Communists’ most sectarian moment in the Third Period, though, the CP and the CCF did not exist as two solitudes. Among much of the labour-socialist current, there was a relatively broad interest in preserving working-class unity and sympathy for what the Communists described as a “united front from below” that evaded the opposition of the CCF’s reformist leadership. The small Trotskyist movement pointed out that, in practice, such a united front meant other groups accepting the leadership, program, and tactics of the Commu­ nist Party (often, the Trotskyists suggested, as in the case of the Estevan coal strike, without discussion among the rank and file).46 Nonetheless, Communist initiatives often had considerable resonance. Both the British Columbia and Ontario SPCs were expressly committed to the idea of the united front. In Ontario, the Earlscourters had pushed the Labour Party of Ontario towards the idea of establishing a “council of action” to unite working-class forces; in British Columbia, the predecessor of the B.C. SPC, the ILP, was actively engaged in the “United Front Committee.”47 As the B.C. SPC statement of principles adopted at its 1933 convention stated,“the Socialist Party of Canada is willing to co-operate with any group, organization, or party of the workingclass whose principles and aims are similar with those outlined in this declaration.”48 Such cooperation depended, of course, on the Commu­ nists’ behaviour. As at least one SPC branch complained about “certain disruptive features” at a United Front Committee meeting, it is clear that the relationship was not always easy. One successful united front campaign took place in London, Ontario. In that city, a united front had been formed in the summer of 1933 in preparation for an impending railway strike. Besides the SPC, it included two CCF Clubs (where SPC presence was strong), the London district CCF council, the local unemployed association (likely dominated by the CP, which had taken the lead in organizing the unemployed), a non-Communist organization known as the London Labour Reserve, women’s auxiliaries, the London Township Workers’ Association, several CP-associated organizations such as the Canadian Labour Defence



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League, the Maxim Gorky Association, as well as the local machinists’ organization. Interestingly, it had been initiated by the Socialist Party following discussions with the unions involved and was led, as we saw earlier, by Arthur Mould and Fred Hodgson of the SPC. This was the same Arthur Mould who had severed the connection between labour socialists and the Communist Party in the Canadian Labour Party in 1927, concerned that Communists had come to dominate that formation.49 By 1933, though, times called for a rebuilding of working-class solidarity. This was a difficult path and local unions hardly spoke with a single voice. Joe Corbett, the general chairman for Canada of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, had originally proposed the united front but later reneged in his support; only the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees local was consistent in its pro–united front position. The London branch of the Labour Party of Ontario had voted to send three delegates, although had not followed through, perhaps a reflection on the health of the party. Notably absent were local League for Social Reconstruction figures.50 The London SPC enjoyed a relatively strong position within the united front. Its strength in the city (it had about fifty members in 1933) was due to the party’s activity in the unemployed movement and the experience of many local activists (including those who had not joined the SPC) in the British ILP. In contrast to the favourable reputation of the SPC, observers noted that “the Communists have muffed things pretty badly in London,” and the CP had relatively little influence among younger workers. Recognizing both the sensitivities involved and wary of the CP’s plans, the SPC was careful to limit the united front to “immediate issues” such as the strike. The suggestion posed by some Communists, that the united front become “political” – meaning that it run in elections – was opposed by the SPC as potentially explosive.51 SPCers and other CCFers saw their involvement as a reflection of their duty to participate in broader working-class campaigns, such as strikes or the unemployed movement. London was somewhat of an anomaly, as elsewhere the Communists were generally much better organized and better prepared, and the labour-socialist current more diffuse. Certainly this was the case in the union movement. The Communists’ dual union policy – they established independent “red” Workers’ Unity League (WUL) unions in the late 1920s – allowed them control of a small but militant union movement in the early years of the Depression.52 Whatever the wisdom of such a policy, strikes such as that around Estevan, Saskatchewan, in

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1931 provided the CP with considerable credibility. Labour socialists were very much on the outside looking in at this activity. Not active in WUL locals, they were often members of demoralized and inactive Trades and Labour Congress unions (or independent unions, as in the case of veteran Ontario socialists Alex Lyon and Elizabeth Morton).53 Occasionally, as in the case of the 1934 garment workers’ strikes involving both international and WUL unions, the Socialist Party became directly involved.54 More often, though, its connection to the relatively few high-profile industrial confrontations was through public support of those arrested in strikes or in urban confrontations organized by the Communists. This largely meant participating in the Canadian Labour Defence League (CLDL). Besides the CP and CP-associated organizations, the CLDL attracted support from the Earlscourt group, the B.C. ILP/SPC and a handful of non-WUL unions such as the Brotherhood of Railway Employees and the garment workers.55 The Trotskyists, as well, declared their support for CLDL campaigns, although they were far from welcome participants.56 The CCF leadership, particularly Woodsworth, attempted to inoculate the CCF against the growing popularity of the CLDL, pointing out that it was a CP front.57 This position set two former Methodist social gospellers, Woodsworth and CLDL general secretary A.E. Smith, against each other, with the former focusing on the “scurrilous attacks” on the CCF made in The Worker. Woodsworth was particularly cutting in criticizing the contradictions between the CP’s attempts to build a broad front against state repression and its denunciation of its potential allies “as enemies of the working class.” 58 The conviction of Tim Buck and seven other leaders of the Communist Party under the infamous sedition provisions of section 98 of the Criminal Code in August 1931 boosted support for the CLDL, as did the arrest and trial of A.E. Smith for accusing the government of being behind an attempted assassination of Buck in Kingston Penitentiary. Such repression spurred a mass movement. Even before the arrest of Smith, the CLDL had gathered almost half a million names on a petition calling for the release of the prisoners and the repeal of section 98. Shortly thereafter, at least according to the CP, the CLDL had a membership of 17,000 and perhaps twice as many who belonged through affiliated organizations.59 The campaign against section 98 was an attractive one for labour socialists. Section 98 was detested, the CCF was vocal in opposing it, and the parliamentary caucus repeatedly attempted to have it repealed.



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Here was a broad campaign that they could join. Even though labour socialists were often critical of a narrow electoralism, they were generally incapable of building mass extraparliamentary campaigns. The CLDL, and other Communist-inspired movements, allowed them to participate in the popular national campaign against section 98. Yet some other communist overtures were less successful. In Winnipeg, the CP approached TLC unions, CCF Clubs, and ILP branches with “very poor” results.60 Not only did animosities between the CP and the ILP often run deep in Winnipeg, the strength and depth of the ILP’s roots in the city made cooperation with the CP seem unnecessary. Only in Toronto, as the CP pointed out in its internal assessment of its influence, did the CLDL take on the character of a real united front.61 SPCers not only sympathized with the CLDL’s campaign, as did others in the Labour Conference, but they saw an important venue in which to organize, one that counterbalanced the conservatism of the CCF leadership. It is interesting that this same CP document identifies CCF Clubs (and unions) as the primary source of united front allies. It was this united front, which included eight CCF Clubs, that precipitated the expulsions in Ontario at the hands of Woodsworth that we examined in chapter 3. Interestingly, as we will see, the conjunction of CLDL campaigns with the even more successful unemployed movement would cause others in the CCF to reconsider their opposition to a level of cooperation with the CP. Unemployment was, of course, endemic in the 1930s, and the Communist Party took the lead in organizing the unemployed through the National Unemployed Workers’ Association (NUWA), founded at the beginning of the decade. On the basis of relevance (the NUWA directly addressed the needs of the unemployed for immediate cash relief and protection from evictions), a popular demand for “work or full maintenance” (although the OBU pointed out that this assumed the legitimacy of the “wage system”), and plain hard work, the NUWA blossomed into a substantial movement. Tens of thousands marched in NUWA demonstrations as early as 1931. The inevitable confrontations with local police forces only enhanced the reputation of the movement and lead to campaigns for the CLDL.62 Components of the CCF undertook their own work with the unemployed. The visibility of such work was augmented by the fact that CCF elected representatives who could highlight the issue, raising demands for jobs and more comprehensive relief, in legislatures and in Parliament. But political connections were potentially a liability as well, and

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the CP often targeted “social fascist” politicians, particularly at the municipal level, for being associated with niggardly and repressive treatment of the unemployed. For instance, in Winnipeg where a “Work or Wages” demonstration was attacked by the police in 1930, “the I.L.P. aldermen remained with stopped mouths, saying nothing and thereby saying everything in favor of such cossack methods.”63 The ILP dismissed this criticism, arguing that “there is no city in Canada or on the whole continent that is doing more for the unemployed than the City of Winnipeg” and that, having only seven of eighteen city aldermen, the party could not force the city to do more.64 Moreover, it also pointed out that unemployment was primarily a federal problem and responsibility.65 Very quickly, however, the ILP recognized that it could not be so cavalier about the issue; it developed a clearer program and set to work building an unemployed movement based on a different set of working-­ class alliances. An important feature of the Manitoba ILP program was its support for “non-contributory” unemployment insurance. Like other labour socialists, including those in the B.C. and Ontario SPCs, the B.C. CCF, and the Labour Party of Ontario, the Manitoba ILP felt that taxing workers for the risk of employment would be both unfair and ineffective.66 The point is of some significance, as the movement for non-contributory unemployment insurance has historically been associated with the Communist Party, which ignores its roots and resonance in the labour movement more generally. Of course, unemployment was not the sole negative consequence of the Depression. Wage cuts and reductions in mothers’ allowances provided the occasion for the ILP to construct an alliance with the Unemployment Conference, the OBU, various railway unions, including the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, and the Women’s Labour Group.67 Outside of a few “mass meetings,” the scale of activity seemed limited, although the provincial ILP board continued to liaise with the Unemployed Conference as it painstakingly followed up on relief and similar issues.68 By the fall of 1934, relief cuts in Winnipeg led to further activity, including open meetings in Market Square.69 Among the participants at these meetings were a number of “neighbourhood councils” – groups that were emerging across Canada, largely as a consequence of the Communist focus on building broader “united fronts from below,” which included inviting the participation of organizations that reflected different political tendencies.



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As John Manley has suggested, it was in the unemployed movement that the Communists worked most successfully with others in the labour movement, even in Manitoba where animosities between the CP and the ILP seemed deepest. Two features made this possible. One was that there were few programmatic differences among activists in the unemployed movement in terms of demands. Second, unlike the Communists, the ILP did not participate in such movements under its own name. In part, this was because of its identity as a labour party, representing workers in general rather than an identifiable subset of workers. It continued to see itself as the political wing of the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, a self-perception that fed the broad and inclusive (and, other socialists would argue, fuzzy) character of the ILP’s program. United activity within the unemployed movement continued in Manitoba through much of the 1930s, although the ILP was careful not to call attention to it. The CP’s strategy of operating through organizations such as neighbourhood councils facilitated such cooperation; the CCF’s Manitoba Commonwealth would simply list participating unemployed organizations, including the neighbourhood councils, without calling attention to those with Communist associations.70 Cooperation on such issues did not mean that there was any interest in an electoral (or what CCFers referred to as a “political”) united front with the Communists. The ILP bragged loudly when it outpolled the CP and complained bitterly when it felt that support for the CP’s Jake Penner had scuppered the election of ILPer John Queen as Winnipeg mayor (although the complaint itself underlined the notion that they were class, and therefore potentially political allies.)71 The logic of a united front around unemployment struggles was also apparent next door in Saskatchewan. When J.S. Woodsworth complained that Peter Mikkelson, a “prominent CCF organizer,” was participating in national unemployed events, he was defended by CCF national secretary, and fellow Saskatchewanian, M.J. Coldwell, who pointed out that he had been elected as an unemployed activist to a “non-political” national conference.72 While narrowly accurate – there was at this point no electoral alliance between the CCF and the CP in Regina – the two parties had, in fact, formed a united front “for the purpose of improving the conditions among unemployed workers on relief and bring[ing] a halt to forced labor and disenfranchisement of the workers.” The CCF and the CP would each have three represen­ tatives on the “joint committee,” and it “was specifically agreed that

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while the united front is in force the two parties will refrain from hostilities towards one another.”73 The logic of the unemployed movement pulled the CCF and CP together. It is noteworthy that, among the provincial CCF newspapers, the joint committee in Saskatchewan was reported only in the B.C. CCF press; the Vancouver-based Commonwealth had moved to become an organ of both the B.C. and Saskatchewan CCF, with a section specifically devoted to the latter. The B.C. SPC was particularly open to potential working-class allies, as their founding declaration of principles had explicitly proclaimed.74 Did this specifically mean the Communist Party? In general the answer was yes, although it is important to recognize that this does not suggest that the SPC was uncritical of the CP. Wallis Lefeaux was particularly consistent, regularly noting that the CP and the Socialist Party shared goals but differed on means. Notably however, at the height of the Third Period, Lefeaux used Lenin against the Communists, pointing to Lenin’s opposition to ultra-leftism, which would have led the increasingly adventurist and isolated Communists “to fall an easy prey to their disciplined enemies.”75 Similarly, Ernest Winch, lamenting both the frustrations associated with life in the CCF, as well as his frustration with the political culture and internal regime of the CP, commented privately to Bert Robinson that “if only the communists would embody the spirit of ‘ism’ and not intolerance in their movement what a glorious one it would be to get into.”76 Still, the SPC (like the ILP before it rebranded itself) recognized a shared class position and radical history and participated in some activities that brought them into close alliance with the CP. Among these activities was support for the Friends of the Soviet Union, as the SPC felt that the Russian Revolution had been a victory for workers generally and not narrowly for a particular political tendency.77 Nonetheless, “certain disruptive features at a recent Arena Mass Meeting” that were associated with CP behaviour led the B.C. SPC to leave the decision of whether or not to participate in such activities, including those of the National Unemployed Workers Association, to individual branches.78 In Ontario, the SPC was an even more eager participant in united front activities, particularly around civil liberties and unemployment. The CP noted, in its internal reports, that the A.E. Smith campaign took off as a united front campaign only in Ontario, in large part due to the SPC. Moreover, several SPCers were accredited delegates to the Ontario Workers Conference on Unemployment in the summer of 1933.79



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The willingness of both the Ontario and B.C. branches of the SPC to work with the Communists did not mean shelving criticisms of the Communist Party as a political current and as an organization. The political sophistication of the SPC meant that it was particularly aware of its differences with other groups on the left, even as it worked closely with them in particular campaigns. As Bert Robinson explained, united front work was of principled importance, but the political and organizational differences were also important, as was the freedom to criticize those with whom the SPC cooperated.80 In comparison to the B.C. SPC, whose dominance within the provincial CCF gave it some flexibility with respect to cooperation with the CP, the Ontario SPC faced greater challenges with respect to such activities. The expulsion of the SPC (as part of the Labour Conference) from the CCF in Ontario meant that the SPC in that province had to navigate a difficult road between the CP and the CCF as the two larger organizations came to monopolize the left. Even before the clubs and United Farmers of Ontario came to dominate the Ontario CCF, the SPC’s commitment to it had already been strained, with the Toronto members much more willing to abandon the project while London SPCers worried that leaving the CCF would mean losing touch with a mass movement, courting sectarianism, and abandoning the CCF to reformism.81 The SPC’s laudable goal of avoiding isolation and sectarianism meant that, as the CCF and the CP became increasingly dominant, it was more and more difficult to maintain an independent path. Debate naturally turned to maintaining some relationship with one or the other, and preferably both. Not surprisingly, given their identification with the British ILP, SPCers considered their expulsion from the CCF in a similar light as the departure of the British ILP from the British Labour Party. When British ILP leader Fenner Brockway visited Toronto, SPC members lined up to meet with him, and discussion focused on the appropriate level of engagement with the Communists.82 As Brockway noted, “tactical and temperamental differences” with the Communists tended to limit the efficacy of joint action with them, but in Britain, as in Canada, the centrality of the Communists to mass action forced the united front question onto centre stage.83 Relatively isolated and torn over which way to turn, by the autumn of 1934 the Ontario SPC was locked in a deeply introspective discussion that included reconsideration of its relations not only with the CCF and CP but also with other groups such as the Trotskyists. It even considered formally affiliating

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with the British ILP, which itself was discussing building a new international network of revolutionary socialist parties (a development that also enthused the B.C. SPC).84 According to the SPC analysis, the Ontario CCF’s “new set-up” meant that the CCF was becoming a social democratic party, meaning that it had abandoned its revolutionary purpose. (Interestingly, the term “social democratic” was rarely used at the time and, if it was used, it was by CCF speakers and publications hoping to distance themselves from the reformism implied in the concept.85) Developments in the CCF created a crisis for the SPC in Ontario: the collapse of the CCF as a federation with a strong labour component and a prominent place for labour socialists left the SPC without a natural home. Still, the SPC determined that its members who were already CCF Club members should maintain that status.86 But, as the CCF became increasingly inactive, the popular front with the Communists appeared to some to be the only game in town for militants. Very quickly, the Ontario SPC’s main activity revolved around participation in popular front campaigns, to the extent that they became, in the eyes of one member, “virtually an auxiliary of the C.P.”87 Frustrations with this course, especially given that it was “the avowed policy of the Communist Party to unite with other groups only on its own terms,”88 led to increasingly divisive debates in the SPC, as it struggled to remain relevant and to determine a politically principled course of action. Voices in these debates included those of Trotskyist SPCers (or ex-SPCers) who were more openly critical of the CP’s drift to the right and who urged the maintenance of some programmatic distance from the Communist Party within any united front.89 In a “vigorous” internal debate, some argued that the SPC could become a clearing house for “freelancers” in socialism and “could loosely link people with Stalinist, Trotskyist and other Communist positions with Socialists for discussion and other purposes.”90 Not surprisingly, by early 1935, the SPC had declined precipitously from its earlier position of influence to being a mere shell of an organization, at least in the estimation of the Trotskyists, who had effectively abandoned it.91 As we shall see, several of the more prominent members of the SPC became the key non-Communist personages within different popular front movements, although it is worth noting that, even when they served as individuals in such roles, they continued to feel that they had something to offer that clearly distinguished them from both the CCF and the CP. For example, although he supported the popular front, E.A.



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Beder argued that both the CCF and CP lacked a clear anti-capitalist program.92 The point was well taken, but the SPC, which continued to shrink, was unlikely to constitute an effective alternative. In the summer of 1936, the remnants of the Ontario SPC rejoined the CCF.93

• Given the challenges of the muddied political context at mid-decade, the Ontario CCF, dominated by the LSR since the eviction of the Labour Conference in 1934, faced real problems. It was difficult to maintain the momentum or to ignore some of the Ontario CCF’s fundamental weaknesses; visiting from Saskatchewan a year after the purge, future CCF leader M.J. Coldwell observed (without any perceived need to elaborate), “Ontario does not seem to be advancing very rapidly.”94 Bernard Loeb, himself a member of the LSR, wrote to the New Commonwealth to discuss how to “recapture the enthusiasm we felt two years ago” at the founding of the provincial CCF. Interestingly, he saw the lack of po­ litical education in the clubs and among the leadership, as well as the proliferation of “reformism,” “palliatives,” and “pet ideas” as the root of the malaise. Others, such as Fred Fish, agreed.95 Such comments were not those of radical outsiders. Fish, who was based in Oshawa, had been a leading member of the CCF Clubs from the outset and was asked, in October 1934, to contribute a regular column to the New Commonwealth.96 This appointment was an early step in what would become a campaign against “reformism” inside the Ontario CCF led, ironically, by Graham Spry. Following the purge of the labour socialists, and despite the hyperbolic claims of CCF success, Spry, LeBourdais, and others were clearly concerned about the quality of CCF membership in Ontario and – in the context of an array of “capitalist reformist” movements beyond the CCF, as well as a reinvigorated CP – sought to inoculate the membership against the appeals of New Dealers, Social Creditors, technocrats, and the like, as well as the popular front. As the New Commonwealth noted, it was necessary to study the “fundamentals of Socialism” as “the C.C.F. had perhaps been lax in this end of their work. This was particularly true of some units where the main effort was devoted to building up just another political party.”97 Internal education was important but, in keeping with the electoral focus, the emphasis was on training CCF speakers, candidates, and campaign managers. In the spring of 1935, the provincial council established a course that was

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basically on electioneering; classes would be run by an LSR cadre, F.H. Underhill, J.F. Parkinson, E.A. Havelock, and Graham Spry.98 Writing the New Commonwealth editorial on the one-year anniversary of the purge, Spry claimed a number of gains, particularly the establishment of the newspaper itself, but also noted, “primarily, there is this great weakness – a lack of single-minded, aggressive uncompromising socialist agitation. The C.C.F. has become too polite, and, on some occasions, too reformist.”99 Spry was echoing other voices. Murray Cotterill, who was a young activist at the time (and president of the CCF’s Ontario youth wing) and whose organizing trips took him around the province, was highly critical of the state of the CCF, both politically and organizationally. Due to “inexperience in the Labour and Socialist Movement History … Knowledge was lacking in activities other than election activity.” There was a sense that the organization had to be active in campaigns around the immediate needs of workers, “but frankly, as the majority of members are new to the Socialist Movement, they had no idea as to how to start.” He noted that, because of this lack of experience and understanding, the party was incapable of responding to the Communists’ “constant hammering.”100 This was particularly the case around direct action. Spry’s editorial had concluded that the Ontario CCF “must become not less political, but more industrial concerning itself in the immediate struggles.”101 The impetus was clearly the Communist challenge, as the CP offered a sense of active participation in the struggle against capitalism and particularly in the day-to-day struggles of workers and the unemployed. The Ontario CCF was forced to respond. In early 1935, the provincial executive urged constituency and regional CCF councils to establish committees to deal with “relief matters,” which meant either providing support for relief claimants or organizing  the poor and unemployed.102 Appropriately, East York Workers’ Association (EYWA) leader Arthur Williams chaired the provincial CCF’s welfare and relief committee, which oversaw such action.103 The EYWA was the one branch of the Ontario CCF with a large and very active membership base. Its 1,600 members had decided, after considerable debate, to remain in the CCF following the purge.104 The Toronto regional council – a body that would, as we shall see, cause the provincial CCF some grief with its future radicalism and activism – was key to this relief activity. And, for the moment, the council was heavily praised in the pages of the New Commonwealth.105 Moving a step further, the Ontario CCF provincial council established a “Direct



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Action Committee,” the significance of which was signalled by inclusion of all members of the provincial executive on the committee, including Spry, John Mitchell, Fred Fish, and Arthur Williams. The sentiment of the Ontario provincial council could be seen in another successful motion. Williams proposed that, “in view of the fact that the CCF appears to be lagging on certain topical questions” (he cited “immediate demands” and “war and fascism,” each the subject of intense Communist-led campaigns), the national CCF and other provincial councils develop their own, pan-Canadian, campaigns – in short, that the CCF become active in mass campaigns beyond the ballot box.106 Despite such intentions, the CCF’s embrace of activism was challenging and, ultimately, incomplete. East York, where just under half of the population was on relief, continued to be the focus of most activity, climaxing in a huge December 1935 relief strike against reductions in benefits.107 (The election of Williams as township reeve in the immediate aftermath of the strike suggests that militancy and electoral action were not necessarily at odds.) In the spring of 1936, the newly elected provincial council denounced the popular front and set out to establish a CCF “Conference on Unemployment.” Not surprisingly, it reflected the character of the new CCF. As well as “delegates from unemployed groups,” the provincial council announced that it would invite “ministers of the gospel, school teachers, welfare workers, members of social and charitable organizations, retail merchants, trade unions, and all others dealing with the unemployment problem.”108 This was something different than the working-class-identified activity that labour socialists demanded. Experience led the Ontario CCF to fine-tune its activity. By late summer, it was much more regularly involved in strike support work, sending speakers and picketers to a large textile workers’ strike in Cornwall, providing legal support for Dominion Glass strikers, and participating more actively in relief demonstrations.109 Parallel to this activism was the concerted effort to combat “reformism” in the Ontario CCF. The immediate impetus was Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s New Year’s speech in 1935, in which he astonishingly declared, “I am for reform” and announced his intention of emulating the American New Deal.110 It was important that the CCF distinguish itself from Bennett’s “reform,” even though some of the specific proposals of Bennett, and other pro-capitalist reformers, overlapped with those put forward by the CCF. The responses were surprisingly erratic. For instance, one of the CCF notables associated with the Labor Party of Toronto, Jimmie Simpson (having just been elected mayor of

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Toronto), found the prime minister’s declaration encouraging, declaring, “Bennett is coming our way. Don’t stop him.” His colleagues J.W. Buckley and George Watson, both well-established labour and CCF leaders, drew the opposite conclusion, clearly seeing “traces of Nazi philosophy” in a statist program that left capitalism intact.111 This fear of “planned capitalism” as a means of potentially brutal class rule ran deep in the 1930s. We will return to the issue as we discuss anti-fascist organizing in Canada in the decade, but for now it is simply worth noting that such fears underlined the seriousness of the issue. Rarely given to hyperbole, Woodsworth shared his unease. As he explained to a Montreal audience, the kind of state measures proposed by Bennett had long ago been implemented by Germany and England. “The danger in Mr. Bennett’s proposals” to cite the newspaper report of Woodsworth’s comments, “lay in the fact that they make a swing towards Fascism possible.”112 What made it possible, of course, was the increased power of the capitalist state, a concern that linked Woods­ worth (in this instance) to a labour-socialist past much more than to the social democratic future with which he is generally associated. The same could be said about the CCF generally, even after the purge in Ontario. The immediate concern was that uneducated CCFers or those in the federation’s periphery would be confused or misled by the possibilities of reforming capitalism. In response to Bennett, the Ontario CCF took to explaining that the options were between capitalism and socialism, and that capitalist planning and state control fell far short of the CCF’s goal of socialism.113 There were, at the same time, other influences pushing the LSR-based leadership of the Ontario CCF away from the themes of Social Planning for Canada and towards a greater emphasis on the qualitative differences between capitalism and socialism. As we shall see, developments within LSR intellectual circles were pushing them leftward. Most specifically, several members of the LSR had close connections with British intellectuals who themselves were moving rapidly to the left. As has been noted, CCFers had always been interested in the British ILP, and several LSR members had been to Britain and been influenced by intellectuals in the British ILP and/or the Socialist League, which had split off from the ILP. This connection was strengthened by the fact that one of the streams that fed into the Socialist League, the Society for Socialist Inquiry and Propaganda (SSIP, also known as the Zip), had Fabian roots and was associated with the New Fabian Research Group. Like the LSR, the Zip tended to be identified with academics.114



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In 1933, Russel Smart, a lawyer and former Tory, returned from Eng­ land a convinced socialist and urged (and indeed paid for) Graham Spry to tour the old country and to make contact with the “Socialist League, Fabian society, Labor Party, etc. etc.”115 In Spry’s report back to the LSR, it was clear that he was mainly interested in the Socialist League and its talented leadership, E.F. Wise, H.N. Brailsford, and particularly Sir Stafford Cripps. He spent considerable time with the latter “and thoroughly canvassed the situations in both Britain and Canada with him.”116 The combination of Cripps’s intellect, conviction, and, quite frankly, his knighthood, appealed to the elitist Spry. As he confided to his fiancée, Irene Biss, on another occasion: “I do like this high life – royalty, champagne, politics, country clubs, and all in the name of revolution.”117 The connection with the Socialist League, and particularly “its most glittering personality”118 Stafford Cripps, was important both for Spry and, as it turns out, the Ontario CCF. When the ILP decided that the British Labour Party was moribund as a potential vehicle for socialism and split from it in 1932, those who decided to stay and continue to fight for socialism within the Labour Party formed the Socialist League. The league’s goal was “to make socialists, and to further, by propaganda and investigation the adoption by the working-class movement of an advanced programme and a socialist outlook.”119 From this base, the organization developed an activist orientation, calling for workers’ control of industry and for nationalization of banks and (along with the British ILP) expressing interest in working closely with the Communist Party to fight the threats of fascism and war.120 The Socialist League’s program and orientation were quite different from the statist left liberalism of the LSR, but the connection between the two groups was strong. In the spring of 1934, Cripps made a trip to Canada under the auspices of the LSR.121 The following year, Cripps, along with Socialist Party of America leader Norman Thomas, was invited to Toronto to speak to the provincial CCF convention, where they both assailed “reformism.” Speaking both to the continuing identity of socialism as a working-class movement, and to workers’ historic mission and the consequences of failure, Cripps argued that the British experience had demonstrated the futility of a “workers’ party” attempting to reform capitalism. He also highlighted the threat of fascism, even in lands with well-established liberal democracies.122 All of this rang true to those CCFers who had emerged from, or been influenced by, the  labour-socialist tradition. The Communists, in fact, felt that the

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middle-class leaders of the Ontario CCF were responding to pressure from the federation’s working-class base.123 There is a significant footnote to this connection between the Socialist League and the CCF that demonstrates the breadth of its influence on the Ontario federation’s “middle-class” leaders. Although he would not assume a central place in the CCF’s national office until 1936, Rhodes scholar David Lewis was very much a protégé of Cripps and was later offered a position in his law office.124 In his memoirs, Lewis acknowledges the connection, although he asserts that he never approved of the kind of institutionalized diversity of opinion in the Labour Party (or by extension the CCF) that the Socialist League represented.125 Lewis’s classmate at Oxford, future Ontario CCF leader Ted Joliffe, seems to have drawn similar conclusions.126 For the moment then, the Ontario CCF sounded astoundingly like the pre-purge party. Gone was the red baiting that had characterized the attacks on the Labour Conference in 1934. In 1935 and into 1936, CCF editorials were entitled “Reform Futile” and Graham Spry, on behalf of the Ontario CCF executive, implored members to understand that “in no sense is socialism of the C.C.F. mere reformism, mere gradualism, or compromise with capitalism of any kind.”127 Besides British influences and some pressures from the membership, though, much of this language was impelled by the growing pressure of the resurgent Communist Party and its incessant demands that the CCF join its popular front. The trajectories of all of these influences, and the relationships among them, would be played out over the next couple of years. Although the organizational context changed with the reconstruction of the Ontario CCF as a unitary, as opposed to a federated, organization, struggle for labour socialism proved to be far from dead, as we shall see. CCF Clubs harboured labour-socialist sentiments, and both they and the provincial leadership would struggle with a range of new challenges.

• The Communist Party’s turn towards the popular front strategy came, it must have seemed, with lightning speed. In May 1935, at the height of the CP’s unity offensive, the Trotskyists commented that “the socalled Communist Party works on the assumption that the masses have no memory.” It had been only a year since “G. Pierce” – Communist leader Stewart Smith – had argued in “the now rare booklet” Socialism



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and the CCF “that a fundamental community of ideas exists between the fascism of Hitler and the social fascism of the CCF.”128 Perhaps it was not surprising, then, that the Communist Party expended considerable effort in attempting to enforce the new policy among its membership and, particularly, to fine-tune its language as it abandoned “the loose use of the term ‘social fascist’,” showing that it was now “differentiating between the open bourgeois parties and the CCF.”129 Indeed, the CP found itself apologizing when its members misspoke and voiced Third Period opinions.130 Those in the CCF who rejected the popular front saw in it a cynical manoeuvre of the Communists much more than a change of heart. And, even if the CP was sincere about forming an alliance to confront the threats of fascism and war, the party was not to be trusted. J.S. Woods­ worth is most often cited in this regard, as he consistently argued that “non-cooperation is the only safe policy in dealing with a group which seems to be absolutely unscrupulous.”131 This sentiment led the federal CCF to maintain, officially, a policy of “non-cooperation,” which was regularly reaffirmed at the level of the CCF’s national council (particularly as there was no national convention in 1935 because of the ­federal election) and at national conventions. Yet, even the national council recognized that the issue was not so straightforward. For instance, Saskatchewan CCF leader George Williams, while acknowledging “that there was no doubt that the Communist Party was out to destroy the CCF,” pointed out that refusal to participate in day-to-day struggles would allow the CP to “put a wedge between our rank and file and [CCF] leaders”132 On the ground, responding to Communist advances required, he argued, more flexibility. The tendency to see CCF supporters of participation, at one level or another, in popular front campaigns as Communist sympathizers or, in some way, as dupes of the CP, underestimates the very real political challenges of the period. It also underestimates the persistence of a working-class identity that often saw common cause between the two movements, regardless of programmatic and strategic differences. The persistence of what labour socialists often saw as class differences within the CCF accounts for much of the animosity around the popular front. However, class identity did not necessarily predetermine attitudes to the popular front; it did, however, add fuel to the debate. In order to understand many of the sentiments behind the debate, it is useful to start with an important symbolic marker of class: May Day. For the left, May Day carried enormous symbolic importance as an

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annual moment of internationalism and solidarity. By the 1930s, largely as a result of the Russian Revolution, the construction of the Comintern, and their success in organizing among certain immigrant groups in North America, the Communists had succeeded in associating themselves with the banner of internationalism. As well, May Day contrasted with the declining, and explicitly non-militant, celebration of Labour Day each year, which was increasingly associated with labour conservatives. Moreover, Communists had fought for the right to take to the streets in cities like Toronto during the heavy repression of the early 1930s.133 May Day was a reminder of this struggle, and, as taking to the streets on May 1st became safer (at least outside of Quebec) in the “new era of tolerance” in the mid-1930s, May Day marches became very large indeed. Craig Heron and Steve Penfold estimate that in this period up to 2,000 marched in Edmonton, 6,000 in Winnipeg, 15,000 in Vancouver, and 25,000 in Toronto, “and many thousands more watched from the curb or gathered for the speeches in public parks.”134 Clearly, May Day celebrations were major events. And they were events that labour socialists often felt drawn towards, a sentiment that other CCF Club members and LSR adherents generally found inexplicable.135 Relations between the two sides were perhaps most awkward in Winnipeg, where the One Big Union, for instance, readily dismissed that city’s event as the “Muscovite National Parade.”136 Yet, even in Winnipeg, the pull of working-class solidarity drew the ILP into the annual celebration by the closing years of the decade; the CCF Clubs, on the other hand, chose not to participate as an organization (although they allowed individual members to make their own choices, perhaps realizing the fervor of the attachment of some of them to the ritual of marching in a united working-class celebration of unity). The Winnipeg example speaks of both the animosity that existed between workingclass organizations and the relative easing of tensions that the popular front eventually brought. The Ontario case is perhaps most enlightening, as it was surprisingly contentious. There were, in fact, more expulsions from the provincial CCF over the issue of May Day than any other single issue. It is surprising, of course, because of the recent purge; clearly Spry, LeBourdais, et al. had not been entirely successful at remaking the Ontario CCF in their own image. May Day was celebrated by the Socialist Party in Ontario from its inception, although the SPC debated, in 1932, whether to hold its own demonstration or participate in the broader “united” (i.e., Communist-organized) event. The executive’s decision to go it



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alone was overturned by the membership. As already noted, the issue was important enough to prompt the president and the secretary of the Socialist Party (Thomas Cruden and Bert Robinson) to submit their resignations, although they were persuaded to retract this action.137 The following year, the Ontario SPC was heavily engaged in organizing the Labour Conference. The same week the Labour Conference affiliated to the CCF, it also organized its own May Day event with its sixty-seven affiliated organizations.138 The League for Social Reconstruction was invited, but decided not to participate.139 In 1934, two developments influenced the response to May Day: the purge of the Labour Conference on the very eve of May Day, and the Communist Party’s first steps towards attempting to establish a broader unity. The Ontario SPC chose to participate in the Communist-initiated United May Day over the events organized by the “labour group,” and SPCer Elizabeth Morton was one of the day’s speakers at the Coliseum.140 The East York Workers’ Association, which was in the process of choosing to remain in the CCF, had its own May Day celebration. Speaking on the occasion, Arthur Williams nodded towards Russia as “the only country where there was a semblance of sanity” and urged his audience to forget about “personal differences” and unite against capitalism.141 By 1935, the CCF was increasingly cognizant of the importance of challenging the CP’s monopolization of May Day. It organized its own “united May Day” which involved CCF branches, trade unions, and interested political groups, which came to include the Workers’ Party of Canada (the Trotskyist organization) and the Ontario SPC; about eighty organizations were eventually involved. E.A. Beder, representing the SPC, proposed that this CCF-initiated group join with the CP’s United May Day. The Workers Party delegates, including Jack McDonald, who represented the patternmakers’ union and was a former leader of the CP, pointed out that the CCF-initiated May Day was, in fact, broader and more “united” than the “United May Day” organized by the CP, which was dominated heavy-handedly by the Communists. Not surprisingly, given the leadership of the CCF and non-Communist unions, after a “very lively discussion, during which the labor delegates gave their experiences in past joint actions with the Communist Party,” the proposed merger of the May Day organizations was overwhelmingly turned down. The CP and the SPC blamed the decision on the relatively small Trotskyist delegation, perhaps hoping to create the impression that the CCF itself might have countenanced such a move. About 3,000 took part in the CCF-led May Day march and rally; the Communists’

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(in which the SPC chose to participate) was at least three times as large.142 There was, though, a somewhat tolerant attitude; in nearby Hamilton, the CCF and CP marched together.143 The situation exploded in 1936, revealing deep rifts in the rebuilt Ontario CCF between a leadership schooled by the LSR, on the one hand, and the labour socialists, on the other, and ending in a second purge of the Ontario party. In March of that year, the Toronto regional council (TRC) of the CCF unanimously decided to establish a conference to hold a single parade in Toronto to mark the fiftieth anniversary of May Day. To this end, a fifteen-member joint committee was established, which included representatives from the TRC (including its chair, Ben Spence, and James Conner), representatives of the two 1935 May Day events (including Bert Leavens and William Dennison from the CCF), representatives from the Toronto District Labour Council (including CCFer and ILPer George Watson), representatives from the East York and West York Workers’ Associations (Arthur Williams and Fred Fish), as well as several members of the Communist Party. Collec­ tively, the conference represented a significant cohort of Toronto’s ­labour and socialist leadership. And it went against the spirit, at least, of the provincial and federal CCF’s interdiction against united activity  with the Communists. Predictably, the CCF provincial executive reminded the TRC of this policy. The TRC ignored the warning, on the dubious grounds that it was warned verbally, not in writing.144 The TRC noted that it would have had trouble complying even if it had wished to, as the organization of this huge event was, in fact, dominated by CCFers, who were a majority on the May Day Conference and held four of five positions on its elected executive committee.145 The provincial ­executive sent out a final warning letter to all Toronto units of the CCF on April 25th; a week later, a large number of Toronto CCFers participated in the United May Day parade under the banners of the TRC and a number of local CCF Clubs.146 The event far surpassed the size of any previous May Day event in Canada; it was estimated that 25,000 marched and 11,000 attended the evening meeting.147 Its bluff having been called, the provincial council of the Ontario CCF responded with the full weight of its authority. The council demanded that the three CCF members of the May Day Conference executive – Ben Spence, James Conner, and Jean Laing – be expelled by their CCF Clubs and, if the clubs fail to comply, that the clubs themselves be expelled. As well, any clubs that carried banners on May Day



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were expelled, which included the Earlscourt CCF and, most significantly, the East York Workers’ Association. Motions were also passed empowering investigations of other individuals, including Rose Hen­ derson, and several other clubs, which could lead to further expulsions.148 This was a schism that approached the scale of the purge just two years previously. It speaks, once again, to the very different worlds that coexisted within the CCF and the perceived requirement that a second radical amputation was necessary to maintain control over the organization. Curiously, there was less public red baiting in this second “purge” – the term purge was used by a member of the provincial council, perhaps reflecting recognition that by 1936 the CCF was more vulnerable to charges of sectarianism than was the Communist Party.149 The provincial leadership even used the editorial column of the New Commonwealth to appeal for discipline, declaring that the rejection of its authority was “a befuddled mixture of rugged individualism in the bull-headed bourgeois tradition, and romantic old-fashioned liberalism” – a language that particularly irked those who were confident in their own proletarian credentials.150 The events that followed suggested that the Ontario CCF leadership was somewhat less sure of its position than it had been in the first round of purges. The problem for the CCF leaders in Ontario was that they were attempting to manoeuver a very narrow path that was, on the one hand, “revolutionary” and committed to some level of activism and, on the other, geared to a fundamentally electoralist strategy. In 1936, once again, the latter goal seemed to require jettisoning those who felt some level of common purpose with the CP, either with respect to program or class identity. And so, as in 1934, it led to a rejection of those who had the deepest working-class roots, both in terms of experience and perception of the class basis of society – a working-class imaginary. As one commentator noted, the “humorous thing” was that many of those expelled had “never at any time been considered even slightly pink in colour.”151 They tended to support the idea of a single workingclass celebration of May Day either because they had been won to the less radical politics of the popular front or they shared a desire that labour not be divided along political lines. Certainly, a shared class identity made such unity possible. The problem that confronted the CCF leadership was that such troublesome sentiments seem to have been held by a large core – and perhaps an overall majority – of the active CCF supporters in Toronto.

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This degree of support was reflected in the appeals from other CCFers in support of the Ben Spence, James Conner, and Jean Laing, as well as others who were subsequently expelled, such as Arthur Williams. In a letter to his close friend M.J. Coldwell, W.H. (Bill) Temple commented that the “men [sic] who are now being expelled were the ones who were giving the most leadership and putting the most fight into the movement.” In a subsequent letter, he cited a number of the women and men who were being expelled and argued, as many would, that their leadership and the huge May Day event itself were the basis upon which it might be possible, for the first time, to build the CCF movement in Ontario.152 Coldwell was clearly torn. While he choose to cite Woodsworth’s clear-cut opinion that events such as the United May Day were simply part of a CP plan “to gain control of the C.C.F. movement,” he added, “personally and confidentially and apart from my position as national Secretary,” that “there have been grave mistakes on both sides.”153 Clearly the changing context, as well as the fact that the CCF had largely moved away from its federated structure, particularly in Ontario, meant that the rifts were no longer as clearly along organizational, or even “class” lines. Nonetheless, CCFers understood the debate as one that pitted labour socialists against those with questionable class allegiances. And, as it had before, class carried moral weight. The fact that the Humberside CCF Club, “a middle class club,” protested the expulsions, and voted by a large majority to demand the resignation of the entire provincial council of the CCF, was cited as evidence that the unfairness of the action was apparent even to non-proletarians.154 The renegades – women and men of considerable experience and support – were not easily cowed. The Toronto regional council of the CCF voted twenty to four to support the reinstatement of the expelled members.155 Between four hundred and five hundred CCF members representing thirty-five different units met on 27 May to protest the threatened discipline and established a “continuing committee” that would carry on the struggle for vindication. Two days later, a delegation called upon the CCF provincial executive. It included East York reeve Arthur Williams; Toronto District Labour Council vice-president George Watson; long-time educator and socialist Rose Henderson; core members of the Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee Alice Loeb, Elizabeth Morton, and Jean Laing; Bert Leavens, who had been president of the Woodbine CCF Club that had been expelled in 1934, and who had chaired the 1935 CCF May Day; notables James Conner and Fred Fish; CCF youth leader Ronald Monkman; and a representative of



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the sizable portion of the CCF’s youth movement that supported the expelled CCFers.156 These “tried and trusted veterans of the Socialists ranks” were judged by a provincial executive with considerably less experience, such as a “lawyer named Jolliffe who has been in the movement for only seven months.” Herbert Orliffe, secretary of the provincial CCF, according to Bill Temple, “had to ask the names of several of the delegation,” despite their active roles in the CCF and beyond. The “superior attitude” of the executive irked the delegation.157 Certainly the provincial executive had met its match in the dissidents, who effectively organized a very public campaign and prepared to appeal their case to the national CCF Convention. Arguing that they could not be expelled until all avenues of appeal had been exhausted, they continued to function as CCFers. Hoping to assert its authority, the executive took the matter to the provincial council and convinced it to establish a new Toronto regional council and called upon units to elect delegates. The existing TRC responded that it were still very much in existence and had a constitutional right to represent the city’s CCF Clubs. At the beginning of August, the “continuing committee” called for a mass rally and a conference to discuss resolutions to be presented to the national convention.158 The campaign was successful. On 5 August, the national council readmitted those expelled, although it worked out a face-saving means of affirming the authority of the new TRC the provincial executive had created, but allowing for the election of new officers to the TRC executive.159 May Day continued to pose some challenges in the future, both in Ontario and across the country. The policy of the Ontario CCF was to participate but to urge that May Day be non-partisan and that political party banners not be carried. It hoped that the unions would ultimately take over the entire event. It therefore rejected a TRC request for a CCF float for the 1937 parade.160 Yet, the following year, the provincial council censured the Jewish Workmen’s Circle CCF Club for refusing to participate in May Day because of the club’s opposition to the CP.161 Nationally, May Day was less contentious, although there was a varying degree of concern across the country as to the appearance of cooperation with the Communists. As George Williams of Saskatche­ wan pointed out, the Communist Party did not own May Day. His thinking perhaps reflected that of many of the participants who remained wary of the Communist Party and its policies: “I never hesitate to attend May Day meetings myself, because I regard it, not as a Communist celebration, but rather a Labor celebration.” He added that the Ontario

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provincial council was entirely wrong in trying to suppress this sentiment, “as events subsequently proved.”162 Predictably, this sentiment was strongest in British Columbia, where the SPC-dominated CCF participated annually in large May Day demonstrations in Vancouver without much concern on the part of any section of the membership.163 The 1936 B.C. CCF convention passed a resolution – watered down for diplomatic reasons – protesting the May Day purge in Ontario.164 Else­ where responses ranged from enthusiastic participation in a popular front May Day demonstration in Edmonton to a split in Winnipeg between the CCF, which refused to participate officially, and the ILP, which took part along with the Communists and some local unions.165 The Winnipeg example speaks to the opposing identities of the two affiliates in Manitoba. It reinforces the notion that the debate over May Day was a manifestation of the loyalty to class and a working-class future on the part of the labour socialists of the ILP and the remoteness of the CCF Clubs from this tradition. In Ontario and British Columbia, where the CCF by that time existed as a unitary body based on individual memberships, the debate was more diffuse and did not reflect organizational lines. By 1936, the sides had shifted somewhat, as the May Day story is not just one of class identity but also of the popular front. The popular front looked beyond the working class towards the broadest possible anti-fascist alliance. In Canada, as elsewhere, there was, as we shall see, a level of middle-class support for a cross-class movement against reaction. Certainly, an array of perceptions of the Communist Party and its strategy, as well as its day-to-day behaviour, existed among the “middle-class” members of the CCF. The reaction of the Ontario leaders of the CCF to the 1936 May Day events reflects one end of the spectrum, as they sought to insulate the CCF from the popular front and the CP. But some activists who were quite removed from the labour-socialist tradition became strong advocates of united action with the Communists: the chair and secretary of the “continuing committee” in Toronto – Alice Loeb and Bill Temple – are a case in point. Neither Loeb nor Temple came from a labour-socialist background: Loeb came to the CCF through the League for Social Reconstruction and Temple, who owned a clothing wholesale business, had been recruited to the movement by Woodsworth and Coldwell when he had lived in the prairies.166 Arguably their prominent positions within the “continuing committee” were attributable both to their political skills and to the desire of the expelled members to demonstrate that they had broad support beyond organized labour and the labour socialists.



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Others, including other LSR members, came to develop a more nuanced appreciation of the difficult path the CCF was treading and rejected the kind of automatic anti-Communism that had been exhibited by the provincial leadership. David Lewis, who had recently returned from Oxford and was about to take his commanding place in the CCF’s national office, urged flexibility. Perhaps in part due to his wealth of influences – he was well rooted in the Montreal working-class and Jewish left, he had worked with Stafford Cripps in England, and his intellectual circle in Canada revolved around the LSR – he had a strong appreciation of the identities and allegiances of various members of the movement. While strongly and publicly critical of the CP, he saw little value in the policy of the Ontario CCF executive and defended his decision to speak at United May Day events in Windsor and Ottawa.167 In the middle of the decade, the divisions in the CCF that had seemed so clear, particularly in the eyes of the labour socialists, became increasingly blurred. Although the divisions continued, and were reflected in the events around May Day in Toronto in 1936, organizational changes, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia, where the federation had transformed itself into a unified party, made the divide less imme­ diately apparent. The Communist Party’s popular front strategy muddied the waters even further. By presenting what was to many a compelling argument that class divisions should be subordinated to a cross-class movement in defence of liberal democracy, alliances were remade. For the most part, few CCFers bought the CP’s argument wholeheartedly. A few did, and a few ended up as members of the Communist Party (or Labour Progressive Party) in the 1940s. The effect was perhaps more subtle, as the CP’s arguments complicated alignments beyond, and even within, the CCF. To understand this effect, we have to examine the CCF and the popular front more closely.

Chapter Five

The Popular Front and the Meaning of Class

May Day, and the struggles around its definition and over participation, was symbolic as much as strategic. Its explosiveness was predictable, as it represented a perfect storm of conflicts around class identity, extraparliamentary activity, and attitudes towards the Communist Party (CP). None of these were straightforward, as we have seen. Perceptions of class were deeply felt but unstable, as labour socialists sought to build a broader class alliance for socialism within the CCF but, at the same time, maintain a working-class ethos and leadership. The CCF was an electoral party, but the workers’ movement had a long history of “direct action” on the picket line and in the streets. Although the CCF may have been founded by labour socialists who wished to concentrate their electoral strength more effectively (and win potentially allied classes to their program), few would have thought that parliamentary activity was sufficient. Education, demonstrations, and strikes – indeed, general strikes – were part of their arsenal, even if most probably wished that electoral breakthroughs might render riskier forms of confrontation less necessary. All forms of activism entailed decisions about potential engagement with the CP. Attitudes towards the Communists varied greatly among labour socialists themselves, even though they would, grudgingly in some cases, acknowledge a class kinship with their Moscow-oriented colleagues. The rapid transformation of Communist politics in the mid-1930s led some to re-­ evaluate their attitude towards the idea of some level of cooperation. The issue here is quantifying “some level.” Given the number of shared concerns and shared arenas of activity, it was difficult not to encounter and, consequently, have to engage with the Communists in particular campaigns. This had been true even before the turn to the popular



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front, such as when the Communists were defending civil liberties through the Canadian Labour Defence League, fighting unemployment through the National Unemployed Workers’ Association, and, of course, deciding whether to march with the Communists on May Day. Starting in 1934 and increasing in intensity over the next two or three years, popular front initiatives around fascism, war, and the civil war in Spain spoke to the pressing issues of the day in ways that threatened to marginalize the efforts of the CCF. Eventually, the Communists’ efforts among youth and in the newly emerging industrial union movement provided extraordinary challenges to the CCF, as refusal to work with the Communists in these areas could be seen as sectarian and divisive. Cooperation was, of course, frustrating to those who had, only yesterday it seemed, been derided as “social fascists” and whose experience of working with the Communists, in the Canadian Labour Party and other milieux, had been challenging at best. As we shall see, it was also challenging because at the heart of the popular front program was a notion of politics and of class that struck at the heart of the labour socialists’ view of the world. The idea that fascism and war were threats of such a magnitude that it was necessary to put aside the struggle for socialism in order to preserve liberal democracy offended the laboursocialist truism that fascism and war were symptoms of a crisis of the liberal capitalist social order that could be cured only by socialism. The CCF was a diverse organization and members’ understanding of the issues at stake varied greatly. Maintaining a principled defence of class-based politics was difficult at the best of times within the CCF, but by the mid-1930s the CCF found its class-based notions of society challenged by the Communists. This created a confusing world for CCFers, let alone those whom they were trying to educate about socialism. Many CCFers, and other socialists, felt both drawn to and repelled by this new movement towards unity. Was it possible to work together and still articulate a clear socialist message? Given the diversity of challenges in the 1930s, this was a huge task. The rationale for the popular front was the rise of fascism in Europe and the recognition among the left as a whole that, to cite the moral of Sinclair Lewis’s famous 1935 novel, fascism could happen here.1 (CCF youth groups debated Lewis’s book, predictably resulting in affirmative decisions that fascism represented a clear danger even in North America.2) While the Communists’ strategic reorientation was also, of course, rooted in developments in the Soviet Union and issues of Soviet

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foreign policy as determined by the Stalinist leadership, it did have a wide resonance. It spoke to a pervasive apprehension of the fascist threat, an apprehension that permeated the left and the workers’ movement throughout the advanced capitalist democracies. Fascism was certainly on the march in Europe and had gained power through a widening swathe of that continent by a combination of stealth, trickery, and unmitigated violence. The narrative varied from place to place, but in Italy and Germany small bands of thugs and racists had transformed themselves into mass movements and gained the support, overtly or not, of important sectors of capital. They had gained toeholds in government and eventually achieved power. Liberal democracy had proven surprisingly vulnerable, and fascism had met no significant setbacks from historically large and powerful socialist and labour movements. Small, regional movements could explode in size or, as seemed more likely in the Canadian context, the authoritarian actions of politicians and capitalists could presage a more concerted assault on liberal democracy. For the most part, groups in English Canada that could be considered fascist were very small and marginal; in early 1935, the Manitoba Commonwealth could report that the local fascists in Winnipeg had pretty much faded away.3 However, labour socialists were not sanguine. They saw many examples of increasingly authoritarian behaviour under the iron heel of Prime Minister Bennett; business leaders were increasingly calling for repressive measures against labour; and the middle class were seen as susceptible to fascism. The underlying problem was that liberal democracy seemed to have run out of steam; it was incapable of absorbing the challenges of the Depression and the rapaciousness of capitalists who demanded profits despite the economic downturn and who feared an active and critical labour movement. Class relations threatened to become even more vicious. Fascism was, in the words of one CCF wag, “capitalism gone nudist.”4 There was very little in this analysis that differentiated the labour socialists’ understanding of fascism from that of the Communists. In fact, the B.C. Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) published the analysis of fascism of Georgi Dimitrov, the general secretary of the Comintern, in its newspaper without comment.5 The B.C. and Ontario SPCs were most articulate in their concerns about fascism. Ernest Winch evinced no confidence in a liberal democratic option and argued on the eve of the Regina Convention that CCFers underestimated the threat of fascism and that members often failed to recognize that there were only two options for the future, communism or fascism.6 To the extent that



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there was a debate about fascism in the SPC, it was over whether fascism represented an inevitable stage in the transition from industrial to finance capitalism. Ultimately, SPCers seem to have agreed that those who advocated such a postion underestimated the continuing strength of industrial capitalism and undermined the importance of the fight against fascism.7 In Ontario, SPC member Alex Schatz was the local expert on the threat of fascism, speaking widely on the topic, including before an audience of 1,200 in East Hamilton.8 In keeping with its perception of the class character of struggles within the CCF, the Ontario SPC publicly despaired about the trajectory of the CCF once the Labour Conference was ousted, citing the threat of facism: “The best elements in the Clubs will, we feel sure, follow us into a new mass Labor Party. The C.C.F. in Ontario would then be doomed to become a ‘new deal’ liberal party, or would move forward quickly along openly Fascist lines.”9 In British Columbia, Herbert (Bert) Gargrave, later the secretary of the provincial CCF, explained the challenge: “We have … a middleclass that fluctuates between the two classes. This class is both large and dangerous. Having no economic base it is unstable. To think or suggest that we should alter our program to suit this class is the height of folly. The working class has drawn some of the finest leaders from the middle class, but will continue to do so only as the petty bourgeoisie realize and accept their correct position within the ranks of the workers, side by side. The finest breeding ground for Fascism is found in the middle class.”10 It might be possible to dismiss such statements as alarmist or ultraleft rhetoric, except for the fact that other, more “moderate” CCFers spoke in the same voice. In the aftermath of the purge occasioned by the A.E. Smith case, the Ontario CCF’s newspaper characterized section 98 of the Criminal Code as a fascist measure (rather than a “British Law”).11 Saskatchewan CCF leader M.J. Coldwell characterized the Vancouver mayor’s actions in reading the Riot Act against the city’s unemployed demonstrators as “incipient fascism.”12 And, as we noted in chapter 3, Reverend Stanley Knowles, running in Winnipeg South Centre for the CCF, opined that “both Liberals and Conservatives leaned towards fascism.”13 J.S. Woodsworth denounced the “fascist” proposal by C.L. Burton, president of the Robert Simpson department store, to “militarize” unemployed youth by placing them in camps under military discipline. The Ontario CCF executive considered the proposal “a further step towards Fascism in Canada,” and the youth wing of the federation took up the campaign with considerable gusto.14 Concern about the rise

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of fascism formed the backdrop of all CCF activities. The Silverthorne CCF Club in Toronto held what can, perhaps, be characterized as an archetypical CCF event of the period – a speech entitled “Fascism and the Fascist Trend in Canada,” given by Warren Gilroy, accompanied by the sale of home baking and candy.15 Trade unionists spoke in a similar vein. Although not first off the mark in anti-fascist organizing, in 1938 the Toronto District Labour Council organized a major conference on the fascist threat, hoping to create a national movement independent of the CP.16 Longtime Vancouver labour council leader and advisor to Mackenzie King, Percy Bengough, derided employers’ “Industrial Association” as fascist, and Silby Bar­ rett, the “right-wing” mineworkers’ leader, foresaw fascism in Canada within four years, unless the union movement was strengthened.17 Nor was the League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) unaware of the fascist threat. King Gordon, a former Rhodes scholar and a United Church minister and academic who was a founding member of the LSR, was as adamant as anyone in the CCF about the danger. In May 1935, he publicly worried about the trajectory of state capitalism and declared that Franklin Roosevelts’s New Deal “had definitely proved itself to be the prelude to Fascism.” Given his perspective, his observation was, in a sense, a truism, as he felt that “any kind of apparent reform with the profit basis left intact can only lead straight to Fascism.”18 Historian and LSR notable Frank Underhill voiced the kind of suspicion of the Reconstruction Party that others on the left felt: “[H.H.] Stevens’ attempt to exploit the discontent of the petty bourgeoisie is an exact parallel to the preliminary steps which were the prelude to  Fascism in Italy and to the Nazi terror in Germany.” Pondering developments more widely, he added, “Only a Liberal sentimentalist can be blind to the many signs which point in the Fascist direction on this continent.”19 If there were signs across the continent, specific events in Quebec focused the attention of members of the LSR on the threat of fascism. Following French-Canadian students’ disruption of public meetings in Montreal by representatives of the Spanish Republican government, and the passing of the “Padlock Law” by the Duplessis government, LSR members such as Eugene Forsey perceived a “carefully organized  campaign to transform the province into a clerical-Fascist state.”20 Historian Sean Mills has perceptively analysed the ways in which a legitimate concern for political liberties increased suspicions



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about French-Canadian nationalism and exacerbated the cultural isolation of the LSR and CCF in Quebec.21 As Mills notes, developments in Quebec sensitized the LSR to issues of democracy that were, as we have seen, palpably absent from Social Planning for Canada. By contrast, the LSR’s 1938 book, Democracy Needs Socialism, highlighted the threat of fascism, what it called “controlled capitalism,” particularly in Quebec.22 While LSR members’ participation in anti-fascist campaigns evinced clear signs of continuing radicalization (Michiel Horn notes that they abandoned any earlier hesitation about identifying as socialists), it was of a specific character. Old themes persisted, and labour socialists were forthright in their criticisms.23 For those in the B.C. SPC, Democracy Needs Socialism “betrays a woeful ignorance of the whole basis of the socialist program.” George Weaver tactfully refused to review the volume for the B.C. CCF’s Federationist, but his private comments to David Lewis describe it in terms that could easily have applied to Social Planning for Canada. As Weaver noted, Democracy Needs Socialism advocates what “can only be described as state capitalism, with a benevolent government that will ‘give’ the people certain rights and privileges.”24 The measures that LSR members proposed against the Padlock Law reflected their class assumptions and social position. In keeping with the centralism that was so evident in Social Planning for Canada, Eugene Forsey, teaching at McGill University and still in the midst of writing his doctoral dissertation on the federal powers of disallowance, argued strongly (and mostly to deaf ears) that the CCF should call on the federal government to disallow the Padlock Law. Along with McGill constitutional law professor Frank Scott (who, under a pseudonym had published an article entitled “Embryo Fascism in Quebec” in Foreign Affairs), LSR members were active in a realm foreign to labour socialists. They lobbied personal contacts in Ottawa, engaged (eventually) in legal challenges, and formed the Canadian Civil Liberties Union in hopes of mobilizing the support of a broad swathe of citizens (“centralist, not leftist in character”), clearly along the lines of the parallel American body.25 The threat of fascism, then, was palpable across the left in the middle years of the decade. And there was a relative consensus as to its sources: rapacious finance capitalism hoping to defend its profits in the years of the Depression; a middle class increasingly adrift from its traditional moorings and suffering the blows of the economic crisis without, for the most part, access to a working-class epistemology that could offer a

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democratic alternative to the pressures they faced; and, most specifically in Quebec, a reactionary church that had never accepted the liberal social order. If there was consensus as to the sources, there were differences in the application of this analysis. The New Deal, for instance, whether in its American guise or in the “little new deals” proposed in British Columbia or in Ottawa, could be seen either as a precursor to state capitalism and fascism or as a liberal means of addressing the worst brutality of the Depression. The Trotskyists in the Workers’ Party of Canada agreed with the CCF’s characterization of fascism as “monopoly capitalism ‘without gloves’,” but argued that the CCF’s “evolutionary socialism” was entirely inadequate to the job of confronting a threat of this scale.26 Clearly some in the CCF agreed, as the B.C. CCF’s Federationist reprinted Trotskyist Reg Bullock’s warning that fascism would take full advantage of the discontent of the workers with “discredited reform movements.”27 There was also debate about to the extent which various “reform movements” could potentially incubate fascism. As well, the trajectory of specific movements could be analysed in different ways. In its shift to the popular front, the Com­ munist Party dramatically revised its characterization of Social Credit and of H.H. Stevens’s Reconstruction Party (“the crystallization of a Fascist party in Canada under a cloak of demagogic promises,” according to CP leader Sam Carr as late as July 1935).28 Quite suddenly, in the midst of the 1935 federal election campaign, the CP set about “correcting shortcomings” in its analysis: it ceased denouncing such movements as fascist and, while still acknowledging the demagogic and pro-capitalist character of the leadership of these movements, turned to addressing the “anti-monopoly” and “anti-capitalist” impulses that had led people to support these movements rather than the main parties of Canadian capitalism, the Liberals and Conservatives.29 Yet, that same summer, Saskatchewan CCF leader M.J. Coldwell was publicly declaring Stevens “a forerunner of Canadian Fascism.”30 The goal of the entire socialist and labour movement was to fight fascism. Clearly, exactly how to do that was an open question.

• In this context, a broad campaign specifically against “war and fascism” could gain considerable traction and unite a broad cross-section of liberals and socialists against these twin horrors. Such thinking was at the core of the Communist Party’s first significant steps towards



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unity in 1934. The CP held a number of events, culminating in a Youth Congress Against War and Fascism on 4 August 1934 (the twentieth anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War) and a national Congress against War and Fascism in Toronto in October 1934. Almost immediately, both the attractiveness and the divisiveness of the anti-war/antifascist movement became evident. From the outset, these initiatives not only confirmed the enthusiasm of those who had been interested in united front activities all along but also attracted an audience that had been immune to CP overtures in the past. This broader appeal was less apparent in the Youth Congress. Al­ though Peter Hunter remembers “Douhkobors, full-blooded Indians, Métis, and a few reps in high-heeled riding boots and jeans – Western­ ers!” at the Youth Congress against War and Fascism at Central Techni­ cal High School in Toronto, large numbers of Communist-associated groups were represented among the 226 delegates, including various “red unions” associated with the Workers’ Unity League, the Canadian Labour Defence League, the Farmers Unity League, the Young Com­ munist League, unemployed councils, and the like. Sam Carr gave the keynote speech, explaining the CP’s position on fascism and war and ending with a quote from Stalin. The elected leaders were prominent young Communists such as Hunter as national secretary and Stanley Ryerson as president.31 The founding of the League Against War and Fascism (LAWF), three months later, was a somewhat more nuanced affair, in part because of the ability of the CP to attract a somewhat broader “adult” audience with some significant credentials. A summer 1934 tour by British Labour MP Aneurin Bevan and German refugee Dr Kurt Rosenfeld provided a powerful stimulus for the nascent movement. The tour was well tuned to appeal to labour socialists in and around the CCF. Bevan was a member of the Socialist League and Rosenfeld a founder of the German Socialist Workers Party (Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands – SAPD); both groups were left-wing splits from the main labour and social democratic parties in their countries and part of the international movement, along with the British ILP, with which CCFers (and especially SPCers) particularly identified. Large events marked the tour: a thousand in Vancouver, over two thousand in the new Winnipeg auditorium. The new movement attracted important middle-class support. In Winnipeg the immensely popular renegade judge (and disenchanted former CCF federal candidate) Louis St. George Stubbs, former federal solicitor general E.J. McMurray, and the

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ever-popular Marshall Gauvin all threw themselves into the movement.32 The Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, torn between its anti-Communism and its attraction to the movement, wrote to the American Federation of Labor and the British Labour Party for advice.33 In December, the labour council supported a League Against War and Fascism series of five talks by Scott Nearing by distributing tickets but, in a contested debate a couple of months later, it decided not to affiliate with the league.34 While there was already considerable difference of opinion on the labour council, the intervening decision by the CP to run party leader Tim Buck against sitting CCF member of Parliament A.A. Heaps in the upcoming federal election no doubt soured some delegates on the Communists’ idea of unity. Across the country, a handful of other well-known middle-class ­figures joined the LAWF, most significantly the old social gospeller and Toronto Star columnist (as “The Observer”) Salem Bland, Toronto’s Rabbi Maurice Eisendrath, and J.S. Woodsworth’s nephew, Kenneth Woodsworth, who led the student peace movement.35 A handful of significant union leaders also backed the movement, such as A.R. Mosher of the All-Canadian Congress of Labour, and John Bruce of the Plumbers’ Union and the Toronto District Labour Council.36 Also involved was Tom Uphill, the independent labour MLA from Fernie, British Columbia. While Uphill was sometimes identified as a Com­ munist sympathizer (he was highly supportive of the Communistdominated Mine Workers Union of Canada and subsequently the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, which were a key force in his riding), journalist Bruce Hutchison considered him “simply a working man.” Historian Robert A.J. McDonald concurs, arguing that Uphill’s willingness to participate in Communist activities (including, significantly, May Day events, which led to his being red baited) was rooted in working-class values of solidarity and mutuality. He was a labour socialist.37 Importantly, the LAWF also forged a connection with the venerable Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) through Alice Loeb and Anna Sissons, as well as the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order.38 For the most part, these non-Communists added their weight to the LAWF as well-known individuals with potential links to religious, peace, or labour movements, which were the main focus of their activity. It was primarily because of their participation that the pretense could be maintained that the league was anything more than a Com­ munist front. At both the Youth Congress in August and the LAWF



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founding congress, the central role of the CP was abundantly clear. The halls were filled with representatives of the CP and its affiliated organizations. But the CP was able to fashion a national council of the LAWF that appeared to be quite broad in character. The chair was A.A. MacLeod, a Communist to be sure, but with wider affiliations. Origi­ nally from Nova Scotia, where he had established a workers’ school, he spent several years in the United States, working as the secretary of the Chicago YMCA and subsequently on the staff of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s The World Tomorrow.39 He was joined by Bert Robinson as vice-chair, E.A. Beder as secretary, and David Goldstick as treasurer. These three were all key activists in the Ontario wing of the Socialist Party of Canada. They were joined on the national bureau of the LAWF by other SPCers – Elizabeth Morton, A.D. Schatz, and Arthur Mould, as well as Fred Hodgson, who edited the initial issues of Action, the periodical of the league. One of the international endorsers, who had recruited European socialist leaders Emile Vandervelde, Jean Longuet, Henri Barbusse, and Otto Bauer to also endorse the Canadian LAWF, was Toronto Star columnist (and an incisive commentator on European developments) Pierre Van Paassen who had recently applied to join the Ontario SPC. As Beder explained to Van Paassen, the SPC was fully in favour of working-class unity and, having been forced out of the CCF (and eventually stonewalled in an attempt to rejoin as part of the Labour Party of Ontario at the 1935 Ontario CCF Convention), was focusing on the LAWF.40 As the Ontario SPC acknowledged, building up the LAWF had become its main activity.41 For its part, the Communist Party privately acknowledged that Toronto was the only locality where the LAWF conferences truly reflected a united front; elsewhere they were “of a narrow character.”42 The LAWF claimed that 104 organizations, representing 25,000 people, were affiliated with the league in Toronto.43 While the CP-dominated unions and organizations no doubt accounted for the bulk of this number, the participation of the SPC was key to presenting the league as something considerably broader than a Com­ munist front, at least in Toronto. The decision of the SPC (or, for that matter, of other groups) to participate wholeheartedly in the LAWF does not imply that the party was entirely in accord with the CP’s view of world developments. The CP limited its membership on the national bureau of the LAWF to no more than two or three members, and discussions at this level were open and wide ranging. Differences between the CP, the SPC, the WILPF, and others were reflected in discussions of both domestic and international

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developments. E.A. Beder, for instance, was interested in developing the LAWF beyond a coalition of organizations, recruiting individual members. He argued that such recruitment would put the organization on a stronger financial basis, but it also clearly fit into the SPC’s project of building a broader united, and non-federated, organization on the left.44 Elizabeth Morton had played an important role at the first national congress of the LAWF in 1934, delivering what historian John Manley has described as the “most consciously feminist speech” at the event, in which she specifically compared the fate of women within different systems, comparing fascist countries, the democratic capitalist ones, and the Soviet Union.45 Along with Ida Siegel, Rose Henderson, and Jean Laing, Morton pressed for a continuing focus on women’s work and led in the formation of a particularly successful LAWF Women’s Council in Toronto (Calgary was the site of the only other LAWF Women’s Council), with membership from the Toronto Home and Schools Council, York Township, the women’s branch of the League of Nations Society, and several unions.46 Like the CCF, the league was concerned about its relative isolation in Quebec. Kenneth N. Cameron, editor of Action, suggested that there be an independent league in Quebec and, alluding to French Canadians’ apparent penchant for fascism, that it be “anti-war” only. CPer Sam Carr argued the opposite.47 On all of these issues, the character of debate seemed to imply camaraderie and good will. Underlying political issues were more intractable. While common opposition to war and fascism united the LAWF, the Soviet shift towards developing a diplomatic relationship with Britain and France, and its decision to act within the League of Nations framework of collective security in order to isolate and constrain the fascist powers, was very much at odds with the dominant socialist understanding of capitalism and imperialism. Socialists believed that war and fascism were rooted in capitalist social relations. Supporting one capitalist power against another was futile and perhaps unprincipled. That, in fact, had been the prime lesson of the Great War. These differences quickly came to a head around the issue of the international debate on whether, in the name of collective security, the League of Nations should impose sanctions against fascist Italy for aggression against Abyssinia in the winter of 1934–35. From the outset, the SPC members of the national bureau, specifically Beder and Gold­ stick, opposed sanctions. Arguing that, while the League of Nations might oppose an attack on Abyssinia, it had no interest in a socialist Italy (the only force that could defeat fascism in that country), Beder



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declared that support for sanctions was too risky and undermined the sentiment against war that existed in Canada. Several women in the LAWF were even more straightforward. Rose Henderson declared that support for sanctions reminded her of appeals to British imperialism to fight the Kaiser and that the pro-sanctions movement did little to educate Canadians about the nature of the League of Nations. Alice Loeb was even blunter: she “didn’t see any difference in Italian or British imperialism. She was “opposed to a League war.” Such sentiments reflected the overlap between the experience of some women in the Ontario SPC, the leftist Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee, and the WILPF (which, in Toronto, was closely connected to the first two).48 As Anna Sissons explained, the WILPF had no functioning national leadership. In western Canada, it adhered to the “League of Nations position” and supported sanctions, while the Toronto members “clung to their pacifist position.” She also stated that, as a pacifist, she could not support even a war for the defence of the Soviet Union, thus differentiating the WILPF position from that of both the CP and the socialists.49 For its part, the CP (represented on the LAWF bureau by Stewart Smith) defended sanctions; in this, it was supported by Rabbi Eisen­ drath. As Beder would later summarize the debate, “one can say that liberals and communists favor the collective idea centering around the League of Nations and the application of sanctions, whereas the pacifists and the socialists favor the fullest sort of opposition to imperialist war.”50 The position of the socialists – those we have been calling labour socialists – was rooted in their perception of the importance of a class understanding of international developments. In keeping with this sentiment, Rose Henderson objected to the idea of establishing local peace councils, on the basis that “there was some danger in setting up individuals who were remote from the working class as leaders in such a movement.” The differences in perspectives were seen in the national bureau’s discussion of first causes of the crisis. Salem Bland pointed to Versailles; SPCer Alex Schatz pointed to capitalism.51 As always, as Henderson and Schatz each argued in their own way, the goal of the movement was to provide a working-class solution to the crisis of capitalism and its corollaries. Despite such differences, the League Against War and Fascism persisted, reinventing itself as the League for Peace and Democracy in 1937. It did so despite the frustrations of many of those involved. E.A. Beder was particularly vocal. He resigned as secretary of the LAWF in

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1936 and, a year later, explained the issues that had led to this step. He had hoped, he said, that the league could serve as “the coordinating instrument for united political action,” but such a role had never been discussed, let alone addressed, by the national bureau.52 His notion that the LAWF could function as the nucleus of a broader “People’s Party” was no doubt futile, given the lack of support from the Communists for such a step, but it did speak to the continuing attraction of the league. Beder, and others, had serious differences with both the CCF and the CP. Despite attempts by some CCF leftists to lure him back into the CCF, he had been out of the federation for two years at the time of the 1936 May Day expulsions, an event that reinforced his alienation from a movement he had once helped lead.53 He did remain in close contact, though, with friends in the movement such as Ernest Winch. Beder was also highly critical of the CP and the Comintern on a number of issues, and so the CP held few attractions. He agreed, for instance, with Pierre Van Paassen’s critique of Comintern policy in France and Spain, where Communists were suppressing revolutionary working-class aspirations in order to maintain alliances with liberals.54 There seemed to be no clear option, except for the difficult task of attempting to unite the left through the popular front. Others drifted to the CCF or the CP. Elizabeth Morton and Jean Laing, members of the Toronto CCF Joint Women’s Committee, having been expelled in the aftermath of May Day in 1936, may have found themselves in a similar wilderness outside of both the CCF and the CP, but they chose to head back into the CCF when the occasion arose.55 Yet others, such as Arthur Mould, eventually drifted into the Communist Party.56 There were few other choices left. The Ontario SPC was not alone in its general attitude towards the League Against War and Fascism. Within the CCF there were many who felt that the lessons of Italy and Germany had demonstrated the necessity of working-class forces uniting, at least insofar as a movement specifically against the dangers of fascism and war could be built in Canada. Among these were the Ontario SPC’s co-thinkers in British Columbia who, as we have seen, were likely to concur with at least the general sentiment of unity. In June 1934, the B.C. SPC executive passed a motion in favour of “co-operating with other left-wing organizations” (significantly avoiding, as they almost always did, specifying the Communist Party by name in the minutes).57 There were a couple of differences. The B.C. CCF was much larger and had been growing rapidly, leading to greater diversity and only a small minority that



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opposed working in popular front organizations.58 And the B.C. SPC was in the CCF – in fact, it dominated the federation in that province. The latter point was central, given the anti-Communism expressed by the CCF’s national leadership in its reaction to the Canadian Labour Defence League (CLDL) in Ontario and its actions around the arrest of A.E. Smith and, indeed, by supporters of Robert Connell in the B.C. CCF Clubs section.59 At the 1934 CCF national convention, communications from the LAWF were quickly tabled and a telegraph, modelled on one sent the previous year to the CLDL, was sent refusing joint activity.60 Recognizing both the appeal and the challenges of the LAWF, neither the convention nor the national council encouraged or forbade individuals from participating. When the B.C. SPC joined the LAWF, then, it did so implicitly in opposition to the national leadership of the  CCF and the actions of the national convention. As it explained, “although the action taken is contrary to the positions taken by the Dominion and the B.C. Provincial Conventions of the C.C.F., it is in complete accord with the declaration of principles of the C.C.F. itself which is signed by every member when joining.” There was nothing untoward in joining with other working-class forces in opposing war and fascism. The B.C. SPC convention turned the tables on the CCF national council, demanding to know the reasons for this “go-as-youplease attitude” and asking that the council “immediately take whatever steps may be necessary to early achieve a united front with all workers’ organizations in their fight and ours against further immoral practices and the growing menace of Fascism.”61 British Columbia became the main stronghold of the LAWF out­ side of Ontario. (It was weak on the prairies, although in Alberta, the United Farmers affiliated with the league).62 In Vancouver, SPCers Harold Winch, now an MLA, and especially Alexander Maitland (A.M.) Stephen were the key players. Coming from a rural background, professionally trained, a labourer in a slew of jobs, and an intellectual, Stephen had a varied background that almost embodied the elements that constititued the popular front. Born on a farm in Ontario, he moved to British Columbia before attending the University of Chicago, where he worked “in architecture,” planning and building educational institutions. He became interested in education reform and child welfare. After being wounded in the war, he returned to British Columbia and focused on writing, including novels, plays, and poetry.63 In the intense educational world of the SPC, A.M. Stephen was a fixture, writing and lecturing particularly on “the Materialistic Conception of History.”64

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History, to him, was revolutionary; it exposed the “bogeys of superstition and the ghosts of convention and custom,” it was “our greatest weapon in overthrowing the capitalist system.”65 He eschewed the pedantic world of facts – statistics and flip charts, the ammunition of the LSR and many CCF candidates – and appealed to a Marxian economics and “the working-class concept of class struggle.”66 Stephen’s call for appeals to emotion irked at least one working-class autodidact, but his main point was the importance of action. Given his reputation for verbosity, as reflected in his very long articles and speeches, the New Year’s edition of the Federationist printed a mock resolution from Stephen: “In 1937 I resolve to write longer letters.”67 Whatever his quirks, the League Against War and Fascism would prove an effective vehicle for him. A.M. Stephen was the B.C. CCF’s most articulate and energetic supporter of the popular front. In the context of the Depression and the rise of fascism, events in Europe have shown “the stupidity of warfare between Communists and Socialists.” He also argued that, despite the Communists’ tendency to act as if they were “divinely ordained” because they held the imprimatur of the party of Lenin, both the Socialists and the Communists shared an orientation towards Marx and Lenin and both parties had made “tactical errors” in the past.68 Stephen was president of the B.C. LAWF and, subsequently, the Vancouver League for Peace and Democracy throughout their existence.69 And he was the weekly radio voice for both. Stephen’s political trajectory in the 1930s, as well as the CCF’s response, epitomizes the evolution of the debate over class among labour socialists. In many ways, as in his talks on history and politics, Stephen spoke the class language of the SPC. As he explained to his radio listeners, Bennett’s New Deal led to state capitalism and potentially fascism. On foreign policy issues, he cajoled: “If you would rather see your son a mangled corpse rotting in the trenches of Imperialist War than to see him live a long, useful, and happy life… vote for the Capitalist parties, Conservative, Liberal, Reconstruction, or Social Credit.”70 He vehemently opposed the apostasy of Robert Connell.71 Stephen came to argue, though, that the CCF itself could broaden out, beyond its working-class core, to become “the basis of a people’s movement” and to “begin the task of challenging and checking the tendencies of decadent capitalism.” He took particular aim at those who refused to be “flexible in our tactics and strategy,” arguing that doctrinaire “‘consistency’ and ‘purity’ is of no use in practical politics.” The



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“purity” of which Stephen spoke was one of class, and the “flexibility” he desired was towards the “progressive middle class.”72 The CCF, of course, was not averse to uniting with members of the middle class, but the labour-socialist strategy, dominant in the B.C. CCF, was to do so on its own terms. Stephen’s terminology – speaking of “people’s movements” and a “progressive” middle class – was quite alien to the old labour-socialist movement and elided the crucial class identities that were axiomatic in the B.C. CCF and beyond. He clearly spoke the language of the Communists and the popular front. It would not take long for Stephen to be called out. The assault on popular frontism came not from those who were traditionally suspicious of working with the Communists but rather from those who were critical from a labour-socialist stance and sought to maintain a workingclass politic. The B.C. CCF’s youth movement was particularly vocal in this regard. Late in 1935, an editorial in the Amoeba, the CCF youth paper edited by Rod Young, directly assailed “the Stalinists” for their willingness to support capitalist governments (if they aligned with the Soviet Union) and foregoing the kinds of revolutionary opportunities that the Depression presented. Gerald R. Van, another leader of the B.C. CCF’s youth movement, was particularly pointed in his criticism. “The Socialists,” he wrote in the Federationist, “oppose the ‘Popular Front’ policy that Mr. Stephen promotes because it would swing our movement away from its revolutionary basis to the petty-bourgeois attempt of maintaining the status quo.”73 Van challenged Stephen to a debate. Stephen refused, accusing Van of being a Trotskyist mole, loyal to the Workers’ Party of Canada, and arguing that his “loose and dangerous thinking” was unrepresentative of the CCF and threatened to reduce it to the effectiveness of the “666 Homer Street crowd.”74 Whatever the accuracy of Stephen’s accusation of “Trotskyism,” Van’s criticism hit a nerve, and letters poured into the Federationist, reflecting a deep schism in the CCF. Mary E. James went after Stephen’s questionable class roots, declaring that his response was “characteristic of tactics practiced on the working-class by self-haloed petty-bourgeois ‘intellectuals’” and failed to address the substance of Van’s comments. Defending Van, W.W. Lefeaux added the support of an older generation of socialists, lamenting the growing tendency within the movement of “crusading against a limited selection from the more noticeable phenomenon of modern capitalism; I refer more particularly to War, Political Graft and Fascism.”75 Stephen felt he was set upon by an alliance of “Socialist Old Guard” and “Trotskyite … youngsters,” and with reason.76 While his polemical

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characterizations were perhaps reductionist, they were not entirely inaccurate. The two groups shared many elements of a common class map as well as assumptions about capitalism and class actors that differed considerably from the direction the Communists had taken. Stephen was about to find out that, despite deep concern about the threats of fascism and war, support for the popular front strategy was far shallower in the B.C. CCF than it had initially appeared at its apex in 1935 and early 1936. But that story belongs to the denouement of the popular front debate in the CCF, of which Stephen’s was but one chapter. Across the country, then, the League Against War and Fascism had a varying, but sometimes significant, impact and attracted a smattering of important CCFers as key spokespersons. In Hamilton, it was strongly supported by long-time labour figure, and, at that time, the sole CCF MPP, Sam Lawrence, as well as by Agnes Sharpe, who would make somewhat of a splash by refusing to take the oath to the King upon her election to Hamilton city council.77 On the basis of such unity, and a clear resonance among the international unions, a LAWF demonstration in Hamilton on 1 August 1935 attracted 5,000 people.78 Tommy Douglas, at the time leader of the CCF’s national youth group, was a strong supporter (as well as a supporter of sanctions against Italy) and continued to speak on LAWF platforms after his election to Parlia­ ment in 1935 – very much to the frustration of other CCF leaders.79 There was “considerable difference of opinion” in the League for Social Reconstruction on affiliating with the LAWF. Frank Scott very much preferred working through the League of Nations Society, unconcerned or unaware of the criticism by many labour socialists of the League of Nations as a cabal of imperialists and of the League of Nations Society as being too narrowly middle class.80 Different provincial sections of the CCF took different tacks, although general suspicion of the Communist Party strategy dominated their approaches. Early interest in joining the LAWF tended to dissipate quite quickly, to be replaced by a more arms-length relationship, which allowed the CCF sections to retain their independence and also avoided conflict with the CP-oriented movement. The Quebec provincial council decided to affiliate, “after considerable discussion” at the time of the LAWF’s founding.81 The B.C. SPC initially affiliated but, following the merger of the clubs and SPC, the B.C. CCF decided not to allow units to affiliate, although individuals were free to cooperate with the LAWF.82 In Ontario, a potentially acrimonious debate on affiliation to the LAWF at the 1935 CCF provincial convention was pre-empted by an



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emergency resolution put forward by the provincial council, which declared that “it is immeasurably better to remove the cause of War and Fascism, Unemployment and their attendant evils, than to merely seek some insurance scheme, or a public meeting of protest against the imminence of war.” This was clearly a reminder of the LAWF’s very limited program, and an appeal – without using the term – to the self-­ declared revolutionary character of the CCF program. The CCF stood for socialism; the LAWF for the maintenance of liberal capitalism. Having passed this statement, subsequent resolutions relating to the LAWF were ruled out of order on the basis of the issue having already been addressed. The result was some frustration among convention delegates such as Fred Fish and Alice Loeb, who supported the LAWF but, after some steam was blown off, the debate was effectively shelved.83 The convention’s end run did not, of course, address the fact that much of the appeal of the LAWF was that it provided the occasion for anti-fascist and anti-war activity. The newly elected provincial council that met immediately after the Ontario convention acknowledged that “the CCF appears to be lagging on certain topical questions such as War and Fascism, Immediate Demands, etc.,” and that the federation was open to criticism for abstaining from activities initiated by other organizations. It suggested that the CCF national council organize a series of campaigns on issues of “the most current interest.” Significantly, it also proposed that “a Pledge of Loyalty [to the CCF] be exacted” from new applicants to the federation.84 The boundaries of the CCF were to be reinforced. Armed with references to clause 10 of the CCF constitution, which called for “non-cooperation” with other parties, and the message that the CCF itself was a popular front against war and fascism, the CCF leadership sought to construct a barrier to minimize relationships with the Communist Party. This would prove difficult for reasons related to leftists’ perceptions of the Soviet Union, the actions of the Communist Party of Canada, and the labour-socialist penchant for identifying working-class causes and allies and building a workingclass response to the challenges of the Depression.

• Much of the energy behind the League Against War and Fascism came from the widening circles of support the Soviet Union enjoyed in the mid-1930s. As we have already seen, the deep admiration among labour socialists for the USSR as a revolutionary workers’ state persisted

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in the face of strong disagreements with the Communist Party of Canada or with the leadership of the Soviet Union itself. So, for instance, the Manitoba Independent Labour Party (ILP) – on the more vocally anti-Communist end of the labour-socialist spectrum – disagreed with Emma Goldman’s critique of the Soviet Union and expressed the need for clear-eyed support for that country, pointing out the challenges it faced.85 While labour socialists might criticize the Soviet government, the “worship of Mammon … would be an utter impossibility in Russia today.”86 The One Big Union similarly adopted a policy of critical support, citing approvingly Leon Trotsky’s analysis of the character of the USSR as a workers’ state and attributing the problems of Soviet foreign policy to its bureaucratic leadership.87 The British Columbia ILP/SPC supported the Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU) and the USSR without arguing that Comintern tactics were appropriate for Canada. While the ILP/SPC agreed that they shared the same goals with the Communists, they charged the CP with “forgetting that what may be acceptable or inevitable in one country, may be utterly disastrous or quite impossible in another.”88 Such a positive attitude towards the Soviet Union extended most famously, perhaps, to J.S. Woodsworth. Allen Mills perceives as ironic the fact that Woodsworth’s growing impatience with Canadian Commu­ nists was matched by a growing “enchantment” with the Soviets. In fact, Woodsworth’s attitude was quite consistent and he openly identified with what he acknowledged as “a popular conception” – the labour movement’s sympathy for Russia.89 In 1931, the Woodsworths journeyed to the Soviet Union. They could not help but be impressed by the sense of “people on the march” who had a sense of energy and purpose that was so lacking in the early years of the Depression in Canada.90 They arrived in the midst of the first Five-Year Plan, a moment of vast industrial construction at a time when factories across the capitalist world stood idle. And given his interest in social problems, they were intrigued by innovations in education, jurisprudence, and the arts. What attracted Woodsworth and others was not specific So­ viet policies or actions. For Woodsworth in particular, a home-grown “Canadian socialism” was much preferable to the Russian “model.” The latter was very much the product of a peasant society with a vast range of social and developmental challenges. What could be appropriated from the model, though, was the idea of centralized, rational planning. The Soviet example was evidence that societies were mutable and



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that, given the mobilization of the population and a leadership that prioritized goals other than profits, great things were possible. Middle-class recruits to the CCF, particularly those who arrived via the LSR, often retraced Woodsworth’s footsteps and echoed precisely the same sentiments. Michiel Horn calculated that “no fewer than five of the signatories of Social Planning visited the Soviet Union in the early and mid-1930s, Forsey, Gordon, Marsh, Scott and Graham Spry.”91 King Gordon spent four weeks in the USSR in the summer of 1932. While he acknowledged that the Soviets wanted to show their greatest achievements, he argued that the visitors were not constrained in what they were allowed to see or with whom they were allowed to speak. There was “much crowding, lack of sanitation, filth and degradation of peasants,” but the revolution was young and the task of “building socialism in a backward and undeveloped country” was massive. What mattered was twofold. First, the Soviet state was governed not by the profit motive but by a “spontaneous devotion to a great cause,” which reflected itself in such things as a concern for children through “child clinics, crèches, nursery schools and ‘vacation schools’.” Second, the Soviet Union presented, for Gordon, a series of lessons for the capitalist world, as opposed to any kind of model. In a revealing acknowledgment of his own class assumptions (which very much verified labour-socialist perceptions of Gordon and his LSR allies), he argued that “the dominant group in our society as in all highly developed western nations is a middle class group.” For the LSR, this dominance affected both program and tactics in Canada.92 In order to underline that conclusion, Graham Spry’s Change, which carried King Gordon’s report, editorially sought to reinforce Gordon’s last point by arguing that it was foolhardy to attempt to lead Canada along the same path as a “nation of backward, illiterate peasants who have just wakened from the Middle Ages.”93 On the other hand, Gordon’s overwhelmingly upbeat assessment of Russia received the full endorsement of the Mani­ toba  Commonwealth without mentioning his discussion of Canada’s allegedly “middle-class” character.94 Whatever concerns they had about the transferability of specific lessons to Canada, the USSR continued to inspire members of the LSR. Spry himself went to investigate Sweden and Russia in 1936. He wrote home to his fiancée, Irene Biss, that he found Stockholm to be “genial, intelligent,” and “kindly” but “old.” Moscow, in sharp contrast, was “a society bursting with fresh blood and fertility, an aggressive, youthful

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society with an objective in which it believed.”95 The same year, Leonard Marsh, the incoming LSR president and director of social research at McGill University, toured Scandinavia and the USSR.96 No doubt his observations and experiences were reflected in his voluminous research and eventually in his 1943 Report on Social Security in Canada, a masterpiece of social planning considered the blueprint for the Canadian welfare state. The Soviet Union had confirmed the possibility of a planned, rational, and, one hoped, humane society. LSR members, by virtue of their relative wealth and international connections, could find their way to the Soviet Union without much difficulty in the 1930s. A surprising number of others did so as well, often with the support of various CP-affiliated organizations. The Communists were keen that as many people as possible (other than Trotskyists) should see the workers’ motherland for themselves. Invi­ tees included trade union delegations, who often returned to address massive crowds; such a group spoke to a crowd of 5,000 in Vancouver in early 1935.97 In late 1935, the Friends of the Soviet Union organized tours for labour leaders and CCF leaders. Their organizations had to finance the expensive trips, but many were keen to go. In some instances, such as that of the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, the price tag was more than the organization could or would spend.98 The Ontario CCF provincial council initially accepted an FSU offer to send a delegate to tour the USSR, although the council succumbed to pressure from Woodsworth and in the end did not make the trip.99 None­ theless, the CCF provincial convention took up a collection to offset the costs of CCF MPP Sam Lawrence’s trip to the USSR for the Hamilton Trades and Labour Council.100 These were not necessarily cursory visits. Lawrence spent fourteen weeks in the Soviet Union, leaving him with plenty of material for laudatory (and often lengthy) accounts of Soviet progress. As a reminder of the ethnicity and political orientation of so many labour socialists, the sole CCFer at Queen’s Park also spent six weeks visiting family and friends in Britain, and returned to Canada with cautionary tales of the rightward drift of the British Labour Party and the Trades Union Congress, which were “holding back the Labor movement from giving the country and Europe a real lead.”101 The impressions of the Soviet Union of B.C. SPCer W.W. Lefeaux were particularly interesting, as he had visited in 1920 and had been very sympathetic to the challenges facing the Bolsheviks, but generally doubted that it was possible to leap from feudalism to socialism. This undoubtedly contributed to his decision to stick with the old SPC



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rather than joining the new Communist movement.102 In 1936, Lefeaux spent three months touring Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union, Man­ chukuo, and Japan. His picture of the USSR was both sober and inspiring. In keeping with his long-held assessment of the challenges of building socialism in backward Russia, he marveled at the accomplishments. “In Russia today,” he wrote, “we have a wonderful experiment. They are endeavoring to do something which I think Marx said was impossible.” More than most commentators, he was cognizant of the sacrifices of Russian workers and the deprivations that still confronted them. That they had not abandoned the revolution was a mark of their commitment to building a new society.103 All of these political tourists to the Soviet Union, including future Manitoba CCF provincial secretary Charlie Biesick, journalist and leader of the B.C. CCF women’s groups Elizabeth Kerr, and Fernie Labour MLA Tom Uphill, among many others, drew large crowds when they returned to tell of their generally positive observations.104 In doing so, they seemed to feed an apparently inexhaustible interest in developments in the USSR in the mid-1930s (although there were so many speakers returning from the USSR, the Ontario CCF executive began to think that the audiences were becoming “saturated”).105 Soviet films, both documentary and dramatic, were also a major draw. They were advertised and reviewed in CCF papers across the country and were a popular feature at CCF fundraisers. In June 1936, for instance, the Ontario CCF raised money for a rural organizer by showing four reels of Intourist films on Russian life followed by a presentation of Russian folk dances by a local dance troupe.106 Discussions of Soviet developments were on the regular syllabi of CCF Club educational and summer schools. As part of the 1936–37 series, the president of the Edmonton CCF Clubs, H.D. Ainlay presented a talk on the workers’ state and socialized industry; a colleague spoke on the new Soviet Constitution.107 As it had for the LSR travellers, the Soviet Union became the example of the possible. A society with none of the advantages of an advanced capitalist culture had managed to break the chains of feudalism and capitalism. And it surpassed Canadian achievements in any number of areas. So, the B.C. CCF could point to Soviet birth control programs, which made “every child a WANTED child.”108 The Ontario CCF could observe that non-contributory unemployment insurance was a fact of life in the USSR (although B.C. CCFer Elizabeth Kerr, who visited the country under the auspices of the FSU, returned insisting that Rus­ sians were unable to understand what unemployment meant).109 CCF

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newspapers reported that Russia had “conquered drought,”110 challenged “masculine superiority,”111 made great strides in public health,112 and introduced new aesthetics in homes, schools, and factories. The New Commonwealth ran a picture of “trees planted in the sooty soil of a Baku oil field.”113 While the veracity of specific claims could be challenged or doubted – there were also references to the great challenges that still faced Russian workers and peasants – the efforts and accomplishments of the Soviets stood in marked contrast to the lethargy of Canadian society still mired in the Depression and, as opposed to the USSR, going nowhere. Like the debate on the popular front, then, there were divergent sentiments and rationales but, in the end, there was a clear convergence of opinion in and around the CCF on the question of the Soviet Union. For labour socialists, the starting point of their analysis was that the USSR was a workers’ state. Whatever that country’s strengths or shortcomings, labour socialists were advocates of proletarian solidarity. For “middle-class” socialists in the LSR, the Soviet Union demonstrated the strength of the “plan” – that a centralized government making full use of experts and committed to human needs above profits could accomplish great feats. In the 1930s, as opposed to the immediate post-­ revolutionary period, a commitment to proletarian revolution was not a prerequisite for admiration and solidarity. To the CCF as a whole, if to varying extents, the USSR increasingly represented the counter-­ example to crisis-prone modern capitalism. The threat of Nazi militarism reinforced respect for the example of the USSR. Whatever specific criticisms might be made of the Soviet Union, it was widely seen as a beacon for peace. Soviet Russia had begun its life in a dramatic rejection of imperialism as it walked away from the Great War. Through the 1920s, both socialists and many liberals, through the ideas of John Hobson, Rudolf Hilferding, or Lenin, had come to see the source of imperialist conflict in capitalist competition.114 The USSR, of course, stood outside of and aloof from this entire economic and geopolitical system. On the other hand, socialists recognized the propensity of capitalism to solve its myriad problems by militarism and expansion. As a result, the USSR was at risk: indeed, Hitler made little secret of his eastward ambitions. In the increasingly tense international context of the mid-1930s, the Soviet Union seemed to stand alone against the threat of fascist expansionism and invasion. Few doubted that capitalists hated Russia



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and that capitalist governments would willingly sacrifice Russia to a rapacious fascist beast. Consequently, CCFers and liberals were attracted to an alliance with the USSR through CP fronts such as the Friends of the Soviet Union or the League Against War and Fascism because of a common understanding that war was likely to start between the Nazis and the USSR and, if it did, an experiment in workers’ rule (for the labour socialists) and centralized planning (for the middleclass technocrats of the LSR) would be at risk. And it would be the first step towards a new and even more disastrous world war. Such sentiment fed the popular front. Specific issues of class identity, and indeed a class-specific analysis of international developments, were potentially overwhelmed by broader campaigns against fascism and war. While one might or might not have wished to work with the Canadian Communist Party, it was clear that the Soviet Union was key to the puzzle of international relations and perhaps the best hope against fascism, given the defeat of liberal capitalism on so much of the European continent and perhaps beyond. At the same time, a politically astute and informed movement could not fail to be aware of debates about the nature of the Soviet Union. This was particularly the case as debates in the Soviet Union spread throughout the Communist International and into Canada. By the early 1930s, Canada had a small and active Trotskyist movement led by two of the key founders and leaders of Canadian communism, Mau­ rice Spector and Jack MacDonald, who had formed the Workers’ Party of Canada. A second Trotskyist organization, the League for a Revolu­ tionary Workers’ Party, led by William Krehm, was also active in Toronto and Montreal through the second half of the 1930s.115 There was also a smaller current supportive of Nikolai Bukharin in the struggles against Stalin, which formed the Marxist Education League (later the International Labour League) in Canada. William Moriarty, who had been active in the Ontario Labour Conference and had attended the  Regina CCF convention, was a leading member of this faction.116 Collectively, these movements kept alive the debate about the character and trajectory of the Soviet Union under Stalin, pointing out the extent to which the Communist Party leadership had come to monopolize power in that country. Other labour socialists were also keen observers of this process. The B.C. SPC’s Clarion, for instance, noted that the foreign policy of the USSR had come to be governed by “Muscovite political heelers” rather than Marxist principles, and was “adapted and

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constantly adjusted to the momentary prevailing economic, political, and diplomatic relations of Soviet Russia.”117 Domestic developments within the Soviet Union not only drove Comintern policy, they also could not fail to shape attitudes towards Russia, communist parties, and the popular front. Perceptions varied considerably. Some, like J.S. Woodsworth, perceived a gradual democratization of the USSR, which he contrasted with the direction of much of Europe and even Canada, pointing to the “fascist” proposal by Robert Simpson Co. president C.L. Burton that unemployed youth be placed under military discipline.118 The Moscow trials of old Bolshevik leaders in 1936, however, shook this view among many CCFers. As the Ontario New Commonwealth stated, the confessions of people such as Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kameneff, who had been Bolshevik leaders and key figures in the Soviet government and Comintern, “exceed the bounds of human credulity.”119 Some downplayed these developments. Wallis Lefeaux, interestingly, who was in the Soviet Union at the time of the trials, reported that there was little discussion of the trials and that the prosecution of Stalin’s political enemies seemed to have popular support.120 The B.C. CCF as a whole, at least judging by the editorial position of its official organ, the Federationist, considered the trials a “minor matter,” but also a source of dismay. The USSR was no longer a shining example of what could be accomplished by the common ownership of the means of production. Nowadays, “the public is thinking not of machinery but of machinations” of the Soviet bureaucracy.121 Future Skeena CCF MP Harry Archibald, who accepted the Trotskyist view of the matter (he was, for a time, including part of his tenure as an MP, a member of the Revolutionary Workers’ Party, the Trotskyist organization that was formed after the Second World War), was livid at the failure of the Federationist to defend workers’ democracy in the USSR. Archibald linked this reluctance to view the Soviet Union’s deformity with the CCF’s growing acceptance of popular front political activities, even if it was lukewarm to the popular front itself. “It now looks,” he concluded, “as if the CCF is fully under the control of those who persist in the cry of saving bourgeois democracy if the drift of our short-range program is the guide.”122 For the last half of the decade, the debate over the character of the Soviet Union regularly resurfaced. And, as might be expected, positions varied. Long-time CCFer Walter Mentz, who wrote as “De Bunker” in the Alberta CCF’s People’s Weekly, represented one extreme. He not only



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accepted the Stalinist caricature of the Moscow defendants, he strained to construct a psychological explanation to explain Stalin’s opponents’ alleged sabotage and “destroyed … mental balance”: “Like a jilted lover they are blinded with jealousy and the object of their love must be destroyed.”123 Others were critical of the behaviour of the Stalinist leadership but still pointed to Soviet achievements, in keeping with the generally positive view of the Soviet social experiment. As late as the end of the 1930s, there was still a class demarcation in attitude, at least in the eyes of some observers. David Lewis, whose background in the Jewish left in Montreal and at Oxford brought him considerable insight, was generally keen to highlight Soviet accomplishments and carefully explained to the Friends of the Soviet Union that CCF decisions to not participate in joint activities were not to be considered a criticism of the USSR.124 In 1939, like many labour socialists, he felt “pretty sick and sore with Russia” over the signing of the Hitler-Stalin non-agression pact – “a dangerous game of power politics” – but still wished to avoid any wholesale condemnation of the USSR.125 Interestingly, he felt that the main impact in Canada was that the Communists, and the popular front, would “now lose a great deal of the sentimental middle class ­support” it had enjoyed.126 The implication of Lewis’s analysis was that the nature of middleclass and working-class support of the USSR was quite different. Middle-class support backed Soviet policies such as centralized planning and anti-fascism, while working-class support was rooted in the basic character of the USSR, as the product of a working-class, anti-­ capitalist revolution. Trotsky made a similar observation in 1938. Speak­ ing of middle-class recruits to Communism, he observed that “a whole generation of the “leftist” intelligentsia has … turned its eyes eastwards and has tied … its fate not so much to the revolutionary working class as to a victorious revolution, which is not the same.” Rather, they had identified with the privileged class in the Soviet Union, “which raise[d] itself on the shoulders of the revolution” and engineered a new society.127 While middle-class observers in Canada envied that role, workers identified with what they still saw as a proletarian society. Events in the 1930s had allowed for a convergence of these views, but class differences in and beyond the CCF appeared to persist on the question of attitudes towards the USSR and its foreign policy. Once the popular front moment had passed, the divergence reappeared.

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The popular front was only partly about the struggle against war and fascism on the international stage. The Communist Party saw the policy as leading to a much closer relationship between “progressive” forces on various fronts. At the very onset of the emergence of the new policy, the CP and the popular front received a major fillip from the large relief workers’ movement in British Columbia and the ensuing On-to-Ottawa Trek in the spring and summer of 1935. Occurring very shortly after the establishment of the LAWF, the relief workers’ struggle created a momentum towards unity that changed the political relationship between forces on the left almost overnight. Important to this story is the fact that the movement began in Brit­ ish Columbia. There, as we have seen, the CCF was dominated by a Socialist Party of Canada, which was not only willing to work with Communists but quite keen to formalize the relationship. At the outset of the campaign for the enfranchisement of relief camp workers, the B.C. SPC and the Communist Party negotiated an official signed agreement to form a united front committee with equal representation from each organization.128 The united front was not without its challenges. The change of political culture within the Communist Party was uneven, and the Comintern felt it necessary to point out that this agreement was a key breakthrough that required an end to “name-calling.”129 Given the CP’s political culture, amending their members’ behaviour was no easy task. At the first mass meeting in support of striking relief camp workers in Vancouver, one of the CP speakers made a “mild” attack on Angus MacInnis. He was called to task by a CCFer, who stated that this “constituted a breach of the united front,” a statement that seemed to provoke even more denunciation of the initial remarks. The CP was forced to criticize its comrade, who had clearly not internalized the new affability towards the CCF. A reciprocal friendliness towards the CP was not in the cards for many CCFers, even in British Columbia. The opposition of some SPCers, as well as CCF Club antipathy, resulted in the B.C. federation as a whole officially rebuffing the united front, without openly objecting to the SPC participating. Those who most opposed the agreement, such as provincial CCF president (and SPCer) Robert Skinner, recognized that it would simply die with the disappearance of the SPC into the merged, unitary B.C. CCF in the summer of 1935.130 Notably, even opponents of the popular front felt constrained from attacking the idea of unity directly. Popular CCF Club organizer, and loose cannon, Lyle Telford – who, as we have already noted, had earned the enmity of the SPC for his failure to attack the capitalist wage system and the criticism



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of the CCF as a whole for supporting Gerald McGeer for Vancouver mayor – claimed that everybody wanted a united front and that the CP and the CCF were working for the same ends. However, the Com­ munists’ tactics, including “ordinary downright lying,” repelled potential allies.131 Regardless of such feelings, and challenged to demonstrate both support for the relief workers and some kind of extra-parliamentary energy, the federation established a CCF “Action Committee” to provide various kinds of support for the relief strikers, the highlight of which was a 12,000-strong rally in Hastings Park in Vancouver.132 Whatever official stance was taken, the political climate in Vancouver in the spring of 1935 (and, subsequently, across the West and beyond) made it difficult for any section of the workers’ movement to avoid working with the Communist Party. The central role of Communists in the relief workers’ strike, and the importance of the strike and subsequent events, combined to create an unparalleled opportunity for united action across the left. Vancouver’s May Day in 1935 saw unprecedented unity. Fifty-six organizations, including unions, individual CCF Clubs, SPC branches, and CP locals organized the event, inviting speakers from the SPC (E.E. Winch), the CCF Clubs (Dorothy Steeves and Lyle Telford), and the CP, including relief workers’ strikers such as Arthur Evans and Matt Shaw.133 As the On-to-Ottawa Trek got underway, the CCF lined up quickly behind the dramatic campaign. The CCF council in Regina, which was made up of officers and poll captains, unanimously pledged its unqualified support for the trekkers.134 In Winnipeg, fifty-two organizations joined together to form the Relief Camp Workers’ Supporting Conference, with S.J. Farmer, a leader of the Independent Labour Party, as chair and CPer James Litterick as deputy. This group organized a huge reception at the train station as Arthur Evans and a delegation from the trek passed through on their way to meet with Prime Minister Bennett.135 Old animosities were not necessarily overcome: Farmer and Beatrice Brigden were unable to convince the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council to send delegates to the conference, although the council expressed its support for the goal of abolishing the camps and upheld the right of the unemployed to refuse to participate in them.136 Still, it was a movement that could only grow, given the federal government’s repressive response in Regina; in Winnipeg, over 10,000 protested the police attack that precipitated the “Regina Riot.”137 In Toronto, unity seemed to hit its apogee, with an 8,000-strong protest meeting at Maple Leaf Gardens organized by a Citizens’ Committee widely endorsed by the CCF Ontario provincial council, the CCF

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Toronto regional council, the LAWF, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the ILP, the Ontario Labour Party, the SPC, the LSR, the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, and any number of CP-associated organizations.138 The provincial CCF leadership went to great lengths to distance itself from any notion that there was a formal united front, although an observer would be lost in Spry’s legalistic distinction: “we formed no united front here, despite Communist tales to the contrary. The Citizens’ Committee was formed by the C.C.F. and joined forces with the League Against War and Fascism.”139 The nature of recent events had made it impossible to stand aloof from the protest, even if there was a certain amount of sniping between the CCF and CP on public platforms and in the press.140 The Ontario CCF provincial council assailed the “police riot” in Regina and, in violation of “the alleged provisions of [a] secret Order-in-Council,” sent money to the strikers.141 On the other hand, the Ontario CCF quietly backed away from CP plans to organize a hunger march from Toronto to Ottawa.142 CCFers were clearly worried about and divided over the direction in which events were leading them. As Graham Spry understood, the Communists had the CCF leadership over a barrel. The relief trek problem is no mean problem for us. The Communists have got hold of it, and I think they have thrown much public sentiment away, through the actions and character of the delegation. But the issue presented by the camps still remains, the issue of 2000 in Regina still remains. Here is the choice, the trekkers either proceed and face the well-armed forces of the crown, or they conform and admit defeat. Either choice is injurious. My own view is that the strong measures taken were facilitated by the communist character of the delegation and that Canadian opinion was split by the Communists; moreover, the Communists have played politics and attempted to put the CCF members at Ottawa in a bad light. However, we have no choice but to go on, we either have to support the marchers or support Bennett; it is not a happy choice.143

The Relief Strike Committee, with its Communist leadership, did not hesitate to highlight CCF shortcomings, as when it wired Woodsworth to complain about his inactivity in facilitating the trek and his hesitancy to associate himself with the demands of the movement.144 Responses to the popular front offensive around the trek varied. J.S. Woodsworth represented one extreme, arguing “that non-cooperation is the only safe policy in dealing with a group which seems to be



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absolutely unscrupulous” and specifically refusing to work with the CP-dominated National Unemployed Council in relation to the movement.145 He worked hard to disabuse the CP, and the public, that the CCF was working with Communists in support of the trek.146 Woodsworth’s concerns, as he expressed them, were twofold. First, he feared that the trek’s tactics were leading to a showdown with the state, which could lead to reactionaries seizing power in “some sort of military dictatorship” or “fascism.” He expressed this opinion both before and after the confrontation in Regina. Second, he was concerned that assumptions about a united front fed expectations that the CP and CCF were about to cooperate in “electoral matters.”147 Woodsworth’s fears of fascism were misplaced but they were not, as we have seen, unusual for the period. Yet those who supported the trek felt that the best way to defeat reaction was through action, both in Parliament and on the streets, and they were to be vindicated in the post-trek electoral defeat of Bennett and the Conservatives. Woods­ worth’s concern that the CP was using the trek as a wedge with which to force the issue of the popular front, broaden the areas of common work, and gain entry into the one venue of potential CCF strength – electoral politics – was not entirely unwarranted, as the example of Regina would demonstrate. That city provided a promising arena. The CCF council for the Regina federal riding and the CP had reached a formal agreement to form a six-member committee (three from each organization) to cooperate on issues related to unemployment as early as mid-March 1935. As part of the agreement, the parties agreed to “refrain from hostilities towards one another.”148 This united front was both public and, it seems, popular. In early April, a “United Action Committee” sponsored by the CCF and CP held a mass meeting, where over 800 people were addressed by key CCF leaders George H. Williams and Clarence Fines as well as CP leader T.G. McManus, to pressure Regina city council to address the unemployment crisis. In his speech, Williams admitted that the CCF would face attacks for working with the Communists, but “the C.C.F. in Saskatchewan is prepared to fight shoulder to shoulder with any group opposing this system of greed and graft.”149 Relationships were at times strained, although as much by the CP rejecting the assumptions of a united front as by suspicion about the wisdom of the strategy itself. Rather than applying the Regina model and nominating a joint united front candidate in Moose Jaw, Tim Buck insisted before a joint CCF-CP meeting that the CP would run McManus as a Communist candidate in the federal riding. He cited

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Woodsworth’s and Spry’s rejection of the “olive branch” of a popular front with the CP and declared that the Communists had decided to run at least one candidate in each province. While the Communists supported the party line at the meeting, “the great majority” of speakers denounced the CP’s action “as a violation of working class unity.”150 Shortly afterwards, the CP reconsidered.151 This was the immediate background to the events of June and July in  Saskatchewan.152 When the On-to-Ottawa Trek arrived in Regina, Saskatchewan CCF leader M.J. Coldwell repeatedly urged Woodsworth to avoid directly assailing the Communists and to amend his view of the trek, attempting to convince him that it was far wider than a mere CP stunt. Coldwell reported to Woodsworth that, “from enquiries we have made we have learned that they are a very fine bunch of young men who are not showing any connections of a Communist sort.” Indeed, “a large percentage” were CCF supporters. In fact, with the arrival of the protesters in Regina, the biggest problem, vis-à-vis the CP, was that the Communists were taking credit for the trek. In Coldwell’s mind, the trek’s importance as a seminal event for the labour movement far outweighed the association with Communism that worried Woodsworth.153 The dramatic events in Regina only reconfirmed this view. As Coldwell related to Spry, “The riot here, of course, which was engineered by the police, has resulted in a determination on the part of various types of people and organizations to support the men arrested. The fact that one or two of them are members of the Communist Party will, of course be used by our opponents, but had they been Liberals and Tories, politically, we would have taken the stand we have taken to assist them.”154 Coldwell’s statement was somewhat disingenuous, as CCFers certainly discerned the difference between bourgeois parties and popular or working-class parties. And more than anywhere else in the country, the Saskatchewan CCF seemed willing to throw its lot in with other movements that had arisen to confront, in one way or another, the crisis of capitalism: the Communist Party and Social Credit. Such a decision was by no means clear-cut, and Saskatchewan CCFers would furiously debate their relationships with the other two movements. But there did seem to be an overwhelming sentiment that the CCF was unable to monopolize workers’ and farmers’ response to capitalism and that some arrangement had to be made with either the CP or Social Credit, or both. This was exactly the kind of development that Woodsworth, Spry, MacInnis, and other central leaders of the CCF feared.



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The stunning August 1935 election of Social Credit in the neighbouring province of Alberta came as a shock to the Saskatchewan CCF and forced them to think carefully about what Social Credit represented and how to approach those who were susceptible to its message. There were no easy answers to those questions as Social Credit ideas and organizers swarmed into Saskatchewan in the months before the 1935 federal election campaign. The issue was not simply that some CCFers were persuaded by Social Credit analysis. For the most part, CCFers had joined and stayed in the CCF because they were socialists who rejected as insufficient the palliatives of monetary reform. But they were not necessarily opposed to monetary reform either, nor did they dismiss, out of hand, the concerns and hopes of thousands who fell prey to Major C.H. Douglas or “Bible Bill” Aberhart. The task, as they saw it, was to unite with them to fight the moneyed powers and, with persistence and luck, woo them to a more complete socialist vision. On one level, there was little to object to in this strategy; the base of the Social Credit movement was composed of farmers and, to a lesser extent, workers who had been victimized by capitalism. Not to speak to their concerns would be both morally and politically irresponsible. What tack to take towards the Social Credit party was less clear. The provincial CCF tried to attract the Social Credit vote by defending the right of the Aberhart government in Alberta to experiment to find its way out of the Depression, and CCFers declared that they were in favour of “social credit,” although they defined it as the social control of the wealth of the nation to aid those who needed it, in contrast to the specific meaning within Major Douglas’s political philosophy. A few went further. The CCF candidate in Yorkton, with the support of the local executive, essentially agreed to run as a joint CCF–Social Credit candidate, though he was soon dropped as an official candidate by the provincial CCF. (Perhaps to underline the political volatility in some quarters, Yorkton had been the site of a local united front between the CCF and the CP a few months earlier and, after being chastised by the provincial party, about half of the “old members” eventually joined Technocracy, while the constituency secretary joined the CP.)155 More famously, Weyburn CCF candidate (and national CCF youth leader) Tommy Douglas sought and accepted endorsement by Social Credit.156 Cooperation with Social Credit provoked considerable debate within the Saskatchewan, and national, CCF. Although there was a range of arguments, from fusion to complete isolation, the positions of the two central figures in the provincial CCF are indicative of the options as they

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were perceived. George Williams, the federation’s provincial secretary, though initially quite sympathetic to the idea of some kind of cooperation with the Communists, was dead set against any accommodation with Social Credit. As he explained to the two errant federal candidates, their tactics “might easily lose that portion of your electors who thoroughly understand the Aberhart proposal is merely an attempt to patch up the present system and is based upon fallacious economic reasoning.”157 Whatever their errors, the CP represented something quite different. Agreeing entirely with a colleague who wanted to expel the “pussy footers and reformists” permeating the CCF and who felt that the Communists’ main weakness was that they downplayed the importance of education, Williams urged subtly, “there is something in the Communist argument that is worthy of consideration, and to reject it with wisdom is to show a fine degree of stability.”158 Provincial leader M.J. Coldwell, however, saw things differently: he defended Tommy Douglas as adamantly as possible and felt that some sort of arrangement with Social Credit in a few constituencies would allow the CCF to gain a foothold in Parliament.159 In the heat of the conflict, Tommy Douglas shot back at Williams, arguing that his demands for complete political independence seemed to ignore the united front with the CP in Regina the previous winter.160 Although there seemed to be two distinct camps, underlined by the animosity between Williams and Coldwell, the bigger question was, in fact, one of broader unity – an issue that would climax the following year. In July 1936, the Saskatchewan CCF convention overwhelmingly (and against Woodsworth’s pleading) passed a resolution calling on “all progressive organizations, political, cultural, and economic to seek to meet in convention to discover common ground on which we may unite for action and a common goal.”161 What exactly this meant became the subject of considerable discussion in Saskatchewan and beyond. The CCF struggled to explain, in the face of CP claims that the parties were “uniting,” that the resolution called for cooperation, as opposed to unity, with the Communist Party.162 The language of the resolution – the reference to “progressive organizations” borrowed directly from the CP’s popular front characterizations – raised the possibility of a broad tent indeed, uniting the CCF not just with the CP, but potentially with Social Credit as well. In late 1935, the CCF in Regina joined a united front municipal campaign with the Communist Party and independent pro-labour politicians. Initially the arrangement was both successful and relatively low



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key. By arguing, somewhat disingenuously, that the basis of unity was around “immediate questions,” the local CCF was able to comply with national policy that disallowed electoral agreements with the CP but was somewhat vague on cooperating around “immediate struggles,” such as relief strikes. The national CCF did not publicize the Regina arrangement, despite the fact that it enabled labour to elect a mayor and to dominate city council.163 Much more publicity was forthcoming a year later, when the arrangement exploded. After the 1935 election, control of the process moved from individual wards to a Central Labour Council, which would exercise greater control over successful labour candidates and which, according to CCF participants, was dominated by the CP. The sitting mayor lost the council’s endorsement in favour of a “non-labor stooge,” and raucous disputes led to charges that the CP had stacked nomination meetings to displace CCF candidates. The result was an electoral catastrophe for the Central Labour Council, as it lost the mayoralty, three aldermen, and a ward system that had helped the council elect candidates in working-class neighbourhoods. As the CCF press reported, the Communists had “wrecked the civic campaign before it started.”164 Curiously, such events did not mark the end of unity discussions in Saskatchewan. As national organizer Ted Garland noted, there was “still considerable ‘unity’ talk” at the 1937 provincial CCF convention, as many CCFers saw arrangements with other parties as necessary to avoid “splitting the vote.”165 As well, the election of Jim Litterick, a Winnipeg Communist, to the Manitoba legislature convinced some, such as pro-unity CCFer Peter Mikkelson, that working with the CP provincially was no longer a liability.166 To that end, the convention passed a motion calling for cooperation between “progressive and democratic groups in the political field,” with the added stipulation that this neither meant “fusion” nor the abandonment of the identity of the cooperating political parties. This policy was implemented both provincewide and at the level of individual constituencies; in each case, there was much room for divergent interpretations. George Williams’s understanding was the policy would be reflected in saw offs with Social Credit and the Communists. Although he would have preferred to see CCF candidates in every riding, and certainly in every riding where there was an opportunity for a CCF victory, he wrote in a circular letter that “I would also feel disappointed were any Constituency Committee to put a CCF candidate in the field merely to defeat a Social Credit candidate or a Communist candidate. I believe that if the Social Credit

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and Communist Party will take the same position, it will be possible to prevent progressive candidates opposing each other.”167 The less-thandemocratic structure of Social Credit proved to be a challenge. Although Social Credit convention delegates voted to hear the CCF’s offer of cooperation, Alberta’s Ernest Man­ning ruled that such a step had to be unanimously approved by the delegates.168 In the case of the Communist Party, the CCF sought to avoid too strong an embrace, as it might confuse the CP and CCF in electors’ eyes.169 On the ground, there was more action. In Humboldt, in order to prevent a Liberal victory, the CCF and Social Credit held a joint convention and decided to nominate a candidate who would run as an independent, with “CCF policy to be the basis” of the candidate’s election program.170 In some cases, Social Credit was split on the question. Sophia Dixon, from Unity, Saskatchewan, reported that she was being considered as “a United Progressive candidate” representing “the C.C.F, an element of S.C. and Conservatives.”171 In Weyburn, the Conservatives nominated “quite a progressive person,” who pledged to support the CCF if elected.172 And, in some ridings, the CCF stood aside to allow Social Credit or pro-Communist “unity” candidates to defeat the Liber­ als, although such a move was not necessarily supported by the provincial CCF leadership.173 The Saskatchewan CCF was clearly trying to manoeuvre in a crowded political field in which it felt it had a shot at power. In the process, it was susceptible to the logic of the popular front, which seems evident from the language used. As Williams explained to a sceptical Woods­ worth, “there has been and still is a very great demand in this Province for a People’s Front against the reactionary Capitalist Government in this Province. We could not resist this pressure and yet retain the confidence of the electors.”174 Woodsworth, who viewed cooperation in general as anathema, no doubt was concerned about Williams’s adoption of the words very much associated with the Communists. And, Woods­ worth noted, in a labour-socialist vein, bending to “this kind of politics” was tantamount to “opportunism.”175 If it did not wholeheartedly embrace the idea of the popular front, the Saskatchewan CCF’s critiques of the idea were aimed less at the principle of unity than at the CP’s tactics of “subterfuge and sabotage.”176 Yet, however much the federation wanted to focus on presenting the CCF’s program, and however little interest it had in “barter[ing] away the people’s confidence in a forward-marching cause for any little localized blocks of votes,” the



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key goal was to defeat reaction or, specifically in Saskatchewan, the provincial Liberal Party.177 In part, cooperation was a function of electoralism and, perhaps ironically, a feature of the CCF’s strength. In late 1937, the Saskatchewan CCF had 3,400 members, more than five times that of its Manitoba counterpart; a year later it topped 5,000.178 No doubt this growth came with a degree of political diversity as well as some opportunism. And, while the CCF did not wish to alienate potential voters, the Communists had helped establish a binary notion of “progress” versus “reaction” that made the specific class character of the CCF’s socialism somewhat less relevant. No doubt, the class character of rural Saskatchewan exercised pressure as well, although Seymour Martin Lipset overstates “the effect of coalition tactics on a radical party” when he comments that “the whole purpose and program of the CCF had … changed. It could no longer carry on a systematic attack on capitalism and all its institutions. The party had become a farmers’ pressure group seeking to win agrarian reforms.”179 Nowhere was the CCF homogeneous, and the Saskatchewan CCF continued to house diverse currents and concerns. Labour socialism continued to coexist with other strands within the party. Late in the decade, experiments with unity were exhausted in Sas­ katchewan. Following the 1938 provincial election, the Saskatchewan CCF convention agreed to a future policy of running a CCF candidate in every riding, eliminating the possibility of saw offs.180 The CP tried to  enlist the federation’s cooperation again in 1939, adopting W.D. Herridge’s New Democracy (a hybrid of Social Credit and vague New Deal ideas181) as a potential addition to the popular front and declaring that “the C.C.F. should be an important factor in carrying the Herridge Program to victory in Saskatchewan” as part of a “progressive Dominion Government.”182 As the CP became increasingly oriented towards alliances with “capitalist reformers” such as Herridge, George Williams became the most adamant opponent of unity in Saskatchewan, to a point that the CP cited Coldwell to counter his obstinacy.183 Williams took to the Saskatchewan airwaves (in potential violation of the national CCF leadership’s decision to avoid directly attacking the New Democracy movement) to specifically denounce unity and the CP’s demand that “the C.C.F. discard its Socialism, and co-operate with such capitalistic reform parties, such as Social Credit, and now Herridge”184 Even some of those who had been most sympathetic to the CP, like “De

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Bunker,” fell into line and attacked unity member of Parliament Dorise Nielsen and, by extension, her renegade CCF constituency in Meadow Lake, arguing that we need socialists, not “progressives.”185 As the popular front encompassed movements with few reform credentials, such as Herridge’s party, or even bourgeois forces, such as Mackenzie King’s Liberals (and by extension the CCF’s arch-enemy, the Saskatchewan Liberal Party), it came to represent, less and less, a working-class alternative, or even one that united the “popular classes.” As such, it was far removed from the sense of working-class unity that had swelled enthusiasm in the days of the On-to-Ottawa Trek. Labour-socialist tenets in Saskatchewan were clearly articulated anew as flirtations with the popular front were abandoned. In the end, individuals such as George Williams defended the CCF and socialist principles with a vengeance that more than matched their co-thinkers elsewhere in Canada.186

• It was curious, in a way, that Saskatchewan, where the CP was relatively weak, was a major location of popular front activity, and a province that saw the victory of unity candidates at both the provincial and federal levels. Some of the same comments could be made about urban Alberta. Edmonton in particular saw the emergence of a stable United People’s League, which included the CCF Clubs, the Canadian Labor Party (CLP), the CP, and organizations of the unemployed. Its program was similar to labour platforms elsewhere, although it included important Depression-era demands such as cancellation of tax arrears for those who could not pay and cash relief. Its unanimous choice for a mayoralty candidate in late 1936 was former alderman H.D. Ainlay, the president of the Edmonton Central Council of CCF Clubs.187 In his report, national CCF organizer Ted Garland summed up the situation in Edmonton in dismissive tones: “7 Dec. Edmonton. Well attended public meeting in the Moose Hall. Mr. Ainlay in the chair made a rather unwise speech sympathetic to the United Front. In Edmonton there appears to be an inclination to temporize on the question.”188 The route to the popular front in Edmonton seems to have been built on the labour-socialist autodidactic tradition. Ainlay himself prepared the Alberta CCF study outline to Social Planning for Canada, led educational discussions on the “workers’ state” and on socialized industry, and chaired Edmonton’s popular front May Day celebration in 1937.189 Responding to J.S. Woodsworth’s predictable admonishment, William



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Irvine weakly dismissed the local popular front as “in no sense official” and suggested that he simply did not want to harm the CCF by disciplining members. In the next breath, however, he argued that, in the face of an increasingly united right-wing threat, “a left wing united front will take place whether you and I want it to or not.” His preference would be to see such a front established on a clearly socialist basis but, “if we were threatened by further impositions of capitalism, we might find it advantageous to seek unity merely on a negative basis – to prevent the coming of a complete dictatorship.”190 The logic of the popular front appeared obvious in this explanation, but there were limits and countercurrents; growing CP efforts to woo Social Credit were, not surprisingly, harder to sell in Alberta following a couple of years of the Aberhart government. Irvine declared such that such politics were “not intelligent.”191 In Calgary, the appeal of popular frontism was less apparent. There were divisions in that city between the CCF Clubs and the CLP, and the CLP backed out of the municipal popular front.192 Nonetheless, the preferential ballot system lent itself to a form of working-class unity whereby CLP and CP candidates could tell “their people” to vote for each other as their second or third choices.193 That action, rooted in a class-based notion of solidarity between two workers’ parties, appeared axiomatic.

• The Communist Party was considerably stronger in BC, Manitoba, and Ontario than it was in Saskatchewan or the larger cities of Alberta. It is particularly interesting to examine the fate of the popu­lar front in Ontario and British Columbia. In Toronto, as we have seen, the Onto-Ottawa Trek spurred joint activity, such as the Maple Leaf Gardens rally. It also continued to provide the basis for some ongoing popular front activity, such as the Citizens Defence Movement, which continued into 1936 defending those arrested in the previous year’s struggles (as well as in subsequent conflicts in Noranda and Stratford). Prominent in that organization’s leadership were Ontario SPCers as well as CCF leftwingers such as Fred Fish and members of the Toronto CCF’s Women’s Joint Committee such as Jean Laing.194 As was the case in the conflict around May Day, the leadership of the post-purge Ontario CCF was, from the outset, opposed to popular front activity. An earlier attempt by the CCF Toronto Women’s Joint Committee to coordinate CCF, CP, and labour candidates in the 1935

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election was boycotted by the CCF and dismissed as a Communist front by Graham Spry.195 In the same vein, Spry wired George Lansbury, a leader of the British Labour Party, to get his “reassurance” that he would not address a meeting of the League Against War and Fascism while he was visiting Toronto.196 That there was, nonetheless, continuing interest in popular front activities was evident in the Ontario provincial council’s prohibition on council members joining a popular front organization, or appearing on the platform of one, without permission.197 The CCF leadership was cognizant of the appeal of unity and, immediately following May Day in 1937, the New Commonwealth bandied about its own type of popular front formation. Under the headline “Rally Democrats against Reaction: Wide Conference of Progres­ sives Should Be Called,” the idea of “a great people’s movement” uniting “farmers, trade unionists, labor organizations, co-operators, retail merchants, [and] small businessmen” was proposed “to rally in defense of democratic rights, of British civil liberties, and to demand better terms for farmers, labor, and the people generally.”198 Little came of the proposal, but it is remarkable in its imitation of the Communists’ call for a multi-class people’s movement to defend liberal democracy. The “conference of democrats” would, presumably, have excluded the CP, as it was addressed to “non-political organizations.” This proposal was also indicative of the ways in which – despite the ability of the Ontario CCF to fight it off – the popular front had changed the political culture. There is little hint here of a core set of labour-­ socialist certainties about education, working-class independence, and the struggle for socialism. Still, both the CP and the CCF remained parties based in, and, for the most part, identified with the working class. And both had significant working-class support. In fact, in Toronto the Communist Party was clearly reaping the benefits of its organization among the unemployed and its careful cultivation of a trade union base. It was with an air of panic that Graham Spry wrote David Lewis in the aftermath of the autumn 1936 municipal elections, reporting that “our election results were extremely bad, in comparison with the Com­ munists.” The CP had elected J.B. Salsberg and Stewart Smith to Toronto city council and John Weir to the school board.199 Spry reported that Communists were gaining support in “union after union”; even in unions with CCF leadership, the membership was increasingly voting for the CP. In popular front style, the CP “used a right wing appeal” and “never mentioned communism or socialism.”200 The appeal for working-class unity, whatever the content, had huge resonance, even within the CCF. As Ontario provincial secretary Herbert



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Orliffe admitted to Woodsworth, “our people (and you would be surprised whom this includes) were moved by their sentimental plea to unity” to vote for CP candidates. It was reflective of the ongoing divisions within the CCF that Spry’s initial response was to turn to his old LSR network. He wrote Frank Scott to urge him to send King Gordon to Toronto to help turn the situation around.201 In the aftermath of the purge of the Labour Conference and the May Day expulsions, there was not a hint of recognition that the CCF had squandered its militant trade union assets, or that a church-focused academic might not be able to provide the best solution to the crisis. The choice, however, reflected the growing consensus among the core of the LSR about its response to the popular front. Spry had come to modify his own reluctance and he accepted the idea of a modus vivendi with the CP proposed by his LSR colleagues. By then, though, he was highly frustrated with what he considered the social marginalization and personal poverty that his position entailed and was actively disengaging from the Ontario CCF. He would soon leave, seeking opportunities in broad­casting, advertising, and business, having landed a job with Standard Oil of California. Spry was clearly looking for a personal replacement in King Gordon.202 The CP’s increasing strength in Toronto allowed it to place the “Regina model” on the table. Already, loose formations had displaced the CCF as a municipal force in cities such as Port Arthur and Windsor, where the unions took the lead in cobbling together electoral committees. In the summer of 1937, the Toronto and District Labour Council established the Labour Representation Association (LRA), a name with deep roots in the movement for trade union representation in British, and Canadian, electoral assemblies. The LRA was a move by opponents of the CCF on the Labour Council, including the Toronto Labour Party (by then, the Independent Labour Party) and its leader James McArthur Conner, as well as supporters of the Communist Party, to challenge the CCF’s self-perception as the party of organized labour. The secretary of the LRA was Jean Laing, who had been active in the Toronto CCF Joint Women’s Committee.203 Eighty delegates from forty-two union locals took part in a discussion of program and tactics with regard to municipal and provincial elections. Herbert Orliffe attended but, in keeping with the provincial party’s resistance to participation in Communistrelated activities, kept the CCF aloof.204 In the report from the provincial executive to the Ontario CCF fifth provincial convention in April 1938, Orliffe described the LRA as an opponent to be fought.205 The response of the Ontario CCF leadership was predictable: it saw the LRA as little more than a Communist manoeuvre. The LRA comprised

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renegades associated with the Toronto regional council of the CCF, a body that continued to support joint work with the Communists, both out of conviction and in recognition of the CP’s strength in the city’s unions. The problem was, as Toronto Trotskyists analysed it, that however much its program was one of “capitulation” rather than socialism, the LRA was “making a great deal of headway.”206 The dangers of simply dismissing the LRA were recognized by a section of the national CCF leadership. Given that both the CP and the CCF were national organizations, it is hardly surprising that the issue was addressed at this level as well, albeit somewhat clandestinely. Interestingly, increased openness towards some kind of working arrangement with the CP in areas of significant labour politics such as the LRA came from a small group rooted mostly in the LSR. At the moment the LRA emerged, Eugene Forsey entered into correspondence with CP leader Tim Buck on specifically this issue. Forsey, along with David Lewis, was clearly dismayed at the “idée fixe” of the Ontario CCF leadership regarding the Communist Party. Forsey was impressed by Buck’s ability to “stay the nads of his wild men” and work effectively with the CCF.207 For his part, Lewis felt that a more nuanced policy was required. He thought particularly ill-advised the decision to run a CCF candidate against Salsberg in Toronto’s St. Andrew riding in the following year’s provincial election. Hoping to escape Woodsworth’s condemnation, he weakly claimed that he was not proposing a saw off; rather, the CCF needed to recognize that, besides being a Communist, Salsberg was a widely respected labour leader and that, because he had been nominated by the LRA, the CCF, by running against him, was placing itself in a position of opposing “labour.” It would do the CCF no good, Lewis argued, to be perceived as an opponent of working-class unity.208 The national CCF strategy, developed primarily by LSR figures such as Frank Scott, Eugene Forsey, and A.E. Havelock, along with Lewis and with the support of Coldwell, became one of the CCF avoiding any public association with the Communist Party, while rejecting the kneejerk anti-Communism they witnessed among the “unspeakable Toronto group” that had come to dominate the Ontario CCF, including president John Mitchell, Herbert Orliffe, Bert Leavens, and Laura CottonThomas (who had defeated Spry for the post of vice-president of the Ontario provincial council).209 Nationally, their main opponents were Woodsworth, Angus and Grace MacInnis, and A.A. Heaps, all of whom were “too rabid on the question to be argued with at all.”210 Scott, Lewis,



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and others argued that the CCF was losing steam. Isolating itself from day-to-day struggles that involved the Communists, from symbolical occasions such as May Day, or, in the present case, from a trade union movement that reflected increasing support for the CP, would increasingly marginalize the CCF. On the other hand, active involvement with “daily struggles” would “yank a good many of the old-timers out of their set ways and … it will attract many eager men and women” who have failed, so far, “to be inspired by the C.C.F.”211 In the hands of David Lewis, this more conciliatory relationship with broader and often CP-connected movements took on a potentially bureaucratic tinge that would have consequences for the CCF in the future. First, the CCF would allow direct trade union affiliation. Lewis claimed primary responsibility for this turn, which would more closely tie the CCF to labour struggles. At the same time, he was quite prescient about the positive and negative consequences: “I have become more and more convinced about the need for a Trade Union base for the Party even though there are undoubtedly many disadvantages in a Trade Union political set-up.”212 As left-wing critics in the CCF and NDP would recognize in the decades that followed, trade union leaders who were not necessarily socialists, and who were deeply integrated into an emerging bureaucratized collective bargaining regime, would bring workers into the party but could also act as a conservative dead weight against the development of socialism. As a Toronto CCF regional council pamphlet noted, the change made the CCF more like the British Labour Party, no doubt a major concern to those large number of CCFers who identified with the British ILP and Socialist League critiques of that party’s rightward drift.213 Frustrated as secretary of a highly decentralized and dramatically underfunded national party, Lewis stressed that it was crucial that any discussion of the fate of the CCF start “at the organizational end.” The most urgent problem facing the party was “the frightful lack of central organization.” Although he commented on this problem within the context of the immediate issues confronting the movement, arguing that “somehow money must be raised so that the movement will be able to take an active part in the ‘daily struggles,’” he clearly had in mind a more programmatically consistent and centrally directed party than CCFers had yet experienced or even envisioned.214 While far from entirely successful, through his vast energies Lewis himself became the organizational linchpin of this project. The situation in the Ontario CCF was certainly dire; by early 1939, “the Ontario situation” was a central topic among the national CCF

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leadership, and David Lewis, M.J. Coldwell, and Angus MacInnis were sent to Toronto by the national council to attempt to begin to reverse the decline.215 Membership and activity had both fallen precipitously since the 1935 federal election. Electorally, the provincial council felt that the party was in such a weak state that it could contest only about thirty-five of the eighty-two federal seats in Ontario.216 As well, the Ontario CCF, and particularly the Toronto regional council, remained a battleground over the popular front. Local clubs peppered the 1939 convention with pro–popular front resolutions but elected an anti–­ popular front executive. Lewis persuaded Ted Joliffe to run against John Mitchell, who had been president for five years. Lewis attributed Mitchell’s subsequent re-election to an “incredibly dirty campaign carried on by the little group of ‘red-baiters’.”217 The executive reiterated a particularly strong anti-popular front position forbidding any cooperation with the CP “on any specific matter, political or otherwise.”218 In practice, however, the issue was never so clear-cut. In 1938, E.A. Havelock could claim that the Ontario CCF was moving “to a sort of empirical united front tactic, but not under that name,” and he argued that CCFer William Dennison’s election to the Toronto Board of Education “amounted to what he claimed were U.F. tactics.”219 The following year, Grace MacInnis attacked Dennison as a popular fronter. Harold Winch, who had recently stayed with Dennison while in Toronto, took exception, arguing that Dennison had no intention of building a popular front of the sort that MacInnis imagined. He was attacked, Winch suggested, “because he dared to activize [sic] himself in the field of the daily struggle and because he had the audacity to run contrary to the desires and policies of the Provincial Office.”220 The old problem of activism leading CCFers into some kind of relationship with the CP failed to dissipate. Indeed, the CCF implicitly understood this as it clarified its rules about working with the Communists. While CCFers could not cooperate with the CP, CCFers who, by virtue of their positions in unions, unemployed associations, or “any non-political body” whose organization wishes them to work with the CP, would not be violating the CCF constitution if they wished to do so.221

• If the challenge of working-class unity remained front and centre in Ontario, it continued to be an issue in British Columbia as well. Al­ though the B.C. SPC had organizationally dissolved into a unified



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provincial CCF, the Clarion persisted as the “only Marxian CCF paper” in the country, and as champion of working-class unity and a workingclass future. The paper’s notion of unity was a catholic one predicated on working-class identity rather than on programs. It specifically denigrated the “wrangling over tactics, hair-splitting over the meaning of the word ‘state,’ sniping at the other sections of the same movement, disputing over the ‘constitution,’ arguing over the rules of procedure, debating whether the ‘revolution’ can be accomplished by Parliamentary action,’ flaring into resentment at ‘doctrinaires,’ fighting over the matter of youth tactics if conscription is invoked when war breaks out, talking unity of the exploited while refusing to unite.”222 Such criticism, of course, speaks precisely to the notion of a unified labour-socialist identity, which enabled a broad array of activists to group in and around the CCF. However, the popular front both was built on this notion and violated it. In 1936, the B.C. CCF annual convention reaffirmed its position in favour of cooperation with “other working class groups … on specific issues” and it passed a watered-down resolution promising to “bring up” at the CCF national convention the fate of those expelled over the Toronto May Day controversy.223 Over the course of the next few months, though, support for the popular front withered. On the face of things, opposition to the popular front came from two quite contradictory sources. On the one hand were those, such as Angus MacInnis who had participated in the Ontario purge, who felt little affinity with the world revolutionary movement and had consistently opposed working with the Communists for what may be considered electoralist reasons. On the other hand, a large number of CCFers expressed explicitly Trotskyist criticisms of the popular front, including B.C. CCF youth leader Gerald Van (whom we have already seen in his confrontation with A.M. Stephen), who perceived the program of the popular front as an attempt to “swing our movement away from its revolutionary basis to the petty-bourgeois attempt of maintaining the status quo.”224 Although the debate between CCF “Stalinists” (such as Stephen) and “Trotskyists” (such as Van) seemed to some leaders, both provincially (Lyle Telford) and nationally (David Lewis), to be a diversion, it spoke directly to the identity of labour socialists in the B.C. CCF.225 The Federa­ tionist was established in August 1936 as a weekly paper “owned by the movement,” to differentiate it from papers that were owned and controlled by various individuals within the CCF; it soon reached a circulation of about 7,000.226 It opened its columns to the wide-ranging and

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vigourous debates in the B.C. CCF, but editorially it eschewed red baiting: when it went after the Communist Party, it did so from the left. It criticized the Moscow trials, for instance, for undermining the socialist state and the social ownership of the means of production.227 The paper also criticized alliances with bourgeois forces and the kinds of programmatic compromises that they involved. In “The Facts of Life,” the Federationist editorialized that “the romping of some of our friends are [sic] causing us socialists to blush these nights.” The “strange bedfellows” who inhabited the popular front can “only dilute what socialist strength there is now,” without creating a force willing and capable of defeating capitalism, thus perpetuating poverty, war, and fascism.228 Don Smith, who became editor at the beginning of 1937, skewered the popular front idealization of “progressivism” by enumerating those “progressives” – Ramsay MacDonald, Alexander Kerensky, and, most recently, William Aberhart – who claimed to speak for the masses but failed to challenge capitalism.229 He articulately summarized the debate over the popular front, lamenting the categorization of positions into Stalinist and Trotskyist camps because that made it easy for some to suggest that the controversy had little to do with the CCF. He pointed out that for “the revolutionary movement as a whole,” which implicitly included the CCF, the issue of how best to fight fascism was crucial. While Stalin’s policy might be appropriate for the USSR, socialists in Canada had to direct their struggle against both fascism and “orthodox capitalism.” In that context, the CCF was pledged to offer “some alternative” to the masses.230 Although some, such as Telford, repeated the mantra of the national leadership, that the CCF itself was a sufficient “popular front” formed by regrouping labour, farmer, and socialist forces, there was also recognition that other forms of cooperation were necessary in order to provide a more inclusive arena that allowed for extraparliamentary activity.231 To this end, in the autumn of 1936, the B.C. CCF established an Industrial and Economic Conference in Vancouver, New Westmin­ ster, and Victoria. It was initially composed of CCF members but soon expanded to include delegates from unions and “economic organizations.”232 The initiative seemed promising. The New Westminster conference claimed fifteen CCF Clubs, three units of the Communist Party, five unemployed organizations, and six trade unions.233 The Vancouver Conference drew 140 delegates and set about drafting a constitution.234 This would require some finesse, as the plan was to maintain CCF control while opening up links with other activists. The plan was that the



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executive committee of each conference would have a majority of CCF members and be “subject to the control and discipline of the CCF.” Representatives to the conference would have to represent “bona-fide political or organized economic expressions of the working class, excluding from full delegate status any and all auxiliary or subsidiary bodies.”235 One clause specified that the class character of the new movement was to be maintained, as was its independence from CP control through Communist front groups. At the same time, the provincial CCF executive issued a carefully worded statement expressing the need for unity, declaring that “it must be a real, and not a superficial unity.” It noted, however, that, “until very recently” the CP had been “a party of disruption” and that the result was a wide distrust of Communists, “even to the point of obsession.” However much they had mended their ways, time must pass before “the Communist mistakes are forgiven.”236 Declaring that there was “sufficient territory” for the CP and the CCF to work within the conference without interfering with each other, it was clear that the Industrial and Economic Conference was going to be not only the CCF’s own “united front,” but also its main entry into mass activity. It was not a particularly successful entry. Although there was initial interest, and there were a few pockets of strength, such as North Vancouver, the balance sheet was weak. The provincial executive repeatedly cajoled clubs into participating and attempted to get increasing numbers of CCFers to join, and be active in, their unions. Despite a concerted effort by provincial CCF leadership and the reconstitution of the conference as the CCF Economic Relations Department, with a more limited goal of closer relations with unions, there was little to show for these efforts by the end of 1937. The initiative on Vancouver Island was essentially defunct, and there was little activity in the lower mainland.237 An attempt at a conference of unions (162 unions were invited; 19 attended) organized by the Economic Relations Department to have the CCF recognized as “the political expression of labour” similarly went nowhere. As the CCF provincial executive observed at this point, “there was a growing tendency to present the movement as an Electoral rather than a Political expression of the working class, political being interpreted in its widest sense.”238 The attempt to engage B.C. workers on a broader plain of struggle had not succeeded. Much of the energy that such an effort would have required was being spent internally in struggles over the popular front. The dénouement, which occurred in the first half of 1937, focused on the B.C. CCF’s

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prime popular fronter A.M. Stephen. Stemming from the debate over the popular front in the Federationist, the CCF provincial executive invited Van, Rod Young (whom Stephen had previously accused of belonging to a Trotskyist organization), and Matthew Glenday to explain their opposition to the popular front and their argument that it was debilitating to the CCF. They linked the “downward trend of CCF organization” in the lower mainland and on Vancouver Island to the confusion sowed by the vacillating policy of the Communist Party and the popular front and argued that, if war broke out, the CCF would be in the same position as the socialist parties in 1914, as “recruiting agents for imperialist war.” Stephen objected to such views, but he went along with a vaguely worded motion to abide by national and provincial CCF policies.239 He continued to press his point, however, attempting to have a CCF member expelled for criticizing the Spanish Popular Front government.240 A month later, the executive strengthened its stand, recommending to the CCF provincial council that public advocacy of the popular front was a violation of a 1936 CCF convention decision and should result in suspension from the federation.241 The council referred the issue to the next convention.242 Events would not wait that long. Conflicts between the two main opponents, Stephen and Young, led the executive to suspend both for a year.243 They would appeal to the CCF convention the following summer, but by that time Stephen had already sealed his fate. Within days of his suspension, he spoke in Nanaimo, advocating unity with the Communist Party and “left-wing Liberals.”244 His popularity and the substantial pockets of strength of popular front support in the CCF mobilized several clubs as other forces such as the LAWF in his defence.245 Not only did many clubs write to the CCF executive to protest Stephen’s suspension, his name was proposed as CCF nominee in at least four provincial ridings. In fact, both Stephen and Young were put forward as potential candidates in Vancouver East.246 A campaign by Colin Cameron to have Stephen’s suspension lifted so that he could run in Alberni-Nanaimo was supported by the local nominating committee and only narrowly defeated on the executive by old SPCers. Helen Gutteridge and Mildred Osterhout, both of whom had come out of the Associated CCF Clubs, supported him.247 Given Stephen’s own class background, it would not be difficult to perceive a labour-socialist campaign against him and the popular front. The outcome was sealed when Stephen ran as an independent candidate in Alberni-Nanaimo with the support of local CCF Clubs; he placed a strong second in the election



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(no official CCF candidate ran). Stephen was expelled; the Clubs were “re-organized.”248 Stephen’s appeal against expulsion was debated for two hours at the B.C. CCF convention in July and was defeated by a vote of 96 to 61. There was clearly strong, albeit minority, support for Stephen and the popular front. Significantly, his defenders and opponents did not entirely reflect a “left-right” split. Some leftists, such as Ernest Winch and Don Smith, spoke against him; others, such as Dorothy Steeves and Colin Cameron, defended him.249 In the end, Stephen’s comment that he was opposed by old SPCers and young “Trotskyists” – indeed, he accused the executive as a whole of being Trotskyists – was more or less accurate. His strongest support seemed to come from those who had entered the CCF through the LSR and the Associated CCF Clubs. In any event, his expulsion, and the passage of the strongest and clearest anti– popular front position to date at the 1937 convention clearly put paid to the debate. Labour socialists such as Ernest Winch, who had fought for unity with the Communists in 1934 and 1935, had abandoned a kind of unity that clearly spelled compromises with capitalism and bourgeois parties in 1936 and 1937.

• The CCF’s experience with the popular front was, by any measure, varied and confusing. Variation across the country, the rapidly evolving Communist Party strategy, and a range of possible responses to unity all combined to create a complex picture. The CP’s trajectory from sectarian, Third Period ultra-leftism (which sometimes persisted past the Comintern’s shift to the popular front) to what Marxists would see as class collaboration stymies any attempt to analyse the issue of unity in terms of a left-right continuum. It is possible, however, to begin to make sense of possible responses by CCFers and those in their orbit (such as the expelled Ontario members) by considering their labour-socialist sensitivities. They were drawn to working with the Communists by a deeply rooted sense of working-class solidarity that had been frustrated during the Third Period but was allowed to re-emerge with the first signs of a more cooperative sensitivity. It peaked in 1935 with the excitement of the labour and unemployed struggles leading up to and following the On-to-Ottawa Trek. And then it wavered as the tensions of day-to-day work with political movements that differed in myriad ways came to the fore. And, the Communists’ notion of a popular front

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that called for unity with at least some Liberals (including Mackenzie King) offended the basic labour-socialist notion of working-class independence and a proletarian future.250 Labour-socialist support for unity with the Communists waned. LSRers were divided in some ways, but their growing interest in the Soviet Union potentially influenced their attitude towards the Canadian Communists. Some in the LSR had enough critical distance from the debates with the CP to evaluate, fairly objectively, the benefits and costs of collaborating, in some ways, with the Communists. Certainly, the Communists’ flirtation with liberalism was less offensive to the LSR than it was to labour socialists. For the labour and socialist movement as a whole, the experience could not fail to have a cumulative effect. The Communist Party, by muddying the waters of class identity and arguing that workers should not only ally with other social classes to fight the effects of capitalism but should also narrow their goal to the preservation of liberal democracy, had changed both the character of political debate and the nature of political identity. Labour socialists largely rejected the Communist analysis, but they were affected by it; it weakened the working-class certitudes that had marked working-class political action earlier in the decade. By 1937, the brief heyday of the popular front had passed in Canada but, in some ways, so had the CCF’s moment. CCF membership and activity was down in the key provinces of British Columbia, Manitoba, and Ontario, and it had failed to take hold in the Maritimes and Quebec. Extraparliamentary activity, too, seemed to be exhausted. The defeat of the Bennett government marked the close of a chapter of militant struggles, particularly around unemployment. It was not the case, though, that the challenges that confronted Canadian workers had dissipated. If anything, they appeared more pressing than ever, as the threat of world war became increasingly apparent.

Chapter Six

The Problem and Consequences of War

The threat of war hovered over the 1930s, becoming ever more ominous as the decade progressed. Alarmed by international developments, socialists felt a growing responsibility to educate workers about the roots of war and to organize against it. This commitment arose partly from the fact that the socialism of the 1930s was a product not just of 1919 but also of 1914. Most of its adherents had experienced war and recognized the stakes, but they also were cognizant of the huge challenges of preventing another war. Barely two decades earlier, a massive and dynamic anti-war socialist movement in Europe had collapsed in the face of nationalism and militarism and had largely supported their respective governments and ruling classes in a war of imperialist plunder. Simply building a socialist party was, in itself, insufficient. For labour socialists, the experience of the First World War tended to provoke a maximalist position: war is inherent in capitalism; it can be stopped only by eliminating capitalism. They may not have been particularly militant or had any clear notion of how to proceed; they simply felt that only a working-class future could guarantee peace. The Communist Party of Canada (CPC/CP) spoke in a loud voice on the topic of war, in a manner that both confirmed and undermined the socialist position on the causes of war. As in the case in the response to fascism, the left readily agreed about the general threat. However, as we have seen, the Communists’ argument that the specific nature of fascist aggression posed an extraordinary threat not only to workers’ movements internationally, but also to the Soviet Union, suggested that the model of 1914 did not necessarily apply to the 1930s. In the end, some socialists concluded that a war against fascism, or a war to defend the USSR, might be necessary. We have already seen these debates in

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the League Against War and Fascism (LAWF), but other issues came into play in that venue as well. One of these would be the issue of pacifism; both the LAWF and the CCF attracted those whose reaction to the Great War was to reject war as a means of settling disputes. This famously became a stream in the CCF because it was on pacifist grounds, allegedly, that J.S. Woodsworth, and a portion of the CCF, came to oppose the Second World War. There were indeed pacifists in the CCF but, as we shall see, the lingua franca of the federation was the labour-­ socialist language of anti-capitalism and anti-imperialism.1 As in other areas of activity, the Communists drew the CCFers out of their organizational shell and into broader activity. In this case, they challenged labour socialists to assess the breadth of their internationalism. In theory, the labour socialists in the CCF had always been internationalists, but the Communists had more impressive connections – they belonged to a centralist international organization, a world party of socialist revolution – and their reference points were much broader. The CCF’s connections had been mostly to Britain and the circle of English writers around the Independent Labour Party or Socialist League who commented on international affairs. The Communist Party is central to the story of the left’s response to war in the 1930s. The CP was particularly engaged in two areas that were, after mid-decade, key to the question of war: the Spanish Civil War, and the lives of youth, who were, of course, the group most threatened by the prospect of war. So, once again, CCFers, and labour socialists more generally, were faced with the prospect of responding to popular front campaigns – in this case, the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and the Canadian Youth Congress. In the end, though, the CCF had to determine its own attitude towards the Second World War. The debate in September 1939 reflected the assumptions, the hopes, and the shortcomings of the labour socialism that was still dominant in the federation. It would also usher in a new era with respect to the relationships between activists, their parties, trade unions, and the state, all of which made old certainties more difficult to sustain.

• Among the long-standing campaigns inherited from the pre–First World War political labour movement was an opposition to militarism. For example, labour parties, along with religious and feminist pacifists, actively opposed cadet training in schools, and labour socialists continued



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this tradition as late as 1936, when an emergency resolution was passed at the Ontario CCF convention to “go on record against permitting the use of our schools for the preparation of our children in slaughtering their fellow men.”2 In Winnipeg, anti-war theatre was part of the local political culture of the Independent Labour Party (ILP), with plays such as Black ’ell in 1927 and Invasion in 1928.3 Not all labour socialists agreed on the cause of war: at the 1925 “No More War” mass meeting, the ministerial association of Winnipeg blamed the arms race while the One Big Union (OBU) pointed to capitalism.4 Meanwhile, Manitoba ILPers debated the extent to which military displays, war toys, jingoism, wrestling, and capitalism were the causes of war.5 Regardless of its causes, the ILP opposed war and proudly identified with the British ILP’s anti-war stance during the Great War.6 Predictably, the B.C. Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) tended to be less accommodating to liberal pacifists. It confronted what it felt were anti-labour and antisocialist sentiments on the local Anti-War Conference and insisted on the importance of mass action by workers “rather than by international ‘disarmament’ conferences and pacts of capitalist countries.”7 Addressing the threat of war was a core component of the socialist message throughout the decade. It was rooted not just in the experience of the previous international conflagration, but in a deeply based internationalism and an analysis that the destruction of surplus commodities was “Capitalism’s only ‘escape’”8 from the crisis of the Depression. The importance of building a broad anti-war movement and the goal of constructing a distinctive socialist voice within it that explained the relationship between capitalism and war marked labour-socialist activity through the decade. Many joined the League Against War and Fascism, even as they expressed frustration with its pacifism. Ernest Winch, for instance, lambasted pacifists privately but sought to find an accommodation in the LAWF, the formation of which he considered, at least at its outset, a crucial step in confronting the threat of war.9 Others bridged this gap more effortlessly. Rose Henderson, with a long history of feminist peace activism as well as deep connections with labour socialism, including being a mainstay of the ill-fated Labour Conference in Ontario, was “absolutely and unalterably opposed to war” and explained her opposition in a language that addressed both its class and gender dimensions.10 In the first half of the 1930s, there was little reason for any differentiation within general anti-war sentiment. Only with the crises in Europe did the importance of honing one’s analysis become important, as it

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was necessary to take positions on the debates of the day. We have already seen the divisions in the LAWF that occurred as SPCers and other labour socialists rejected the liberals’ and Communists’ support of League of Nations sanctions against Italy in the wake of its invasion of Abyssinia. Rose Henderson argued that the League of Nations represented imperial powers, not workers; Alice Loeb, E.A. Beder, and David Goldstick all agreed.11 Fred Fish’s sentiment that he “would only defend the Socialist State which I am convinced is the only foundation of a civilization freed from exploitation and war” reflected a widespread view.12 The CCF tended to express similar sentiments, although other voices were also heard. The Ontario CCF’s New Commonwealth clearly condemned British imperialism and declared that economic sanctions would be followed by military ones.13 In British Columbia, the SPC was emphatic: “The question of sanctions should be clear in the mind of anyone possessed of the socialist philosophy.” Not only were sanctions a tactic in inter-imperialist conflict, but neither the international working class nor the Abyssians themselves had a particular stake in who ended up controlling Abyssia: they were all going to be exploited unless capitalism was defeated.14 The B.C. CCF executive was not as definitive. It chose not to take a position on sanctions against Italy, but rather to “awaken public opinion on the menace of war arising from the present conflict of imperialist aims under capitalism.”15 While the executive had restated the axiomatic labour-socialist view of war, its actual policy was unclear and controversial. At least one B.C. CCF Club censured the leadership for refusing to take a stand on sanctions.16 The problem for the B.C. CCF executive was that the general understanding that a war against fascism would be simply another imperialist war was undermined by both liberal and popular front sentiment. Certainly the executive did not want to enter a public debate over the issue of war – one that could potentially split the B.C. CCF. Rod Young, for instance, argued that participation in the popular front would turn the CCF into “recruiting agents for imperialist war.”17 A significant minority of the B.C. CCF disagreed. The same was true of the national CCF. Not that there remained broad pro–popular front sentiment throughout the federation by late 1936 or early 1937, but there were those who supported sanctions on the basis of support, in principle, for collective security. In particular, some League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) figures, including Frank Scott and Graham Spry, were supporters of collective security and, by



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extension, the League of Nations. They felt that general declarations about the capitalist roots of war were entirely inadequate, and it was necessary to respond to the growing international crisis in a manner that spoke to what the CCF would actually do if it were in power. Scott argued that it was necessary to oppose imperialist war but also to reject isolationism in favour of “re-building collective security.”18 Spry used his position as editor of the New Commonwealth to argue that “the faint possibility of peace” could be achieved only if Britain formed “an alliance, firm, definite, and conclusive, with the Soviet Union, with France, and with other socialist or democratic governments.”19 It followed, naturally, that Spry wanted the CCF to endorse the Peace Councils being organized by the League of Nations Society in Canada.20 This would allow the CCF to ignore the CP and the League Against War and Fascism (and its successor, the League for Freedom and Democracy) and to ally itself with middle-class liberals who supported collective security. Spry was hardly alone in this strategy. Several middle-class activists, some of whom had ended up in the LAWF and others in, or around, the CCF, had previously belonged to the League of Nations Society and tended to continue to support the League, albeit with reservations. Activists such as Louis St. George Stubbs, Marshall Gauvin, Dorothy Steeves, and D.M. LeBourdais supported the League “in a general way” but recognized that it was “still the tool of capitalist governments.”21 In contrast, support for the League of Nations was deeply objectionable to labour socialists who considered it to be little more than an imperialist cabal and the League of Nations Society naive dupes.22 There is an interesting process of differentiation occurring here. As we have seen, an important link between the full range of labour socialists, from the Manitoba ILP to the SPC as well as the LSR, was their strong identification with the British ILP and the Socialist League. Both these British organizations opposed sanctions against Italy. To the extent there was dissension in their ranks, it was motivated by the willingness of a minority to support Soviet foreign policy when the USSR joined the League of Nations and supported sanctions.23 The most vocal opponent of sanctions was Sir Stafford Cripps, who had been a key conduit to the Socialist League and the British left for such individuals as Spry and David Lewis. Cripps had twice toured to Canada, addressed the Ontario CCF convention, and helped bankroll the CCF printing operation, which was renamed Stafford Press in his honour.24 Certainly such concerns about the League of Nations were taken seriously, even by those who were more inclined towards collective

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security. In 1937, both Canadian Forum and New Commonwealth printed “A Socialist View of the League” by Socialist Leaguer, H.N Brailsford, perhaps the most widely read of this British cohort of socialist intellectuals. His critique that the League of Nations “accepts as it stands the whole capitalist-imperialist structure of the world” led him to ask “what does the League, collectively, secure?”25 Such a question concerned all CCFers. Few were without suspicions about the League of Nations, and the alarming international situation led to meaningful and lively debates about what to think and about how to act.

• Spain was at the centre of many of these debates, as, for the first time, Canadian socialists were making decisions about their support for, and even participation in, an actual war against fascism. With the Spanish Civil War, it was possible to do something rather than simply criticize the foreign policies of bourgeois governments. From the moment Franco rebelled against the Popular Front government in Spain in the summer of 1936, socialists internationally were mobilized by both the threat of fascism continuing to expand and the opportunity to actually fight against it. The League Against War and Fascism, as would be expected, responded quickly. In turning its attention to Spain, it received a hearing in some Canadian quarters that had been suspicious of it because of its close connection with the Communist Party. The Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, for instance, shelved its general animosity towards the CP and allowed the LAWF to address the council on the subject of Spain. The next meeting focused on expressing support for the workers of Spain “in a tangible manner.”26 The B.C. CCF worked on support for the Spanish republic through the LAWF.27 In Toronto, a Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy evolved out of the LAWF with the support of the Toronto regional council of the CCF; the Toronto District Labour Council voted unanimously to affiliate with it.28 The national and Ontario CCF leaders were very wary of being dragged along in the wake of a movement dominated by the Commu­ nist Party.29 The initial response of the Ontario CCF executive was to refuse to participate with the CP (or with a non-Stalinist committee of Trotskyists and the Industrial Workers of the World in support of “Spanish ­soviets” as a means of defending the self-organization of Spanish



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workers). Instead it decided to raise money and send it directly to the Spanish government and to encourage all CCF units to hold meetings to protest the attack on the elected government of Spain.30 Very shortly afterwards, Spry suggested organizing a “neutral group” with the task of raising money for a field ambulance in Spain.31 Within a month, Spry reported that “he had had considerable success in obtaining prominent people outside the Socialist movement” to back his plan, and appeals for funds were to be made through 150 newspapers. Spry attempted to assuage concerns expressed by the Toronto regional council of the CCF that he was isolating the CCF by ignoring the mainstream of the Spanish solidarity movement by claiming that, although he was a not a member of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, he was in close contact with that group and that it approved of his plan.32 Soon the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, “a strictly non-political group formed by university presidents, heads of churches, ex-moderators, doctors, writers, painters and others,” was the focus of much of the Ontario CCF’s activity, at least judging by the attention it received in on the front page of New Commonwealth. That organization provided a means for the CCF to demonstrate that it was as active as the CP in its support of the Spanish republic without having to deal with the issue of actively supporting the military campaign, as the CP was doing through the International Brigades. As Spry would acknowledge several decades later in his memoirs, the “idea of a C.C.F. hospital in Spain … was partly a C.C.F. tactic to match the Communists’ recruitment of C.C.F. lads for the MackenziePapineau Battalion of combatants.”33 A similar group to Spry’s, which included prominent Liberals, was formed in Montreal, where it was felt that the Communist associations of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy would make fundraising even more difficult.34 Despite these activities, CCF efforts paled beside those of the Com­ munist Party, and David Lewis urged Herbert Orliffe and the leadership of the Ontario section not to appear sectarian in refusing to participate in such efforts. He pointed out that, by his reading, there was nothing in the policy of the federal CCF to prevent cooperation on issues such as Spain.35 There were other factors driving the CCF and CP together, not least of which was that the doctor who volunteered to go to Spain as part of Spry’s plan to outwit the CP was himself a Communist: Dr Norman Bethune. Bethune acted out of individual choice, not under Communist direction, but it was immediately clear to CCF leaders that the Communists, rather than the CCF’s nascent support group, would

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reap the publicity from his actions.36 At the end of October 1936, the Ontario CCF executive sent Orliffe and Spry to participate in a meeting of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, “the purpose of which was to re-organize the Committee on an enlarged basis.”37 Two days later, New Commonwealth announced that Spry’s Spanish Medical Aid Committee proposal had been “handed over” to the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy.38 Spry became vice-chair, working alongside Com­ munists as well as various waves of expelled CCFers (including those SPCers who had been purged with the Labour Conference and others who had been expelled because of their May Day activities) and the always troublesome Toronto regional council. Ben Spence chaired the committee; Elizabeth Morton was its secretary.39 As was the case with the On-to-Ottawa Trek, the central role that the Communists had played forced the CCF, at least temporarily, into cooperating with them. Across the country, the CCF was officially engaged in the popular front movement around Spain. The B.C. CCF had been involved from the outset. In Alberta, the Edmonton Committee to Aid Spanish De­ mocracy, which was a little slower getting started, involved the CP, unions, and CCF Clubs.40 The very active Winnipeg committee included not only the CP and those middle-class figures who had supported the LAWF, such as E.J. McMurray, Louis St. George Stubbs, and Marshall Gauvin, but also CCF stalwarts Stanley Knowles, J.A. Cherniak, and William Ivens. The Manitoba ILP and CCF actively raised money for the committee.41 The importance for the CCF national executive of work in support for Spain, as well as its attempt to separate such efforts from other popular front activities from which it  had effectively insulated the CCF, was apparent in the autumn of 1937 when the executive organized carefully to prevent the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy from being subsumed within the League for Peace and Democracy (the successor to the LAWF). The national executive sent Ted Jolliffe and Bert Leavens (neither of whom were generally supporters of popular front work) and arranged for the Ontario CCF executive to name similarly minded delegates to a conference of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy to help preserve the independence of the committee.42 The CCF remained active in the committee even after it was reorganized as the Committee to Aid Spanish Refugees in the aftermath of Franco’s victory in 1939. Yet, as David Lewis later acknowledged, the precarious state of the CCF overall in the late 1930s prevented leading members from being particularly active in any external campaigns,



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including those involving Spain.43 CCF members of Parliament did defend the rights of Canadians to fight overseas against fascism, although it is notable that, unlike the CP, the CCF made little of the fact that CCFers were among those placing their lives on the line.44 There were several reasons for this reticence. Such announcements would only draw attention to the greater role played by Communists in combat. It would also highlight illegal activity by CCFers.45 In addition, it would unnecessarily raise the potentially divisive question of pacifism within the CCF. Pacifist voices had certainly been muted by the enthusiasm that had developed on the left for supporting the republicans in Spain. Eventually, a few of the CCFers who opposed participation in the Second World War would make explicitly pacifist arguments, but pacifism had little purchase in discussions about responses to the Spanish Civil War. Much more likely to provoke discord was the question of the political character of the Spanish Popular Front government and the role of Communists within it. Although the setting was very different, the issues around the popular front applied dramatically to Spain, where workers’ organizations arose spontaneously to fight the threat of fascism. Should, then, socialists defend the liberal democratic state or ­attempt to supplant it with a socialist one? The message of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy was emphatically the former. The Manitoba Commonwealth, in its report on the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy’s large public meeting in Winnipeg, which featured speakers Tommy Douglas and Stanley Knowles, presented the issue in popular front boilerplate: “The conflict in Spain is not a Communist Revolution; it is not a conflict between ‘Left’ forces and the forces standing for law and order; it is not a fight between ‘religious’ and’ irreligious’ sections of the Spanish people.”46 However, the situation in Spain, in fact, was far more dynamic. As George Orwell famously noted on his arrival in Barcelona as part of a British ILP contingent, it was “the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle.”47 Anarchists and non-Stalinist revolutionary communists of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista – POUM) identified with what was, at least in embryo, a revolutionary process, and were facing increasing repression from a Stalinist-dominated Popular Front government. Even the Ontario CCF acknowledged that, at its roots, the Spanish war revealed that the “Capitalist interests” supporting the fascists “surmount national frontiers and racial barriers.”48

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The POUM, which was affiliated to the London Bureau – an international group of left-wing socialist parties led by the British ILP and closely associated with Fenner Brockway – was more politically aligned with the sentiments of many Canadian labour socialists than with the Communists.49 The message of two Canadians who had been in Spain highlighted conflicts between the POUM, Spain’s Popular Front government, and the Communists. William Krehm, a twenty-two-year-old Canadian who was a leader of the small League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party and who had been in Spain to make contact with the POUM, had been arrested in that country in a general government crackdown on “Trotskyites” and “spies” in July 1937.50 Luckily he was released, or dumped, in France two months later. After he returned to Canada, he toured southern Ontario – one stop included a meeting of 500 in Toronto – to raise support for the thousands of POUM and anarchist militants, as well as international volunteers, who were still being held by the Spanish government.51 His message was reinforced by Harry Beattie, a former Communist and volunteer in Spain who returned to Canada denouncing the Popular Front as well as Communist slanders against, and repression of, the POUM.52 These reports had no discernable impact on the CCF leadership, which continued to cast its lot with the Popular Front government and the Canadian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. Quite likely, many individually had their doubts about both the Popular Front and the behaviour of the Communist Party in Spain, but political expediency played its part. The revolutionary movement had been defeated in Spain and the POUM successfully repressed. A moralistic stance in support of the POUM and its policies would neither save Spain nor defeat Franco. In fact, the increasingly perilous position of the Popular Front government no doubt served to silence criticism internationally. Within Canada, the CCF’s efforts to claim some of the credit for supporting the fight against fascism in Spain would not have been aided by taking on the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy. The CCF chose to remain silent, even in the face of Norman Bethune’s attacks on it for failing to endorse popular frontism tout court.53 There were important repercussions. The labour-socialist critique of the popular front fell on relatively barren ground, setting the stage for less class-attuned responses when the Second World War began shortly afterwards. At the final national conference of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, Toronto CCFer and popular fronter William Dennison commented that the Spanish campaign would “go down in



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history as one of the greatest achievements of the working and middle classes.”54 Clearly, a distinctly labour-socialist perspective that saw socialism as the best means to check fascism had been marginalized.

• For youth, as well, the threat of war was real and personal. As J.S. Woodsworth noted towards the end of the decade, there was a particularly “vigorous opposition” among CCF youth over the issue of participation in war.55 If the labour-socialist currents in and around the CCF were rooted in the generation of 1919, the life and the future of socialism was dependent on a new wave of youth radicalized by the cataclysms, real and potential, of the 1930s. The CCF recognized this from the outset and attempted to attract young people to the new movement, with decidedly mixed results. Across the country and among affiliates, success rates differed, as did attitudes towards engaging with youth. In keeping with the patterns described above, the activities of the Communists in constructing what was, arguably, the most successful popular front organization of the decade, the Canadian Youth Congress (CYC), forced the CCF to take youth work more seriously and shaped the experiences both of the “adult” organization and of the next generation of socialists. When the CCF was formed, several of the affiliates, particularly the more established ones such as the farmers’ organizations, had youth sections.56 They were quickly cobbled together in the Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement (CCYM).57 For the most part, groups faithfully reflected the views of their adult sponsors. So, the youth sections of labour-socialist organizations, like the Manitoba ILP’s Young Labour Federation, spoke in a labour-socialist anti-capitalist tone, declaring that it “believes that such a system is not to be patched but abolished.” An essay written by a member of the Fort Rouge branch of the Young Labour Federation in Winnipeg opined that “war is an essential instrument of Capitalism,” while a comrade from the Workmen’s Circle Youth Club celebrated “one of the greatest experiments of the world … taking place in Russia.”58 Similarly, the two initial youth groups in British Columbia, the Co-operative Commonwealth Youth and the Young Socialist League, were relatively faithful reproductions of, respectively, the Associated CCF Clubs and the SPC, although they were not formally connected to these groups and had some of their own features. Although the Young Socialist League was more sympathetic to

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participating in popular front movements, there was little to slow the eventual fusion of the two groups in 1935. Predictably, the CCYM developed more slowly in Ontario, given the challenges facing the CCF in that province, but had organized thirty-three branches by 1935; the largest was in the labour-socialist hotbed of East York.59 Like the Ontario CCF itself, the CCYM in the province included some individuals who, despite their young age, had considerable socialist and/or union experience, including Felix Lazarus (who had also been active in the Young Peoples’ Socialist League in the United States) and meatpacker Eamon Park, as well as young university students.60 In Quebec, the handful of groups that emerged were English speaking and closely associated with the LSR, reflecting the failure of the CCF to develop a workingclass membership in that province. Membership fluctuated greatly, although the Communist Youth League’s estimate of a national CCYM membership of three thousand to four thousand members in 1935 is probably not far off the mark.61 What were the youth groups supposed to do? There were, perhaps, class-specific views on this question that overlapped in practice. Cer­ tainly the farmer and labour-socialist traditions had seen membership in youth groups as an apprenticeship through which young people could develop the knowledge and skills necessary for participation in the adult political movement. As education was at the core of laboursocialist practice, and as it was an appropriate activity for youth, education emerged as the central focus of the CCYM. Learning was taken seriously and, in the tradition of the SPC, was often tested. Future union organizer Eileen (Sufrin) Tallman remembers the intensity of education and debate in the CCYM: “From the start, the study of Marx, Lenin,  Trotsky and the various European influences formed a background which we felt impelled to explore.”62 When it came to education, CCYMers compared themselves favourably with their CCF elders, particularly in Ontario, where self-education had fallen off as purges weakened the labour-socialist wing of the party.63 At the same time, it is appropriate to view the CCYM in the context of the proliferation of interwar middle-class youth movements whose aim was to shape the experience of youth through various kinds of sports and cultural events under the supervision of adults.64 In such a view, they were not yet prepared for the adult world of politics. Gra­ ham Spry, for instance, was wary that youth were “inclined to be impatient and impulsive” and hoped “to keep the impetuosity of the younger iconoclasts on an even keel.”65 Even more explicitly, the Manitoba



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CCYM’s activities were limited to recreation and education; political  activity was restricted to the “senior organization,” meaning the CCF.66 The B.C. Young Socialist League declared itself “non-political, being wholly for study and recreation.”67 As in other provinces, CCFidentified youth attended concerts, played sports, and organized educational events in the evening or week-long camps in the summertime. This was pretty thin gruel to young people who sought action and, not surprisingly, the “immediate struggles” engaged in by the popular front held some obvious attractions. The Communists, and in particular the Young Communist League, had specifically appealed to younger people from the outset through the Youth Congress Against War and Fascism in Toronto in the summer of 1934, which had attracted considerable support and featured National CCYM leader T.C. Douglas as one of its keynote speakers.68 Out of this congress emerged the Canadian Youth Congress, which attracted not just youth members of left-wing political organizations, but church groups, athletic clubs, and various social organizations. Delegates at the first national meeting of the CYC in May 1935 represented 162,000 young people; the 500 delegates the following year represented “well over” 750,000. This was an astoundingly broad youth movement. Its importance was reflected in the fact that its first national congress was addressed by representatives of all the national political parties, including J.S. Woodsworth and CP leader Tim Buck.69 While liberal and left organizations predominated, Junior Chambers of Commerce and Young Conservatives also affiliated. Still, socialists were dominant, as is revealed in the fact that, with only eight dissenting votes, mostly Social Crediters, the 1935 congress passed resolutions condemning capitalism and blamed it for the scourge of war.70 Still, the CYC was a popular front organization, with all that implied. Across the country, some CCYM groups were eager participants; others were deeply uninterested. Among those who were engaged with the CYC and hoped that it would take an explicitly anti-capitalist stance, there were frustrations. In 1936, a CCYM resolution calling for social planning, socialization of industry and finance, and the encouragement of cooperatives as alternatives to capitalism, was defeated at the CYC convention.71 The nature of the problem was evident across the country, as in a debate between Alberta CCYM vice-president Tom Roberts, who wanted the CYC to take more explicitly socialist positions, and Gertrude Gillander, secretary of the Alberta CYC, who had recently recruited the Junior United Farmers of Alberta to the CYC and wanted to distance the CYC from its initial reputation as a “red breeding ground.”72 She,

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and the Young Communist League, measured the CYC’s success by its inclusiveness, not by its politics. The CYC tested the limits of popular front inclusiveness, even to absurd limits, as when the Communists supported the seating of delegates from the Canadian Union of Fascists.73 A more challenging debate occurred in 1937, when the annual congress was held in Montreal. The Quebec delegation, comprising mostly Catholic youth organizations, put forward a list of demands as a precondition to their participation. The CYC was to condemn all “subversive doctrines, affirm the existence of God, declare the right of individuals to private property, and seek social peace between social classes.”74 Responding to such demands posed serious pitfalls for the CCYM and for the CCF as a whole, exposing the tensions that the CCF had faced in organizing in Quebec. The CCYM and the Young Communist League caucused together in order to determine a response. The latter won the day, and the CYC acceded to the demands, a decision lauded by the CP’s newspaper. The following year, recognizing the stakes, the CCF leadership, specifically Angus MacInnis and David Lewis, took hold of the situation. MacInnis, concerned that “doctrinaire” members of the CCYM would alienate potential CCF support in Quebec, argued against forcing “resolutions on pure socialism” through the CYC. Lewis agreed, as he felt that many in the CCYM were perceived as “cantankerous and doctrinaire” by church groups and other CYC participants whom the CCF hoped to attract. Lewis managed to get himself appointed as a delegate to the CYC congress, despite his key role in the “adult” CCF organization. He argued that a general statement on socialism was beside the point; the goal was to focus on specific issues, particularly around foreign policy, where common ground could be found. Not only could CCF electoral fortunes otherwise be damaged among nonsocialists across Canada, but also both the CCF and CCYM were cognizant, in 1938, that Quebec offered a valuable reservoir of anti-war sentiment. With much at stake, the CCYM delegates were convinced to bite their tongues.75 This was somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory, as the vague politics of the CYC relegated it to marginal interest or utility for most of those in the CCYM. In regions of considerable labour-socialist strength, the CYC was relatively weak. In British Columbia political youth organizations, with the exception of the Young Communist League, abandoned the CYC.76 The B.C. CCYM denounced the CYC for its support of the League of Nations – the “League of Capitalist Governments” – and



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declared that workers had nothing in common with with such governments or their hypocrisy. In Ontario, despite the relative health of the CYC, the CCYM largely drifted away from it for similar reasons.77 On the other hand, those local CCYMs whose pacifism led them to a high degree of activity in the anti-war movement tended to maintain their connection with the CYC. In Saskatchewan, for instance, CCF pacifist activist Carlyle King played a leading role in the provincial CYC, which was, unlike sections in other parts of the country, growing towards the end of the decade.78 Other provincial sections of the CCYM were also anti-war but tended to emphasize a revolutionary opposition to imperialism more than pacifism. (There were some exceptions to this generalization; the North Toronto CCYM, for example, suggested that the CCF apply for conscientious objector status.79) In 1938, the Ontario CCYM convention determined that, if “Canada is involved in another imperialist war, the youth movement of the CCF will refuse to enlist, be conscripted, or engage in any war activities.”80

• Opposing the approaching war would require broad alliances, which explains, in part, the CCYM interest in the CYC. But fundamentally, the CCF had to determine not only its own attitude towards the war but also the strategy it would take if it chose to oppose it actively. The popular front years had done little to clarify the CCF position. Rather it had exposed differences within the CCF over working with the Commu­ nists, working with liberals, and allying with the Soviet Union, as well as over the best means of challenging fascism. Leading the CCF increasingly meant avoiding these debates, as the differences transected the federation at all levels. Certainly, a notion of war as an inherent byproduct of capitalism remained at the bedrock of labour-socialist, and CCF, understanding. But the specific responses to world and national events were not always consistent with this belief and alternative approaches could only expose fissures in the CCF. For the time being, it was possible to evade this problem to some extent – at least until the war broke out. Still, there was a broad sentiment within the CCF that it was necessary to challenge the march towards war. A 1936 national CCF convention’s resolution on “Foreign Policy and World Peace” was clearly rooted in a labour-socialist understanding of war as a product of capitalism. It condemned the “present” League of Nations as a tool of

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imperialist governments and called for collective security provided by a “properly organized League of Nations.” Until such an organization was in place, the CCF would support Canadian neutrality in the case of war.81 The resolution passed overwhelmingly, but pressures on the CCF and its policy would grow. On the basis of the 1936 resolution, and citing an initiative started by Alberta CCFer William Irvine in December 1936, the national CCF undertook a campaign to “Take the Profits Out of War.”82 This idea could potentially appeal widely without actually having to address divisive issues.83 It addressed, vaguely, the sense that the profit system was at the root of the drift to war, and it referenced the deep alienation that had fed the 1919 uprising, the feeling that capitalists had profited from the massive human tragedy while working people had paid and died. At the same time, it said little specifically about Britain, the Soviet Union, the League of Nations, or collective security. But it provided an activity: petitions to take the profits out of war collected tens of thousands of signatures, and the CCF’s pamphlet Why Armaments? was widely distributed.84 The campaign provided a focus for youth groups: David Lewis was always ready to suggest anti-armament organizing as a central activity.85 It gave the CCF a national presence on the issue, as  an Anti-Armament Week was held across the country from 8 to 13 March 1937 under the slogan “Bread, Not Bullets.”86 The campaign was generally consistent with the official CCF position of opposition to imperialist war. What the campaign did not do was to address the issue of what to do  if a war broke out. Despite general support for neutrality, debate soon began to simmer. Perhaps not surprisingly, fissures opened up along existing fault lines. In Saskatchewan, George Williams led the charge against the national CCF’s position, especially as enunciated by Saskatchewan MP M.J. Coldwell. Williams refused to allow Why Arma­ ments? to be circulated in Saskatchewan and subsequently refused to share a stage with King Gordon if he was going to speak on “Pacifism and Neutrality.” He cited a speech by Coldwell as an example of the “clear cut Pacifism” that was being propounded. “My son is 21 years old and physically fit in every way,” Coldwell had told a Toronto audience. “I taught him that war was wrong, and this Christmas, when we were discussing his future, he came to me voluntarily and said that I could rely upon one thing, and that was his determination to go to jail before enlisting. If only other Canadian youths would adopt a similar policy, Canada could never be brought into another war no matter what



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Government might be in power in Ottawa.”87 Williams argued that campaigning against war was one thing, but “peace at any price” was neither the general sentiment of the CCF nor politically palatable in Canada. In fact, given the response of Williams and much of the CCF to the Spanish Civil War, there was a widespread sentiment that the time might well come when it was necessary to fight fascism. It was this sentiment that drew Williams (for a time) and others into the politics of the popular front.88 Quite the opposite reaction was provoked a few months later, when the CCF national council endorsed the boycott of Japan.89 The main source of opposition was from within the B.C. CCF, which had overwhelmingly defeated its popular front minority at its July 1937 provincial convention and had voted in favour of a resolution stating “that Canada remain neutral in any imperialist war in which Great Britain may be involved.”90 In editorials in the Federationist, George Weaver explained that the boycott was a precursor to war. He pointed to the boycott of German and Austrian goods at the outset of the Great War and the subsequent opposition to German art and science to explain that, more than an economic weapon, such actions fed war hysteria.91 One contributor’s response was fascinating both in its argument and language, pointing to some of the complexity that would become apparent when war did finally come. Carefully eschewing any hint of either militarism or pacifism, this contribution to the Federationist defended the boycott by arguing that the analogy to 1914 no longer held because of the expansion of class struggle. The examples of the international response (or non-response, in the case of the “democracies”) to the Spanish Civil War and the threats to the Soviet Union demonstrate that class struggle had spilled over the banks of the nation state.92 In response, Weaver urged a class-conscious wariness about the motives of capitalist governments. Whatever the alignment of nations at the moment, their goals are not collective security but “imperial security.”93 Despite Weaver’s clarity, the B.C. CCF was split. The provincial executive did, according to the Federationist, support the national council’s boycott campaign at the beginning of November 1937. A.M. Stephen publicly celebrated the decision, but that was hardly the end of it, as the provincial CCF, and its executive, continued to fight over the issue through the month.94 Meanwhile, CCFers continued to write letters to their provincial paper, asking their comrades to “think twice” before supporting boycotts and sanctions that “seems to be a mild declaration of war which may lead to unpleasant consequences in the

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future.”95 Over some objection, the B.C. CCF followed Woodsworth’s suggestion and organized a mass meeting in support of sanctions.96 Elsewhere, there was more support for the boycott, despite continued concern about both the League of Nations and the march towards war. Presumably, it was fed by a desire to do something, short of supporting war, to counter fascism and imperial aggression. Already, the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council was active in boycotting German and Japanese goods.97 There, the CCF was able to play a leading role in  organizing a mass meeting at the Walker Theatre, chaired by Woodsworth, with speakers from the United Church, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Winnipeg’s CYC-affiliated Youth Council, the Trades and Labour Council, the Chinese Patriotic League, and the Communist Party.98 The players were the same as those in the popular front movements that Woodsworth condemned. Clear­ ly there had been some convergence, although one that could not be sustained as war approached. In Ontario, there appeared to be less opposition to the boycott and embargo of Japan; former SPCers were more sympathetic to the popular front, while those labour socialists who remained in the CCF were less organized or vocal on the issue.99 Support for the boycott did not imply an uncritical view of the League  of Nations or the wholesale abandonment of the ideas that capitalism caused wars and that only the working class could stop the march towards war. But there was little in this understanding about the causes of war that provided clear guidance in responding to international crises such as appeasement at Munich.100 At its 1938 national convention, the CCF largely retreated from participation in campaigns such as boycotts and adopted a stance that Frank Scott characterized as almost “a purely isolationist position.”101 By the end of 1938, the B.C. CCF provincial council was not far off base when it passed a motion instructing the provincial executive to address the “present vacillating foreign policy” of the party.102 Although the CCF tended to dither over specific policies, hoping to stay true to its principles while appearing relevant in policy debates, it collectively despaired at the prospect of war and its consequences, both for working people and for the cause of socialism. Its fear was highlighted in a two-page spread in the New Commonwealth in October 1938 by Carol Coburn, a young columnist (and soon-to-be editor of the paper), entitled “How Another World War Might Bring Fascism to Great Britain.” Coburn pointed to the vulnerabilities of the empire and noted that international trade and finance sustained British capitalism.



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Oppression facilitated by the Defence of the Realm Act, and propaganda against “bolshies and pacifists,” had already permeated the country. Pointing to centralized political and economic control and special powers allotted the state, Coburn argued that a “democracy at war is scar­ cely distinguishable from a Fascist state, and the measures adopted during wartime need only be continued in peace to constitute a complete transition to actual Fascism!”103 This illustrated the dilemma facing labour socialists: they deeply understood the threat of fascism, but allying with “their” capitalists to fight it was both counterproductive and dangerous. Yet, working-class forces were divided and therefore difficult to mobilize. And the clock was ticking.

• The iconic moment in September 1939 when J.S. Woodsworth stood in the House of Commons to voice his opposition to Canadian participation in the Second World War is a staple of Canadian history. It is used to paint Woodsworth as a singular figure in the CCF–NDP hagiography: having constructed a national political movement, he became a lonely and doomed voice of moral outrage and religious pacifism – in short, a “saint in politics.”104 Ironically, although his statement focused attention on him, such characterizations ascribe to Woodsworth too much significance. Woodsworth was less central to the CCF than he was later portrayed to be. He had, of course, been in Parliament for almost two decades by this point and was, as well, the CCF parliamentary leader. But the CCF arose from a wellspring of class-based dissent to become a diverse and balkanized organization in which Woodsworth featured, in many ways, as a figurehead. In fact, Woodsworth is surprisingly absent from the organizational records of the CCF. Only with the appointment of David Lewis as national secretary in 1935, and perhaps only once Lewis took on that position full time in 1938, was there a “centre” that attempted to intervene in quotidian matters across the country. Moreover, Woodsworth’s was far from a “lonely path.”105 His opposition to the war was widely supported in the CCF, even if somewhat less so on the national council and in his caucus. As we have seen, the fight against imperialist war was a tenet of labour socialism throughout the CCF’s history. Few doubted that the coming war was of that character, although specific aspects – the plague of fascism and the desire to defend the gains of the Soviet Union – potentially eroded the unanimity of opinion in the CCF.

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And what of Woodsworth’s “pacifism”? Is that an accurate description of the federation’s resistance to the war? Overall, for the CCF, it was not, although there were some exceptions. Carlyle King, an English professor at the University of Saskatchewan represented, in his own words, “absolute” pacifism. For this reason, he migrated from membership in the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order (the membership of which overlapped significantly with the LSR) to founding and leading the “strictly pacifist” Fellowship of Reconstruction in the spring of 1939.106 A handful of CCFers, mostly middle-class members such as Stanley Knowles, followed this route.107 Such pacifism did not isolate them from the CCF as a whole, even as war began. King, for instance, ran against the more pro-war Williams for leadership of the Saskat­ chewan CCF in 1940, winning a third of the vote, and was chosen as CCF provincial president in 1945. Some other pacifists in the CCF, as we have seen in our discussion of the League Against War and Fascism, were allied to the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Nonetheless, the language of pacifism was not generally the argot of the left, or of the CCF. For the most part, CCFers spoke the anti-­ imperialist language of labour socialism – a language they shared, significantly, with the British Independent Labour Party, which continued to oppose the “imperialist” conflict in September 1939.108 Only around the issue of conscription, which was of particular interest to youth, of course, was the issue of moral opposition to war in general raised. Carlyle King, reporting on debates within the peace commission of the Saskatchewan Youth Congress, notes that one current (with which he no doubt sympathized) defended “the right of individual conscience” to decide how to respond to the call to arms.109 Even Woodsworth eschewed speaking in pacifist tones to CCF audiences. Indeed, Allen Mills questions the depth of Woodsworth’s pacifism: “A curious observer of Woodsworth’s politics might have concluded in, say, 1935 that in the event of an eventual war against fascism Woodsworth would not necessarily have chosen personal non-violence and national non-­ involvement.”110 Whether this is true or not, Woodsworth chose to oppose Canadian participation in the war in 1939, presumably on both pacifist and anti-imperialist grounds. Significantly, however, it was overwhelmingly on the latter basis that Woodsworth argued his position within the CCF. Whatever his personal feelings, an analysis of the war that posited that it was an inter-imperialist conflict would have traction among a labour-socialist audience.



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The specific response to the declaration of war in 1939 would be decided by the CCF’s national council, where the discussion was almost entirely along anti-imperialist lines. After Woodsworth alluded to his “Christianity” and opposition to all wars, and Frank Scott commented that “Hitler was the product of Europe,” neither pacifism nor isolationism was on the table.111 Rather, the discussion focused on the class character of the war, and how a working-class movement ought to respond. M.J. Coldwell’s memory of the discussion at the national council very much reflects the discourse that was consistent with the CCF’s historical understanding of war, revealing as well some of the fissures that had been developing since the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War: Before the meeting, I was well aware of the fact that Mr. Williams and some of his Saskatchewan supporters were for all-out participation in the war, even to the extent of agreeing to the conscription of manpower. On the other hand, non-participation was very strong in British Columbia and Manitoba. A great deal of time was spent in discussing the causes of the war crisis. So keen was the discussion that, at one stage, the leader of the Party in Manitoba moved a resolution to the effect that the Council should refuse to discuss any measure that would put Canada into the war. The motion was seconded by Mr. Woodsworth, who argued that all the known facts clearly placed the developing war into a category of an imperialist struggle and that to support the war would be to disobey Convention resolutions on foreign policy.112

Not only was Woodsworth’s argument entirely based on anti-­imperialist grounds, Coldwell’s recollection was that the strongest bases of opposition to Canadian participation in the war came from the two provincial labour-socialist strongholds: British Columbia and Manitoba. The provincial leaders in both provinces had met and decided to oppose military participation in the war.113 Despite some differences of both program and style – the SPC’s more explicit Marxism remained a core value of the B.C. CCF while the Manitoba ILP tradition seemed more intent on electoral success – they transmitted the core values of the labour-socialist tradition. They also shared a rejection of the popular front and the compromises that it brought, as well as a suspicion of middle-class socialisms. Those who argued, as did George Williams, in favour of Canadian involvement were swimming against the main

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current of labour-socialist and, hence, CCF thought. Again, there was nothing particularly “lonely” about Woodsworth’s struggle. The debate on the national council, and subsequently in the CCF as a whole, however, did not generally divide along provincial or what participants would have characterized as “class lines” (although the fact that Coldwell remembered it as such speaks to common assumptions of the time). Certainly Manitoba’s Stanley Knowles and S.J. Farmer were strong supporters of Woodsworth’s anti-war position, as were Grant MacNeil and Dorothy Steeves from British Columbia. But opposition to the war also came from other quarters, such as LSR members Frank Underhill and Frank Scott, as well as Chester Ronning of Alberta, also an academic, and Lorna Cotton-Thomas, who had a PhD in economics. CCF national organizer Ted Garland, one of the original members of the Ginger Group from Alberta, also supported Woodsworth. This group, however diverse, speaks to the character of the national leadership of the CCF (and particularly of this meeting, which was opened to CCF MPs and visitors, mostly from LSR circles in Ontario and Quebec). As we have seen, the leadership was relatively top-heavy with academics and others who would be considered middle class and, in several cases, were quite marginal to the old labour and Socialist Party traditions that fed the labour-socialist currents.114 In more bourgeois venues, such as Maclean’s magazine or the Cana­ dian Institute for International Affairs, the LSR members tended to make essentially isolationist arguments similar to arguments put forth by many of the Liberal Party establishment, appealing to Canadian ­independence and specifically Canadian interests.115 Within the CCF, though, the topic was class. As Frank Underhill rhetorically asked, “Why should we ally ourselves with all the capitalists in this country to bring about democracy, with the McCullaghs, Drew, Hepburn, and the Financial Post. All these people are getting into the war with both feet.”116 Frank Scott added, along the lines of Carol Coburn’s argument in the New Commonwealth, that, “fascism will come quicker by participation. They [capitalists] will use the war to create an instrument of class government.”117 Lorna Cotton-Thomas, who had been a particular target of the left in the Ontario CCF, agreed entirely: the “ultimate victor is fascism either British or German fascism. There is not much choice between the two. We have no faith in the peace which would come out of Chamberlain and his like.”118 Manitoba MLA S.J. Farmer dismissed the notion that the CCF had to support the war in order to be able to shape the postwar future. Stanley Knowles went even further, arguing



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that the CCF’s credibility was at stake: “After the war is over, if we have given our consent to it we will never be looked upon as a movement that meant something else.”119 Not only was opposition to the war substantial within the leadership, it was voiced, at least within the party, in explicitly anti-imperialist terms, with little hint of isolationism or pacifism. CCF national vice-Chairman and MP Grant MacNeil, who was wounded in the First World War and was a past national secretary-treasurer of the Great War Veterans Association, was blunt on this: his support of Woodsworth’s opposition to the war did not make him a pacifist.120 Equally notable, those who argued that the CCF should support the war effort did not disagree with the basic assumptions of their opponents on the national council. George Williams acknowledged that “the war is an outcome of capitalism,” and that fascism, were it to come to Canada, would as likely be homegrown, the product of “big business” here, as a German import. Ted Jolliffe, who also supported participation, did not disagree, but argued that “a lot of people think this is a war against Hitlerism, against aggression and not an imperialist war.”121 Given the circumstances, some sort of compromise was warranted. Tommy Douglas declared that he had lost his pacifism in 1936 in Europe, where he “saw a group of people living under the Swastika.” He concluded that “a new force is at work in the world.”122 And, as David Lewis stated towards the end of the discussion, as “a socialist and not a pacifist,” he felt a duty to the workers of Britain and France in their struggles against fascism.123 Angus MacInnis, as an “international socialist,” echoed this call to solidarity.124 Even Williams saw in the CCF’s reluctance to support the war a class prejudice, declaring some months afterwards that “the thing that boils me up about the ‘Intelligentsia’ group in the East is their continuous attempt to foist upon the C.C.F. an Isolationist policy.”125 Both isolationism and the intelligentsia were deemed to be alien impositions upon a working-class political movement. This was a challenging debate for the national council, but one based entirely on issues that had nagged at the CCF for several years. At its root was the ability of those whose world view had been framed by labour socialism to see different facets of the war. It was, at the same time, a continuation of the first imperialist world war and a war against fascism, and it was (or would become) a war to defend the Soviet Union. What is significant about the debate is the proletarian reference points that everyone used to formulate their arguments.

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Issues of anti-imperialism and proletarian solidarity were raised and often embraced. But, as we will see, during the war, this language was less available to those who were still engaged in the debate, and it became framed as one about pacifism. As a consequence, following the war, scholars continued to reframe the debate. This was true not only of Woodsworth’s stance, which has generally been perceived simply as “pacifist,” but that of his supporters as well. For example, S.J. Farmer’s role at the meeting has been termed “pacifist” by the main scholar of the Manitoba CCF.126 Even among those who argued for and against participation in the war, there were points of agreement. Comments about the untrust­ worthiness of the British government went entirely unchallenged. Combined with the bad taste left over from the previous war, which was, purportedly, to defend democracy, the character of the British Conservative Party inspired little confidence that the motivation, or the goals, of the British government were defensible. Similarly, the CCF leaders were adamant that the federation not be drawn into a national government, as had the British Labour Party under Ramsay MacDonald. A notion of working-class independence continued to underpin the discussions. References to Britain were important, both because of ­ Canadian labour-socialist, and LSR, ideological orientations to the British left, and because, of course, Britain was on the front line of the emerging war in Europe. No small part was played by the arrival of a telegram from the British Labour Party urging support. Coldwell felt that “this message, undoubtedly, reinforced the members of the party who supported Canada’s participation in the war” and perhaps shifted the balance away from Woodsworth.127 What finally emerged was a “compromise,” proposed by the B.C. provincial council, that was rooted in the recognition that the war was a reality and the desire to limit its effects in Canada. The CCF opposed an expeditionary force and decided to focus its energies on defending civil liberties and working-class interests in Canada during the war and on the character of the post-war world that would emerge. David Lewis felt that no compromise had been made. The position of the CCF was still opposed to Canadians fighting in Europe. He added, “The CCF is the only party that has had the courage to say that no young Canadian shall go overseas to fight the battles of Chamberlain and his ilk.”128 Still, the council did commit the CCF to a policy of supporting the allied war effort in other ways. This was, famously, too much for Woodsworth, who declared in the House of Commons his unwillingness to accede to such a policy.



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• What about the CCF as a whole? As we have seen, those who debated the issue on the national council might represent the federation, but they were hardly reflective of it. For the most part, the country and the CCF saw the national council decision for what it was, the abandonment of CCF opposition to war. For the moment, the federal Liberal government was proposing no more than the CCF was willing to offer: financial support for the British government. Newspapers construed the national council’s statement as indicating that the CCF had swung behind Prime Minister Mackenzie King on the issue of the war, a stance that was disavowed only by J.S. Woodsworth.129 It is difficult to measure CCFers’ feelings about the war because the membership never had a chance to have the kind of debate that occurred on the national council. Many voiced their support by writing to Woodsworth, who received a storm of letters in support, “some 225” by early October.130 A notable feature of the few letters that remain in the CCF papers is that they consistently praise Woodsworth’s actions as a socialist and anti-imperialist; there is no mention of pacifism. A Regina correspondent wrote with sadness “that not more members of the C.C.F. share your views & are divided between the socialist principle of condemning an imperialist war & so called patriotic feeling towards the mother country who leads us blindly to destruction.” A letter from Vancouver reads: “Your stand on war (the true Socialist stand) is approved and appreciated by all informed & class-conscious workers. As an old comrade I salute and thank you.” The latter correspondent felt that the CCF’s statement on equality of sacrifice and the conscription of wealth was simply a face-saving strategy while it capitulated to war mongering.131 Six months after the war began, the Trotskyists, in an internal discussion, concluded that the CCF continued to find “itself torn in two between the existing Coldwell leadership which supports the war ‘economically,’ and the overwhelming sections of the membership which support Woodsworth’s … position.” They noted that the CCYM “are bitterly opposed to the war and seek support against the Coldwell leadership.”132 While scattered evidence supports this assessment, the rapid imposition of wartime censorship (and, no doubt, self-censorship) makes it difficult to gauge attitudes of CCFers and of other Canadians. Ted Jolliffe, for one, observed “an attitude of stony indifference” to the war, particularly in the wake of the Defence of Canada Regulations (DOCR), the effect of which “has been to silence the anti-war feeling which

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undoubtedly exists.”133 This was felt directly in the CCF itself. The minutes of an apparently raucous Ontario provincial council meeting on 17  September 1939 are missing from an otherwise complete file.134 More­over, fear of repression led to the destruction of most of the useful material on the issue. As David Lewis wrote Frank Scott at the end of November 1939, “Coldwell informs me that G.W. [George Williams] destroyed in his presence all that correspondence [related to the war].” He added, “I have therefore done it here and will you do the same.”135 Symptomatic of the caution that swept over the CCF was the refusal of its printing house to print Socialist Action, the organ of the Socialist Workers’ League (SWL), a descendant of the Workers’ Party of Canada, because, according to the SWL, “of its Marxist stand against the new imperialist war.”136 The CCF did privately come to the aid of Trotskyist Frank Watson, who had received a six-month sentence and $300 fine for criticizing the war in defiance of the DOCR, by appealing to the minister of justice (and some, such as Eugene Forsey spoke up publicly), but the net effect of such repression was caution.137 David Lewis advised CCF members not to discuss the causes of the war.138 To a great extent, the analysis of the war as a consequence of capitalism and inter-imperialist rivalry was snuffed out, paving the way for a postwar retelling of the debate as one of pacifism or isolationism. Nonetheless, CCF debates were not immediately silenced. The national council’s decision was a difficult pill to swallow in many quarters, and Ted Jolliffe worried that the fissures in the CCF would result in an open split.139 From Vancouver, provincial secretary Bert Gargrave reported anger with the national council’s position, adding that “general dissatisfaction is running very high, and there is no predicting the outcome.”140 That British Columbia was a centre of opposition to the national council’s concessions was predictable from its history. At the end of August 1939, “7 or 8” federal candidates had met with the provincial executive to urge that body to make a statement that the approaching international conflict was an imperialist war and “that we should have nothing to do with it.”141 Gargrave subsequently reported that he had had an extremely difficult task convincing the provincial executive that the national council’s statement “was the only one under the circumstances.” Indeed, the statement was adopted by a vote of five to four “after a lengthy and acrimonious debate.” He opined that it would have been easier to get the provincial executive to support Woodsworth’s position, had it been adopted by the national council.142 Convincing the membership would be even harder. The Penticton,



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Saanich, and Renfrew CCF Clubs all attempted to organize to overturn the national council’s decision in favour of Woodsworth’s “anti-­ imperialist” stance.143 Dorothy Steeves denounced the imperialist character of the war to a CCF mass meeting at the end of September.144 Order in the B.C. CCF was maintained by some heavy handedness, as the national council’s position on the war was accepted by the provincial council only after the members of the executive voted as a bloc in favour of it. This was despite the fact that the provincial organizer (Colin Cameron), the provincial secretary (Bert Gargrave), and the editor of the Federationist (Barry Mather) all supported Woodsworth’s position. The executive had been convinced to vote as a bloc in spite of their personal views because the unity, and the future, of the B.C. CCF appeared to be at stake. They did allow a motion to be passed stating admiration for Woodsworth’s courage.145 Still, the animosities lingered. In April 1940, Angus MacInnis resigned from the national council, citing the ongoing lack of support he felt for himself, and for the official CCF position, on the part of other B.C. representatives to the council.146 In Ontario, members of the provincial executive saw the national council’s position as something that had to be sold to the membership, and they fanned out across the province to do just that. What they discovered was a deeply divided movement. But it was also a movement that was resigned to forces that it did not seem able to stop. A surprising number of CCFers both opposed the national council’s position and chose not to make an issue of it. For instance, the Humbercrest CCF unanimously passed the following motion: Whereas the National Council of the C.C.F. has issued a statement relative to the present crisis; Be it therefore resolved that the Humbercrest C.C.F. Club regrets that the National Council did not take a stand in accordance with the principles as set out in the Manifesto, namely, unqualified opposition to capitalist and imperialist wars. However, this club, being desirous of maintaining unity within the movement, is prepared to loyally support the National Council’s decision.147

Organizer E.J. Garland reported exactly the same feelings in Chapleau and Fort William, where “quite a number of members expressed strong appreciation of the stand taken by Mr. Woodsworth but believed that we should hold the movement together at all costs.”148 The animosities that could develop were reflected in the Garland CCF Club, where

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the national council faced opposition from both sides: George Grube reported that a minority, prompted by Earle Birney (“who is of course known to be a Trotskyist”), denounced the national council’s capitulation to the warmongers; however, a large majority was quite pro-war and supported conscription.149 Perhaps the strongest and most consistent criticism of the national council’s position came from the youth. The Ontario CCYM, led by Eileen Tallman, continued to press for complete non-participation in the war, resisting pressure to toe the line. Woodsworth was moved to defend them from what he perceived to be badgering by the CCF national leadership, a charge that David Lewis denied.150 For the moment, though, the CCYM focused on building an anti-conscription campaign with “economic and pacifist” groups in Ontario, a campaign that was consistent with the national council’s statements.151 The reaction on the prairies was marked by dissent as well. In Manitoba, there were some differences of interpretation over the ILP’s stance, but a majority lined up behind A.A. Heaps’s pro-war position, renewing conflict with the provincial CCF, which supported the more moderate position of the national council.152 (It should be noted that the new provincial organizer, Stanley Knowles, opposed the war.) Perhaps the most volatile province was Saskatchewan, where a strong anti-war movement in the Saskatoon CCF, led by Carlyle King, confronted provincial leader George Williams, who was singularly adamant in his support for military participation in the war.153 In 1940, he challenged anti-war CCFers to run against him for provincial leader if they disapproved of his stand. King took up the challenge, receiving an impressive 35 per cent of the vote against the established leader, a tally, he concluded, that “is not a bad showing for war-time.”154 It is worth noting, though, that Williams did agree with the national council that the CCF not enter a national government, as “the war was fundamentally caused by the ineptitude of capitalist politicians by attempting trade and political domination.”155 Williams and other CCFers were determined that the CCF have an independent voice during the war. What this voice would say, however, would shift.

• While there were occasional echoes of the differences over the national council’s statement, the CCF adapted itself to the war. As CCF leaders argued and no doubt many members felt, whatever one’s own opinion



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about the conflict, once war was declared a new set of issues emerged. If CCFers were to have an impact on the kind of society that would exist during the war and emerge after it, their organization had to remain intact and effective. This sentiment was reinforced by the CCF’s organizational weakness in 1939; an air of defeatism clearly hung over the movement. It was on this basis that many had gone along with the national council statement despite their misgivings. The CCF’s response to the war was shaped by the experience of the last war. That this history was explicitly on the minds of CCFers was reflected in an article demanding the “conscription of wealth,” which was written by Elmer Roper of Alberta and was published in both the B.C. and Manitoba CCF newspapers. In it he spoke about the weaknesses of Canadian working-class political organizations during the last war and the collapse of the Second International in Europe. The working-class explosions at the end of the First World War had been the result of frustrations over the uneven burden of war, as workers saw themselves facing inflation, profiteering, and restrictions on civil liberties during the war, and political impotence in its aftermath, as capitalists aimed to return to the oppressive antebellum social conditions.156 This time, by contrast, there was a party, the CCF, with seven years’ experience as a national voice of workers and socialists.157 What­ ever individual CCFers felt about the present war, there was unanimity that workers would have to struggle in order to prevent capitalists from taking advantage of the war emergency and to ensure that this time a better world would emerge from the cataclysm – one that would not lead to future wars. Differences within the CCF, then, were overcome not so much by debate, as by distraction, as members put themselves on a war footing to fight for “equality of sacrifice” and the maintenance of civil liberties. The CCF certainly had a presence that no single working-class political organization had enjoyed in 1914. In 1938, it bragged that it had 6 members of Parliament, 24 members of provincial legislatures, and, according to David Lewis, 1,200 elected municipal officers spread (unevenly, as we have seen) across the country.158 On the other hand, there were clear signs of trouble. Particularly in Ontario, the movement continued to wane. The number of clubs and donations in that province had declined steadily since 1935; membership had fallen from 7,500 to under a thousand.159 Clearly the initial enthusiasm for the movement had declined, but the provincial executive also identified specific problems rooted in the changing nature of the organization – “the effect of

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greater efficiency and discipline” and “the effect of a change in the method of organization from the club system to a riding association system.”160 These were both consequences of “class struggle” in the Ontario section, which, as we have seen, had had the effect of marginalizing labour socialists. Following an exhaustive tour of the province, Harold Winch reported in 1939 “a general feeling of defeatism throughout the movement in Ontario.” Elsewhere, the toehold the CCF had established in Quebec withered with the collapse of the Verdun CCF, the Manitoba ILP-CCF continued to be numerically tiny although electorally significant, and in British Columbia, where the provincial organization was relatively strong, the CCF in Vancouver lost members.161 Only in Saskatchewan was the CCF relatively healthy. The federation seemed to hit its nadir in the late summer and fall of 1939, as a deep financial crisis forced the Ontario CCF to publish its weekly paper, the New Commonwealth, with decreasing regularity, missing two issues in the crucial month of September 1939. By October, it was appearing bi-weekly and by the spring of 1940, less than monthly.162 This is a more significant failure than might be apparent. As Ian McKay has correctly observed, left-wing papers played a key role in the history of Canadian socialism and were often better known than the organizations themselves.163 All of the stable provincial CCF sections had weekly newspapers with significant circulations and wide readership, despite their cost to the organization in terms of money and labour.164 They provided much of the glue that tied the movement together, linked it to potential members, and fuelled the educational meetings and debates that were very much the pulse of the movement. Many factors accounted for the CCF’s weakness in 1939. The great struggles of the latter Bennett years over unemployment, evictions, and the like, had waned. The Communist Party had managed to monopolize much of the imagination and energy of potential militants around such issues as Spain. The CCF had exhausted itself in internal disputes over relations with the CP. And, where it had a largely electoral focus, as in Winnipeg, there was little to compel large numbers of workers to join, even though the party continued to have broad, if rather passive, support in elections. Even when the CP stumbled, the CCF was an ineffective voice. Most especially, in 1939, the CCF had remarkably little of coherence to say about the approaching war, and it was unable to convince potential supporters that it could have much impact on the course of related events. In retrospect, given both the ongoing contest between the CCF



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and CP for working-class support and the desire of the CCF to trumpet its anti-fascist credentials, one would think that the CCF would have had a great deal to say about the infamous volte-face of August 1939, when Germany and the Soviet Union signed the infamous HitlerStalin non-aggression pact. For a large cohort of Communists, recruited to a party that had raised anti-fascism to its central tenet, this was profoundly disorienting. Suddenly, the CP had removed itself as the most consistent voice of anti-fascism, leaving the stage clear for the CCF to both fill this role and attract confused and disillusioned Communists, or at least their sympathizers, to the federation.165 Yet the pages of the CCF newspapers were almost silent on the Communists’ change of policy. Given that the CCF’s own ranks were so divided on the impending war, saying anything would only open fissures. The CP’s reorientation to the new Comintern policy allowed it to replicate, in some ways, the language of the anti-war CCFers, who emphasized the inter-imperialist nature of the contest that pitted Britain and France against Germany. While CCFers might criticize the manner in which the Communists had changed policy – without warning and without debate – they could hardly comment on the content of the change without drawing attention to themselves and airing their own differences in the pages of their press. Silence ensued. In fact, the CCF appeared transfixed on a number of fronts. It had little more to say about the war policies of the established “bourgeois” parties – the Liberals and the Conservatives. And, at the very moment that war was being debated in the CCF, it confronted, yet again, a movement that challenged the CCF’s position as the electoral alternative to the mainstream parties. The New Democracy movement would prove to be a flash in the pan, disappearing almost as quickly as it arose, but the CCF’s response to it revealed much about the challenges facing the CCF and how the party addressed them. New Democracy was devised by W.D. Herridge, a prominent Ottawa lawyer, former Canadian envoy to the United States, and brother-in-law of Prime Minister Bennett. It combined Social Credit and a vague nod to the American New Deal ideas that had impressed Herridge from his time in Washington into an ill-defined “progressivism” that rejected, in his own words, a “slavish adherence to any narrow view of reform.”166 The CCF had no trouble plotting Herridge’s location on their class map. As George Williams opined to David Lewis, “Herridge is in the position of a would-be capitalist reformer, who has been turned down by a capitalist party that does not want reform.”167 For its part, the provincial executive of the

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B.C. CCF unanimously declared New Democracy a capitalist party and therefore automatically to be opposed.168 As we have seen, particularly in the case of Saskatchewan, the Com­ munist Party quickly jumped on board, calling for an electoral popular front that included New Democracy, Social Credit, the CCF, and the CP itself. Lewis observed that, in fact, Herridge had little support beyond the CP and Social Crediters. By 1939, the movement would have been easy to ignore if it were not, perhaps, for the declining fortunes of the CCF, some public confusion over the CCF’s program, and the necessity of differentiating the CCF from such movements without drawing too much attention to them or reigniting the entire popular front debate. In a telling comment, Lewis characterized New Democracy as propagating “the CCF Federal platform minus its socialism” – that is, the kind of reformism around which popular fronts were constructed.169 It seemed possible, if unlikely, that the Herridge idea could take hold and marginalize the struggling CCF, particularly in places like Manitoba, where the relative weakness of the federation’s organization might allow Herridge to build a base.170 Consequently, Lewis urged the CCF to tread carefully. In the end, the Herridge threat proved ephemeral, but it underlined the ongoing challenge that the CCF faced in attempting to maintain a class-defined space in the context of vaguer social reform and popular front movements. As the war approached, Herridge himself adopted an ultra-patriotic, pro-conscription stance, which opened a chasm that differentiated him not only from the CCF and (initially) the Communists, but from Social Credit as well.171 The CCF, then, faced the 1940 federal election with reduced resources, a muted voice on the pressing issue of the war, and, at best, only the façade of party unity. Not surprisingly, given the war emergency, the Liberal government was given a strong mandate to continue in office. In terms of popular vote (which declined slightly) and MPs (which increased by one, to a total of eight), the results suggested stagnation, rather than crisis, for the CCF. Significantly, however, the CCF vote collapsed in Ontario, falling by over 50 per cent, and, while it held steady in British Columbia, that province lost two of its three CCF MPs. Conversely (and interestingly, given the Herridge threat there), support in Saskatchewan grew significantly; five of the eight CCF MPs were elected from that province.172 The CCF’s traditional support was clearly shaken, and, at least in some contests in which the CCF candidate was a known opponent of the war “the British Empire angle was played up to the hilt.” No doubt candidates found it difficult to respond. B.C. CCF



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provincial secretary Herbert Gargrave opined that, in the context of the war, such results were to be expected: “I am sure [our policy] will be more than vindicated once the people get back to sanity.”173 The problem was that, over the next few years, the composition of the CCF’s “people” would change, and their policy concerns would be quite different. The CCF that would emerge from the war would be transformed in a number of crucial ways.

• The war shifted political debate in a variety of ways. Most centrally, war moved the state to centre stage while, at the same time, closing avenues for autonomous political, and particularly extraparliamentary, activity. The Depression had been marked by state inactivity, augmenting arguments that the state, under capitalism, lacked the capacity, and capitalists the will, to address broad issues of production and distribution, let alone the wide range of modern social ills. Labour socialists could point to little more than a combination of government repression and inadequate relief. The state had, of course, been active in the Great War, although in quite specific ways, most notably as a repressive instrument through orders-in-council under the War Measures Act. The same act – and particularly the draconian Defence of Canada Regula­ tions, which were instituted a week before the declaration of war in 1939 – signalled a return to precisely the same kind of regime. Given this history, and a number of immediate detentions under the DOCR, the defence of civil liberties soared to the top of the CCF’s agenda. There was some public activity; the Vancouver CCF organized mass meetings of up to a thousand attendees “to help unite the spontaneous movement which has sprung up in recent weeks for the defense of civil liberties” with speakers from the unions, the United Church, the Youth Council, and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Such meetings tended, also, to voice opposition to an expeditionary force (in keeping with the national council’s statement) and to provide a forum for speakers such as Dorothy Steeves to condemn the imperialist roots of the conflict.174 Well into the war, the CCF continued to publicly aver that “the federal Cabinet has been working secretly to undermine what degree of freedom and democracy is still left to the people at home, and has made still further invasions on civil liberties by the characteristic dictatorial method of arbitrary decree.”175 B.C. Premier Duff Patullo warned that such language would run afoul of the DOCR. Patullo was

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just one of the CCF’s opponents who were quick to seize upon the regulations as a means to threaten the movement. Such constraints potentially threatened the CCF as an electoral movement during the war. For example, in Manitoba, legislation allowed for the removal of DOCR violators from public office.176 Such authoritarianism rallied Canada’s nascent civil libertarians, who had previously organized the Civil Liberties Union around issues such as the Padlock Law. While the civil libertarians sometimes spoke in a public voice – the Montreal branch of the CLU issued a pamphlet entitled “The War and Civil Liberty” – they mostly sought the ear of the influential and the powerful. Historian Arthur Lower remembers that the Winnipeg committee included only about a “score or so of people” but that they “were nearly all well-known members of the community.” In their letter to the prime minister, they claimed to speak for the “intellectual elite” of the country.177 CCF academics (George Grube, Frank Underhill), lawyers (Frank Scott, Andrew Brewin), churchmen (Lloyd Stinson), and even accountants (Alistair Stewart) functioned effortlessly in such circles. As historian Ross Lambertson recounts, there was little national coordination of the civil liberties movement, and local groups were ideologically diverse. Not surprisingly, the most divisive issue was working with, and in support of, Communists.178 Labour socialists were, in general, not drawn into the movement. The CCF generally spoke coherently about civil liberties (although there were some differences within the federation over allowable restrictions in wartime), but activity was increasingly confined to lobbying efforts by the CCF’s “middle class.”179 The CCF’s other main campaign, which was against profiteering, was potentially more participatory, but had dynamics that drew the movement away from its labour-socialist assumptions as well. In the minds of CCFers, challenging profiteering was an assault on the capitalist roots of war and flowed logically from their earlier campaign to “take the profits out of war.” At the same time, this was an eminently safe path to take because nobody supported “profiteering” and the King government has promised that this war would be managed more carefully than the Great War had been. To this end, 1941 saw the introduction of an “Excess Profits Tax” which was both steep and sometimes somewhat porous.180 Of course, however much the government’s language could be seen to elide with the CCF’s, the latter’s message was potentially quite different. Manitoba CCF provincial secretary Charlie Biesick drew parallels between the two wars and urged readers of the provincial movement newspaper “not to bear a grudge even against



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the profiteers! They remain profiteers only so long as you allow the profit system to remain.”181 The fact was that capitalism persisted, however much it was state-directed, and that such direction was generally in the hands of “dollar-a-year men” from private industry. At the outset of the war, the CCF called for the nationalization of war industries and carried a large-scale petition campaign to the labour movement and to organizations such as the Housewives Association and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.182 The response of some in the party faintly echoed debates about the Ameri­ can New Deal: there were qualms that nationalization would lead to a more efficient, powerful, and perhaps less democratic capitalist state. So, for instance, at the 1940 Ontario CCF convention, the Dovercourt CCF sought to ensure that the boards and commissions established to run the wartime industrial system be “democratically controlled.”183 After all, the CCF was the only party that stood for “economic democracy” and socialization.184 As the war progressed, and particularly after the fall of France, the CCF’s argument evolved, and it pointed to the inefficiencies created by  the federal government’s failure to effectively mobilize Canadian industry and wealth. As M.J. Coldwell explained to the CCF’s 1940 national convention, “outmoded and inefficient concepts of private ­enterprise and the profit system” not only eroded the war effort, they demonstrated the willingness of business to use the war emergency, once again, to augment its control over Canadians.185 But defending the war effort had its own problems. A Toronto CCF public meeting in March 1941 – “How to Improve Our Total War Effort” – was seen by members as a strategy by a faction of the leadership intent on “an ‘allout’ support of Gov’t war effort.”186 Although the DOCR and wartime pressures drove differences underground, they persisted throughout the war, and, in fact, became more intense following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. The Communists rapidly swung to full support for the war, establishing “Total War Committees,” dedicated to improving the war effort, including through conscription, and challenging CCFers to join them. Significantly, the Communists described this effort as a “National Front,” which would be far broader in composition than the prewar popular front and was designed to include “sections of the bourgeoisie,” including Conservatives.187 By May 1940, the CCF national executive had made its peace with the Canadian Expeditionary Force, noting that it was already in existence and it made no sense not to vote supplies for

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it. Conscription, though, was still out of the question.188 It reaffirmed that position in late 1941.189 And abandoned it four months later. For the most part, the CCF stumbled through the 1942 plebiscite on conscription. The national executive’s decision to support a “yes” vote clearly reflected divisions in the CCF as well as broader pressures. Arguing, weakly, that this was not a “vital issue,” the executive declared although conscription was not really necessary, a “yes” vote would prevent the government from being “able to point to any real or imaginary obstacle to an effective war effort.” Following the plebiscite, the executive explained, it would be possible to pose more effectively the demand for equality of sacrifice, viz. the conscription of wealth. The same meeting of the executive laid out in more detail what the conscription of wealth would entail in terms of nationalizations and taxation.190 The idea of combining conscription of men with conscription of wealth spoke, of course, to a sense of the inequality of sacrifice, an issue that clearly echoed through the CCF. For instance, when Harold Winch asked a six-hundred-strong Kamloops audience about the government plebiscite, they responded in a manner consistent with the national executive’s position: “Only a few were in favor of voting ‘no.’ There was practically a dead silence when I suggested voting ‘yes,’ but when I asked how about writing on the ballot ‘Yes, if it includes wealth and industry’ they nearly brought the roof down with their applause.”191 In Ontario, the provincial council acted tentatively and initially sent “observers” rather than delegates to the nonpartisan “Vote Yes” committee, while the CCF executive left the decision of whether to participate in the “Yes” campaign up to individual units.192 Significantly, the CCF officially shied away from the Communists’ attempts to establish a national movement for “total war and unity,” although the debate was more animated in some quarters, particularly in British Columbia. There, some leading members proposed joining the Communists’ unity committees while others, such as Colin Cameron, argued that they should organize a boycott of War Savings Certificates in order to force the government to shift the financial burden of the war off of working people and onto capitalists.193 Frank Scott suggested that support for conscription would prove “fatal both for Canada and the C.C.F.”194 Certainly, the policy did little to promote the CCF in Quebec where the war had previously been seen as a “golden opportunity” to finally make inroads.195 However, beyond Quebec, as we shall see, the increasingly unconditional support for the war did little damage to the CCF’s ability to recruit new members. Yet,



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it did much to undermine the distinctive character of the CCF as a labour-socialist movement. Labour socialists, naturally, wanted to both fight fascism and educate workers about its capitalist roots. For several reasons, it was difficult to do this in the context of the war and the wartime CCF. First, CCFers had long been deeply divided over how best to fight fascism and in their attitudes towards the Canadian war effort. In 1939, the CCF had narrowly avoided a deep and possibly fatal schism when responding to the declaration of war; as the war continued, there was little interest in revisiting the question of support. Second, however much socialists may have wished to add nuance to political debates and to qualify their support for the war, they had little opportunity to do so. Debates, such as the conscription vote, were framed in such a manner that the choices were to support or to oppose the war effort as defined by the King government. Finally, socialists’ view of the war evolved over time, particularly after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. For the large number of socialists who saw the USSR as a workers’ state, regardless of whatever criticisms they might have of its leadership and policies, the invasion added a new dimension to the war. Those who had seen it primarily as an inter-imperialist rivalry now had to accommodate the fact that a major component of the war involved the defence of a post-capitalist state against a particularly virulent imperialist enemy. For various reasons, then, CCFers’ oppositional stance in relation to the war was progressively weakened. More than this, they lacked a platform or, indeed, a common understanding of the war, from which they could espouse a view of current events informed by class analysis. In other words, they had great difficulty in distinguishing themselves as a working-class voice on the subject of war. Increasingly, they accommodated themselves to a classless narrative – that the war was being fought between the forces of democracy and fascism. To some extent, this was the logical extension of the campaign for the preservation of democratic rights in the context of the War Measures Act and the DOCR. As well, it allowed the CCF to explain the shortcomings of what they saw as a capitalist democracy in a language accessible during wartime. Such language was evident in important British influences on the CCF. For instance, Harold Laski, a Labour Party figure who had been prominent in the Socialist League and sympathetic to the popular front until the Hitler-Stalin pact, argued in an article republished in CCF newspapers that defeating Hitler required rebuilding Britain as a “genuinely free, equal and democratic state.” Such arguments developed an

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understanding of fascism as rooted in, but expanding beyond, capitalist crises.196 The role of the state in the national fight against fascism tended to preclude any focus on the class nature of that fight, even among CCFers. The extraordinary context of the war blunted some long-standing assumptions about the class nature of political parties and the importance of working-class political independence. This was reflected quite dramatically in the Manitoba CCF. In February 1940, the Manitoba Com­ monwealth ran an article by long-time trade unionist Joseph Corbett, arguing, in line with the national CCF policy, against the idea of a nonpartisan “National Government.” The result would be, he felt, “little better than Fascism. Lip service about democracy would soon be out the window.”197 In later issues, the Manitoba party analysed the 1940 federal election as an exercise by “the two capitalist parties” in “nothing matters but the war” propaganda.198 Despite such resistance to a “national government” in Canada, the Manitoba CCF greeted with wild enthusiasm the participation of the British Labour Party in the Churchill cabinet and British legislation that expanded state planning. As the Manitoba paper editorialized, “no, what is going on in Britain is not Socialism – yet. Whether or not the present sweeping and revolutionary changes will ultimately lead to the new Socialist order is too early to predict. One thing is certain; the old Tory Britain of laissez-faire days is gone forever.”199 The significance of this turn should not be underestimated. Even George Williams, who had unreservedly assailed “pacifism” and “isolationism” and had urged the CCF to adopt the British Labour Party’s support for the war effort, had consistently qualified his stand by saying that, in neither Britain or Canada, should this mean joining a capitalist government.200 But such labour-socialist principles were increasingly open to question. At least one CCF unit concluded, after a lively discussion about British developments, that “the CCF must eventually be called on in Canada” to participate in a similar fashion.201 The fact that Britain was, in the summer of 1940, standing alone against the Nazi threat and that the significance, if not the autonomy, of British labour had been recognized in the wartime government – combined with sentimental connections to Britain that, in many ways, characterized the CCF – led CCFers to excuse and even to cheer developments there.202 After a trip to Britain, M.J. Coldwell toured Canada, extolling the valour and morale of the British. Interestingly, David Lewis considered his portrayal “sentimental” and pointed out privately to Frank Scott that “the dynamic in British democracy at war is



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supplied not by the ‘British Character’ but by the strength and awareness of the working-class forces.” He added, “You can readily see how naturally and challenging the application to Canada then follows.”203 Lewis, and others, saw in Britain a positive shift in the relationship of class forces, albeit on an utterly new political terrain. The result of such views was a waning of the traditional wariness that CCFers felt about the British Labour Party. There was a clear convergence as both the CCF and the Labour Party fought what they increasingly came to call a “peoples’ war,” linking the battle against the external enemy with a concrete domestic program based on the notion that Labour (or the CCF) represented the popular classes, whose interests – rather than those of the wealthy and the powerful – were at one with the nation.204 The desire to be included in wartime planning, and even in wartime governments, emerged in odd quarters, weakening what had been an inviolable commitment to political independence. This transition – and its pitfalls – was demonstrated early in the war in developments in Manitoba. In 1940, the provincial CCF accepted Premier John Bracken’s offer to join an all-party “non-partisan” or “coalition” government (the nomenclature was interchangeable). The Manitoba Commonwealth had, of course, denounced and then accepted a British “national” government. As Nelson Wiseman has suggested, the positive response to Bracken’s overtures was rooted largely in the declining fortunes of the CCF at the outset of the war as well as, interestingly, in the CCF’s susceptibility to Bracken’s argument about the weaknesses of provincial governments in transforming society (he likened them to municipalities). Editorially, the paper used the latter argument to paint a capitulation to the status quo with red paint: “The new social order advocated by the CCF cannot be brought about by a provincial government, and capitalism cannot, at this stage, be saved by any kind of a government. The old system is so hopelessly crippled it is beyond repair.”205 Although they publicly maintained a show of unity, CCF leaders, both nationally and in the other provinces, responded privately with dismay. George Williams’s comments reflected (quite correctly, as Wiseman notes, given the dismal outcome of the experiment) the labour-socialist objection: “I rather fear … that a Capitalistic reform party will result from the Bracken fusion which will in the end mean bitter disillusionment.”206 What accounts for the decision to participate in the Bracken government? Were the explanations provided by provincial CCF leader S.J. Farmer and the Manitoba Commonwealth credible? Farmer’s argument

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that Bracken was open to progressive ideas and keen on “planning” was disingenuous; he and other CCF leaders were more than aware of the premier’s long record of opposition to labour and the CCF, even though they did not, of course, suspect that he would become leader of the federal Conservative Party by the end of 1942.207 The language of Bracken’s offer used the war to trump objections: “in our judgment the differences of opinion which divide us in peacetime become of secondary importance in time of war.”208 In practical terms this made little sense, as provincial governments had few responsibilities related to ­the war effort – even fewer once the War Measures Act was in place. Bracken’s biographer, John Kendle, agrees that the argument was “quite specious,” but added that the premier knew “that if any of the parties turned down an offer couched in those terms they would be committing political suicide.” Kendle also notes that Lewis acknowledged this.209 The parameters of political debate had clearly shrunk. On the issues of war and conscription, the CCF’s response was, in essence, to speak softly and attempt to change the subject. The developments in Manitoba similarly spoke to the challenges, not only of class-based politics in the context of war, but of the very appearance of partisanship. Long-time labour socialists had not necessarily changed their perceptions of class, politics, or even the war. In June 1944, in a rare public critique, published in Canadian Forum, E.A. Beder derided the “reactionary nature” of the war. Although an allied victory seemed certain, none of the conditions that gave rise to the war had been addressed. Recognizing that, at least in North America, revolutionary ideas were not being articulated, Beder noted a widespread desire for a society in which another such war would be impossible and real security would obtain. In short, the “common man” wanted “social and economic changes that are unobtainable in the capitalist world he has known.” Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were united in desiring the return of the status quo in Europe, “not the geographical status quo, to be sure … but the status quo in a deeper social sense.” Stalin, he noted, had promised the western leaders “‘law and order’ and ‘democracy’.”These were the leaders whose arms would “liberate,” a shattered Europe and prevent an anti-capitalist alternative.210 Such arguments were rarely published during the war; Saturday Night’s subsequent call for Beder’s internment suggests, in part, why. The extent to which his analysis contrasted with official CCF pronouncements highlight the party’s concessions to the language of a “people’s war.”211 As Carroll Coburn, incoming editor of the New



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Commonwealth, suggested to David Lewis, “There is a great deal in the article with which I agree and which I imagine you will agree.” However, it had become impossible to speak in such a language, and Coburn suggested that it should be “vigorously denied” that Beder’s views reflected CCF analysis. “This strikes me,” concluded Coburn, “as one of those things which will be eternally pulled out of the drawer to be used against us unless we act by presenting the positive CCF attitude with regard to the war and the issues involved in it.”212 Overall, then, the CCF’s response to the war was “positive,” and its strategy pointed to the end of the war and the potential of reconstruction. This approach held great promise, given the searing memory of the failure of reconstruction following the Great War in the minds of working-class Canadians. It permitted the CCF to speak to the very recent shortcomings of Depression-era capitalism, and it allowed that party to present a broader social program in a way that could not be seen as contrary to the war effort.

• The challenge, increasingly, was to articulate a distinctive, class-based, program for post-war Canada. Officially, reconstruction was on the state’s agenda from the very outset of the war. The King government recognized that mobilizing for war required addressing the ways in which this war would be managed differently than the previous one, and early planning for the postwar period was central to that effort. Indeed, a cabinet Committee on Demobilization and Re-establishment was created before the end of 1939. While the veterans would remain symbolically central to a fairer society following the war, “security” for all Canadians quickly became the watchword of postwar planning.213 Once again, Britain played a major role for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the Churchill government’s “partnership” with labour – Labour leader Ernest Bevan was a full and important member of the war cabinet. Not surprisingly, Britain’s steps towards creating a modern welfare state – the sine qua non of postwar social democracy – resonated loudly in Canada and within the CCF.214 However, the CCF’s ambiguous relationship towards reform, and arguably to statism and social democracy thus defined, can be seen in its reaction to the tabling, in Britain, of the first of Sir William Beveridge’s reports, Social Insurance and Allied Services, in 1942. Although the report was rooted in various liberal proposals before the war, Beveridge’s claim that “a

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revolutionary movement should be a time for revolutions and not for patching” appeared credible in light of the failure of the prewar British state to address what he had described as the “five great evils” – disease, ignorance, squalor, idleness, and want.215 Tremendously popular in Britain, the proposals that subsequently led to the expansion of national insurance and the creation of the National Health Service reflected a notion of social citizenship that would, after the war, be articulated famously by T.H. Marshall.216 British citizens would have a right to social welfare as a result, not of means testing, but of their membership in the state. Quite rightly, Beveridge is seen as having inaugurated the British welfare state. The Beveridge report received much press coverage in Canada and could easily be read as in keeping with the CCF’s demand for security after the war. Notably, though, CCFers were at pains to differentiate themselves from it. Although there was little opposition to studying the report – the Ontario CCF executive planned to hold a conference on it217 – overt support was a recipe for sharp denunciation within the federation. When the press reported that David Lewis had endorsed the Beveridge Report during a federal by-election in Winnipeg, something of a firestorm broke out in the CCF, and Lewis was quick to explain that he had been misquoted. He pointed to more accurate reportage, which quoted him as saying that, although the report would not solve the problems associated with capitalist competition, such as international conflict and trade cycles, it could serve as a model for the initial actions of a socialist government.218 Despite this clarification, the B.C. CCF felt that it was necessary to “repudiate the construction placed on the remarks of David Lewis.”219 While some CCFers, such as B.C. MLA Bert Herridge, felt that “we should have nothing whatever to do with it,” others felt that the report was “an attempt to deflect the public mind from revolutionary change.”220 As one correspondent wrote, the report fell far short of socialism, and the CCF should be careful not to give it “our tacit approval.”221 Surprisingly, for a movement as diverse as the CCF, a common attitude soon emerged that was, on the face of it, quite principled, yet opened the door to a broad range of policies. The Ontario CCF’s New Commonwealth editorialized that Beveridge “has done nothing more than propose a program to give the maximum of insurance against the catastrophes of life under the capitalist system.” The CCF, like the Labour Party in Britain, would be unlikely to oppose any of the elements of the report, except on certain details, “but neither will it allow



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such proposals to deter it from moving forward to a genuine change in the entire economic system.”222 In practice, however, even winning such “palliatives” as effective unemployment insurance and the like required sustained effort in Britain and, especially, in Canada. During the war, “genuine change in the entire economic system” was not on the legislative agenda; individual reforms were, but, given wartime politics, they were relatively narrow. While some measures were pressing, such as a “Canadian Wagner Act” to ensure trade union security, others fell under the rubric of “postwar planning.” The war emergency meant that certain specific proposals, such as those around social housing, had to be delayed until such a time as the nation’s resources could be directed towards domestic ends. This context had several crucial consequences for the nature and future of the CCF. One was that “planning” regained a pride of place that it had not had since the heyday of the League for Social Reconstruction. As early as 1940, the Manitoba Commonwealth celebrated the fact that the war was demonstrating the superiority of “social planning.” The paper was giddy about the possibilities that national registration presented. Imagine what socialists could do now that the government knew “the number of doctors, lawyers, butchers, bakers and lipstick makers there were in the country.”223 Provincial planning committees sprang into action; provincial conventions and local affiliates passed resolutions for national housing schemes, for socialized medicine, and even for communal kitchens.224 CCF leader M.J. Coldwell called for a national social security program and the immediate establishment of a postwar planning commission, which would coordinate an entire system of local and regional planning committees. Coldwell painted a modernist national mural that featured agricultural innovation, electrification, and the development of the north, forests, and highways, all on the basis of “a careful inventory of our natural resources, our industrial equipment,” and “our human power.”225 To be fair, the CCF placed a great emphasis on democracy and on democratic planning. As we have seen, the defence of civil liberties had been crucial to the CCF’s initial response to the war, and was augmented by demands for the “conscription of wealth,” compulsory war loans, and the nationalization of the banks, although these latter demands tended to fall by the wayside as the war progressed.226 Articles such as William Irvine’s 1940 contribution “Can Capitalism Survive the War?” were replaced, first, by vague discussions of “a new social order” that would ensure “security, peace and abundance” and then, in the latter

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stages of the war, by an increasing number of proposals for specific social and economic programs. Such programs would be instituted and run by the government, leading to an increased focus on campaigns to elect such a government rather than on day-to-day political struggle. In the words of a Manitoba Commonwealth editorial, “people must forge the instrument to bring in new social order.” In other words, they had to build the CCF “without delay” in order to fight for “security, peace, and abundance” once the war was over.227 Membership in the CCF was reduced to electoral participation (subject to the electoral calendar, naturally) and planning for the end of the war. And planning, of course, was potentially the domain of experts. A revealing moment with respect to the national CCF apparatus was the creation of the post of full-time research director and the hiring of Lloyd R. Shaw for that position in early 1943. Shaw, who was twentyeight years old, was of a somewhat younger generation than those who had constructed the LSR a decade earlier but had a not dissimilar  middle-­class background. A Nova Scotian who attended Acadia University, he had been the first president of the Halifax-Dartmouth Christian Youth Federation. Then, armed with a master’s degree in economics from Columbia University (his thesis was on the pulp and paper industry in his home province), he moved to Ottawa, where he worked as program secretary for the YMCA, was the first registrar of Carleton College, and was active on the Ottawa Public Affairs Council. His job with the CCF was to provide research for CCF MPs as well as to work on postwar plans, with a particular focus on the problem of federal and provincial powers.228 Although he would be in the post for only a year, when he joined the RCAF and was replaced by Stuart Jamieson, he played an important role in shaping the CCF’s vision towards a legislative program of planning and social welfare that could be fought for, piecemeal, in the House of Commons. The LSR had disbanded earlier in the war, but the wartime CCF – or at least its leadership – still reflected a combination of CCF and LSR ideas.229 Indeed, the focus of CCF research flowed uninterruptedly from the LSR’s interest in the Rowell-Sirois Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations, which had issues its report during the league’s last days. The war emergency placed certain kinds of domestic issues on a back burner, however much CCFers may have wanted to push to address them immediately. Planning for peace had a tendency to demobilize the CCF membership and focus activity on elected officials and the development of plans for the future. However, an astounding working-class



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mobilization was soon to take place. Labour exploded in the middle of the war. In 1939, unions, particularly the new industrial unions organized under the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO, soon to become the Canadian Congress of Labour – CCL – in Canada), had been in a perilous state.230 But the rapid expansion of wartime industries and the tight labour market, as well as sometimes autocratic management practices, created the conditions for dramatic union growth. From 1939 to 1946, membership grew from 359,000 to 831,000, with both the depression-battered craft unions of the Trades and Labour Congress and especially the CCL unions exploding in both breadth and numbers as industrial Canada was transformed by the war.231 Despite wide support for the war effort and official and unofficial pressure to maintain production at all costs, anger and frustration led to an astounding wave of strikes. In 1943, fully one in three unionists struck and over a million work-days were lost. As Laurel Sefton MacDowell rightly comments, “1919 is the only year with which 1943 can be compared.”232 These conflicts were, of course, highly politicized. At the centre of workers’ anger was the federal state. Industries were subject to priorities, and prices, determined by Ottawa, and wages were subject to controls. Monetary issues, then, could be addressed only by Ottawa. More than this, government-appointed controllers in disputed workplaces, such as National Steel Car in Hamilton, meant that workers immediately ran up against a massively empowered state when they attempted to organize and strike. Perhaps no strike was as frustrating to the labour movement as the struggle of the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers Union at Kirkland Lake, Ontario, over the winter of 1941–42. Their ultimate loss was attributed to the refusal of the federal government to force employers to recognize and negotiate with representative unions. Labour saw the problem as the absence of labour relations legislation in Canada that was comparable to the Wagner Act in the United States. Indeed, the success of the CIO (and the American Federation of Labor as well, especially in the context of the war) in the United States was built on the basis of a combination of working-class militancy and state recognition and protection of unionism, most notably in the U.S. National Labor Relations Act of 1935. The story of Canadian labour during the war has been told well elsewhere.233 Significant here is the nature of its relationship to the CCF and to CCFers’ definition of class and understanding of the state. While the CCF attempted to mute potentially divisive discussions about the war and, over time, had little distinctive to say, issues of state planning and

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particularly the question of establishing a new industrial relations regime modelled on the Wagner Act took centre stage. The latter was particularly important, given the frustrations of organizing and striking during the Depression and then the war. Wendy Cuthbertson, who has carefully explored CIO ideology throughout the war, points out that, although it worried about big business control of government, unionists’ faith in government “had grown with the war effort.” Citing an auto workers’ union editorial, she notes that Canadians could elect a government that would “administer Canadian affairs in the interests of a majority, not in the interests of a minority.” The CIO press pointed to sympathetic governments in the United States and Britain, which had produced the New Deal and the Beveridge report, respectively.234 In Canada, distrust inspired by the records of the Liberals and Conservatives left the CCF as the potential vehicle for developments in labour relations, particularly as its popularity soared. CCL-affiliated unions were drawn to the party’s plans for social reconstruction and, more immediately, support for collective bargaining rights, encouraged by the overlapping leaderships of the CCF and the CCL unions. Together, the CCF and the CCL underwent a political evolution. At the onset of the war, neither had emphasized Wagner-type legislation; by 1943, given the combination of frustration on the picket line and increasing reliance on government, it stood at the head of both of their political programs.235 The significance of this association and its focus went far beyond the CCL itself. When the CCL endorsed the CCF as the “political arm of labour” in 1943, organized labour’s goals of a Canadian Wagner Act and “security” were fused, in the public mind, with the CCF. The full program of the CCF, which remained far more extensive, received far less attention. The effort of many long-standing CCFers to continue to explain and defend the full social vision of the CCF, not surprisingly, played out in different ways, reflecting the different experiences and characteristics of provincial movements. In 1953, Harold Winch was still defending, to howls of derision from the mainstream press, the ­labour-socialist aphorism that the CCF stood for “revolution” – “a complete change from capitalist to a socialist society.”236 But even in British Columbia, social and economic planning and a new regime of trade union rights dominated the CCF’s message. If new sectors of Canadians were to join the CCF during the war years, these were the goals that attracted them.



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And join they did! Membership leapt, particularly in Ontario, where the CCF’s collapse at the end of the 1930s had been the most dramatic and where the war economy had the greatest impact. Membership in the Ontario CCF grew from about 1,600 in 1941, to 8,000 in 1943, to 20,000 at the end of the war. The slowest growth was in the old laboursocialist stronghold of Toronto and, naturally, in the countryside, where the farmers had never bought the socialist message.237 In the 1943 provincial election, the CCF won 32 per cent of the popular vote and elected thirty-four MPPs, overwhelmingly trade unionists. The Saskatchewan CCF grew from 9,000 to 17,500 members in seven months in late 1943; by the June 1944 election, which the CCF won, it boasted 30,000   members. J.F. Conway emphasizes the party’s astounding growth in the province’s cities, where the CCF had been almost without support.238 Although the old guard remained in the party, many from the days of the Regina Convention, the CCF became, in terms of both composition and program, a new movement, reflecting the specific character of a new wartime radicalization. As was the case in the early months of the CCF a decade earlier, growth was not necessarily seen as an unqualified benefit. Once again, “mushroom growth” brought new members who were uneducated in socialism in general and the CCF program in particular, and who might lack the kind of commitment to the cause that the struggle for a new social order required. Certainly the CCF as a whole had drifted away from the more intensive educational regime that had existed when the older labour socialists had held more sway. Not that labour education disappeared … immediately. The rising star on this front was the Workers’ Educational Association (the WEA), a movement that could easily be seen as a conveyor belt for middle-class ideas into the labour movement, given its tendency to be dominated by university professors. To be fair, the topics under discussion were broad, and, early in the war, the WEA was central to Labour Forum, a program, produced by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, that played an important role in educating Canadians about unions and raising anticapitalist themes. The agenda and politics of the WEA, though, were closely tied to the newly expanding union movement, provoking the ire of powerful corporate and political figures. In 1943, the federal government effectively silenced Labour Forum. The conditions for an independent, socialist education movement were constrained on a number of fronts.239

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These constraints clearly affected the ability of CCFers to “make socialists.” On the Ontario provincial executive, Allan Schroeder, a CCF candidate in Lincoln riding in the Niagara peninsula, “raised the problem of an influx of members not grounded in CCF policy.” Granted, the solution of the local CCF association was oddly bureaucratic: it decided to “concentrate on a financial campaign, on the theory that those who contributed would prove good members.” Andrew Brewin, a lawyer and the chair of the CCF’s provincial elections committee, spoke to a broader concern about the way the CCF had come to function in the wartime context, urging the provincial executive to consider ways to increase member participation. Finally, it was decided to send out a circular reminding all CCF units that new members “must accept and understand the CCF program.”240 As Art Haas, the Ontario CCF’s new farm secretary told the provincial council, “education was absolutely essential, or we lose members through the back door as fast as we take them in the front door.”241 Some suggested attempting to hold back the tide. A Peterborough CCFer wrote, suggesting an “associate membership” category for those who were not yet fully aware of the CCF program. “This would also check the political opportunists who are leaving the old parties and for reason of personal benefit rushing to capitalize on the growth of the C.C.F.”242 At the end of the war, the Trotskyists proclaimed that this is exactly what happened: “The rapid growth of the CCF in the last few years has brought with it an influx of all kinds of careerists and opportunists who have little in common with socialism.”243 The number of out-and-out opportunists was no doubt limited by the small number of real opportunities affiliation to the CCF provided for personal advancement (although the national CCF files are full of letters asking about the background of various individuals who presented themselves as potential CCF candidates and local officers). Nonetheless, it is undeniable that relatively few new CCF recruits would have had much familiarity with the history and culture of Canadian socialism. No doubt large numbers were attracted because they saw the CCF as the party most likely to fight for unemployment insurance, for health care, or for a Canadian Wagner Act, or because they sensed that the CCF stood for the “Common Man” in a general way. Their confidence in their choice may have been reinforced by the situation in Britain – the reference point for English Canadians in general – where the Labour Party had joined the government and were



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seen to be a loyal participant in the war and a protector of workingclass rights in the government. Most, no doubt, would have been unaware of the extent of the CCF’s initial ambivalence to the war, let alone its previous dismissal of the British Labour Party as irredeemably reformist. Indeed, the popularization of social welfare and planning and its, at least, piecemeal adoption by the old political parties, tended to create or reinforce the notion that the differences between political parties was incremental. So began the idea, which may have existed in the United States under the New Deal, that old parties could introduce a measure of socialism. In the mid-1930s, CCFers decried the idea that the New Deal (or particularly the Little New Deals in Canada) was anything but an attempt by capital to survive the crisis. In the early 1940s, the perception that similar reforms were but palliatives was far less clear.

Conclusion

From Socialism to Social Democracy

Much ink has been spilled in tracing the rightward trajectory of the CCF. The 1960s and 1970s saw the emergence of a small industry, led by Walter D. Young and Leo Zakuta and including Michael Cross, that was devoted to explaining the CCF as a “protest movement becalmed.”1 These scholars posited a radical golden era for the CCF, corrupted by a Michelsian iron law of oligarchy, which led to bureaucratization, the loss of membership control of the movement, and its increasingly conservative character. This (relatively) successful electoral party, this school of thought suggested, required the abandonment of youthful enthusiasm and became locked in the logic of appealing to a broad consensus of opinion. Its early radicalism was lost. An opposing view holds that it never was that radical. Some, like Gary Teeple, without carefully examining the early history, branded the CCF/NDP in its entirety as “liberals in a hurry.”2 More recently, Alan Whitehorn has argued that the CCF exhibited “a considerable degree of continuity,” although such a view is predicated on reifying the CCF’s programmatic declarations and identifying continuing themes of “peaceful and evolutionary” change and a constant commitment to a “mixed economy.”3 As we have seen, such views ignore the construction of politics and society reflected in the labour-socialist core of the CCF in the 1930s. Moreover, the assumption of continuity into the 1950s, particularly in the CCF’s Winnipeg Declaration of 1956 – presented as a “modernized” version of the Regina Manifesto – is tenable only if one buys Whitehorn’s notion that, despite the abandonment of “doctrinaire” language, the old wine was still being served, but in more modern bottles. Whether



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presented in its original form by Zakuta and Young, or turned on its head by Whitehorn, the declension argument of the 1960s failed to address the specific character of socialism in the 1930s. My view is that this old and somewhat sterile debate predates the emergence of the “new labour history” of the 1970s, with its exploration of the emergence of working-class cultures, and that it fails to reflect the character of earlier radicalisms out of which the CCF grew. The world of socialist activists in the 1930s was rooted in a clear notion – based on decades of experience – that class was fundamental. For labour socialists, a society was either capitalist or socialist, and it was potentially possible to replace a society organized around wage labour and the pursuit of profit by a cooperative society led by the working class. How this was to be done and what it would look like was far from clear; like Karl Marx himself, these labour socialists eschewed speculation.4 But they did make assumptions – assumptions rooted in their own class-based experiences, particularly in the revolts that followed the First World War. The general strikes and self-consciously named labour parties that rallied vast numbers of workers across Canada, and around the industrialized capitalist world, raised the promise of a working-class future.5 This working-class social imaginary was shared among a range of organization from the Industrial Workers of the World to the wartime Socialist and Social Democratic parties, from the One Big Union to the Communist Party, and by the spate of labour parties that emerged in towns and cities across the country, usually sponsored by local unions or trades councils.6 Clearly, we are not talking here of any specific programmatic unity. Furious debate characterized the political workers’ movement, which was, in the interwar years, subject to schism and regroupment. Of course, the debate reflected both similarities and differences. All agreed that class was the agent of social transformation, and all valued their own working-class identity. Over the past few decades, scholars have often disparaged the idea of a working-class identity, pointing out, often correctly, the ways in which class identity potentially obscured relations of gender, race, ability, sexuality – the list is potentially endless. Commentators whose ideas are rooted in what some dismiss as “identity politics” and who have been influenced by a range of scholars – most importantly, Michel Foucault – have developed a finely tuned sense of the multiplicities of power. Labour socialists were often, but

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not always, blind to such oppressions and sometimes felt that they were diversions from the fight for socialism. However, there is no reason to view identities as a zero-sum game in which oppressions cannot reinforce each other.7 Labour socialists in the 1930s did construct a hierarchy of social relationships in which they placed class first. In their eyes, capitalism was incompatible with a free, peaceful, and prosperous society and with the full development of humankind, however  that was understood; little was possible if all were subject to the rules of the market. The tone of debate was sharp because the stakes were so high, particularly in the context of the horrors of the First World War, which sparked a nation-wide, and international, labour revolt, and of the Great Depression, when war, fascism, and economic despair combined to demonstrate that capitalism threatened humanity’s future. Workingclass action was clearly more important than ever, and such action required unity. Workers lacked power as individuals, but as a collectivity that had the power to transform society. Consequently, it was necessary to build large and effective organizations. This, of course, accounts for moves towards fewer and larger organizations; by the 1930s, the CCF and the Communist Party organizationally dominated the left, and the question of potential cooperation between them, as we have seen, repeatedly re-emerged. Even those members of each organization who perceived irreconcilable differences between their party and the other recognized that, however misguided they were, their opposite numbers were “comrades” in the struggle against capitalism. This was true even in the most extreme cases, as in the Communists’ Third Period denunciation of CCFers as “social fascists.” Their fixation with the CCF reflected their desire to address what they perceived as a fatal apostasy and to win them, or their potential followers, over to what they considered a more correct working-class politics. Despite CCFers’ generally less abrasive language, they considered the Communists to be wayward socialists, misled by their Canadian or Russian leaders. In spite of a shared fundamental working-class identity, there was also broad agreement on the necessity of building political movements that crossed class boundaries. In a world of polarizing class conflict, it was crucial to bring intermediary social classes on side in order to secure electoral support from a heterogeneous population but also, more generally, to prevent their organization and mobilization in the interests of anti-working-class forces. The “middle class,” a nebulous category of professionals, intellectuals, merchants, clerical workers, and



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others, was particularly subject to demagogic appeals, including those of the fascists, during the crisis of the 1930s. From the outset, the CCF itself was imagined as a federation of both working-class and other organizations. The clear assumption of the labour parties that met in Calgary in 1932 to establish the CCF, and other analogous organizations such as the Labour Conference in Ontario, was that, however broad the new organization, “working-class” ideas would predominate. There was reason to be optimistic about the possibility of cooperation. In the early years of the Depression, responses to the crisis were clearly spreading beyond a traditional working-class base. A section of the farmers’ movement was abandoning the vague populism of the Progressive Party and demonstrated a willingness to adopt labour platforms. This was most reflected in Alberta, where the Ginger Group of Progressive politicians were attracted to the nascent CCF, and in Saskatchewan, where, to quote a chapter title in Seymour Martin Lipset’s Agrarian Socialism, “The Farmers’ Movement Goes Socialist.”8 It was hardly necessary for farmers to abandon elements of their agrarian experience, such as a commitment to the cooperative movement, to realize that a more thoroughgoing analysis of both the state and the capitalist economy were necessary, and that the socialist movement provided just that.9 The significance here is, in part, that farmers recognized that they were effectively joining the labour movement. As a leftwing contribution to the Western Producer, the organ of the Wheat Pool, stated in the 1920s, “The workers know that capitalism is the cause of poverty, of unemployment, of mortgages and debts – and that the farmers will find no solution to the problem within the framework of the capitalist society.”10 Similarly, as we have explored, the League for Social Reconstruction represented an unprecedented radicalization among middle-class intellectuals, even if their journey from liberalism (and indeed Liberalism) was recent and sometimes halting. More widely, the explosion of CCF Clubs, particularly in Ontario and British Columbia but also elsewhere, bore witness to a new and widespread interest in socialism. While it is difficult to assess the composition of the clubs, they were regularly described as middle class, which spoke both to their indeterminate class identity and to their unfamiliarity, and often unease, with “working-class” ideas. Still, they were moving in the right direction. The labour socialists who started the CCF were confident, early in the decade, that the increasing openness of such groups to socialist ideas reflected a willingness to accept working-class leadership: in the minds

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of the labour socialists, the one implied the other. Certainly, the risks of opening the ranks of the movement to neophytes were recognized, and ongoing political education would be more important than ever, but there was every reason to think that labour socialists, through the strength of their ideas and experiences, could hegemonize the wider movement. Labour socialists might not have a common program or strategy, but they believed that a pervasive working-class epistemology created the necessary conditions for a broader and potentially successful socialist movement. Some labour socialists were decidedly vague in their programs; others, such as the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) in British Columbia and Ontario, spoke with a degree of Marxist authority that promised more than it delivered. Very rarely did any of these groups deal with difficult questions of revolutionary strategy: they assumed that a working-class movement could address such concerns as conditions for socialism ripened. And the relative ease with which, at first, members of the SPC in British Columbia and Ontario assumed dominance in the growing movement suggested that, in their eyes, the continuing political maturation of the movement, although always at risk, was proceeding nicely. Others, such as the Independent Labour Party in Manitoba, maintained a political practice – mostly running in municipal elections – that appeared remote from revolutionary goals, while at the same time holding firm to their class identity and educating their members and supporters in a broad notion of politics that spoke to the potential qualitative transformation of society. Yet, building and maintaining labour-socialist hegemony within this broad movement proved surprisingly difficult, particularly in contrast to what appeared to be the spontaneous working-class essentialism of the 1919 labour revolt. In large part the problem was rooted in the specific context of the 1930s. Clearly, the Great Depression encouraged working-class activism, but the economic crisis was not class specific in its impact. Vast numbers of professionals, white-collar workers, farmers, and others saw their living standards and hopes devastated by the economic catastrophe. Liberal capitalism was clearly incapable of protecting their livelihoods, and they sought any number of alternatives, including socialism. Many of these alternatives were, in the eyes of labour socialists, half measures, palliatives, or simply misguided. Not surprisingly, given the breadth of the radicalization and the attractiveness of the CCF as an alternative to the parties of the status quo, new adherents brought with them a broad range of ideas, from social credit, to technocracy, to a vaguely rehashed liberalism. Equally predictably,



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they defended these ideas with verve, particularly those whose social advantages had bred considerable arrogance. This was particularly the case with the academics of the League for Social Reconstruction, who happily accepted the moniker “brain trust.” Labour socialists with decades of experience in the labour movement and confident in their own self-education in working-class truths could barely believe the temerity of these petit-bourgeois interlopers. Labour socialists were confronted with an array of political languages that did not speak specifically to class, at least not in the ways they understood capitalism to function. Many were rooted in populist discourses with deep roots in North America, addressing the fissures in  power and wealth in ways that did not prioritize wage labour. Labourists and labour socialists had confronted this problem before, often ceding important ground to populist movements because of the relationship of forces. For instance, in the Ontario farmer-labour government of 1919 to 1923, the specific interests of labour had been easily sidelined because of the numerical weight of the farmers’ movement and the difficulty of expressing demands in a class-based language.11 The mid-1930s presented a new and difficult twist on this problem as the Communists broke ranks and adopted a populist language as a means of building a broad movement against fascism. Mobilizing “the people” across class lines required, in the eyes of the Communists, unity on the broadest possible bases – democracy and peace. At issue was not simply the moderation of their demands, but the erasure of class distinctions. Rather than attempting to hegemonize a multi-class movement, the Communists felt that specifically working-class or socialist demands alienated potential liberal allies. In sharp distinction to the earlier “class against class” rhetoric of the Third Period, the language of progressivism implied that liberals and socialists (and Communists) occupied a continuum. The distinct working-class subject, the sine qua non of labour socialism, seemed to be vanishing.

• Despite the challenges, labour socialists fought on through the decade. Their views of socialism and class fuelled their political culture of debate. And, in perhaps the biggest challenge of them all, the onset of war, large numbers of CCFers defaulted to a labour-socialist position. The character of the emerging war in Europe was discussed with reference to the laws of motion of capitalism. Coming only two decades after the

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Great War, the new conflagration demonstrated that – like the Great Depres­sion – the evil consequences of capitalism were striking harder, and more regularly. Only a socialist society, however conceived, could break the Sisyphean cycle. It is worth noting that, in the period between the Soviet Union’s pact with Germany in August 1939 and the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union twenty-two months later, the Communists re-adopted exactly this language, focusing on the inter-imperialist nature of the war.12 This was, of course, part of a shared labour-socialist repertoire that remained available to Communists, who shared, for the most part, the same political heritage. Even though the war initially seemed to resuscitate a labour-socialist identity, it quickly had the opposite effect. In the short term, threats of repression, and fear of fracturing the increasingly fragile organization that had been constructed over the decade, undermined critical debate in the crucial early months of the conflict. Over the course of the war, there were only a few faint echoes ofa distinctive labour-socialist voice. Yet the Second World War would see a new radicalization, as hundreds of thousands of workers mobilized in defence of what they saw as distinctively working-class interests: collective bargaining and economic security. The CCF would be central to this new working-class movement and would reach one electoral pinnacle after another. But the differences with the past were deep. One of the achievements of the new labour history was a recognition that class is a dynamic relationship. Social classes are constantly being remade; a cursory glance at the North American working class of the twenty-first century would lay bare myriad differences from its counterpart a century and a half earlier, including its composition, its relation to technologies, its living standards, its gender and ethnic characteristics, the role of the family, and any number of cultural features. The capacities of the working class, and its forms of organization, vary over time, in relation to all these factors, as well in response to victories and defeats. The period of time being examined here was particularly transformative. The workers’ movement received body blows in the defeat of the workers’ revolt after the First World War, and again with the rise of mass unemployment during the Great Depression. The former saw the defeat of emerging forms of organization – nascent industrial unions and the general strike – while the second witnessed the collapse of the material underpinnings that had enabled workers to organize and fight. In the 1930s, important steps were taken in attempting to



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reconstitute working-class institutions on a new basis. In workplaces, the attempts to rebuild unions and, most importantly, to construct industrial unions, was slow and difficult. By the outset of the war, little had been accomplished on this front. Politically, however, both the CCF and, in its own way, the CP had achieved some real breakthroughs. In the CCF, workers had an organization with, at least, national pretensions, one that seemed to have achieved a level of permanence that previous labour and socialist formations had lacked. Most importantly, these new organizations – unions and parties – were built on what seemed a firm ontological basis. The working class was a “real” thing, a historical agent capable, potentially, of reorganizing society on a fairer and more secure basis. Much changed in the context of the Second World War. As David Camfield has commented, a “process of class recomposition took place on a mass scale between 1941 and 1947.”13 The industrial transformation of wartime Canada was the most apparent, with vastly expanded industrial capacity. This transformation had all sorts of consequences for workers’ lives, not only in the new, vastly expanded factories, mines, and offices, but also in their homes, as trends related to the gender division of labour, migration to cities, and scarce and overcrowded housing presented new challenges. Although narratives vary from sector to sector, the war produced what was, in many ways, a new working class. Old hierarchies of skill, gender, and race, although hardly obliterated, were open to some renegotiation; established work rules and traditions were subject to wartime production pressures, and neophyte workers further complicated matters. Moreover, mass production industries were central to the war effort – precisely those that had been the target of, in Canada at least, largely unsuccessful organizing efforts in the 1930s. Under the pressures of wartime restrictions, speedups, continued shop-floor authoritarianism, and at least the perception of inflation, this greatly augmented workforce had, as became apparent in the mid-war strike wave, the willingness to act and the weight to have its voice heard. Perhaps most significantly, few of these workers would have had any real connection to the debates in the union movement about the creation of the CCF and unions’ connection to it. By the time that debate re-emerged during the war, both the workforce and the CCF had changed dramatically. The other crucial change was the role of the state. In all sorts of ways, workers’ lives were governed by a state whose reach quickly eclipsed that in the last war, let alone that in peacetime (where the state was

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essentially absent from most workers’ lives). Most obviously, the state controlled production in many ways, from national registration of labour to the federal government’s willingness to take over direct control of workplaces in the interest of the war effort. Although most production remained in private hands, the line between private business and the state was blurred: state agencies that oversaw production were run by private businessmen co-opted into government service.14 Given this level of regulation, workers turned to the federal state to demand that it establish collective bargaining rights. The adoption of a “Canadian Wagner Act” in the form of order-in-council PC 1003 was far from the only shop-floor story. The hundreds of Labour-Management Production Committees, sponsored by the government with the active support of both unions and private capital, signalled an astounding transformation of workplace relations – and one that, again, blurred the line that separated the state from the private realm.15 The power of the state to regulate industry clearly focused the attention of the exploding organized labour movement, although wartime measures were barely the tip of the iceberg. The federal state demonstrated that it was possible to wage total war, to organize production, and to begin, under pressure from the CCF, to address the needs of working people for social security. The introduction of family allowances and daycares suggested that the arm of the state could reach far into the realm of reproduction. It would be possible to plan for peace in an increasingly holistic manner, and the state could lead that process. As Alice Kessler-Harris has noted, the construction of the welfare state meant “redefining what constituted ‘nation’ by remaking the relationship of a country to its people.”16 As the state came to be perceived as less distant, and more inclusive, people – workers – increasingly claimed their rights to social citizenship. This was far from a classless process, and the CCF ensured that the identities of “worker” and “citizen” were indelibly linked – a strategy of particularly significance, given the place of citizenship in the international crusade against fascism. The fight to preserve political rights – the rights of liberal citizenship – on an international stage provided the opportunity, particularly in the context of a broader working-class mobilization, to expand social rights on a domestic one.17 The language of citizenship pervaded Canada. As registered on the airwaves by the massively popular CBC radio show Citizens’ Forum and its accompanying “listening groups,” it seemed to provide new connections between individuals and the broader polity and the state (although critics acknowledged that the show primarily



Conclusion 311

engaged the social elite).18 In an industrialized war, and looking forward to a technologically improved future, workers were the bedrock of the industrial and military effort, and of the nation; they would no longer countenance a “second-class citizenship.” As Janine Brodie notes, a new “social citizenship” was born on the bases of a “new-found social solidarity and attachment to a particular vision of Canadian society [that] was constructed out of the turbulence of the Great Depression and the Second World War.”19 Workers, particularly in the postwar labour upsurge dedicated to preserving the social and legal gains of wartime, would fight for their place in the new regime not, as the labour socialists had hoped, to supplant it. In short, a remade working class confronted a vastly different set of concerns in the context of a state that had both redefined citizenship and demonstrated its capacity in new ways. Many of the certainties of the interwar years about the character of the working class and the role of the state in capitalist society were shaken. The war had created a new world. At the outset of the war, it appeared that the CCF would not be up to the task of understanding this world and how to act in it but, by the closing months of the conflict, the CCF would be riding a wave of popular support that effectively changed the relationship of power at the federal level and in several provinces. But labour socialists of the 1930s would barely be able to recognize what the CCF had become. Yet, its roots in the 1930s were still visible. Both the strong focus on working-class interests and the power of the socialist idea, inherited from the labour socialists, and a keen eye to planning and the power of the state, a hallmark of the League for Social Reconstruction, were still readily apparent, although in a configuration that very much favoured the latter. It is worth examining two publications from the early 1940s to demonstrate the development of the federation. The works demonstrate the political boundaries of the CCF in the early to mid-1940s. The first of these, published in 1943, was Make This Your Canada by David Lewis and Frank Scott, secretary and chairman, respectively, of the national CCF.20 The book is a prolonged argument for central planning, effectively explaining the capacities of the state by contrasting the federal government’s responses to the economic depression and the war emergency. At the same time, this is a very different book from Social Planning for Canada. In part, it reflects a different purpose; it was a partisan document aimed at educating and mobilizing the uninitiated into the CCF movement. On the other hand, it was much more clearly a socialist

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The Fate of Labour Socialism

document, explaining that, despite the massive transformations in Canada due to the war, “Capitalism remains in the saddle. In fact, its hold is more firm than ever.”21 Although it could be read as a call for a mixed economy – there is a potential place for private business – it is clear that the CCF was calling for the socialization of what Lenin had called the “commanding heights” of the economy, what Scott and Lewis refer to as the “dominant capitalist spheres”22 Private ownership would be restricted to small enterprises.23 The document was emphatic that the CCF “will replace capitalist ownership by social ownership.”24 While “social ownership,” could take various forms – including state ownership, cooperatives, and non-profit organizations – “monopolies” would be banned and subject to nationalization. “The capitalist mode of production,” it concluded, is “no longer necessary.”25 The other main difference between the two volumes is that the transformation to socialism, although strictly electoral, is closely linked to the collective mobilization of Canadians. Elaborating on a theme already central to the League for Social Reconstruction’s 1938 book, Democracy Needs Socialism, Lewis and Scott were careful to explain the ways in which not only Parliament, but also organized workers, would have control over, or input into, the planning process. The hierarchy of workplaces would be mitigated by the participation of workers, through their unions, in developing and carrying out plans for production, an antidote to “the deadly feeling of dependence, overwork, insecurity, and servility imposed on the workers in capitalist enterprises.”26 The CCF’s plans in this document, as Ian McKay has pointed out, clearly go far beyond “social security” and aim at democratic control of the economy as a whole by “the people.”27 And, while it is aimed at achieving electoral support, the document is clear that political participation is not confined to the ballot box: mass organizations such as trade unions are crucial players. Lewis and Scott explicitly recognize that capital will not cede power willingly. Sabotage “by vested interests” will be “promptly and energetically stopped by proper legal action.”28 Perhaps most notable, given the history of the CCF, was the role of class in Lewis and Scott’s book. It certainly had a populist bent; a chapter entitled “Political Action for the 99%” attempts to paint all Cana­ dians, except for the monopoly capitalists who now “effectively control” Canada, as sharing the same democratic interests. Still, the authors engage in a class analysis that tends to argue that farmers and the “middle class” (including, citing Leonard C. Marsh, as “professional, technical, managerial, white collar workers and independent industrial



Conclusion 313

workers”) are being progressively proletarianized.29 In the end, though, the structures of liberal democracy, including the parliamentary system, were sacrosanct; the wage system, including the fundamentals of workplace hierarchies unchallenged; and the “public” presented as the political agent. None of this is surprising, given the CCF’s electoral goal of addressing as many potential voters as possible in the wartime context. In the closing chapter of the book, the authors issue a resounding call to turn a conflict that, they feel, has become a “people’s war” into a broader struggle for a political and economic democracy.30 There is much in CCF leader M.J. Coldwell’s Left Turn, Canada, published two years later, that echoes Make This Your Canada, particularly on the themes of the dangers of monopolistic control of the economy and of the benefits of planning. The Beveridge Report is again referenced, and again dismissed, as Lewis and Scott had done, as inadequate as a strategy for directing the economy.31 But the tone of the book is much more defensive, and there is little of the enthusiasm for creating a dynamic, new postwar, world – “the great people’s revolution.”32 Rather, there was an attempt to reassure: “the combination of political democracy and economic planning offers escape to civilization from both economic catastrophe and totalitarian dictatorship.”33 As evidence, Coldwell cites Marquis Child’s Sweden, the Middle Way. There is nothing to fear from the CCF. Indeed, it avoids the “monetary fallacies” of Social Credit, the “petty reformism” of “the status quo” parties (Lewis and Scott call them “capitalist parties”34), and, most revealingly, “the extremism” of Communism.35 While there is an emphasis on democracy, it is rooted less in labour and farmers’ movements than in Britain’s “priceless contribution to world civilization.”36 As in Lewis and Scott’s analysis, Coldwell’s workplace eschews fundamental change: “the worker shall play his proper part in management of the factories in which he toils.”37 Although he does not draw the same conclusions, Coldwell’s contention that “every labour dispute has three parties to it, the worker, the employer, and the community,”38 harkens back to Mackenzie King’s construction of the state as a “an impartial umpire” in class relations.39 A particular feature of Coldwell’s book is the focus on foreign policy – far from surprising given the state of international relations as the war drew to a close. While Lewis and Scott had – again, unsurprisingly – supported collective security in 1943, Coldwell signals the CCF’s enthusiastic participation in the new world system being constructed. A CCF government would fit comfortably, it seemed, into the new framework

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The Fate of Labour Socialism

established by Tehran and Yalta, the Atlantic Charter, Dumbarton Oaks, the British Commonwealth, the Pan-American Union, and the nascent United Nations. Although Coldwell, citing John Hobson, rooted imperialism in capitalist competition, he saw the solution to such exploitative relations in Canada’s participation in these international bodies in order to ensure that “a democratic world in which planned production for community use can develop.”40 Unlike the labour-socialist views of the 1930s, which saw the League of Nations as an extension of the imperial aims of its leading members, states – and the international organizations they formed – no longer had a class character.

• This fading reference to class markers – and a fading class imaginary – was apparent across the board. The CCF continued to identify as socialist, of course, and understood capitalism as an exploitative system domestically and internationally, but a fundamental shift had taken place. Labour socialists had seen themselves, by their essence, as outsiders. Labour’s position gave workers a unique ability to understand capitalism, develop an ethical critique of capitalist social relations, and organize themselves, as a class, to replace it. Such beliefs led to a revolutionary stance, one in which capitalism would be replaced by a qualitatively different social order, one based on the satisfaction of human needs. This transformation was possible because, in Marxist terms, the law of value would not apply; there would be no need for exploitation in order to maintain society. Only workers could lead in such a transformation. At stake in the class struggle in the CCF, then, was the struggle to keep the federation on a working-class trajectory, to prevent its slide into a mere “reform” party that aimed only at ameliorating the effects of capitalism rather than ending it. The issue of “reformism” has been a difficult one for historians of the CCF. Overwhelmingly, they have defaulted to a discussion of strategy and tactics. Certainly the labour socialists in the CCF were not insurrectionists, although, it should be noted, they did not tend to eschew any particular strategy. They assumed that their material existence as workers, combined with an often intense “working-class education” would allow them to make the correct choices as the situation demanded. But they were not incrementalists. They did not believe that a society could be half capitalist and half socialist; that was a pipedream of “middle-class reformers” who were



Conclusion 315

either misled themselves or hoped to dupe the workers. A workingclass society – a socialist society – was qualitatively different from capitalism. There were no way stations. It was from this oppositional stance that labour socialists could assess the political world. Although some questions were difficult, there was always a yardstick with which to measure them – what was the working-class position? Domestically, reforms leading to “state capitalism” were self-defeating; they failed to challenge the roots of workers’ oppression or, by extension, to eliminate the threat of fascism. Inter­ nationally, reforming capitalism would not eliminate its inherent tendencies towards expansion and war. Only socialism could to that. But, as we have seen, such perceptions were regularly challenged in the CCF and on the left more generally. During the war, they were very much in retreat. The Western allies had painted the war as a crusade to preserve liberal democracy. On the homefront, the CCF struggled to salvage democratic rights and to empower workers politically – as worker citizens – in large part, through the institutionalization of their unions in a new industrial relations regime under capitalism. The old conceptions of the mission of the working class seemed to have no place in these contexts. Consequently, the notion of socialism heralding a qualitatively different society from capitalism seemed to fade away. While some may have intellectually held to such a conception, the dayto-day practice and language of the CCF was all about social democratic incrementalism: expanding social welfare programs, expanding trade union rights, and blunting the weapons of capital in the workplace and beyond. Internationally, it meant pushing for what CCFers considered to be a fairer world order. The old certainties had been progressively undermined, and the line between liberalism and socialism had faded. Without such certainties, the political challenges in a new cold war world would test the limits of oppositional politics.

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Notes

Introduction 1 See John Herd Thompson with Allen Seager, Canada, 1922–1939: Decades of Discord (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985), chaps. 5 and 9. 2 Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999). 3 The foundational literature is quite large and includes most importantly Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959); Leo Zakuta, A Protest Movement Becalmed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964); Walter D. Young, The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–61 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969); Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour (Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University, 1968); Gad Horowitz, Canadian Labour in Politics (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968); Ivan Avakumovic, Socialism in Canada: A Study of the CCF-NDP in Federal and Provincial Politics (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978); William Rodney, Soldiers of the International: A History of the Communist Party of Canada, 1919–1929 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968); Irving Abella, Nationalism, Communism, and Canadian Labour (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973); Ivan Avakumovic, The Communist Party in Canada (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975); Norman Penner, The Canadian Left: A Critical Analysis (Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1979). The journal Labour/Le Travail (originally Labour/Le Travailleur) was rooted in this period as well, beginning publication in 1976. 4 Tom Nairn has made this argument about the British Labour Party in “The British Enigma,” in his The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 1981).

318

Notes to pages 9–11

5 St. Laurent was speaking about the Saskatchewan CCF government: Dale C. Thomson, Louis St. Laurent: Canadian (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 266. See also Gary Teeple, “‘Liberals in a Hurry’: Socialism and the CCF-NDP,” in his Capitalism and the National Question in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). 6 Ian McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnais­ sance of Canadian History,” Canadian Historical Review 81, no. 4 (December 2000), the quotes are at 642 and 643. My subsequent reference is to his analysis of the CCF’s “radical planism” during the Second World War. See Ian McKay, “For a New Kind of History: A Reconnaissance of 100 Years of Canadian Socialism,” Labour/Le Travail 46 (Fall 2000): 106–108. Also, Donald Sassoon, One Hundred Years of Socialism: The Western European Left in the Twentieth Century (London: Fontana, 1997). The term radical planism generally refers to the more specific proposals of the Belgian Henrik de Man in the 1930s. See Gerd-Rainer Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism, and Contingency in the 1930s (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 74–95. Notably, Sheri Berman points out that De Man’s strategies entailed a substantial break with Marx in their focus on rebuilding the socialist movement as a crossclass alliance and on the long-term transformation of capitalism. De Man felt that the latter was not reformist, because it forsaw “fundamental changes” and not just redistribution of wealth. Sheri Berman, The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 115–24. For further debate on McKay’s “reconnaissance,” see Jean-François Constant and Michel Ducharme, eds., Liberalism and Hegemony: Debating the Canadian Liberal Revolution (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009). 7 Edward P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (1955; repr., London: Merlin, 1977), 244. 8 David Laycock, Populism and Democratic Thought in the Canadian Prairies, 1910–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990), 136–202. 9 Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism. 10 Notably, Wiseman and Isitt use the term social democracy to describe a long and very broad tradition in Canada. Although they do recognize its heterogeneity and transformation over time, they fall back on a notion that “self-classification is revealingly meaningful” without recognition or acknowledgment of the extreme rarity of the use of the term by CCFers in the 1930s. Nelson Wiseman and Benjamin Isitt, “Social Democracy in Twentieth Century Canada: An Interpretive Framework,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 40, no. 3 (September 2007), 572.



Notes to pages 11–14 319

11 The use of the term is interesting. It seems to have appeared during the Second World War, used, for example, in Carlyle King’s pamphlet What Is Democratic Socialism? (Regina: Saskatchewan CCF, 1943). It is noteworthy that Anthony Mardiros uses “democratic socialism” to describe those who, in distinction to what he labels the “social democratic” current, ­desired “fundamental and far-reaching social changes.” William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979), 257. It seems to me that this use of “democratic” as an adjective is both misleading and redundant. 12 Walter D. Young, The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–1961 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969). 13 This point is made by Alan Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 18–34. 14 Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920–1950 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989). 15 Particularly see James Naylor, The New Democracy: Challenging the Social Order in Industrial Ontario, 1914–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991) and Tom Mitchell and James Naylor, “The Prairies: In the Eye of the Storm” in The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925, ed. Craig Heron (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 16 Martin Robin’s suggestion that “direct action” was fundamentally counterposed to what he calls “political action” misreads the mood of the period. Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 1880–1930 (Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre, Queen’s University, 1968). 17 Craig Heron, “Labourism and the Canadian Working Class,” Labour/­ Le Travail 13 (Spring 1987): 45–76; Craig Heron, “National Contours: Solidarity and Fragmentation,” in The Workers’ Revolt. 18 “From the Watchtower,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1933. 19 This point has been made most strongly in relation to gender. See Janice Newton, The Feminist Challenge to the Canadian Left, 1900–1918 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1995); Linda Kealey, Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour, and the Left in Canada, 1890–1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998); Joan Sangster, Dreams of Equality. 20 The early debate remains significant. See Gareth Stedman Jones, Languages of Class: Studies in English Working Class History, 1832–1982 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983) and Patrick Joyce, Visions of the People: Industrial England and the Question of Class, 1848–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). There is considerable literature on ­social identities and modern social movements, but foundational texts ­include Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso, 1985) and

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21

22 23 24 25

Notes to pages 14–18

Denise Riley, “Am I That Name?” Feminism and the Category of “Women” in History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988). Critics include Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Retreat from Class: A New “True” Socialism (London: Verso, 1986) and Norman Geras, Discourses of Extremity: Radical Ethics and Post-Modern Extravagances (London: Verso, 1990). A useful recent contribution is John Sanbonmatsu, The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004). Raphael Samuel, “Class Politics: The Lost World of British Communism, Part Three,” New Left Review 165 (September–October 1987). John Saville takes general issue with Samuel’s portrayal of life in the Communist Party of Great Britain, but does not specifically counter this observation in his Memoirs from the Left (London: Merlin, 2003), 8–9. Stuart Macintyre, A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Stanley Aronowitz, The Politics of Identity: Class, Culture, Social Movements (New York: Routledge, 1992), 45. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1960). E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963; repr., Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 9.

1  The Legacy of Labour Socialism 1 “C.C.F. Plan Greater Than Magna Carta,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 9 August 1933. 2 For biographical detail on Pritchard, see Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for the Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1999), 73–123. 3 Walter D. Young, Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–61 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 313. 4 University of British Columbia Special Collections (herafter (UBC), Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection (hereafter AMMC), box 45, file 45-12, letter, Robert Connell to Provincial Executive, CCF, 28 July 1936. 5 Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 60, file Manitoba General Correspondence, 1938–51, Lorne Ingle to Daisy Paulley, 22 March 1950. See also vol. 108, file Correspondence, 1943–58 (3 of 3), Betty Massey to J. Luchinsky, 28 January 1952. Massey, who was Ingle’s executive assistant, carefully explains that the proposed new document was a modernization, rather than a replacement or even amendment, of the Regina Manifesto.



Notes to pages 18–21 321

6 Alan Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 38, 50. 7 Michiel Horn, “Frank Underhill’s Early Drafts of the Regina Manifesto, 1933,” Canadian Historical Review 54, no. 4 (December 1973); Horn, “The LSR, the CCF, and the Regina Manifesto,” in “Building the Co-operative Commonwealth”: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada, ed. J. William Brennan (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1984; and Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). 8 Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899–1919 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 69. The quote is from Brandon SPCer Ed Fulcher. 9 Craig Heron, “Labourism and the Canadian Working Class,” in Labour/ Le Travail 13 (Spring 1984): 50. 10 The best overview of this is Craig Heron, ed., The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). See also Gregory S. Kealey, “1919: The Canadian Labour Revolt,” Labour/Le Travail 13 (Spring 1984) and James Naylor, The New Democracy: Challenging the Industrial Order in Industrial Ontario, 1914–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991). 11 See Craig Heron, “The Second Industrial Revolution in Canada, 1890– 1930,” in Class, Community, and the Labour Movement: Wales and Canada, 1850–1930, ed. Deian R. Hopkin and Gregory S. Kealey (Aberystwyth: Llafur and Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1989); Donald Avery, “Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada, 1896–1932 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1979); Mark Leier, Where the Fraser River Flows: The Industrial Workers of the World in British Columbia (Vancouver: New Star, 1990). 12 The resolution is cited in Donald Avery, “The Radical Alien and the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919,” in The West and the Nation: Essays in Honour of W.L. Morton, ed. Carl Berger and Ramsay Cook (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 217. See also Norman Penner, ed., Winnipeg 1919: The Strikers’ Own History of the Winnipeg General Strike, 2nd ed. (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1975), 78. 13 On the ideology of the “Citizens,” see Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell, When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2010). 14 Linda Kealey, Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour, and the Left in Canada, 1890–1920 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 15 Veronica Strong-Boag, The Parliament of Women: The National Council of Women of Canada, 1893–1929 (Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1976);

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16

17 18 19

20 21

22

23 24

Notes to pages 22–4

Linda Kealey, ed., A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, 1880s–1920s, (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1976); Mariana Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885–1925 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1991). Richard Allen, The Social Passion: Religion and Social Reform in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973); Ramsay Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1985); Cook, “Ambiguous Heritage: Wesley College and the Social Gospel Re-considered,” Manitoba History 19 (Spring 1990); Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, A Full-Orbed Christianity: The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996). Allen, The Social Passion, 17. Ibid., 182. A.E. Smith, All My Life (Toronto: Progress, 1977); Tom Mitchell, “From the Social Gospel to the ‘Plain Bread of Leninism’: A.E. Smith’s Journey to the Left in the Epoch of Reaction after the Great War,” Labour/Le Travail 23 (Spring 1994); Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959); Allen Mills, Fool for Christ: The Political Thought of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991); Michael W. Butt, “‘To Each According to His Need, and From Each According to His Ability – Why Cannot the World See This?’ The Politics of William Ivens, 1916–1936” (MA thesis, University of Winnipeg, 1993); Anthony Mardiros, William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979). Allen, The Social Passion, 174–96. The quote is from Chown’s address to the Methodist General Conference, June 1919, cited by Allen, 129. Joan Sangster, “The Making of a Socialist-Feminist: The Early Career of Beatrice Brigden, 1888–1941,” Atlantis 13, no. 1 (1987); Allison Campbell, “Beatrice Brigden: The Formative Years of a Socialist Feminist, 1888–1932” (MA thesis, University of Manitoba, 1991); Gene H. Homel, “James Simpson and the Origins of Canadian Social Democracy” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1978). W.L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950), C.B. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party System (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953), chap. 1. Alvin Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917– 1943,” Labour/Le Travail 16 (Fall 1985): 72. The term is from Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920–1933 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960).



Notes to pages 25–30 323

25 John Manley, “Does the International Labour Movement Need Salvaging? Communism, Labourism, and the Canadian Trade Unions, 1921–1928,” Labour/Le Travail 41 (Spring 1998); Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada (Toronto: Vanguard, 1981), 132–43. 26 Heron, The Workers’ Revolt, 294. 27 Naylor, The New Democracy, 234. 28 Manley, “Does the International Labour Movement Need Salvaging,” 169– 70; David Frank, J.B. McLachlan: A Biography (Toronto: Lorimer, 1999). 29 Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks, 256–88. 30 LAC, A.A. Heaps Papers, MG 27 III C22 (hereafter Heaps Papers), vol. 2, file Clippings, Misc., Communist Party of Canada, Election Bulletin No. 2, Published by the Winnipeg Election Committee of the Communist Party of Canada. The policy of critically supporting the ILP was explained in terms very much reflective of Lenin’s critique of ultra-leftism in Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder (1920; repr. Bejing: Foreign Languages Press, 1970). 31 LAC, Heaps Papers, vol. 2, file Clippings, Misc., “Do Not Vote for the Liberal-Labor Party,” Workers’ Vanguard, July 1930. 32 Martin Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 1880–1930 (Kingston: Industrial Relations Centre at Queen’s University, 1968), 258. 33 Ibid., 262. 34 Alvin Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party,” 82. 35 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 5–1, I.L.P. Minute Book, 1925–32, 27 April 1928, 17 June 1928, 19 April 1929, 19 May 1929. 36 Norman Penner, The Canadian Left: A Critical Analysis (Toronto: PrenticeHall, 1977), 134–35; see also Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988), 97–127. 37 Penner, Canadian Communism, 73. 38 The best description of this conflct is in Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks. 39 “Let Us Take Communism from the Communists,” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1931. 40 Robin, Radical Politics and Canadian Labour, 264. 41 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 31 July 1930. 42 Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way, 7. 43 “Labor’s Educational Work,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 1 October 1926; University of Manitoba Library, Department of Archives and Special Collections, Marshall J. Gauvin Papers. 44 “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News, 4 November 1932; “Y.L.A. Notes,”ibid., 27 January 1933. 45 Mills, Fool for Christ, 73.

324

Notes to pages 30–4

46 Ibid., 133. 47 “Nothing to Lose,” One Big Union Bulletin, 26 June 1930. 48 Stuart Macintyre, A Proletarian Science: Marxism in Britain, 1917–1923 (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1980), 188. 49 Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for the Third Way, 23. 50 Stanley Pierson, Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973). For a knowledgeable discussion of the Clarion movement, see “In Field, Factory and Workshop,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 September 1934. 51 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), Woodsworth Memorial Collection, Ms Collection 35 (hereafter WMC), box 8, letter F.A. Hughes to Bert Robinson, 8 September 1932, and Robinson to Hughes, 12 September 1932. 52 Georg Lukács, Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought (1924; London: NLB, 1970). 53 Naylor, The New Democracy. 54 “Independent Labor Party Held Highly Successful Convention,” Labor News (Hamilton), 30 April 1926, “Did Very Well,” ibid., 20 December 1930. 55 The Fort William branch more explicitly called for a “co-operative commonwealth” and demanded that its members maintain independence from the old parties. LAC, Heaps Papers, vol. 2, ffile Clippings, Misc., “Independent Labor Party,” Labor Progress (Fort William), 1 March 1931. 56 “Labor Scored Magnificent Victory in East Hamilton,” Labor News (Hamilton), 28 August 1931. 57 “Labor Party of Ontario,” Border City Labor News (Windsor), 24 May 1932. 58 “May Form New Labor Party,” Labor News (Hamilton), 30 March 1928. 59 “Annual Convention,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), March 1931. 60 “London Convention Urges Socialism as Only Solution,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), 25 April 1931. 61 “Labor Party: Branch Formed at Windsor, Ontario,” Labor News (Toronto), 25 September 1931; “Local L.P.O.,” Border City Labor News (Windsor), 24 May 1932. 62 “Toronto Labor Repudiates Moore,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), 25 April 1931; “Be It Resolved,” Labor Leader (Toronto), 17 April 1931. 63 “Labor Party Convention,” Border Cities Star (Windsor), 25 March 1932, and “Labor Men Favor Dole,” ibid., 26 March 1932. 64 “Labor Party Convention,” Border Cities Star (Windsor), 25 March 1932; ­“5-Day Week Advocated by Labor Party,” Labor Leader (Toronto), 1 April 1932. On the roots of the Liberal-Labour tradition, see Craig Heron, “Labourism and the Canadian Working Class,” and Gregory S. Kealey,



65 66

67 68 69

70 71 72

73 74

75 76 77

Notes to pages 35–9 325 Toronto Workers Respond to Industrial Capitalism, 1867–1892 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). “The Brantford Convention,” Labor News (Toronto), 29 April 1933. “Rev. Father Coughlin,” Border Cities Labor News (Windsor), 30 April 1932, and “The Labor Party of Ontario,” ibid., 24 May 1932. Ian McKay strongly argues the case for Herbert Spencer’s status as an intellectual influence among Canadian socialists in edition of the writings of Colin McKay, For a Working-Class Culture in Canada, ed. Ian McKay (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1996), esp. 84–135, and in Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, 1890–1920, (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2008). “Labor Party Certain Soviet Courts Fair,” Toronto Daily Star, 17 April 1933. “The Tasks of the London Convention,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), March 1931. “The Significance of May Day,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), 25 April 1931; “The Crisis of Unemployment,” ibid., 25 May 1931; “Socialist Vienna,” ibid., November 1931. Note that Gerald Caplan is incorrect in describing Moriarty as a “Trotskyite,” in The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism: The CCF in Ontario (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 3. Richard Harris, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900–1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 286, 213. LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, “Socialist Party of Canada, Earlscourt Branch” letterhead. Black was also secretary of the local of the Painters’ and Decorators’ Union, “London Convention Urges Socialism as Only Solution,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), and “Painters and Decorators,” ibid., 25 April 1931. “Communists Made Clean Sweep at Convention,” Labor News (Toronto), 30 April 1926. “Hamilton Delegate Commends Earlscourt Labor Party,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), 25 April 1931. LAC, James S. Woodsworth Papers, MG 27 III C7 (hereafter JSW Papers), vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, Woodsworth to O.J. Kerr, Stratford, 10 March 1932. O’Hanley organized a West Hamilton branch of the Ontario Labour Party at a meeting of three hundred people. “I.L.P. Branch: One Will Be Formed in West Hamilton,” Labor Leader (Toronto), 5 August 1932. A British ILP statement reprinted in Labor Advocate (Toronto), March 1931. Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s (London: Allen and Unwin, 1977), 12–20, 41–2. “Manifesto of the National Labour Party,” Canadian Railway Employees’ Magazine, October 1931, 223, in LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file 35.

326

Notes to pages 39–42

78 LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, letter, Andrew Glen to Mrs. E.B. Tanner, 29 February 1932. Thank you to Peter Campbell for providing me with leads to the NLP material. 79 For instance, in reply to E.B. Tanner’s survey of interest in political action in Ontario, the Kingston Trades and Labour Council reported that affiliation to the Trades and Labour Congress “restrains us as a body from ­political effort.” LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, letter, Alec Sorgat to Tanner, 8 March 1932. 80 LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, letter, Glen to Tanner, 8 March 1932. 81 UT, WMC, box 10, file J.S. Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, letter, 3 February 1932. 82 “The United Front,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), July 1931 and “A Socialist Party,” ibid., December 1931. 83 UT, WMC, box 9, “Minutes of Conference called to consider the formation of a socialist party.” 7 February 1932. It is worth noting that Jennie Lee was a primary conduit between Canadian socialists such as David Lewis and the British ILP. David Lewis, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909–1958,(Toronto: Macmillan, 1981), 44–6. 84 UT, J.S. WMC, box 9, Minutes of Conference called to consider the formation of a socialist party, 7 February 1932. 85 “The Socialist Task,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), 25 May 1931. The grammar reflects the original. 86 LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, circular letter, Socialist Party of Ontario, Convention Call, no date [February/March 1932]. 87 LAC, JSW Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, letter, Andrew Glen to Mrs. E.B. Tanner, 29 February 1932, and J.F. Thomson to Tanner, 27 February 1932. 88 “Mould Re-Elected O.L.P President,” Border Cities Star (Windsor), 28 March 1932; UT, WMC, box 9, Minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, 23 March 1932; Socialist Party of Canada, Ontario Section, Secretary’s Annual Report, March 1933. 89 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30, D204, vol. 7, file R – General (3), letter, Thomas Cruden and Bert Robinson to Underhill, 22 March 1932. On branch membership figures see membership lists in UT, WMC, box 8, Danforth and East York Branch and York Township Branch. On dues, see box 8, Bert Robinson to Ben Manson, 16 July 1932. 90 UT, WMC, box 9, letter, Bert Robinson to “Comrade Ray,” 17 September 1932. 91 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, executive, June [1932].



Notes to pages 42–3 327

92 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, local membership, Toronto, 18 May 1932; box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, provincial executive, 5 October 1932; box 8, letter, Howard E. Huggett, Secretary, East Toronto Branch, Socialist Party of Ontario to “Comrade,” 25 April 1932; box 8, letters Bert Robinson to Annie Hood Turner, Clarkson, 8 May 1932 and 5 July 1932; box 8, letter Bert Robinson to Ben Manson, 18 July 1932. The Toronto Labor Party also held meetings outside of the city for this ­reason. LAC, RG 13, Department of Justice, Access 87-A-129, p. 56, Toronto Labour Party, 23 July 1932. Toronto Police harassment of communists has been well documented. See Lita-Rose Betcherman, The Little Band: The Clashes between the Communists and the Political and Legal Establishment in Canada, 1928–1932 (Ottawa: Deneau, 1982), 14–28. 93 UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, Ontario Section, Secretary’s Annual Report, March 1933. 94 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, local membership, Toronto, 18 May 1932. 95 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to “Comrade Ray,” 17 September 1932. 96 UT, WMC, box 9, “Minutes of Adjourned Convention,” Socialist Party of Ontario, 15 March 1932; minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, “Mass Membership Meeting,” 29 March 1932. 97 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, general meeting, 26 April 1932; Metropolitan Toronto Library, John W. Buckley Papers, Scrapbooks, vol. 2. 98 As we shall see, even though there were non-Stalinist labour socialists who exhibited great frustration with the CP, it is not uniformly true that “most socialists believed that it had lost any claim on normal workingclass solidarity.” John Manley, “Red or Yellow? Canadian Communists and the ‘Long’ Third Period, 1927–36,” in In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period, ed. Matthew Worley, (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 228. Rather, Manley was extrapolating J.S. Woodsworth’s comments to the broader current of non-communist socialists. 99 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, general meeting, 26 April 1932; minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, executive, 2 and 9 May 1932 (adjourned). 100 For instance, one of the first acts of the new Socialist Party of Ontario’s ­executive was to attempt to attract speakers from the British ILP and the Socialist Party of America. UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, 23 March 1932.

328

Notes to pages 43–6

101 UT, WMC, box 10, file J.S. Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, letter, 17 March 1932. 102 UT, WMC, box 8, E.E. Winch to B. Robinson, 9 March 1932. 103 The classical statement of this thesis is David J. Bercuson, “Labour Radicalism and the Western Industrial Frontier, 1897–1919,” Canadian Historical Review 58, 2 (June 1977): 154–75. There are several critiques, some focusing on the West, particularly Jeremy Mouat, “The Genesis of Western Exceptionalism: British Columbia’s Hard-Rock Miners, 1895– 1903,” Canadian Historical Review 71, no. 3 (September 1990): 317–45, and others on the rest of Canada. With reference to Canada as a whole, overviews of Canada during the climax of working-class rebellion after the First World War best demonstrate the weaknesses of the western exceptionalist thesis. See Heron, ed., The Workers’ Revolt in Canada. 104 Ben Isitt, “The Search for Solidarity: The Industrial and Political Roots of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in British Columbia, 1913– 1928” (MA thesis, University of Victoria, 2003), 31–32. Chapter 4 of this thesis contains a well-considered discussion of the nature and fate of the Canadian Labour Party in British Columbia, 142–79. 105 Cited by Walter D. Young, “Ideology, Personality and the Origins of the CCF in British Columbia,” BC Studies 32 (Winter 1976–7): 141. 106 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Provincial Executive, 27 February 1926 and 17 May 1926. 107 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Provincial Executive, 6 June 1928, 19 April 1929; Special Convention, 17 June 1928. 108 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Special meeting of I.L.P. Branches, 27 April 1928; Special Convention of the I.L.P., 17 June 1928; and Third Annual Convention of the ILP, 19 May 1939. For a fuller discussion see Isitt, “The Search for Solidarity,” 173–7. 109 “Let Us Take Communism from the Communists,” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1931. 110 “I Accuse,” Challenge (Vancouver), May 1932. 111 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Third Annual Convention of the ILP, 19 May 1929, and Fourth Annual Convention of the ILP, 5 October 1930. 112 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Fifth Annual Convention, 6 December 1931. 113 “Dispersing the Fog,” Challenge (Vancouver), July 1932. 114 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Ernest E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 23 July 1932. 115 “Wallis W. Lefeaux: Candidate for Vancouver (Centre),” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 25 October 1933. Given the multiple ideological and



Notes to pages 46–8 329

personal affinities of the BC SPC to the pre-war SPC, Michiel Horn’s penchant for labelling the SPC of the 1930s as “neo-Marxists” is odd. See, for instance, “The LSR, the CCF, and the Regina Manifesto,” in “Building the Co-operative Commonwealth”: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada, ed. J. William Brennan (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1984), 29, 36. If anything, they felt they were defending traditional Marxism from the Communist Party revisionists. 116 UBC, AMMC, box 45, File 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, SPC manifesto adopted, 1932. 117 “We Advocate Communism – and Intelligence,” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1931. 118 “Policy and Tactics of the Independent Labor Party,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1931. 119 “Quality or Quantity? Care Must Be Exercised to See Nominees of Proven Ability and Integrity Are Chosen,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1931. 120 “Tactics,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), 10 August 1932. 121 “Policy and Tactics of the Independent Labor Party,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1931. 122 “Evolution or Revolution,” Challenge (Vancouver), February 1932. 123 “Why the I.L.P.,” Challenge (Vancouver), August 1931. 124 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, 16 January 1932. 125 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, 13 February 1932; UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada [British Columbia], Provincial Executive, 12 September 1932. 126 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Provincial Executive, 10 October 1932. 127 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, provincial executive, 12 March 1933. 128 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933, Report of Literature Agent (Jane K. Bury). The BC SPC found the SPGB – which they lampooned as the “one true light” – dogmatic and excessively anti-Soviet. See “Confusion and Confusionists,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), November 1932. 129 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933; file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934. 130 “From the Watchtower,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1933. 131 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933. 132 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933, Report of Provincial

330

Notes to pages 49–53

Secretary; file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–45, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934. 133 “B.C. Summer School,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 14 August 1925. See Naylor, The New Democracy, 238–39. 134 “Should Unemployed Have Children,” Challenge (Vancouver), and “The Struggle of the Masses Is World-Wide: Dominion Status for India,” ibid., March 1931. 135 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Provincial Executive, 14 May 1932. 136 “Demands?” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), November 1932. 137 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Provincial Executive, 8 August 1932 and 12 September 1932. 138 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Special Membership Convention of the ILP, 21 June 1933. 139 “Proposed New System of Government and Development Policy for British Columbia,” The People (Vancouver), April 1932. 140 “The Leader of the People’s Party of B.C.,” The People (Vancover), September 1932, and “The Independent C.C.F.,” ibid., issue 4 (n.d.). 141 McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries, 77–97. 142 Heron, “Labourism and the Canadian Working Class”; J.E. Rea, “The Politics of Class: Winnipeg City Council, 1919–1945,” in The West and the Nation, ed. Berger and Cook, 235. 143 “Lessons from the Civic Elections,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 4 December 1931. 144 Two copies of the Ukrainian Worker, in Ukrainian, are on file in LAC, Heaps Papers, vol. 2, file Clippings, Misc., n.d. 145 Harry Gutkin and Mildred Gutkin, Profiles in Dissent: The Shaping of Radical Thought in the Canadian West (Edmonton: NeWest, 1997), 84. 146 James Naylor, “Frederick John Dixon,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16, forthcoming. 147 Tom Mitchell and James Naylor, “The Prairies: In the Eye of the Storm,” in The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 215. 148 “For a Militant Labor Movement,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 26 June 1925, 3 July 1925, and 10 July 1925. 149 LAC, Heaps Papers, vol. 2, file Clippings, Misc., n.d., “Communist Party of Canada, Election Bulletin No. 2,” 1927. 150 “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 2 October 1925 and “Workers Oppose Kildonan Site,” ibid., 26 July 1929. 151 “Don’t Scab at the Ballot Box,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 23 October 1925. 152 “Independent Labor Party Candidates,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 27 May 1927 and “Labor Elects Three,” ibid., 1 July 1927.



Notes to pages 53–5 331

153 “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 4 February 1927 and 11 February 1927. 154 “Lestor’s Corner,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 31 July 1930; the characterization of Lestor is that of John Armitage in LAC, MG 30 D204, Frank H. Underhill Papers, vol. 2, file A General: 1928–1956 (2), Armitage to Underhill, 20 May 1932. 155 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 26 June 1930. 156 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 30 October 1930. 157 “I.L.P. Notes: South Branch I.L.P.,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 31 March 1933. 158 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 22 May, 1930, “O.B.U. Forum Meeting: Thugs Endeavor to Rush the Speaker,” ibid., 12 June 1930. 159 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 31 July 1930. 160 “Nothing to Lose,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 26 June 1930. 161 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 8 May 1930. 162 “Lestor’s Corner,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 31 July 1930. A general survey of early Communist/OBU relations is available in David J. Bercuson, Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of the One Big Union (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1978), 215–46. 163 Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for the Third Way, 211. 164 “I.L.P Mass Meeting Protests against Economic Policy,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 19 February 1932. 165 “Brandon I.L.P. Active with Unemployed Problems,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 2 May 1930. 166 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 31 July 1930. 167 “O.B.U Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 30 October 1930. 168 “Lestor’s Corner,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 24 July 1930. 169 “Labor’s Educational Work,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 1 October 1926. 170 “O.B.U. Forum Meeting,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 30 October 1930. 171 University of Manitoba Department of Archives and Special Collections (hereafter UM), Marshall J. Gauvin Papers, Finding Aid. 172 Ibid., box 7, file 2, letter, D. Barry, assistant general chairman, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, Canadian Pacific System Federation, Norwood, Man., to Gauvin, 7 September 1935, and letter, Gauvin to J.A. Cherniack, 11 August 1937.

332

Notes to pages 55–8

173 J.H. Gray, “The Canadian Anti-Christ,” Canadian Forum 15, January 1935. 174 Ibid. 175 UM, Gauvin Papers, box 9, file 4, Lestor to Gauvin, 26 March 1929. 176 Gauvin’s lectures were reported in the ILP’s Weekly News. On the topics noted, see “Gauvin at the Metropolitan,” 3 December 1926; “Gauvin at the ‘Met,’” 3 February 1928; “Gauvin at the ‘Met,’” 27 April 1928; and “Gauvin at the ‘Met,’” 9 November 1928. The paper gave a full report of Gauvin’s talk on “fordism” in “M.J. Gauvin at the ‘Met,’” 25 February 1927. The Gauvin Papers include outlines or stenographic copies of many of his talks, including an undated talk on fordism. UM, Gauvin Papers, box 21, file 9. 177 On the background to the British Labour Church, see Stephen Yeo, “A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883–1896,” History Workshop 4 (Autumn 1977): 5–56 and Jacqueline Turner, “Labour’s Lost Soul: Recovering the Labour Church,” The Foundations of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–39, ed. Matthew Worley (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 153–69. The latter contains a useful discussion of secularization. 178 Butt, “‘To Each According to His Need’,” 68; “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 25 September 1925. 179 F.L. Paulley, quoted by Vera Fast, “The Labour Church in Winnipeg,” in Prairie Spirit: Perspectives on the Heritage of the United Church of Canada in the West, ed. Dennis L. Butcher et al. (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba, 1985), 248. 180 Allen, The Social Passion, 173. 181 Ibid. 173–74. 182 Fast, “The Labor Church in Winnipeg,” 247. 183 Ibid., 248. 184 A regular series began on 1 February 1936 marked the beginning of a regular series, although the first ILP event on radio was an ILP election rally in 1925. “Labor Rally at Winnipeg Rink,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), “Labor Rally at Winnipeg Rink,”23 October 1925. 185 “I.L.P Dramatic Society,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 29 April 1927; “I.L.P. Dramatic Society Delights Fort Rouge Branch,” ibid., 17 February 1928; “I.L.P. Dramatic Society,” ibid., 24 January 1930; “I.L.P. Dramatic Society Gives Excellent Program,” ibid., 22 May 1931. 186 “I.L.P. Get-Together Proves Big Success,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 30 December 1932. 187 “Successful I.L.P. Picnic,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 7 September 1928. 188 “O.B.U. Amateur Athletic Association,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 1 May 1930; “Everybody’s Going to Gimli, Aug. 10: O.B.U. Annual Sports



Notes to pages 58–60 333

Day,” ibid., 31 July 1930; “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 25 May 1934. 189 Cited in Olenka Melnyk, No Bankers in Heaven: Remembering the CCF (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1989), 209. 190 “Mr. Dempsey and Mr. Tunney,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 1 October 1926. 191 “I.L.P Municipal Platform, 1929,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 8 November 1929. 192 “Lessons from the Civic Elections,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 4 December 1931. 193 “Is the I.L.P. Efficient?” Challenge (Vancouver), November 1931. 194 “Are You for Labor?” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 7 June 1929. 195 “W. Ivens Attacks Present Day Conditions,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 13 February 1931. 196 Alexander Brian McKillop, “Citizen and Socialist: The Ethos of Political Winnipeg, 1919–­1935” (MA thesis, University of Manitoba, 1970), 141. 197 “I.L.P. Municipal Election Program,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 11 November 1932. 198 “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 27 April 1934; “I.L.P. Notes,” ibid., 4 November 1932; “John Queen, M.L.A. Speaks at I.L.P. Forum,” ibid., 6 February 1931. 199 James Naylor, “Canadian Labour Politics and the British Model, 1920– 1950,” in Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, ed. Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 290–95. The British ILP had increased its educational focus in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution as the party moved to the left, disaffiliating from the British Labour Party in 1932. David Stack, “Labour and the Intellectuals,” in The Foundations of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–1939, ed. Matthew Worley (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 113–30. 200 “Are You for Labor?” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 7 June 1929. The fact that even the Manitoba ILP, generally considered the most British and least radical of interwar labour socialist parties, was dismissive of the British Labour Party should remind us that the BLP was far from a model for CCFers generally. There is little evidence for statements such Lynn Gidluck’s recent assessment that “many of the people coming together [at the 1933 Regina Convention] saw the CCF as a Canadian version of the British Labour Party.” Interestingly, she makes no comment on the fact that the British representative in Regina was a member of the British Independent Labour Party. Lynn Gidluck, Visionaries, Crusaders, and Firebrands: The Idealistic Canadians Who Built the NDP (Toronto: Lorimer,

334

Notes to pages 61–9

2012), 85, 88. The assumption of CCFers’ support for the British Labour Party is particularly off base, as the CCF was founded in the aftermath of the debacle of the Ramsay MacDonald government. 201 “The Function of Criticism,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 13 September 1929. 202 “Why Not a Capital Levy?” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 20 February 1931. 203 “England Yet Shall Stand,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 30 October 1931. 204 “I.L.P. and the Labor Party,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 20 July 1928; “What’s Happpening in the World?” ibid., 25 January 1929; “The Lost Leaders,” ibid., 11 December 1931, “Ramsay MacDonald’s Sad Fate,” ibid., 14 July 1933. 205 “Lestor’s Corner,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 22 May 1930; “Where the Blame Lies,” ibid., 19 June 1930. 206 “Blasphemy – What Is it?” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 8 April 1927. 207 Heron, ed., The Workers’ Revolt in Canada. 208 On the Manitoba case, see “The I.L.P and Unemployment,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 12 June 1931.

2 The Road to Regina 1 Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), 259. 2 League for Social Reconstruction, Social Planning for Canada (1935; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 472. 3 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), Woodsworth Memorial Collection, MS Collection 35 (hereafter WMC), box 10, file Fred White, transcript of interview of White by Paul Fox, n.d. 4 “Conference of Western Labor Representatives Called,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 14 June 1929. 5 George Hoffman, “The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Party, 1932–1934: How Radical Was It at Its Origin?” in Pages from the Past: Essays on Saskatchewan History, ed. D.H. Bocking (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1979), 210. 6 UT, WMC, box 10, file Fred White, Fox interview. 7 “Western Conference of Labor Parties,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 24 July 1931, “In the Mail,” ibid., 7 August 1931. 8 Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 1, file National Council and Executive Minutes, 1 August 1932–5 August 1936, Conference Resulting in Formation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. 9 Ibid.



Notes to pages 70–6 335

10 LAC, CCF, vol. 1, file National Council and Executive Minutes, 1 August 1932–5 August 1936, Minutes of the Provisional National Council, Calgary, Alberta, 24 January 1933. 11 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Ernest Winch to Bert Robinson, 15 August 1932. 12 University of British Columbia Special Collections (hereafter UBC), Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection (hereafter AMMC), box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, Minutes, 1931–33, minutes, Provincial Executive, 10 October 1932. 13 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Ernest Winch to Bert Robinson, 17 October 1932. 14 Walter D. Young, The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932-61 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969). 15 Alan Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 36. 16 A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899–1919 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 71. 17 Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism, 37. 18 Ivan Avakumovic, Socialism in Canada: A Study of the CCF-NDP in Federal and Provincial Politics (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1978), 37. 19 “Beware!” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1933. 20 UBC, AMMC, box 45, 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 12 September 1932. 21 Ibid. 22 Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism, 13 23 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 12 September 1932, 10 October 1932. 24 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 10 October 1932. 25 “The Problem of Disseminating Socialism,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1932. 26 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 14 Novem­ ber 1932. 27 Ibid. 28 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 9 January 1933. 29 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 9 January 1933; minutes, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933. 30 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, circular letter, A.J. Turner to membership, 5 February 1933. 31 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Sid Earp to Bert Robinson, 14 September 1933.

336

Notes to pages 76–9

32 “No ‘Rift’ in the C.C.F,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 23 August 1933. 33 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933, and minutes, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934. 34 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Ernest Winch to Bert Robinson, 20 December 1932. 35 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, minutes, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933. 36 “The People’s Party,” The People (Vancouver), April 1932, “The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation,” ibid., 29 September 1932. 37 LAC, CCF, vol. 10, file 1934 Convention – Correspondence, “The True Status of the C.C.F. B.C. Section”; “The Co-Operative Commonwealth,” The People (Vancouver), 29 June 1933. 38 LAC, CCF, vol. 10, file 1934 Convention – Correspondence, letter, J.E. Armishaw to delegates in attendance at the C.C.F. Conference sitting at Vancouver, March 4, 1933. 39 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, letter, J. Price to Priestley, 5 July 1933. 40 “Beware!” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1933. 41 “The Independent C.C.F.,” The People (Vancouver), n.d. [June 1933]; “Arm­ shaw [sic] Breaks with Lyon,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 12 July 1933. 42 LAC, CCF, vol. 10, file 1934 Convention – Correspondence, letter, T. Catherwood, Hatzic, B.C. to Norman Priestley, 14 July 1934. 43 “Notice,” The People (Vancouver), n.d. [June 1933]. 44 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, 1932, letter Skinner to Priestley, 28 April 1933. 45 LAC, CCF, vol. 76, file 76-7, British Columbia: Correspondence, “Standing of Candidates, Provincial Elections,” 27 November 1933. 46 “Beware!” Challenge (Vancouver), March 1933. 47 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 43-3, minutes, Provincial Executive, 5 February 1933, 12 March 1933, 9 April 1933; Barry Mather, Pertinent Portraits, C.C.F., 1934 (Vancouver: Boag Foundation, 1978), 31, 35. 48 Dorothy Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel: Ernest Winch and the Growth of Socialism in Western Canada (Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1960), 79–80. 49 Ibid., 80; LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30 D204, vol. 2, file “A” General: 1928–1956 (1), letter, Ernest A. Jenkins, Vancouver to F. Underhill, 15 May 1933. 50 Mather, Pertinent Portraits, 37–38; “Mrs. R.P. Steeves,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 25 October 1933; UT, WMC, box 10, file Steeves, Dorothy Gretchen, transcript, Dorothy Steeves interviewed by Paul Fox. 51 “James Samuel Taylor: Candidate for Vancouver (Centre),” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 25 October 1933.



Notes to pages 80–2 337

52 Nancy Knickerbocker, No Plaster Saint: The Life of Mildred Osterhout Fahrni (Vancouver: Talon, 2001). 53 Irene Howard, The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia: Helena Gutteridge, The Unknown Reformer (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 54 Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for the Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 111. 55 Walter D. Young, “Ideology, Personality and the Origin of the CCF in British Columbia,” BC Studies 32 (Winter 1976–77): 151. 56 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, 1932, letter, Priestley to members of the Provisional Council, 11 October 1932. 57 Ibid., 11 October 1932, 20 December 1932. 58 Ibid., 20 December 1932; LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30, D 211 (hereafter Scott Papers), vol. 12, file CCF, General, 1932–34; 1951, letter, A.E. Havelock to Scott, 20 December 1932. 59 An example of an autonomous club was in Kelowna, where a group of about forty “business people, clerical workers, labouring people and farmers,” about half of whom were women, formed a SPC local concerned with self-education in January 1933. In April they voted to become a CCF Club. “History of the Kelowna C.C.F. Club,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 18 October 1933. 60 “Associated C.C.F. Clubs (B.C.) Amalgamating Conference,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 30 August 1933. 61 Ibid. 62 Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 81. 63 “The Rise of the C.C.F.,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 13 September 1933. 64 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Ernest Winch to A.H. Downs, Jr., 12–16 December 1933. 65 Young, “Ideology, Personality and the Origin of the CCF,” 150; MacInnis cited in Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 81. 66 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-8, Associated C.C.F. Clubs, Associated C.C.F. Clubs (BC) Bulletin, No. 8, 8 May 1934. 67 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file A. Dawson Gordon, 1933–35, Associated C.C.F. Clubs (BC) Bulletin, No. 2, 15 November 1933. 68 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, file Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, ­annual convention, 20 and 21 January 1934; LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file A. Dawson Gordon, 1933–35, Associated C.C.F. Clubs (BC) Bulletin, No. 2, 15 November 1933. 69 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, file Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, ­annual convention, 20 and 21 January 1934; UT, WMC, box 10, file Steeves, Dorothy Gretchen, transcript, Dorothy Steeves interviewed by Paul Fox.

338

Notes to pages 82–7

70 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-10, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, CCF ­convention, Victoria, 30 September and 1 October, 1933. 71 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, ­minutes, Provincial Executive, 11 February 1934. 72 Howard, The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia, 161. 73 “Brantford Labor Hears Woodsworth,” Labor Advocate (Toronto), March 1931. The correspondence is in UT, WMC, box 8. 74 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to Ernest Winch, 7 August 1932. 75 UT, WMC, box 8, letters, dated 7–20 August 1932. 76 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Norman Priestley, Secretary, CCF Calgary, to Bert Robinson, 25 August 1932. 77 “A Canadian Labour Policy,” Canadian Forum 11, no. 128 (May 1931): 285–86. 78 York University Archives (hereafter YUA), Edward Arthur Beder Collection, box 9, letter, Frank Underhill to E.A. Beder, 18 May 1933. 79 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, “Minutes of Ontario Conference – Political Labor and Socialist Groups,” n.d. This document is marked “[1933?],” but is actually from 1932. 80 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, 1932, Priestley to Members of the Provisional Council, 20 December 1932. 81 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, Bert Robinson to J.S. Woodsworth, 5 December 1932. 82 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to E.E. Winch, 12 February 1932. 83 LAC, Scott Papers, file C.C.F. General, 1932–34, 1951, letter, E.A. Havelock to Scott, 20 December 1932. 84 Conner was incorrect about the composition. On the basis of an erroneous newspaper report he thought that Professor C.B. Sissons, whom he noted “had swung the United Farmers of Ontario Clubs over to the support of Sir Vincent Massey when he ran as a Liberal candidate in Durham,” was on the committee. It was, rather, his wife, Anna Sissons. LAC, CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, J.S. Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, 3 April 1933. On LeBourdais, see “LeBourdais, Telegrapher, Miner, Explorer, Author, and Socialist,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 15 February 1936. 85 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, “Toronto Labor Party Statement – Per J.M. Conner.” 86 “The Evolution of Ideas,” Western Socialist (Winnipeg), January 1934. 87 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to E.E. Winch, 12 February 1933. 88 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, “Toronto Labor Party Statement – Per J.M. Conner” and letter, Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, 3 April 1933. Joan Sangster describes Henderson as hailing from



89

90 91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

Notes to pages 88–9 339 a “middle-class Irish background.” Sangster, Dreams of Equality: Women on the Canadian Left, 1920–1950 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989), 111. Although Peter Campbell attempts to unravel some of the mysteries of her background, nothing he found really contradicts this image: Campbell, Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2010), 9–11. UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, “Toronto Labor Party Statement – Per J.M. Conner,” n.d. [March 1933]; UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to E.E. Winch, 12 February 1933. UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to Fred Hodgson, 19 June 1933. LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, Elizabeth Morton, Acting-Secretary, Labour Conference of Ontario to J.S. Woodsworth, 4 October 1933, and file Ontario General Correspondence, 1940 (Feb.–-Jan), “Review of the Internal Situation Within the C.C.F. in Ontario,” n.d. The latter document appears to date from 1933 and is misfiled. LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–1934, letter, Elizabeth Morton, Acting-Secretary, Labour Conference of Ontario to J.S. Woodsworth, 4 October 1933. LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F. General, 1932–34, 1951, letter, J.S. Woodsworth to F.R. Scott, 17 February 1933; LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D297, vol. 5, file 5-7, Spry to “George,” 3 November 1931. McMaster University Archives, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) fonds, box 5, file Change, “A Middle Party,” Change, 4 February 1933. UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, “Toronto Labor Party Statement – Per J.M. Conner,” n.d. [March 1933]. UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to J. Morris, 15 June 1933. Gerald L. Caplan discusses Morton’s role in the early CCF at some length, but mistakenly calls her Edith rather than Elizabeth. Caplan, The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism: The CCF in Ontario (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973). Tandy represented the LSR on the Labour Conference, LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, Minutes of Labour Conference Held in Cumberland Hall, Toronto, 26 February 1933. UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, Subcommittee Representing U.F.O., C.C.F. Clubs and Labour Conference, Toronto, 5 February 1933.

340

Notes to pages 89–95

99 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, “Toronto Labor Party Statement – Per J.M. Conner,” n.d. [March 1933]; “Labor Party Would Muzzle C.C.F. Clubs: ‘No Voting Power Unless Radically Affiliated’ Is Condition Set,” Toronto Daily Star, 20 February 1933. 100 “Resolution Favoring Non-Contributory Unemplyment Insurance Adopted at Administrative Council Convention,” Labor News (Hamilton), 24 February 1933. 101 “Labor Party Would Muzzle C.C.F. Clubs.” 102 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932-34, circular letter, Arthur Mould to “Comrades,” and “Presidential Call for a True Perspective” n.d. [April 1933]. 103 Campbell, Canadian Marxists 104 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, Robinson to Woodsworth, 16 April 1933. 105 Ibid. 106 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, circular letter, Arthur Mould to “Comrades.” 107 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 168, minutes, Toronto Regional Labour Council of the CCF, 29 June 1933; Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party in Canada (Montreal: Vanguard, 1981), 71, 75, 305–308; Ted Morgan, A Covert Life: Jay Lovestone, Communist, Anti-Communist and Spymaster (New York: Random House, 1999). 108 Patricia V. Schulz, The East York Workers’ Association: A Response to the Great Depression (Toronto: New Hogtown Press, 1975), 14–18, 42–49; James Naylor, The New Democracy: Challenging the Social Order in Industrial Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 242, 246; UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Bert Robinson to J. Morris, 15 June 1933. 109 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 168, minutes, Toronto Regional Labour Council of the CCF, 29 June 1933. 110 Alvin Finkel, “Obscure Origins: The Confused Early History of the Alberta CCF,” in “Building the Co-operative Commonwealth”: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada, ed. J. William Brennan (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1984). 111 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Norman F. Priestley to J.S. Woodsworth, 6 February 1934; “Dr. Alexander President of C.C.F. Council,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 12 October 1934; Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 124. Notably, neither S.D. Clark nor Elmer Roper bothers to make



Notes to pages 95–6 341

mention of this group in their articles on the CCF in Alberta in Canadian Forum 14, no. 159 (December 1933) and 14, no. 161 (February 1934). 112 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), “Resolution Passed by the Provincial Council of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Re Establishment of Provincial Third Group in the Province to Provide for Membership of Persons who are not Members of the Labor Party or the U.F.A. at a Meeting Held in Calgary on September 23rd [1934]” (this document is misdated 1933 by the archives); letter, Norman F. Priestley to J.S. Woodsworth, 6 February 1934; Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction, 124; LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, 1932, letter, J. Goule to N. Priestley, 12 June 1933. 113 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Norman Priestley to J.S. Woodsworth, 16 April 1934. 114 “C.C.F. Starts Its Open Air Meetings,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 29 June 1934. Also, “Social Reconstruction Clubs,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 6 July 1934; “Kildonan C.C.F.’ers Crowd Program with Activities,” ibid., 24 August 1934; “South Centre C.C.F. Convention,” ibid., 14 September 1934; “West Kildonan Nominates,” ibid., 2 November 1934. 115 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 11 July 1933. 116 Nelson Wiseman, Social Democracy in Manitoba: A History of the CCF/NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1983), 15. 117 “Farmers’ Section Convenes at Portage,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 27 July 1934. 118 J.E. Keith, “The Fascist Province,” Canadian Forum 14, no. 163 (April 1934) 351–52; LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, J.S. Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, 3 April 1933; Sean Mills, “When Democratic Socialists Discovered Democracy: The League for Social Reconstruction Confronts the ‘Quebec Problem,’” Canadian Historical Review 86, no. 1 (March 2005): 53–81. 119 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, letter, Woodsworth to Harold Bullock, 22 December 1922. Duarte Nuno Lopes carefully attempts to enumerate the CCF Clubs that were created, noting that, much like in other parts of Canada, there was a small initial explosion of interest in Quebec that soon dissipated. Duarte Nuno Lopes, “The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Quebec, 1932–1950: A Study” (MA thesis, McGill University, 1986). 120 Andrée Lévesque, Virage à gauche interdit: les communists, les socialistes et leurs ennemis au Québec, 1929–1939, (Montreal: Boréal Express, 1984), 83.

342

Notes to pages 96–101

121 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, letter, Jean Péron, CCF Clubs (Quebec Organizing Committee). 122 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34; 1951, letter, Woodsworth to F.R. Scott, 5 January 1933. 123 Lévesque, Virage à gauche interdit, 82. 124 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, report on CCF activities in Quebec by L.L. Whitty, J. Shubert, Lloyd Almond. 125 Lévesque, Virage à gauche interdit, 73–74. 126 Ibid., 82. 127 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, circular ­letter from E.E. Haydon, 10 April 1933 and letter, F.R. Scott to Norman Priestley, 28 July 1933; “George Mooney Stands in Verdun-La Salle,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 25 May 1935. 128 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (2 of 3), Jean Péron to J.S. Woodsworth, 2 May 1936. 129 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, letter, H.C. Howard to J.S. Woodsworth, 28 February 1933. 130 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, newspaper clipping, “New Political Party Adopts Fourteen Point Manifesto.” 131 Ian McKay, “The Maritime CCF: Reflections on a Tradition,” in Towards a New Maritimes, ed. Ian McKay and Scott Milsom (Charlottetown: Ragweed, 1992), 72. 132 Ibid., 71. 133 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, M. Tarik to Bert Robinson, 9 June 1933. 134 McKay, “The Maritime CCF,” 71; UT, WMC, box 8, letter, M. Tarik to Bert Robinson, 10 July 1933. 135 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, M. Tarik to Bert Robinson, 10 July 1933. 136 UT, WMC, box 8, letters, M. Tarik and William McKelvie to Bert Robinson, 21 August 1933; Bert Robinson to William McKelvie, 25 August 1933; William McKelvie to Bert Robinson, 15 September 1933; Bert Robinson to William McKelvie, 18 September 1933. 137 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, M. Tarik to E.A. Beder, 29 April 1934. 138 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, newspaper clipping, “New Political Party Adopts Fourteen Point Manifesto.” 139 Young, Anatomy of a Party, 41. 140 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, N. Priestley to J. Price, 24 June 1933; ibid., vol. 3, file National Council, General Correspondence, 1932–34, cited in William G. Godfrey, “The 1933 Regina Convention of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation” (MA thesis, University of Waterloo, 1965), 65.



Notes to pages 101–4 343

141 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), Minutes, Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 6 July 1933. 142 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, E.E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 1 July 1933. 143 Dorothy Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel, 86. 144 UT, WMC, box 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council (Provisional), 7 May 1933. 145 UT, WMC, box 8, Arthur Mould to Bert Robinson, 8 June 1933. 146 UT, WMC, box 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 5 June 1933. On Walter see UT, WMC, box 10, file John Walter, interview, John Walter interviewed by Paul Fox. 147 UT, WMC, box 8, letter Bert Robinson to Arthur Mould, 9 June 1933, and Arthur Mould to Bert Robinson, 6 July 1933. 148 LAC, Communist International Fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 168, minutes, Toronto Regional Labor Council of the CCF, 29 June 1933. 149 UT, WMC, box 8, Bert Robinson to Comrade Leitch, 4 July 1933. 150 UT, WMC, box 8, Bert Robinson to Arthur Mould, 11 July 1933. 151 UT, WMC, box 10, file John Walter, interview, John Walter interviewed by Paul Fox. 152 For instance, Lakeview CCF in New Toronto, clipping, Toronto Reference Library, John W. Buckley Papers, Scrapbooks, vol. 2. 153 Godfrey, “The 1933 Regina Convention,” 67. 154 Ibid., 5. 155 Especially Michiel Horn, “The LSR, the CCF, and the Regina Manifesto,” in “Building the Co-operative Commonwealth”: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada, ed. J. William Brennan (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1984), and Horn, “Frank Underhill’s Early Drafts of the Regina Manifesto 1933,” Canadian Historical Review 54, no. 4 (December 1973). 156 Godfrey, “The 1933 Regina Convention,” 26. 157 Horn, “The LSR, the CCF, and the Regina Manifesto,” 33–34. 158 The term is ubiquitous in treatments of the LSR, and has been more recently adapted and expanded by Wiseman and Isitt, who are surprisingly dismissive of the intellectual roots of the popular social movements: “The university professors from Toronto and Montreal who organized the LSR became the intellectual vanguard of a shapeless movement of regional labour parties and farmers as they crystallized efforts to form a national political party.” As we shall see in chapter 3, their suggestion that the LSR’s “intellectual Fabianism shaped CCF policy in these formative years,” is both an oversimplification and fundamentally incorrect. Nelson Wiseman and Benjamin Isitt, “Social Democracy in Twentieth Century Canada: An

344

Notes to pages 104–10

Interpretive Framework,” Canadian Journal of Political Science 40, 3 (September 2007): 576. 159 UT, WMC, vol. 10, Underhill interviewed by Paul Fox, n.d. 160 W. Moriarty, “The Regina Convention of the C.C.F.,” Workers’ Age (New York), 15 September 1933 (available at http://www.socialisthistory.ca/ Docs/1930s/MoriartyOnCCF.htm, accessed 2 July 2014). 161 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, Provincial Executive, 9 July 1933. 162 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 11 July 1933. 163 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, Report of the Committee on Resolutions. 164 Regina Leader-Post, 22 July 1933, cited by Godfrey, “The 1933 Regina Convention,” 53; LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, clipping, “New Political Party Adopts Fourteen Point Manifesto.” 165 UT, WMC, box 10, file John Walter, interview, John Walter interviewed by Paul Fox. 166 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, E.E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 1 July 1933. 167 “Nine Point Manifesto Approved,” Regina Leader-Post, 20 July 1933. 168 “Compensation after Seizure Knotty Point,” Regina Star, 21 July 1933. 169 “C.C.F. Heatedly Argues Compensation Issue,” Regina Leader-Post, 21 July 1933. 170 Godfrey, “The 1933 Regina Convention,” 48–49. 171 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1932–34, 1951, newspaper clipping, “New Political Party Adopts Fourteen Point Manifesto.” 172 Dorothy Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 86–88. 173 “Lenin on Opportunism,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), July 1933. 174 “Regina Convention,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), August 1933. 175 UT, WMC, box 9, letter E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 8 September 1933. 176 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 4 August 1933. 177 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Bert Robinson to S. Earp, 25 August 1933. 178 UT, WMC, box 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Toronto and district meeting, 20 September 1933; UT, WMC, box 8, letter, A.H. Downs Jr. to Fred Hodgson, 5 October 1933. 179 UT, WMC, box 8, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 2 August 1933. 180 UT, WMC, box 9, Bert Robinson to Fred Hodgson, 11 August 1933. 181 Horn, “The LSR, the CCF, and the Regina Manifesto,” 33; Young, Anatomy of a Party, 54. 182 “Regina Manifesto” reprinted in Young, Anatomy of a Party, 312–13.



Notes to pages 112–17 345

3  Class War in the CCF 1 Kerry A. Badgley, Ringing in the Common Love of Good: The United Farmers of Ontario, 1914–1926 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000). 2 Frank Underhill, The Radical Tradition: A Second View of Canadian History, cited in Leo Zakuta, A Protest Movement Becalmed (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 149. 3 Walter D. Young, The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–1961 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), 36. 4 Ibid., 46. 5 Margaret Cole, The Story of Fabian Socialism (London: Heinemann, 1961), 338. 6 Young, Anatomy of a Party, 21. 7 Norman Penner, The Canadian Left: A Critical Analysis (Toronto: PrenticeHall, 1977), 45. 8 Eric Hobsbawn, “The Fabians Reconsidered,” in Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1968), 266. 9 A.M. McBriar, Fabian Socialism and English Politics, 1884–1918 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 245n. 10 Cole, Story of Fabian Socialism, 44. 11 Hobsbawm, “The Fabians Reconsidered,” 261. 12 Cole, Story of Fabian Socialism, 18, emphasis in original. 13 Ibid., 75. 14 Ibid., 85. 15 McBriar, Fabian Socialism, 245–53. 16 A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899–1919 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 19. Penner, The Canadian Left, 76. These broader influences are apparent throughout Peter Campbell’s Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999). 17 Stanley Pierson, Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism: The Struggle for a New Consciousness (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), 125. 18 E.P. Thompson, William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary (1955; repr. London: Merlin, 1977), 577. 19 McBriar, Fabian Socialism, 66. 20 John Saville, “The Ideology of Labourism,” in Knowledge and Belief in Politics, ed. R. Benewick, R.N. Berki, and B. Parekh (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973), 224.

346

Notes to pages 117–20

21 Cited in Stanley Pierson, Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1973), 212–13. 22 Stanley Pierson, British Socialists: The Journey from Fantasy to Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), 331. 23 Ibid., 342. 24 McBriar, Fabian Socialism, 107. 25 Sidney Webb, “The Reform of the House of Lords” Fabian Tract no. 183 (1917). 26 Cole, Story of Fabian Socialism, 146f. 27 Ibid., 279. 28 David Stack, “Labour and the Intellectuals,” in The Foundations of the British Labour Party: Identities, Cultures and Perspectives, 1900–1939, ed. Matthew Worley (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009), 130. 29 Frank Underhill, In Search of Canadian Liberalism (Toronto: Macmillan, 1960), x. 30 Cited in Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 29 31 Ibid., 37. 32 Ibid., 13. 33 Hobsbawn, “The Fabians Reconsidered,” 268. 34 Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 86. 35 Ibid., 219. 36 League for Social Reconstruction, Social Planning for Canada (1935; repr. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 31. 37 Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 33. 38 Ibid., 34; and note the motivation for proposing contributory social insurance, LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 380. Stephen Yeo, “A New Life: The Religion of Socialism in Britain, 1883–1896,” History Workshop 4 (Autumn 1977). 39 James Naylor, “Canadian Labour Politics and the British Model, 1920– 1950,” in Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, ed. Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006). 40 LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 327. 41 Ibid., 157. 42 Ibid., 470. 43 Ibid., 198. 44 Ibid., 202. 45 Ibid., 487. 46 Cited in Pierson, Marxism and the Origins of British Socialism, 129. 47 LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 198ff.

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56

57 58 59 60 61

62

63 64 65 66 67

68

Notes to pages 120–4 347 Ibid., vii, 243. Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 86. LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 264 Ibid., 228. Ibid., 501. Ibid., 465. Ibid., 237, emphasis in original. The reference is to the wing of the Progressive Party led by Henry Wise Wood. See W.L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1950). LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 228. See C.B. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party System (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1953). LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 265. Ibid., 285. Ibid., 101. Ibid., 368. LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 370, 385. On Whitley Councils see Canada. Department of Labour, “Industrial Councils: Text of Reports of Whitley Committee and of Certain Communications Relating Thereto,” (Ottawa, 1919). Also, Rodger Charles, The Development of Industrial Relations in Britain, 1911–1939 (London: Hutchinson, 1973) as well as James Naylor, “Workers and the State: Experiments in Corporatism after World War One,” Studies in Political Economy 42 (Autumn 1993). Leo Heaps, The Rebel in the House: The Life and Time of A.A. Heaps, MP (London: Niccolo Publishing, 1970), 117. Leo Heaps also notes that his ­father, A.A. Heaps, was true to his working-class identity as represented in the Manitoba ILP. He was equally wary of the farmers in the CCF as representing a social milieu with “conservative and anti-labour opinions,” and never really considered the CCF so much as a party as a “convenient alliance” of forces. McBriar, Fabian Socialism, 81. LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 348. Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 211. LSR, Social Planning for Canada, 473. University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), J.W. Woodsworth Memorial Collection (hereafter WMC, box 10A, file Frank Underhill, interview by Paul Fox, n.d. Cited in John Herd Thompson with Allen Seager, Canada, 1922–1939: Decades of Discord (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985), 233.

348

Notes to pages 124–7

69 Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 184. 70 Originally from Clinton, B.C., LeBourdais had his start as a telegrapher. By 1919, he was publishing the fortnightly Canadian Nation in Calgary. Subsequently he explored with, and managed the lecture tours of, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and also worked for the Toronto Star before his ­position with the Canadian Committee for Mental Hygiene. Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), RG 27, Department of Labour, vol. 3131, file 106, Canadian Nation, 20 September 1919; New Commonwealth (Toronto), 15 February 1936. The comment about the neophytes is from LAC, CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1, vol. 41, file Ontario Correspondence, 1940 (Feb.–Jan.), “Review of the Internal Situation within the C.C.F. in Ontario,” n.d. 71 In defence of “working-class knowledge,” London SPCer Fred Hodgson, commenting on Cotton’s apparent ignorance of Marxism, wanted to know “where in hell” she got her PhD. UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 21 September 1933. 72 LAC, CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1940 (Feb.–Jan.), “Review of the Internal Situation Within the C.C.F. in Ontario,” n.d. Fred White remembers Philpott as “the pet boy” at the Regina Convention, UT, WMC, box 10A, file Fred White, ­interview by Paul Fox, n.d. 73 LAC, William Lyon Mackenzie King Papers, MG 26 J1 (hereafter King Papers), vol.293, pamphlet, South York Liberal Association, “Elect a Fighter Who Gets Results,” [ca. 1935]. 74 “Vote for Philpott (Liberal), West Hamilton,” Labour News (Hamilton), 30 January 1931. 75 LAC, King Papers, vol. 210, letter, Philpott to King, n.d. (in reply to a letter from King, 4 March 1933). 76 On Cassidy, see Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 23–4. 77 John T. Saywell, “Just Call Me Mitch”: The Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 113–15. 78 “Elmore Philpott’s Campaign,” Change (Toronto), 18 March 1933. 79 “The Man on the Street,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 8 May 1925; “Liberal or Labor,” ibid., 25 September 1925; “Don’t Scab at the Ballot Box,” ibid., 16 October 1925; “Group Government,” ibid., 22 January 1926; “Practical Politics,” ibid., 7 December 1928. 80 “A Middle Party,” Change (Toronto), 4 February 1933. 81 UT, WMC, vol. 11, file League for Social Reconstruction, Minutes of Meetings, 1933–35, minutes, 10 April 1933. 82 “Labor Scored Magnificant Victory in East Hamilton,” Labour News (Hamilton), 28 August 1931.



Notes to pages 127–9 349

83 LAC, Agnes Macphail Papers, MG 27 III C4, vol. 1, file Correspondence, 1930–34, Bert Robinson to Macphail, 26 April 1933 and 2 May 1933; UT, WMC, vol. 10, file Macphail, Agnes Campbell, letter, to Tom Cruden, 24 April 1933 and to Bert Robinson, 1 May 1933. 84 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, Woodsworth to Robinson, 2 May 1933. 85 UT, WMC, vol. 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council (Provisional), 7 May 1933. 86 UT, WMC, vol. 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 5 June 1933. 87 The fire at the Beder Fur Company took place on 26 January 1933. “Suspects in Arson Case Remanded in $10,000 Bail,” Toronto Daily Star, 9 May 1933; “Bail Totals $65,000 in Conspiracy Case,” ibid., 30 May 1933; “Four Convicted, Two Freed in Arson Conspiracy Case,” ibid., 29 November 1933. 88 York University Archives (hereafter YUA), Edward Arthur Beder Collection, box 9, file II.42, Correspondence – Personal-Political, 1933–36, letters, Woodsworth to Beder, 11 May 1933, Beder to Woodsworth, 11 May 1933, and Woodsworth to Beder, 18 May 1933. 89 UT, WMC, vol. 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 5 June 1933. 90 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Robinson to William McKelvie, 18 September 1933. 91 UT, WMC, vol. 10, file Fred White, interview by Paul Fox, n.d. 92 “Nine Point Manifesto Approved,” Regina Leader-Post, 20 July 1933; “C.C.F. Heatedly Argues Compensation Issue,” ibid., 21 July 1933. 93 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), letter, Norman Priestley to Woodsworth, 6 February 1934; vol. 90, file M.J. Coldwell, ­letter, Coldwell to Frank Eliason, 27 January 1934; “Capt. Philpottt Denounces Low Wages and Hours,” Labour News (Hamilton), 29 September 1933; Editorial Note: “Capt. Elmore Philpott, C.C.F. leader,” Labour News (Hamilton), 27 November 1933. 94 UT, WMC, box 10, file Toronto and District Council of C.C.F. Clubs, ­minutes, 7 December 1933. 95 UT, WMC, box 9, letter, Fred Hodgson to A.H. Downs, Jr., 13 February 1933. 96 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, Robinson to McKelvie, 18 September 1933. The Communist Party, in the midst of its “Third Period” sectarian phase, dismissed the CCF as “social fascist”: socialist in word, but fascist in deed. To them, Philpott was simply a fascist. LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 158, “The Struggle against the C.C.F. for the Winning of the Majority of the Working Class in the Struggle for Power,” 27 March 1934.

350

Notes to pages 129–34

97 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, circular letter, Elizabeth Morton to CCF Clubs Convention, 17 November 1933. 98 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, minutes, Toronto Regional Labor Council of the CCF, 29 June 1933; UT, WMC, box 8, letters, Bert Robinson to Roy Aindow, 7 September 1933 and 8 September 1933, and Bert Robinson to “Comrades,” 7 November 1933. 99 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1940 (Feb.–Jan.), “Review of the Internal Situation within the C.C.F. in Ontario,” n.d. 100 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Arthur Mould to Bert Robinson, n.d. 101 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Bert Robinson to Roy Aindow, 25 September 1933. 102 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Elizabeth Morton to the Annual Convention of the Ontario Association of C.C.F. Clubs, 17 November 1933. Morton had recently replaced Bert Robinson as secretary of the Labour Conference. Robinson had withdrawn from public participation in both the SPC and the CCF due to employment problems. UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, A.H. Downs, Jr. to L.O. Foster, 29 November 1933. 103 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, Morton to Woodsworth, 4 October 1933. 104 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, Mould to Woodsworth, 10 October 1933. 105 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 28 September 1933. 106 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, H.H. Hannan to Woodsworth, 18 December 1933. 107 LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file Provisional Council Correspondence, 1932, Woodsworth to Priestley, 11 December 1933. “Toronto Labor Party Helped Drive Wedge into Ontario C.C.F.” and “ An Open Letter to Capt. Philpott,” Socialist Action (Toronto), 16 March 1934. 108 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Bert Robinson to Arthur Mould, 11 July 1933. 109 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, Arthur Mould to J.S. Woodsworth, 23 February 1934. 110 UT, WMC, vol. 8, minutes, United Front Conference on Impending Railroad Strike, London, 28 August 1933. The Labour Party had voted to support the united front, although they did not attend the founding conference. UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Arthur Mould to Bert Robinson, n.d. 111 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, minutes, Toronto Regional Labor Council of the CCF, 29 June 1933; A.E. Smith, All My Life: An Autobiography (Toronto: Progress Books, 1977), 166–70. 112 UT, WMC, box 8, letter, A.H. Downs, Jr. to Fred Hodgson, 9 February 1934.



Notes to pages 134–6 351

113 UT, WMC, box 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 17 February 1934; LAC, CCF Papers, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, Philpott to Woodsworth, 19 February 1934. 114 “U.F.O. Will Back C.C.F.: Unanimous Support for Political Action and Cooperation in C.C.F.,” Weekly Sun (Toronto), 15 December 1933. Mould would later argue that “the U.F.O were never in the C.C.F. yet we allowed them to vote us down.” University of British Columbia Special Collections (hereafter UBC), Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection (hereafter AMMC), box 54A, file 54A-5 Correspondence 1934, [A. Mould] to “Comrade.” 115 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth 1933–42 (1 of 3), “Statement to Ontario C.C.F. Provincial Council.” The statement was also cited in a ­circular letter, LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, LeBourdais to All C.C.F Club Secretaries, 13 March 1934. 116 LAC, CCF, vol. 103, file Norman F. Priestley, 1932–35, letter, Garland to Priestley, 7 March 1934. 117 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, Philpott to Woodsworth, 19 February 1934; LAC, Agnes Macphail Papers, MG 27 III C4, vol. 1, file Correspondence 1930–34, Herb H. Hannam to Macphail, 22 February 1934. 118 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, Woodsworth to Philpott, 19 February 1934. 119 Ibid., letters, LeBourdais to Woodsworth, 27 February 1934, and Woodsworth to Philpott, 1 March 1934. The Labour Conference, of course, viewed the clubs’ request to the National Council as unconstitutional: LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, Elizabeth Morton to Norman Priestley, 5 March 1934. 120 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42, (1 of 3), letter, Woodsworth to Priestley, 19 March 1934. 121 LAC, CCF, vol. 103, file Norman F. Priestley, 1932–35, letter, Garland to Priestley, 7 March 1934; vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, letter, LeBourdais to Woodsworth, 14 March 1934. 122 LAC, CCF, vol. 103, file Norman F. Priestley, 1932–35, letter, Philpott to Priestley, 13 July 1934. LAC, King Papers, vol. 210, letters, Philpott to King, 31 March 1935, and King to Philpott, 10 May 1935. Subsequent Liberal literature was deliberately vague about when he left the CCF, LAC, King Papers, vol. 293, pamphlet, South York Liberal Association, “Elect a Fighter Who Gets Results,” [ca. 1935], 123 “Yes, Too Young for the Liberals,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 April 1935.

352

Notes to pages 136–7

124 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), letter, Woodsworth to Priestley, 19 March 1934. 125 This would not be the only instance of Woodsworth’s dipping into the Liberal Party in order to construct a central core of left-liberal intellectuals in the CCF. In November 1933, Woodsworth offered Wilfrid Eggleston, who had just left the Toronto Star, the position of national director of publicity for the CCF. In the previous months, Eggleston had not only been sounded out for the editorship of a new Liberal Party magazine but had also been offered the presidency of the Twentieth Century Liberal ­Association. Woodsworth would have known Eggleston, as he had worked in the parliamentary press gallery, but there was a key connection through Spry as well, as Eggleston had recently filled in for Spry as editor of the Farmer’s Sun when Spry was in Britain. Eggleston turned Woodsworth down, noting to himself that he “had grave doubts about socialism,” and that his “spiritual home” was in the “left-wing” of the Liberal Party. Wilfrid Eggleston, While I Still Remember: A Personal Record (Toronto: Ryerson, 1968), 188, 193, 195–96; quotes are at 198. Thank you to Molly Rozum for this reference. 126 Spry had actually owned the paper earlier and so this was a re-acquisition. LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG30 D297 (hereafter Spry Papers), vol. 5, file 5-6, letter, Graham Spry to Dr. W.A. Riddell, 15 July 1925; file 5-7, ­letter, Spry to “Mac,” 17 August 1926 and Spry to “George,” 3 November 1931; file 5-10, press release, 6 June 1934; vol. 68, file 68-15, letter, Spry to Frank Scott, 12 March 1934, and Spry to F.H. Underhill, 8 March 1934; Rose Potvin, ed., Passion and Conviction: The Letters of Graham Spry (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1992), 86–99. 127 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30 D204, file “T” – General, 1928– 56, letter, Underhill to Miss Trotter, 30 April 1934. 128 LAC, Spry Papers, vol. 68, letter, Spry to Frank Scott, 12 March 1934. 129 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Downs to D. Williams, 7 March 1934. Downs was killed in a car accident shortly after writing this letter. He was replaced as SPC secretary by E.A. Beder, who had recently joined the party. UT, WMC, vol. 8, Beder to E. Winch, 23 April 1934. 130 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, Downs to D. Williams, 7 March 1934. James Naylor, interview with H. Huggett, Toronto, 20 February 1990 (unpublished interview in the author’s possession). 131 UT, WMC, vol. 9, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, 15 April 1934. 132 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1932–34, Elizabeth Morton to Norman Priestley, 5 March 1934.



Notes to pages 137–40 353

133 “Non-Fusible,” Labor Leader (Toronto), 2 March 1934; “We Were Right,” ibid., 16 March 1934. As an indication of its worldview, the Labor Leader ran two boxes on its masthead reading, respectively, “Canadian Labor Men should not tolerate the I.W.W. and the One Big Union, nor Bolshevism” and “Canadian Labor Men and Canadian Employees should co-operate in the interests of Canadian Industry.” 134 Two items from Socialist Action (Toronto), 16 March 1934: “Toronto Labor Party Helped Drive Wedge into Ontario C.C.F.,” and “The ‘Tell Tale’ Letter”; LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, letter, LeBourdais to Woodsworth, 14 March 1934. 135 “Labor Votes to Work with C.C.F. Movement,” Toronto Star¸ 7 October 1933. 136 UBC, AMMC, vol. 52, file 53–9 MacInnis, Angus–Skinner, Robert, letter, MacInnis to Skinner, 8 April 1934. 137 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, E.A. Beder to M. Tarik, 25 April 1934. 138 LAC, CCF, vol. 1, Minutes, CCF Convention, Winnipeg, 17, 18, 19 July 1934, and vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), letter, J.S. Woods­ worth to Norman Priestley, 25 May 1934; UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter, E.A. Beder to E.E. Winch, 21 July 1934. 139 UT, WMC, vol. 8, circular letter, W. Kisby, Executive Committee, Toronto and District Workers’ Alliance to “Comrades,” 11 June 1934, and letter, E.A. Beder to Winch, 21 July 1934. 140 UT, WMC, vol. 10, file CCF, Ontario, Toronto and District Council of C.C.F. Clubs, minutes, 13 February 1934. 141 UT, WMC, vol. 8, letter E.A. Beder to E. Winch, 23 April 1934. 142 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, File 168, typescript of clipping, Toronto Daily Star, 6 April 1934. 143 Ibid. 144 UT, WMC, vol. 1, circular letter, “To the C.C.F. Clubs of Ontario,” signed by Arthur Harling, 2 April 1934. 145 “‘Christian Revolution’ Is Needed in Dominion, C.C.F. Delegates Told,” Daily Toronto Star, 18 July 1933, and “C.C.F. Won’t Tolerate Communist Activity Is Philpott’s Warning: Crowd of 30,000 Cheers Reference against ‘Run It or Ruin It’,” ibid., 8 August 1933. 146 LAC, Spry Papers, vol. 68, file 68-15, letter, Spry to F.H. Underhill, 8 March 1934. 147 McMaster University Archives, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) Papers, box 5, file East York Workers’ Bulletin, “E.Y.W.A. to Affiliate with C.C.F.,” 20 April 1934. 148 UT, WMC, Box 10, file Frank Underhill, Underhill interviewed by Paul Fox, n.d.

354

Notes to pages 141–4

149 Terry Crowley, Agnes Macphail and the Politics of Equality (Toronto: Lorimer, 1990), 124; LAC, CCF Papers, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1940 (Feb.–Jan). 150 Gerald L. Caplan, The Dilemma of Canadian Socialism: The CCF in Ontario (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 57. 151 Ibid., 28; Crowley, Agnes Macphail, 121; J.T. Morley, Secular Socialists: The CCF/NDP in Ontario – A Biography (Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 1984), 40. 152 Examples include LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, circular letter, “The New Spirit of the CCF,” by Herbert Orliffe, Provincial Secretary, June 1937, and vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence 1939, John Mitchell, Ontario CCF President, circular letter on election preparations, 26 April 1939. 153 UT, WMC, box 10, file Frank Underhill, transcript, Underhill interviewed by Paul Fox, n.d. 154 Blair Fraser, “The Commies Muscle In,” Macleans¸ 15 January 1947. 155 “Ontario and the C.C.F.,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 23 March 1934. He also carried on the campaign privately, UBC, AMMC, box 52, file 53-9 “MacInnis, Angus – Skinner, Robert,” MacInnis to J. Stringer, 23 February 1934. 156 “Lenin on Opportunism,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), July 1933. 157 “Stand by the Colors,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), May 1934. 158 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5 Socialist Party of Canada, Provincial Executive, 26 August 1934. 159 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, File 180, “Report from District No. 9,” 20 April 1935. 160 “Advance Club Has Splendid Record,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 8 February 1935. 161 H. Gargrave, letter to editor, Commonwealth (Vancouver), 1 February 1935. 162 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-8, Associated C.C.F. Clubs, Associated C.C.F. Clubs (BC) Bulletin, 8 May 1934. 163 In January 1934 there were sixty-two SPC branches with about 1800 members. UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934. 164 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934, President’s Report. 165 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 11 February 1934. 166 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935, President’s Report. Samuel Hay noted



Notes to pages 144–8 355

that CCF Clubs often requested SPC speakers: UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 13 May 1934. 167 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1934, President’s Report. 168 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30 D204, vol. 4, file E.A. Forsey, 1928–56, Forsey to Underhill, 3 July 1934. 169 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 26 August 1934. 170 Barry Mather, Pertinent Portraits: C.C.F. 1934 (Vancouver: Boag Foundation, n.d.), 18–19. UT, WMC, box 10, file MacInnis, Angus, Angus MacInnis interviewed by Paul Fox, n.d. 171 “Nine Point Manifesto Approved,” Regina Leader-Post, 20 July 1933; “Will Compensate if Confiscation New Party Rules,” Regina Star, 22 July 1933. 172 Walter D. Young, “Ideology, Personality and the Origin of the CCF in British Columbia,” BC Studies 32 (Winter 1976–77): 140. 173 Cited in ibid., 154. 174 Mather, Pertinent Portraits, 35–36. 175 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-10, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes of CCF Convention, Victoria, 30 September and 1 October 1933. 176 Mather, Pertinent Portraits, 46, 47; Commonwealth (Vancouver), 30 August 1933. 177 Bonita Dawn Bray, “The Weapon of Culture: Working-Class Resistance and Progressive Theatre in Vancouver, 1930-38” (MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1990), 127–32. 178 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5 Socialist Party of Canada, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934, President’s Report. 179 “Taking Control,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), June 1935. 180 YUA, Edward Arthur Beder Collection, box 9, file II.42, Correspondence – Personal-Political, 1933–36, Winch to Beder, 13 August 1935, emphasis in original. 181 “The C.C.F. Road,” British Columbia Clarion, June 1936. 182 Campbell, Canadian Marxists of the Third Way, 73–123. 183 Ibid., 115; UBC, AMMC, file 45 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 8 May 1933. 184 “To Win or Not to Win,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 9 August 1933. 185 Campbell, Canadian Marxists of the Third Way, 112. 186 Ibid., 114. 187 UT, WMC, Box 10, file Steeves, Dorothy Grechen, Steeves interviewed by Paul Fox, transcript, n.d.; “Mrs. R.P. Steeves,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 25 October 1933; Barry Mather, Pertinent Portraits, 37–39.

356

Notes to pages 149–50

188 UT, WMC, Box 10, file Steeves, Dorothy Grechen Steeves interviewed by Paul Fox, transcript, n.d. 189 LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1945–57, MacInnis to David Lewis, 17 July 1949. 190 On Steeves’s attitude to the war, see Saskatchewan Archives Board [SAB], Saskatoon, Carlyle King Papers, A225, I, vol. 42, CCF War Policy; “B.C. Premier Hits Out at C.C.F.,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, 4 November 1939. She defended Harold Winch for public statements made during the war (see LAC, CCF, vol. 104, file Mrs. D.G. Steeves, Steeves to David Lewis, 15 November 1943), and allied with members of the left-wing Stanley Park Club (including, at times, Trotskyists), LAC, Trotskyist Movement fonds, MG 28 IV 11, vol. 1, file 26-1 Barry to Ross, 3 February 1952. On NATO, see LAC, CCF, vol. 104, file Mrs. D.G. Steeves, David Lewis to Steeves, 23 March 1949. Dorothy G. Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel: Ernest Winch and the Growth of Socialism in Western Canada (1960; North Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1977). 191 Mather, Pertinent Portraits, 44–45. 192 The CCF attempted to supervise in some way the three papers: Telford’s Challenge, Pritchard’s Commonwealth, and Winch’s Clarion, but exercised no direct control. UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 28 December 1933. 193 “Why the I.L.P.?” Challenge (Vancouver), August 1931 and “I Accuse,” ibid., May 1932. 194 “Questions for Socialists: For Individual and Group Study,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1932. 195 “To Our Readers,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 9 August 1933. 196 D.P. Clark, “Some Aspects of the Development of the CCF in B.C.,” unpublished paper, University of British Columbia, 1945, cited in Gordon Wickerson, “Conflict in the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the ‘Connell Affair’” (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1973), 17–18; Robert A.J. McDonald, “‘Telford Time’ and the Populist Origins of the CCF in British Columbia,” Labour/Le Travail 71 (Spring 2013). 197 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-10, CCF (Provincial Party), C.C.F. Bulletin no. 1, 20 November 1935. 198 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935. 199 Robin Fisher, Duff Pattullo of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 234.



Notes to pages 151–2 357

200 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, minutes, Provincial Executive, 10 February 1935; and file 45–9, CCF (Provincial Party), summary of Minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 1, 8, and 15 December 1934, and minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 30 March 1935. 201 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 21 March 1936. 202 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, CCF Provincial Convention, 3, 4, 5, and 6 July 1936. 203 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 14 November 1938. 204 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council, CCF (B.C.), 15 December 1938, 27 December 1938, 9 January 1939, 13 February 1939, 24 February 1939, 27 March 1939, 14 August 1939, and 30 September 1939. 205 “Vancouver CCF Mayor Resigns from Party; Will Be Independent,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 13 January 1939. 206 “To Be or Not to Be,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), October 1934. 207 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, minutes, Provincial Executive, 18 November 1934, and minutes, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935. Note that this represented a decrease of about four hundred members in the course of the previous year. 208 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, ­minutes, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935; “S.P.C. Favors New Merger Vote,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 11 January 1935. 209 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, ­minutes, Provincial Executive, 19 May 1935. 210 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Socialist Party of Canada Report to the Convention of the C.C.F. Affiliates (B.C. Section), Vancouver, 27 and 28 July 1935. 211 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, ­minutes, Provincial Executive, 19 May 1935. 212 Wickerson, “Conflict in the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation,” 25. 213 Cited in Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 96. 214 “Book Review,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), February 1936. 215 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-12 CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, Provincial Executive, CCF (B.C.), 21 December 1935 and 15 February 1936.

358

Notes to pages 153–8

216 Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 91–92. 217 Wickerson, “Conflict in the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation,” 2. 218 Dorothy June Roberts, “Doctrine and Disunity in the British Columbia Section of the CCF, 1932–1956” (MA thesis, University of Victoria, 1972), 43. 219 Cited in Steeves, Compassionate Rebel, 108. 220 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F. General, 1935– Aug. 1938, Harold Winch to Scott, 27 October 1936 and Scott to H. Winch, 3 November 1936. 221 “No Split in C.C.F. Ranks,” Federationist (Vancouver), 21 August 1936, and “Democracy or Dictatorship,” ibid. 222 “The C.C.F. Position,” Federationist (Vancouver), 14 January 1937. 223 Young, “Ideology, Personality and the Origin of the CCF,” 145, 161. 224 “C.C.F. Nominees: Rev. Stanley Knowles to Contest South Centre Winnipeg for C.C.F.,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 1 February 1935. Susan Mann Trofimenkoff’s Stanley Knowles: The Man from Winnipeg North Centre (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1982) contains little hint of this kind of language. 225 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30 D204, vol. 4, file E.A. Forsey, 1928–1956, Forsey to Underhill, 3 July 1934. 226 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Norman F. Priestley to Woodsworth, 16 April 1934; “South Centre C.C.F. Convention,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 September 1934. 227 “Farmers’ Section Convenes at Portage,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 27 July 1934. 228 “Farmers’ Section – C.C.F. Clubs Unite at Brandon Convention,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 5 July 1935; also Lloyd Stinson, Political Warriors: Recollections of a Social Democrat (Winnipeg: Queenston House, 1975), 89. 229 “New Set-Up Brings Unity,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 23 October 1936, “CCF Secretary’s Report,” ibid., 29 October 1937. 230 Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), 287–88; LAC, CCF, vol. 95, File E.J. Garland, 1934–40, Report, E.J. Garland, 16 June 1937 231 “First Delegate Convention Proves Successful,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 22 October 1937. 232 “I.L.P. Will Meet Again: Party Split on Future Plans,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 January 1938. 233 “ILP Divides Labor Forces,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 11 February 1938, and “Winnipeg Canada for Socialism,” ibid., 1 January 1937.



Notes to pages 158–60 359

234 LAC, CCF, vol. 95, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, Report, E.J. Garland 12 April 1938. 235 LAC, CCF, vol. 12, file CCF, National Conventions and Inter-Provincial Conferences, 1932–60, 1937 Convention – Report, David Lewis to J.S. Woodsworth, 14 July 1938. 236 “Around and About CCF Headquarters,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 4 November 1938. 237 LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1933–39, MacInnis to David Lewis, 10 July 1938. 238 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, 1947–58, “diary, notes on trip across country in 1939.” Woodsworth considered quitting the ILP. McNaught, A Prophet in Politics, 288. 239 “Greetings from ILP,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 7 July 1939. 240 “ILP-CCF Bust Up: Western Reformists Quarrel over Parliamentary Jobs,” Workers’ Voice (Toronto), 7 March 1938. This was the paper of the League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party. 241 LAC, CCF, vol. 61, file Manitoba: Correspondence with the Provincial Secretary, 1934–46, Brigden to Lewis, 28 May 1938. 242 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file J. King Gordon, 1937–38, 1943–47, Gordon to Lewis, 14 January [1938?]. 243 UBC, AMMC, box 54A, file 54-8, MacInnis to Bert Gargrave, 12 January 1937. 244 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, 1938–45, Winch to David Lewis, 10 April 1939; vol. 61, file Manitoba, Correspondence with the Provincial Secretary, 1934–46, David Lewis to Biesick, 11 August 1939; “Chas. Biesick New Secretary Retiring Secretary Praised,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 4 August 1939. 245 Brigden interview with Nelson Wiseman, cited in Wiseman, Social Democracy in Manitoba: A History of the CCF-NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1983), 22. 246 “An Open Letter to the C.C.F.,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 18 December 1936, and letters to the editor, ibid., 19 February 1937. 247 “Urges Limitation of C.C.F. Election Platforms in Future,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 5 February 1937. 248 “Are You a Hundred Percenter?” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 5 March 1937. 249 Letters to the editor, Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 26 February 1937 and 5 March 1937. 250 “Manitoba CCF Needs a New Provincial Program,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 2 April 1937.

360

Notes to pages 161–3

251 W.R. Doyle of Buelah wrote “Why Agriculture Should Be Socialized,” in Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 8 January 1937; see also the letter to the editor by J. Bellamy of Rivers, ibid., 15 January 1937. This exchange replicated a debate at the 1936 CCF convention. Jock Brown of Cartwright and H.J. Peddie of Russell, both central leaders of the Farmers’ CCF (Peddie was soon to become editor of the Manitoba Commonwealth) opposed Doyle’s motion: “C.C.F. Convention Adopts Provincial Constitution,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 23 October 1936. Also see the comments of Mrs T. Mawby (Cypress River) in a letter to the editor citing Edward Bellamy’s case for socialized agriculture in ibid., 15 January, 1937. 252 “Our Movement Is of Our Own Making,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 28 May 1937. 253 Letters to the editor, Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 12 February 1937 and 5 March 1937. 254 Letter to the editor, ibid., 19 March 1937. 255 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Norman F. Priestley to Woodsworth, 6 February 1934. 256 Alvin Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta,” Labour/ Le Travail 16 (Fall 1986): 86–89. 257 LAC, CCF, vol. 76, file 76-6, Alberta, United Farmers of Alberta, 1933–39, David Lewis to Secretary, UFA, 10 August 1937, and Lewis to George H. Williams, 7 February 1938. 258 “United Farmers of Alta Withdraw from Politics after 20 Year Struggle,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 27 January 1939. 259 “Decision on Politics Will Be Vital One,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 16 January 1937, and “C.C.F. to Enter Provincial Politics,” ibid., 10 July 1937. 260 “C.C.F. to Enter Provincial Politics,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 10 July 1937. Anthony Mardiros’s biography of Irvine makes no clear mention of this role. Mardiros, William Irvine: The Life and Times of a Prairie Radical (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979). 261 Norman P. Finnemore, letter to the editor, People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 20 February 1937. 262 “Panel of Speakers for C.C.F. Clubs,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 20 February 1937. 263 LAC, CCF, vol. 95, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, Garland to David Lewis, n.d. [late 1937]. 264 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, diary, “Notes on trip across country, 1939,” Calgary 1 February. 265 Finkel, “Rise and Fall of the Labour Party,” 93.



Notes to pages 164–6 361

266 This was Lloyd Almond. LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D211, vol. 12, file C.C.F. General, 1932–34, 1951, Scott to Norman F. Priestley, 28 July 1933. LAC, CCF, vol. 5, file National Council and Executive Correspon­ dence, 1935–38, M.J. Coldwell to members of the National Council, 27 June 1935. 267 Andrée Lévesque, Virage à gauche interdit: Les communistes, les socialistes et leurs ennemis au Québec, 1929–1939 (Montreal: Boréal Express, 1984), 72. 268 Quote from Woodsworth, LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, Woodsworth to Bert Robinson, 3 April 1933. 269 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Norman F. Priestley to Woodsworth, 17 February 1934, and vol. 5, file Report, CCF Activities in Quebec, by L.L. Whitty, J. Shubert, Lloyd Almond, n.d. LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D211, vol. 12, file C.C.F. General, 1932–34, 1951, Scott to Woodsworth, 14 February 1933. 270 Lévesque, Virage à gauche interdit, 86. LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, File 169, speech by Clark (Canada) at Meeting of the Anglo-American Section, 17 July 1935, 23 and 35. 271 Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan – A Study in Political Sociology (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 134. 272 Duff Spafford, “The ‘Left Wing,’ 1921–1931,” in Politics in Saskatchewan, ed. Norman M. Ward and Duff Spafford (Toronto: Longman, 1968), 45–46. 273 Ibid., 48–50; Frederick Steininger, “George H. Williams: Agrarian Socialist” (MA thesis, University of Regina, 1976). 274 “All land and resources now privately owned be nationalized as rapidly as opportunity will permit.” Cited in Steininger, “George H. Williams,” 73; George Hoffman, “The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Party, 1932–1934: How Radical Was It at Its Origins?” in Pages from the Past: Essays on Saskatchewan History, ed. D.H. Bocking (Saskatoon: Western Producer Prairie Books, 1979), 213. 275 Steininger, “George H. Williams,” 82. 276 J.F. Conway, “Labour and the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan,” Prairie Forum 31, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 395–96. 277 Hoffman, “The Saskatchewan Farmer-Labor Party,” 219. 278 Saskatchewan Archives Board, Saskatoon, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – Saskatchewan Section Papers, B 7 II., file 35, Cole, George 1935, Cole to George Williams, 5 January 1935. 279 Nonetheless, Carlyle King does indicate that he had been a member of the LSR before the founding of the CCF. Carlyle King, “The CCF in

362

Notes to pages 167–71

Saskatchewan,” in Western Canadian Politics: The Radical Tradition ed. Donald C. Kerr (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1981), 31. 280 James Naylor interview with Howard Huggett, Toronto, 20 February 1990.

4  Challenges at Mid-Decade 1 I explore this more fully in James Naylor, “Canadian Labour Politics and the British Model, 1920–1950,” in Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, ed. Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006). 2 Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), 262. 3 For instance, by Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going? (New York: Pathfinder, 1970), 187. 4 University of British Columbia Special Collections (hereafter UBC), Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection (hereafter AMMC), box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, Annual Convention, 20 and 21 January 1934, Secretary-Treasurer’s Report (E.E. Winch) and Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935, Secretary-Treasurer’s Report (E.E. Winch). 5 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist party of Canada, 1934–35, Report to the Convention of the C.C.F. Affiliates (B.C. Section), Vancouver, 27 and 28 July 1935. 6 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-8, Associated C.C.F. Clubs, Associated C.C.F. Clubs (B.C.) Bulletin, Issue no. 8, May 1934, and file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes and reports, CCF Convention, 27 and 28 July 1935, Report of Extension Committee. 7 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), Woodsworth Memorial Collection (hereafter WMC), box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, E.E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 16 November 1933. 8 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party) 1937–38, minutes, minutes, Provincial Convention, C.C. F. (B.C.), 2, 3, 4, and 5 July 1937, and Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 10 September 1938. 9 Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 103, file Norman F. Priestley, 1932–35, E.J. Garland to Priestley, 7 March 1934. 10 “The Election Results,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 21 July 1934. 11 As early as 1931, seven of eighteen Winnipeg councillers were members of the ILP; Queen was first elected mayor in late 1934: “The Indepen­dent Labor Party and Unemployed Relief,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 28 Novem­ ber 1930, “Labor Victory; Queen Elected,” Manitoba Commonwealth



12 13

14

15 16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23

Notes to pages 171–3 363 (Winnipeg), 30 November 1934. For instance, over 3000 ­attended the ILP Cabaret in December 1932, and 4000 attended the ILP’s athletic meet in River Park the following summer: “I.L.P. Get-Together Proves Big Success,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 30 December 1932, and “ILP Sports Attract Large Gathering,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 June 1935. LAC, CCF, vol. 61, file Manitoba, Correspondence with the Provincial Secretary, 1934–46, Brigden to David Lewis, 16 April 1938. This is a later assessment by Harold Winch, LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, 1938–45, Winch to David Lewis, 10 April 1939, but her comments about the ILP no doubt reflected an earlier and ongoing animosity. Nelson Wiseman, Social Democracy in Manitoba: A History of the CCF-NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1983), 14; “CCF Secretary’s Report,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 29 October 1937. “The Manitoba Results,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 8 August 1936. Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989), 34–35. Robin Fisher, Duff Patullo of British Columbia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 283. “Newsletter from C.C.F. Vancouver Headquarters,” Federationist (Vancouver), 17 September 1936. William E. Akin, Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900–1941 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977). “Mass Meeting Under the Auspices of the Socialist Party of Canada … Subject – Technocracy Explained” (advertisement), Weekly News (Winnipeg), 20 January 1933; “I.L.P. Notes,” 27 January 1933, “Y.L.A. Notes,” 3 February 1933, “I.L.P. Notes,” 10 March 1933, ibid.; UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council C.C.F. (B.C.), 8 June 1933. UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-9 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive Council C.C.F. (B.C.), 8 June 1933, 17 August 1933, and 12 May 1934. “Turbine Salvation,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), December 1935. Letter to the editor, People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 28 November 1936. There is considerable literature on the Communist Party’s union activity in this period, but see especially the works of John Manley, including “Red or Yellow? Canadian Communists and the ‘Long’ Third Period, 1927– 1936,” in In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period, ed. Matthew Worley (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); “Canadian Communists, Revolutionary Unionism and the ‘Third Period’:

364

24

25 26

27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Notes to pages 173–7

The Workers’ Unity League, 1929–1935,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association, n.s. 5 (1994); and “Communists and Auto Workers: The Struggle for Industrial Unionism in the Canadian Automobile Industry, 1925–1936,” Labour/Le Travail 17 (Spring 1986). Also, Mercedes Steedman, “The Promise: Communist Organizing in the Needle Trades the Dressmakers’ Campaign, 1928–1937,” Labour/Le Travail 34 (Fall 1994); David Frank, J.B. McLachlan: A Biography (Toronto: James Lorimer, 1999); Stephen Endicott, Bienfait: The Saskatchewan Miners’ Struggle of ’31 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); and Stephen Endicott, Raising the Workers’ Flag: The Workers’ Unity League of Canada, 1930–1936 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012). John Manley, “‘Starve, Be Damned!’ Communists and Canada’s Urban Unemployed, 1929–1939,” Canadian Historical Review 79, no. 3 (September 1998); Carmela Patrias, Relief Strike: Immigrant Workers and the Great Depression in Crowland, Ontario, 1930–1935 (Toronto: New Hogtown Press 1990); David Bright, “Conflicts between the State, the Unemployed, and the Communist Party in Calgary, 1930–1935,” Canadian Historical Review 78, no. 4 (December 1997); Victor Howard, “We Were the Salt of the Earth!” The On-to-Ottawa Trek and the Regina Riot (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1985); and Bill Waiser, All Hell Can’t Stop Us: The Onto-Ottawa Trek and Regina Riot (Calgary: Fifth House, 2003). For instance, see “Must the Revolution Come?” Challenge (Vancouver), May 1932. For a clear overview of literature on the Third Period, see Matthew Worley, “Courting Disaster? The Communist International in the Third Period,” in In Search of Revolution. Ian Angus, Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada (Montreal: Vanguard, 1981), 199. Norman Penner is generally in agreement. Norman Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988), 93. Phyllis Clarke and William Beeching, eds., Yours in Struggle: Reminiscences of Tim Buck (Toronto: NC Press, 1977), 148. Penner, Canadian Communism, 114. G. Pierce, Socialism and the C.C.F. (Montreal: Contemporary Publishing, 1934), 160. Ibid., 148. Ibid., 150. UT, WMC, box 8, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 21 September 1933. Pierce, Socialism and the C.C.F., 3. Ibid., 12–13, 151.

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45

46 47

48 49

50

51 52

Notes to pages 178–81 365 Cited in ibid., 70–71. Ibid., 16. Ibid. Ibid., 21. “The Workers and the C.C.F.,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 28 June 1933. Pierce, Socialism and the C.C.F., 168. Ibid., 171. “Clarion Call to Old Brigade,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1931. “O.B.U. Forum Meeting: Thugs Endeavor to Rush the Speaker,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 12 June 1930; “I.L.P. Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 17 July 1931. “I Accuse,” Challenge (Vancouver), May 1932. For Communist Party activity generally in this period, see Lita-Rose Betcherman, The Little Band: The Clashes between the Communists and the Political and Legal Establishments in Canada, 1928–1932 (Ottawa, Deneau, 1982). “Revolutionary Strategy in the Trade Unions,” Vanguard (Toronto), November–December 1932. LAC, A.A. Heaps Papers, MG 27 III C22, vol. 2, “The Coming Crisis and the Need for Action,” Labour Advocate, July 1931; UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P Minute Book, 1925–32, Provincial Executive, 16 April 1932. UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P Minute Book, 1925–32, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933. “The Labour Party of Ontario,” Border City Labor News (Walkerville, ON), 24 May 1932; Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 149. UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, United Front Conference on Impending Railroad Strike, 28 August [1933] and letters, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 30 August 1933 and Fred Hodgson to A.H. Downs, Jr., 22 January 1934. There is a full assessment of the left in London in a letter in the same file from Fred Hodgson to A.H. Downs, Jr., 3 December 1933. It is worth noting that there were no secret Communist members in the CCF Clubs here. As Hodgson noted in his letter of 3 December 1933, there was very occasionally a CP mole in a CCF club, although their activity was apparent to others. UT, WMC, box 8, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 17 August 1933 and 30 August 1933. Endicott, Raising the Workers’ Flag; John Manley, “Canadian Communists, Revolutionary Unionism, and the ‘Third Period’: The Workers’ Unity League, 1929–1935,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 5 (1994): 167–94.

366

Notes to pages 182–4

53 Alex Lyon was general secretary-treasurer of the Amalgamated Carpenters of Canada while Elizabeth Morton was secretary of the National Labour Council. Both wrote regularly for the Canadian Trade Unionist. Thank you to Peter Campbell for this information. 54 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, A.H. Downs, Jr. to Fred Hodgson, 16 January and 17 January 1934. 55 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1 I.L.P. Minute Book, 1925–32, Provincial Executive, 13 February 1932; LAC, MG 27 III C7, J.S. Woodsworth Papers, vol. 10, file Labour – Political, 1921–33, “Eastern Canada Emergency Defense Conference Report,” Canadian Labour Defense League, Hamilton, 26–27 April 1930. 56 “Amnesty Campaign,” Vanguard (Toronto), November–December 1932. 57 The OBU was quick to publicize Woodsworth’s remarks: “The Labor Defense League,” OBU Bulletin, 19 June 1930. 58 LAC, J.S. Woodsworth Papers, MG 27 III C7, vol. 6, file Communism, 1918–39, J.S. Woodsworth to A.E. Smith, 23 April 1931. 59 LAC, MG 10 K 3, Communist International fonds, file 158, reel K-287, “Work in the Revolutionary Mass Organizations,” 14 May 1934. 60 LAC, MG 10 K 3, Communist International fonds, file 180, reel K-290, Report on 1934 Activities in Winnipeg, sent in by CDD, 25 January 1935. 61 LAC, MG 10 K 3, Communist International fonds, file 158, reel K-287, “Work in the Revolutionary Mass Organizations,” 14 May 1934. 62 Manley, “‘Starve, Be Damned!’” The OBU comment is from the OBU Bulletin, 8 May 1930. 63 LAC, A.A. Heaps Papers, MG 27 III C22, vol. 2, file Clippings, Misc., “I.L.P Support Police,” The May Day Bulletin, issued by the Winnipeg May Day Conference, 1930. 64 “The Independent Labor Party and Unemployed Relief,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 28 November 1930. 65 “Lessons from the Civic Elections,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 4 December 1931. 66 “The I.L.P. and Unemployment,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 12 June 1931; UT, WMC, box 8, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, 23 March 1932; UBC, AMMC, box 45-9 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, C.C.F. (B.C.) Provincial Convention, 1, 2, 3 September 1934. 67 “Provincial Board Notes,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 15 January 1932, and “I.L.P. Mass Meeting Protests against Economic Policy,” ibid., 19 February 1932. 68 “Winnipeg and District Labor Union Unemployed Conference,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 27 May 1932.



Notes to pages 184–7 367

69 “Unemploy’d Mass Meeting on Market Sq.,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 7 September 1934. 70 For instance, the Manitoba Commonwealth announced a mass meeting in Market Square “called by the Associated Groups of Unemployed in Winnipeg to which are affiliated the following organizations: The Railwaymen’s Unemployed Association, the Unemployed Association of Manitoba, the Unemployed Association of Winnipeg with the Blind and Hebrew units of the organization and the Neighborhood Council Movement,” ibid. 71 “I.L.P. Wins Five Seats in Election,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 24 June 1932, and “Independent Labor Party Wins Eight Seats,” ibid., 2 December 1932. 72 The characterization of Mikkelson is from “CCF Will Retain Its Own Identity – Williams,” New Era (Weyburn, SK), 7 October 1937. LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933-42 (1 of 3), Woodsworth to Coldwell, 19 February 1935, and Coldwell to Woodsworth, 28 February 1935. 73 “United Front on Regina Problems: C.C.F., Communists Form Joint Committee on Unemployment,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 22 March 1935. 74 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931– 33, Annual Convention, 21 and 22 January 1933. 75 “Policy and Tactics of the Independent Labor Party,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1931. 76 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 25 April 1933. 77 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Provincial Executive, 12 March 1932 and 16 April 1932. 78 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-1, I.L.P. Minute Book, Provincial Executive, 14  May 1932. 79 LAC, MG 10 K 3, Communist International fonds, file 158, reel K-287, “Canada: Economic and Political Situation,” 9 May 1934; UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, credential to Ontario Workers Conference on Unemployment, 25 August 1933. 80 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Bert Robinson to Arthur Mould, 11 July 1933. 81 “It was felt that the place of the revolutionary socialist is in the mass movements and that, with our scant contacts with other mass movements (not already dominated by the Communist Party), our party would become sectarian. Our withdrawal would permit the C.C.F. to swing to reformism, pure and simple.” UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Fred Hodgson to Bert Robinson, 21 September 1933.

368

Notes to pages 187–90

82 Members of the SPC lined up; the list of members wanting to meet with Brockway is in UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, A.H. Downs, Jr. to Mrs. B. Loeb, 3 November 1933. 83 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Fenner Brockway to A.H. Downs, Jr., 1 January 1934. 84 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, A.H. Downs, Jr. to E.E. Winch, 7 December 1933, and Downs to Brockway, 14 February 1934; box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, minutes, 8 December 1933, and General Meeting, ­minutes, 19 July 1934, 12 September 1934. A.H. Downs, Jr., who succeeded Bert Robinson as secretary of the Ontario SPC, was a central figure in maintaining the connection with the British ILP, but he was killed in a car crash in spring 1934: UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, E.A. Beder to E.E. Winch, 23 April 1934. 85 UT, WMC, vol. 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, 15 April 1934. 86 Ibid., 8 April 1934. 87 UT, WMC, vol. 8, Socialist Party of Canada, H.A. Hatfield to E. Beder, 9 May 1934. 88 Ibid. 89 York University Archives (hereafter YUA), Edward Arthur Beder Collection, file II.42 – Correspondence – Personal-Political, 1933–36, Beder to Fred Hodgson, 18 September 1934; UT, WMC, vol. 8, Socialist Party of Canada, clipping, “Mimico C.C.F. Members Object to Violence Doctrine,” Toronto Star, n.d., and Morrow to SP of Ontario, 4 June 1934. 90 UT, WMC, vol. 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, 13 July 1934 91 “The Workers’ May Day Conference,” Vanguard (Toronto), April 1935. 92 UT, WMC, vol. 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Beder to Ernest E. Winch, 11 July 1935. 93 “Left Group Rejoin C.C.F.,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 1 August 1936. 94 LAC, MG 28 IV 1, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Coldwell to J.S. Woodsworth, 25 June 1935. 95 Letters to the editor, New Commonwealth (Toronto), 24 November 1934 and 1 December 1934. 96 Morden Lazarus had asked him. See “The Spotlight,” New Commonwealth, 27 October 1934. 97 “Youth in Revolt,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 1 December 1934. 98 “Start Training Course for C.C.F. Campaigners,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 2 March 1935. 99 “Consolidation,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 20 April 1935.



Notes to pages 190–3 369

100 UT, WMC, vol. 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, “Report to CCF Provincial Council,” by Murray Cotterill, 30 June 1935. 101 “Consolidation,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 20 April 1935 102 UT, WMC, vol. 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial council, 26 January 1935. 103 UT, WMC, vol. 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, list of committees [1935]. 104 Patricia V. Schulz, The East York Workers’ Association: A Response to the Great Depression (Toronto: New Hogtown Press, 1975), 15. 105 “Welfare Committee on the Job in Toronto,” New Commonwealth, 15 June 1935. 106 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file, Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, Ontario Provincial Council, 4 May 1935. 107 Schulz, The East York Workers’ Association, 26–33. 108 “To Summon Conference on Jobless: New Provincial Council Goes to Work at Once – Much Business Done,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 18 April 1936. 109 The list of activities reported in the New Commonwealth (Toronto), 29 August 1936, reflects a relatively sudden shift in both behaviour and reportage, compared to issues of the paper up to this point. 110 Cited in John Herd Thompson with Allen Seager, Canada 1922–939: Decades of Discord (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1985), 261 111 Metro Toronto Library, John W. Buckley Papers, Scrapbooks, vol. 2, ­clipping “Simpson Differs from Laborites Regarding Bennett,” Globe (Toronto), n.d. 112 “12,000 Crowd Rally,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 26 January 1935. It should be noted, however, that Woodsworth’s emphasis could be different in different milieux, which led A.M. Stephen, a member of the B.C. SPC, to publicly attack him for having left the impression with a Massey Hall audience that he supported Bennett’s specific measures, without firmly disassociating himself from capitalist reformism in general: “From the Watchtower,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), 1 February 1935. 113 “The Scene Changes,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 12 January 1935 114 Ben Pimlott, Labour and the Left in the 1930s (London: Allen and Unwin, 1977), 46. 115 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers, MG 30 D204, vol. 8, file Graham Spry, 1928–56, Spry to Underhill 12 May 1933. 116 Ibid., file Graham Spry, 1928–56, “Report on a Trip to Britain to Visit the Socialist League and Labor Party Offices.” 117 LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D297, vol. 1, file 1-20, Spry to Biss, 14 March 1935.

370

Notes to pages 193–6

1 18 Pimlott, Labour and the Left, 42. 119 New Clarion, 8 October 1932, cited in ibid., 48. 120 Keith Hodgson, Fighting Fascism: The British Left and the Rise of Fascism, 1919–39 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 87–89. 121 “Sir Stafford Cripps on the New Deal,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 21 July 1934. 122 LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935; “World Socialist Unity Exemplified by Speeches of Cripps, Thomas, Irvine,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 27 April 1935. 123 The communists’ analysis was that pressure from workers within the CCF had pushed the leadership in this direction: LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 169, Draft Letter to Canada on Federal Election and Application of United Front, 23 February 1935, 18. 124 Cameron Smith, Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family (Toronto: Summerhill Press, 1989), 184. 125 David Lewis, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909–1958 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1981), 75. 126 Ibid., 63. 127 “Sam Lawrence Makes Box in Ontario House: Says Palliatives Futile,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 23 March 1935; “Reform Futile,” ibid., 23 March 1935; and “Consolidation,” ibid., 20 April 1935. LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, “Annual Report to the Executive Committee of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), From April 20th, 1935 to March 31, 1936.” 128 “May Day Conference and the United Front,” Vanguard (Toronto), May 1935. 129 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 169, “Draft Proposals to the CP of Canaeda on the Federal Election Campaign,” 8 February 1935 (confidential). 130 For example, UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 14 April 1935. Comrade Taylor from the CP attended and apologized for the language of Comrade Drayton at a ­recent public meeting. 131 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, File, J.S. Woodsworth, 1993–42 (1 of 3), Woodsworth to M.J. Coldwell, 21 May 1935. 132 LAC, CCF, vol. 1, file National Council and Executive Minutes, minutes of the meeting of the National Council, Winnipeg, 30 November 1935, 9. 133 Betcherman, The Little Band. 134 Craig Heron and Steve Penfold, The Workers’ Festival: History of Labour Day in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 174.



Notes to pages 196–8 371

135 On the LSR, see UT, WMC, box 11, file League for Social Reconstruction, Minutes of Meetings, 1933–35, minutes, Toronto Branch, LSR, 10 April 1933. 136 “Lestor’s Corner,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 8 May 1930. 137 UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, Executive, 20 April 1932, and minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, General Meeting, 26 April 1932. 138 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, Bert Robinson to J.S. Woodsworth, 16 April 1933, and UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, 4 April 1933. 139 UT, WMC, box 11, file League for Social Reconstruction, Minutes of Meetings, 1933–35, minutes, Toronto Branch, LSR, 10 April 1933. 140 UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Ontario, Executive, 20 April 1932, and minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), Executive, 24 April 1924. 141 McMaster University Archives, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section), box 5, file East York Workers’ Bulletin, 4 May 1934. 142 “The Workers’ May Day Conference,” Vanguard (Toronto), April 1935; “May Day Conference and the United Front,” ibid., May 1935; “May Day Parade Plans Confirmed by Committee,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 20 April 1935; “Great May Day Parade Unites Unions and C.C.F.,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 4 May 1935. UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), General Meeting, 12 April 1935. Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins: The Depression Years, Part II, 1935 (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1995), 269–71. 143 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, “May Day in Toronto,” attached to circular letter by Alice Loeb and William H. Temple, 15 June 1936. 144 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, executive minutes, 3 April 1936, and vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, “‘May Day’ Conference Call.” 145 As Ben Spence commented, “our Regional Council seized the opportunity enthusiastically and unanimously and by wise foresight and firm tactics, took possession of ‘May Day’ which had been dominated by the Communists and leftists”: LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Ben Spence to J.S. Woodsworth, 3. 146 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, circular letter, 25 April 1936. 147 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Bill Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 28 May 1936.

372

Notes to pages 199–202

148 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes of provincial council, 9 May 1936. 149 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Ben Spence to J.S. Woodsworth, 24 May 1936, 2. 150 “March On – or Out,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 2 May 1936. 151 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Bill Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 23 May 1936. 152 Ibid., Bill Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 11 May 1936, 28 May 1936. 153 Ibid., Coldwell to Temple, 12 May 1936, 29 May 1936. 154 Ibid., Temple to Ben Spence, 13 May 1936. 155 Ibid., Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 23 May 1936. 156 Ibid., “May Day in Toronto,” attached to circular letter by Alice Loeb and William H. Temple, 15 June 1936 and vol. 41, File Ontario General Correspondence, 1932–34, CCF Woodbine Club to Executive Committee, Ontario Association of CCF Clubs, 20 March 1934. Forty members of the Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Federation supported the expelled: LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Bill Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 23 May 1936. On the Women’s Joint Committee generally, see John Manley, “Women and the Left in the 1930s: The Case of the Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee,” Atlantis 5, no. 2 (Spring 1980). 157 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Bill Temple to M.J. Coldwell, 30 May 1936. 158 Ibid., Ben Spence on behalf of the Toronto Regional Council of the CCF to the National Council of the CCF, 18 July 1936, and “Conference Call,” 2 August 1936. 159 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Toronto Expulsions, 1936, Coldwell to Spence, 5 August 1936; “Re-instate C.C.F. Units: Expelled Clubs Reinstated by Provincial Council by Arrangement,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 8 August 1936. 160 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, Provincial Council, 5 September 1936, and minutes, Provincial Executive, 26 March 1937. 161 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Provincial Council, 21–22 May 1938. 162 Saskatchewan Archives Board, B 7, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – Saskatchewan Section Papers, II, file 48, Communist Party, 1936–39, G.H. Williams to A.M. (Sandy) Nicholson, 16 April 1937. 163 “May Day Celebration for City Is Plan of Many Organizations,” Common­ wealth (Vancouver), 26 April 1935; “Vancouver on Parade! Greatest Parade in City History Marks May Day,” ibid., 3 May 1935; “May Day Parade,”



Notes to pages 202–7 373

British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1936; “8,000 to March on May Day,” Federationist (Vancouver), 22 April 1937; “May Day Celebrations Are Featured Here and Abroad,”Federationist (Vancouver), 6 May 1937. 164 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, CCF Provincial Convention, 3, 4, 5, and 6 July 1936. 165 “May Day in Other Cities,” Federationist (Vancouver), 6 May 1937. “CCF Not to Participate in May Day Parade,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 1 April 1938. One would not even know from reading the Manitoba Commonwealth on 1 May 1936 that it was May Day. The Winnipeg Trades and Labour Conference voted narrowly (23 to 17) not to participate in May Day in 1937: Provincial Archives of Manitoba, MG 10 A 12–1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, Minute Books, 6 April 1937. 166 On Loeb, see YUA, Edward Arthur Beder Collection, box 9, file V.48, League for Social Reconstruction, ca. 1933. Temple’s correspondence was on the letterhead of the W.H. Temple Company, Manufacturers’ Representatives. 167 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 1934–41, David Lewis to Herbert Orliffe, 21 April 1937.

5  The Popular Front and the Meaning of Class 1 Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (1935; repr. New York: New American Library, 2005). 2 “Youth in Revolt,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 21 March 1936. 3 “Trades and Labor Council Notes,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 4 January 1935. 4 Library and Archives Canada (herafter LAC), CCF Records, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935. 5 “What Is Fascism?” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), January 1936. 6 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), Woodsworth Memorial Collection (hereafter WMC), box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, E.E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 1 July 1933 and 8 September 1933, and Winch to E.A. Beder, 18 May 1934. 7 “Fascism and the Social Revolution,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1936; “Does Finance Dominate?” ibid., June 1936. 8 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Roy Aindow to Bert Robinson, 2 October 1933, and A.H. Downs, Jr. to Annie Hood Turner, Clarkson, ON, 14 February 1934. In the same file, File of Membership Lists, Schatz was listed as “Salesman (parasite).”

374

Notes to pages 207–9

9 “An Open Letter to Capt. Philpott,” Socialist Action (Toronto), 16 March 1934. 10 Letter to the editor, Commonwealth (Vancouver), 1 February 1935. This concern, that the “middle class” had a natural predilection for fascism unless it was won to working-class politics, was widespread beyond Canada. For the articulation of this sentiment by the mainstream of the British Labour Party, see Nigel Copsey, “‘Every Time They Made a Communist, They Made a Fascist’: The Labour Party and Popular Anti-Fascism in the 1930s,” in Varieties of Anti-Fascism: Britain in the Inter-war Period, ed. Nigel Copsey and Andrzej Olechnowicz (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 60. 11 “Section 98,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 28 July 1934. 12 “C.C.F. Policy Is Outline by Coldwell: Brands McGeer Attitude One of Incipient Fascism,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 14 June 1935. 13 “C.C.F. Nominates,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 1 February 1935. 14 “Simpson President’s Speech Arouses Bitter Condemnation,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 17 May 1935; “Youth in Revolt,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 18 May 1935. 15 “Silverthorn C.C.F.,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 April 1935. 16 “On the Labor Front,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 12 March 1938 and 26 March 1938. 17 “Industrial Association Seen as Dangerous Fascist Body,” Federationist (Vancouver), 18 November 1937; “Fascism in Four Years Unless Unions Strong,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 14 November 1936. 18 “Brilliant Speech by King Gordon at City Meeting,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 3 May 1935. 19 “Youth and Politics,” New Commonwealth, (Toronto), 20 October 1934. 20 Forsey, cited in Frank Milligan, Eugene A. Forsey: An Intellectual Biography (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004), 140. 21 Sean Mills, “When Democratic Socialists Discovered Democracy: The League for Social Reconstruction Confronts the ‘Quebec Problem,’” Canadian Historical Review 86, no. 1 (March 2005). 22 Research Committee of the League for Social Reconstruction, Democracy Needs Socialism (Toronto: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1938). 23 Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 139. 24 Weaver went on to describe the authors as “obviously outside the workers’ movement,” and the book itself as “not even Social-Democratic”: LAC, CCF, vol. 105, file George W. Weaver, Weaver to Lewis, 11 April 1938. 25 Sandra Djwa, The Politics of the Imagination: A Life of F.R. Scott (Vancouver and Toronto: Douglas and McIntyre, 1987), 170; Milligan, Eugene A. Forsey,



26 27 28 29

30 31

32

33 34

35

36

Notes to pages 210–12 375 136–46; Ross Lambertson, Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Advocates, 1930–1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 47–67. The quote is from Graham Spry, cited in Milligan, Eugene A. Forsey, 137. Review of Who Owns Canada, Vanguard (Toronto), April 1935. “Club Paper’s Fine Article,” Federationist (Vancouver), 21 January 1937. LAC, CCF, vol. 362, file Correspondence re: Communist Party and activities, 1935–43, Sam Carr to M.J. Coldwell, 25 July 1935. LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 169, speech by Clark (Canada) at Meeting of Anglo-American Section, 17 July 1935, and file 179, letter “Dear Friends … Urgent,” 31 August 1935. “Stevens Dubbed Fascist Leader,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 26 July 1935. Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins: The Depression Years, Part I, 1933–1934 (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1993), 201–203. Peter Hunter, Which Side Are You on Boys? Canadian Life on the Left (Toronto: Lugus, 1988), 52. “Trades and Labor Council Notes,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 September 1934; Stubbs had already joined a precursor organization, the National Committee to Aid Victims of German Fascism: Lewis St. George Stubbs, A Majority of One: The Life and Times of Lewis St. George Stubbs (Winnipeg: Queenston House, 1983). “Trades and Labor Council Notes,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 28 September 1934. Provincial Archives of Manitoba (hereafter PAM), MG 10 A 12–1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council Minute Books, 1934–42, 4 December 1934, 19 February 1935. “First Nearing Lecture on Dec. 14th,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 14 December 1934, and “Trades and Labor Council Notes,” ibid., 1 March 1935. LAC, J.S. Woodsworth Papers, MG 27 III C7 (hereafter Woodsworth Papers), vol. 6, file Communist, 1933–38, A.A. MacLeod, S.G. Bland, and Maurice N. Eisendrath to Woodsworth, 4 March 1935. York University Archives (hereafter YUA), Edward Arthur Beder Collection, box 9, file VI.49, Draft and Printed copies of Minutes, National Bureau, Canadian League Against War and Fascism (hereafter LAWF), 1935–37, passim. On Bland and the Star, see LAC, CCF, vol. 12, file C.C.F. National Conventions and Inter-Provincial Conferences, 1932–60, Herbert Orliffe to David Lewis, 24 June 1938. McMaster University Archives (hereafter MUA), Canadian Youth Congress, box 5, file 4: Agricultural and Industrial Committees, 1937–39, Margaret Archibald to Ken Woodsworth, 6 December 1937. Norman Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988), 134.

376

Notes to pages 212–15

37 Robert A.J. McDonald, “‘Simply a Working Man’: Tom Uphill of Fernie” in A World Apart: The Crowsnest Communities of Alberta and British Columbia, ed. Wayne Norton and Tom Langford (Kamloops, BC: Plateau Press, 2002). 38 Thomas P. Socknat, Witness against War: Pacifism in Canada, 1900–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 164. 39 Penner, Canadian Communism, 134; Socknat, Witness against War, 163–64. 40 K.N. Cameron soon took over as Action editor. YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file II.42 – Correspondence – Personal-Political, 1933–36, Beder to Van Paassen, 14 September 1934, and Van Paassen to Beder, 21 September 1934, and File IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of minutes, National Bureau, Canadian League Against War and Fascism (hereafter LAWF), 1935–37, minutes, Bureau, 15 May 1935. On Van Paassen’s activities in the 1930s, see Pierre Van Paassen, Days of Our Years (New York: Hillman-Curl, 1939). LAC, MG 28 IV 1, CCF Records, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935. 41 UT, WMC, box 9, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario Section), General Meeting, 12 April 1935. 42 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 158, “Canada,” 19 September 1934. 43 MUA, Canadian Youth Congress Papers, box 4, file 8, September 1935, ­circular letter from the Toronto District Council, LAWF, n.d. 44 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, Beder to A. A. McLeod, 1 June 1936. 45 John Manley, “Women and the Left in the 1930s: The Case of the Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee,” Atlantis 5, 2 (Spring 1980): 108. 46 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, minutes, Bureau, 15 May 1935; LAC, MG 10 K 3, Communist International fonds, file 183, Morton to M. Erlick, 11 March 1935. 47 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, minutes, Bureau, 6 January 1936; Gregory S. Kealey and Reg Whitaker, eds., R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins: The Depression Years, Part II, 1935 (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1995), 616. 48 Manley, “Women and the Left,” 100–19; Peter Campbell, Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010), 250–63. 49 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, minutes, April 1936. 50 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, Beder to A.A. McLeod, 1 June 1936.



Notes to pages 215–18 377

51 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, minutes, 9 June 1936. 52 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, draft letter, Beder to A.A. McLeod, n.d. 53 YUA, Beder Collection, box 9, file IV.42, Correspondence – PersonalPolitical, 1933–36, Beder to E.E. Winch, 12 May 1936. 54 John Manley notes Beder’s increasing frustration with the rapid move of the CP and the popular front away from any advocacy of socialism. John Manley, “‘Communists Love Canada!’ The Communist Party of Canada, the ‘People’ and the Popular Front, 1933–1939,” Journal of Canadian Studies 36, no. 4 (Winter 2002): 78. YUA, Beder Collection, Box 9, file IV.42, Correspondence – Personal-Political, 1933–36, Beder to Van Paassen, 3 April 1936. 55 Manley, “Women and the Left,” 115. 56 Peter Campbell, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1999), 160–61. 57 UBC, AMMC, Box 45, File 45–5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 10 June 1934. 58 Ibid., 14 April 1935. 59 The touchiness of the subject is reflected in revisions of the B.C. CCF Exec­ utive minutes dealing with the support, or non-support, Connell received in this regard: UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45–9, CCF (Provincial Party), ­minutes, Provincial Executive Council, 23 May 1934 and 9 June 1934. 60 LAC, CCF, vol. 1, Minutes of CCF Convention, Winnipeg, July 17–19, 1934, p. 14. 61 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada 1934–35, Annual Convention, 5 and 6 January 1935. 62 YUA, E.A. Beder Papers, box 9, file VI.49 Draft and Printed copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, 1935–37, Bureau, 3 March 1936. 63 UBC, Alexander Maitland Stephen Papers, box 4, scrapbook and flyer, “Our Candidate.” 64 For example, UBC, AMMC, Box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada minutes, 1931–33, Provincial Executive, 8 August 1932 and “Labour School Lectures,” Amoeba (Vancouver), December 1935. 65 “Introduction to History,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), December 1935. 66 “From the Watchtower,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), 1 February 1935. 67 John L. Martin, “Cold Facts and Flaming Ideals,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), March 1935; “Resolutions,” Federationist (Vancouver), 31 December 1936.

378

Notes to pages 218–20

68 “From the Watchtower,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), 1 February 1935. 69 MUA, Canadian Youth Congress Papers, box 4, file 11, Ken Clark, secretary, Canadian League Against War and Fascism to Youth Forum, 3 December 1935; “Industrial Conference to Hold Special Meet,” Federationist (Vancouver), 4 November 1937. 70 “Bennett “Reform” Step to Fascism,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 11 Janu­ ary 1935; “A Lost Generation,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1935. The quote is from “Canada at the Crossroads,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), October 1935. 71 For instance, he identified Victor Midgley as one of Connell’s supporters. UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, Minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 27 August 1936. 72 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 3 December 1936 and 17 December 1936. 73 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 10 December 1936. Elaine Bernard relates elements of this debate in “The Rod Young Affair in the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation” (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1979), 17–21. 74 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 17 December 1936. 75 Ibid., 23 December 1936. 76 Ibid., 31 December 1936. 77 LAC, Communist Party of Canada Papers, MG 28 IV 4, vol. 39, file 39-37, “Report of the Conference of Canadian League Against War and Fascism, Hamilton District, April 27th and 28th, 1935”; “The Disloyalty of Mrs. Sharp,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 29 February 1936. 78 “Anti-War Meeting,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 10 August 1935. YUA, E.A. Beder Collection, box 9, file VI.49, Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, 1935–37, minutes, Bureau, 15 May 1935. 79 LAC, CCF, vol. 46, file Ontario Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 1934–41, Graham Spry to M.J. Coldwell, 19 November 1935, and Herbert Orliffe to M.J. Coldwell, 8 November 1935. Thomas H. McLeod and Ian McLeod, Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1987), 71–72. 80 LAC, Frank H. Underhill Papers MG 30 D 204, vol. 8, file Frank Scott, 1928–56, 24 November 1934, and vol. 3, file “C” General: 1928–56 (1), F.H. Underhill to E.A. Beder, 6 December 1934. 81 “Montreal C.C.F. Log,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 3 November 1934. 82 “C.C.F. and Socialist Parties Complete Merger,” Daily Province (Vancouver), 29 July 1935.



Notes to pages 221–4 379

83 LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935. 84 LAC, CCF vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 4 May 1935. 85 “In Bookland,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 26 June 1925. 86 “The Man on the Street,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 18 May 1928. 87 ”The Jazz of Comesoonism,” One Big Union Bulletin (Winnipeg), 17 July 1930. 88 “I Accuse,” Challenge (Vancouver), May 1932. The FSU was established in 1931 and functioned “very loosely and irregularly” with branches in Vancouver, Winnipeg, Montreal; and Toronto: LAC, Communist Interna­ tional fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 158, “Work in the Revolutionary Mass Organizations,” 18 May 1934. 89 Woodsworth, cited by Alan Mills, Fool for Christ: The Political Thought of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 138. 90 Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959), 233. Notably, McNaught had very little to say about the trip. 91 Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction: Intellectual Origins of the Democratic Left in Canada, 1930–1942 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 85. It is worth adding that J.F. White, the editor of Canadian Forum also visited the USSR in 1932 and wrote “effusive” comments over six consecutive issues of the magazine, John Manley, “Red or Yellow? Canadian Communists and the ‘Long’ Third Period, 1927–36,” in In Search of Revolution: International Communist Parties in the Third Period, ed. Matthew Worley (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 233. 92 MUA, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) Papers, box 5, file Change, Change (Toronto), 18 February 1933. 93 Ibid., 18 March 1933. 94 “In Field, Factory and Workshop,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 19 October 1934. This was in response to the criticisms of the Manitoba Free Press. 95 LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 1, file 1–24, Spry to Biss, 12 June 1936. 96 Horn, League for Social Reconstruction, 134. 97 “Big Welcome to T.U. Delegates,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 18 January 1935. 98 PAM, MG 10 A 12–1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, Minute Books, 1934–42, 4 February 1936. 99 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 8 February 1936, and minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 3 April 1936.

380

Notes to pages 224–7

100 LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935. 101 “Sam Lawrence Returns Home,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 25 July 1936. 102 Campbell, Canadian Marxists, 26. UT, WMC, box 10A, file Wallis Lefeaux, transcript, Paul Fox interview with Wallis LeFeaux. 103 “W. Lefeaux Returns from Visit to Russia and Germany,” Federationist (Vancouver), 22 October 1936 and “Lefeaux Tells of Russian Economic Evolution,” ibid., 19 November 1936. 104 “CCF Notes,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 12 November 1937; “B.C. Woman Delegate for Soviet Tour CCF Nominee,” Federationist (Vancouver), 25 February 1937; “Mrs. Kerr Impressed by Soviet,” Federa­ tionist (Vancouver), 5 August 1937; “Pertinent Portraits by Idle Roomer,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 3 May 1935. “Idle Roomer” was Barry Mather. Irene Howard, The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia: Helena Gutteridge, the Unknown Reformer (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 159. 105 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 28 August 1936. 106 “Four Reels of Recent Intourist Films on Russian Life,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 June 1936. 107 “Panel of Speakers for C.C.F. Clubs,” Peoples’ Weekly (Edmonton), 20 February 1937. 108 “Importance of Birth Control as a Factor in Woman’s Life,” Challenge (Vancouver), October 1932. 109 “Non-Contributory Insurance in Russia,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 23 March 1935; “Mrs. Kerr Impressed by Soviet,” Federationist (Vancouver), 5 August 1937. 110 “Soviet Conquers Drought,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 April 1935. 111 “The Better Half,” Clarion (Vancouver), September 1935. 112 “Red Medicine,” Clarion (Vancouver), July 1935. 113 “Beauty in a Power Plant,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 2 November 1935. 114 John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study, 3rd rev. ed. (London: G. Allen, 1938); Rudolf Hilferding, Finance Capital: A Study of the Latest Phase of Capitalist Development (London: Routledge, 1985); V.I. Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism (Moscow: Progress, 1982). 115 “The Trotskyist Movement in Canada, 1929–1936” (1976), Socialist History Project, accessed 23 July 2014, http://www.socialisthistory.ca/ Docs/History/Trotskyism-1930s.htm.; Bryan D. Palmer, “Maurice Spector, James P. Cannon, and the Origins of Canadian Trotskyism,” Labour/Le Travail 56 (Fall 2005).



Notes to pages 227–30 381

116 UT, WMC, box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Bert Robinson to Fred Hodgson, 11 August 1933, and Bert Robinson to R. Aindow, 21 August 1933, and box 10B, CCF Misc. Material, file Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Ontario, Labour Conference, “Minutes of Emergency Convention of the Labor Conference of Ontario,” 29 October 1933. 117 “Fascism and the Social Revolution,” Clarion (Vancouver), April 1936. 118 “Simpson President’s Speech Arouses Bitter Condemnation,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 17 May 1935. 119 “The Soviet Trials,”New Commonwealth (Toronto), 5 September 1936. 120 “W. Lefeaux Returns from Visit to Russia and Germany,” Federationist (Vancouver), 22 October 1936. 121 “An Amazing Affair,” Federationist (Vancouver), 28 January 1937. 122 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 4 February 1937. On Archibald’s role in the Revolutionary Workers’ Party, see, LAC, Trotskyist Movement fonds, vol. 2, file 17, Archibald, Harry, 1945–46. 123 “De Bunker’s Column,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 6 March 1937. In the early 1950s, De Bunker came under criticism for his uncritical columns about the USSR. Anthony Madiros argues that a close reader of Mentz’s columns would convince any reader of his “democratic socialism,” but his defence of the Moscow trials would suggest otherwise. Madiros, William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979), 227. Mentz had been a delegate from Edmonton at the 1933 Regina Convention. 124 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Research: Friends of the Soviet Union, Lewis to Claire LaRoche, 18 August 1937. 125 LAC, CCF, vol. 94, file Eugene Forsey, Forsey to Lewis, 26 September 1939, and Lewis to Forsey, 6 October 1939. 126 LAC, CCF, vol. 77, file 77–4, British Columbia: Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 24 August 1939. 127 Leon Trotsky, “Art and Politics in Our Epoch,” Partisan Review (1938), available in the Leon Trotsky Archive, accessed 10 June 2015, http:// www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/06/artpol.htm. 128 “Agreement,” Clarion (Vancouver), 1 February 1935; UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45–5, Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, Provincial Executive, 14 April 1935. 129 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 169, Draft Letter to Canada on Federal Elections and Application of United Front, 23 February 1935. 130 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 180, “Report from District No. 9 (CAN.) For A.A. Sec., 20 April 1935”; UBC, box 45, file 45-5, Socialist Party of Canada, Provincial Executive, 14 April 1935.

382

Notes to pages 231–2

131 Telford published the Challenge, which Irene Howard describes as more “eclectic” than other CCF publications, until it merged with the Common­ wealth, and he maintained full control of his popular “Challenge Radio” program (although he agreed to make his radio broadcasts more reflective of CCF policy during the federal election). Irene Howard, The Struggle for Social Justice in British Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 158–60. “Prejudices or Sympathies,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 10 May 1935; UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-10 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, 6 April 1935. 132 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-10 CCF Provincial Party, minutes, Provincial Executive Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 11 November 1934 and 11 May 1935; “Abolish Camps Demand Crowd Hastings Park,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 10 May 1935. The CCF petition campaign to abolish the relief camps had almost 37,000 signatures by mid-May 1935: “36,872 Sign Abolish Camp Petition List,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 23 May 1935. 133 “May Day Celebration for City Is Plan of Many Organizations,” Common­ wealth (Vancouver), 26 April 1935; “Vancouver on Parade,” ibid., 3 May 1935. 134 LAC, J.S. Woodsworth Papers, MG 27 III C7, vol. 6, file Communism, 1918–39, M.J. Coldwell to Woodsworth, 12 June 1935. 135 S.R. Hewitt, “‘We Are Sitting at the Edge of a Volcano’: Winnipeg during the On-to-Ottawa Trek,” Prairie Forum 19, 1 (Spring 1994). 136 PAM, MG 10 A 12–1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, Minute Books, 1934–42, 18 June 1935. 137 Hewitt, “‘We Are Sitting at the Edge of a Volcano’,” 59. 138 YUA, E.A. Beder Collection, Box 9, file VI.51, Announcements, Handbills of Cdn. League Against War and Fascism, leaflet, “Citizen’s Mass Protest,” Friday, 5 July [1935], Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto. 139 LAC, CCF vol. 46, file Ontario Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 1934–41, Spry to Jack King, Regina, 17 July 1935. 140 Steven R. Hewitt, “‘We Cannot Shoo These Men to Another Place’: The On to Ottawa Trek in Toronto and Ottawa,” Past Imperfect 4 (1995): 11–12. In editorials, New Commonwealth criticized the behaviour of trek leaders such as Slim Evans in his meeting at Ottawa and blamed the CP for squandering public good will. “Blunder,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 29 June 1935. 141 “C.C.F. Council Defies Bennett to Arrest Them,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 July 1935. 142 Hewitt, “‘We Cannot Shoo These Men’.” 143 LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 1, file 1–21, Spry to Irene Biss, 28 June 1935.



Notes to pages 232–6 383

144 LAC, J.S. Woodsworth Papers, vol. 6, file Communism, 1918–39, Relief Strike Committee to Woodsworth, 12 June 1935. 145 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Woodsworth to M.J. Coldwell, 21 May 1935, and Woodsworth to E.G. Humphreys, 6 June 1935. 146 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Woodsworth to Tim Buck, 6 June 1935. 147 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Woodsworth to M.J. Coldwell, 26 June 1935; LAC, Woodsworth Papers, vol. 6, file Communism, 1918–39, Woodsworth to Grant MacNeil, 3 July 1935. 148 “United Front on Regina Problems,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 22 March 1935. 149 “Regina Holds United Front for Jobless,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 5 April 1935. 150 “Communists in Convention Ask a United Front,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 26 April 1935. 151 “Central Office Explains Joint Regina Action,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 10 May 1935. 152 On Regina during the trek, see Bill Waiser, All Hell Can’t Stop Us: ­The Onto-Ottawa Trek and Regina Riot (Calgary: Fifth House, 2003). 153 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (1 of 3), Coldwell to Woodsworth, 12 June 1935 and 15 June 1935. 154 LAC, CCF, vol. 46, file Ontario Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 1934–41, Coldwell to Spry, 20 July 1935. 155 Friedrich Steininger, “George H. Williams: Agrarian Socialist” (MA thesis, University of Regina, 1976), 154–55; Saskatchewan Archives Board (hereafter SAB), B 7 II, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – Saskatchewan Section Papers (hereafter CCF-SK Papers), file 23, C.C.F. – Social Credit Candidates, 1935–36, Executive Board, CCF(SS) to Benson and members of the Yorkton Federal Constituency Committee, 2 March 136, and O. Helgram to George Williams, 12 July 1936; LAC, CCF, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, report 16 June 1937; SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 23, M. Campbell to G. Mathers, 5 November 1935. 156 McLeod and McLeod, Tommy Douglas, 58–67; SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 23, C.C.F. – Social Credit Candidates, 1935–36. 157 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 23, C.C.F. – Social Credit Candidates, 1935–36. The same letter was sent by G.H. Williams to T.C. Douglas, 19 September 1935, and to Yorkton candidate Jacob Benson, 21 September 1935. 158 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 36, file George Cole, 1935, Williams to George Cole, 14 January 1935.

384

Notes to pages 236–8

159 LAC, CCF, vol. 104, file G.H. Williams, M.J. Coldwell to Members of the Executive, CCF Saskatchewan Section, 10 October 1935. 160 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 23, C.C.F. – Social Credit Candidates, 1935–36, Douglas to Williams, 6 November 1935. 161 SAB, B 7 II, CCF-SK Papers, file 48, Communist Party, 1936–39, G.H. Williams to S.J. Farmer, 11 August 1936. 162 Ibid., G.H. Williams to S.J. Farmer, 1 September 1936, and Williams to Bruce Robinson, 13 August 1936. 163 “Communist Tactics,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 28 November 1936. 164 “Labor Nominates Five in Regina,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 14 November 1936; “Ward System Is Abolished in the City of Regina,” ibid., 12 December 1936; “Communists Attack Regina Civic Unity” and “Communist Tactics,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 28 November 1936; LAC, CCF, vol. 65, file 65–1, Saskatchewan: General Correspondence, C.M. Fines to M.J. Coldwell, 17 November 1936. Historian William Brennan ­argues, however, that the character of the city council did not change very much. Mayor Alban Ellison was re-elected without the Central Labor Council’s support: J. William Brennan, Regina: An Illustrated History (Toronto: Lorimer, 1989), 143. Brennan’s “‘The Common People Have Spoken with a Mighty Voice’: Regina’s Labour City Councils, 1936–1939,” Labour/Le Travail 71 (Spring 2013) provides considerable local context for these developments, as well as their consequences. 165 LAC, CCF, vol. 95, E.J. Garland to David Lewis, 18 July 1937. 166 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 48, Communist Party, 1936–39, G.H. Williams to Bruce Robinson, 17 September 1936. 167 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 86, Co-operation with Other Groups, 1937–38, G.H. Williams to Provincial Presidents, Secretaries, Campaign Managers, 4 October 1937. 168 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 86, Co-operation with Other Groups, 1937–38, CCF Official Statement, 6 October 1937. 169 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 86, Co-operation with Other Groups, 1937–38, T.G. McManus to G.H. Williams, 27 October 1937; G.H. Williams to T.G. McManus, 4 November 1937; and G.H. Williams to Walter Wiggins, 4 November 1937. 170 LAC, CCF, vol. 95, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, report, 7 February 1938. 171 LAC, Agnes Macphail Papers, MG 27 III C4, vol. 2, file Correspondence, 1938, (Mrs.) Sophia Dixon to Agnes Macphail, 14 May 1938. 172 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 86, Co-operation with Other Groups, 1937–38, G.H. Williams to W.J. Conklin, 16 March 1938.



Notes to pages 238–40 385

173 For instance, in Bengough, Williams urged the local CCF to put up a ­candidate against a common anti-Liberal candidate, which they appar­ ently did not do. SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 86, Co-operation with Other Groups, 1937–38, C.M.W. Emory to G.H. Williams, 3 March 1938, and G.H. Williams to C.M.W. Emory, 9 March 1938. 174 Ibid., G.H. Williams to J.S. Woodsworth, 14 October 1937. 175 Ibid., J.S. Woodsworth to G.H. Williams, 19 October 1937. 176 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, file 48, Communist Party, 1936–39. 177 “CCF Independence Vital,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 11 November 1938. 178 “CCF Secretary’s Report,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 29 October 1937, and “Demand $1.25 Wheat Price,” ibid., 15 July 1938. 179 Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan – A Study in Political Sociology (1950; repr. Berkeley: University of California, 1971), 144–45. 180 LAC, CCF, vol. 362, file Correspondence re: Communist Party and Activities, 1935–43, George H. Williams to CPC, Regina, 8 November 1938. 181 Mary Hallett, “The Social Credit Party and the New Democracy Movement, 1939-1940,” Canadian Historical Review 47, no. 4 (December 1966): 301–25. 182 LAC, CCF, vol. 362, file Correspondence re: Communist Party and Activities, 1935–43, T.J. McManus to G.H. Williams, 25 April 1939. 183 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file W.D. Herridge, 1939–41, Williams to David Lewis, 23 May 1939, and vol. 362, file Correspondence re: Communist Party and Activities, 1935–43, W.E. Wiggins to George Williams, 10 November 1938. 184 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file W.D. Herridge, 1939–41, “Co-operation or Disunity,” radio address by G.H. Williams on CJRM, 26 April 1939, and David Lewis to “Provincial Secretary,” 9 March 1939. 185 “Coldwell CCF Leader Speaks to Canada,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 6 June 1941. On Nielsen and the CCF, see particularly Faith Johnston, A Great Restlessness: The Life and Politics of Dorise Nielsen (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2006), 60–72. 186 In his discussion of CCF/CP relations in Saskatchewan, Peter Sinclair ­argued that the CCF’s decisions to either enter or reject such connections were determined by what he sees as the CCF’s growing conservativism, which was, in turn, rooted in its increasing electoralism. Electoral concerns no doubt played an important role, but Sinclair downplays the extent to which the debate within the CCF as a whole reflected a concern about measuring their decisions against their understanding of socialist

386

Notes to pages 240–3

class-based principles. Peter R. Sinclair, “The Saskatchewan C.C.F. and the Communist Party in the 1930s,” Saskatchewan History 26, no. 1 (Winter 1973): 1–10. 187 “C.C.F. Opens Season with Rally, Dance,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 12 September 1936, and “H.D. Ainlay Is Named for Mayorality by the United People’s League,” ibid., 10 October 1936. 188 LAC, CCF, vol. 95, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, report, 16 June 1937. 189 “Study Outlines Ready for Clubs,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 17 October 1936; “Panel of Speakers for C.C.F. Clubs,” ibid., 20 February 1937; “Edmonton to Observe May Day Saturday,” ibid., 1 May 1937. 190 LAC, CCF, vol. 99, file David Lewis, 1936–39, 31 October 1936. 191 “William Irvine’s Weekly Column,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 5 June 1937. On the CP’s greater support of Social Credit, see Anthony Mardiros, William Irvine: The Life of a Prairie Radical (Toronto: Lorimer, 1979), 150–51. 192 G.E. Weib, letter to the editor, People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 14 November 1936. 193 Gilbert Levine, ed., Patrick Lenihan: From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism (St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 1998), 127–28. 194 UT, WMMC, box 10B, file CCF Ont. Women’s Joint Committee, Corre­ spondence and related papers, press release, Citizen’s Defense Movement, Toronto and District, 20 June 1936, and circular letter, Citizens Defense Movement of Toronto and District, 27 April 1936. 195 Manley, “Women and the Left,” 110–11. 196 YUA, E.A. Beder Collection, Box 9, file VI.49 Draft and Printed Copies of Minutes, National Bureau, LAWF, 1935–37, minutes, Bureau, 14 March 1936. 197 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 11 April 1936. 198 “Rally Democrats against Reaction,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 8 May 1937. 199 Penner, Canadian Communism, 151. 200 LAC, CCF, vol. 99, file David Lewis, 1936–39, Graham Spry to David Lewis, 9 December 1936, and Herbert Orliff to J.S. Woodsworth, 14 December 1936. 201 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211 (hereafter Scott Papers), vol. 12, file CCF General, 1935–Aug. 1938, Graham Spry to Frank Scott, 10 December 1936. 202 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, Ontario CCF Provincial Executive, 18 June 1937. Cameron Smith



Notes to pages 243–4 387

considers the “real reason” for Graham Spry’s resignations from the editorship of the New Commonwealth, from the Canadian Forum, and from the provincial council of the Ontario CCF to be his “despairing analysis of the state of the CCF in Ontario.” Cameron Smith, Unfinished Journey: The Lewis Family (Toronto: Summerhill Press, 1989), 252. While this was his appraisal of the CCF, he had been quite clear that the “decisive factor” was his indebtedness: he felt he needed to find a “real job” paying at least $5,000 a year: LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 5, file 5-13, Graham Spry to Ted Joliffe, 14 June 1937, and file 5–14, Ted Joliffe to David Lewis, 7 June 1937; vol. 1, file 1–26, Graham Spry to Irene Biss, 9 March 1938. The appraisal of Spry by Laura Cotton-Thomas (whom Forsey considered “unspeakable”) as “an individualist with a capital I” who repeatedly “emphasized his sacrifices” rings true. Spry Papers, vol. 5, file 5-14, Laura Cotton-Thomas to David Lewis, n.d. [1937], and Eugene Forsey to Graham Spry, 12 August 1937. 203 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, Ontario CCF Provincial Executive, 18 June 1937. 204 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Provincial Executive, 9 July 1937, 9 August 1937, and 4 September 1937. 205 LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, minutes, Provincial Convention, 15–16 April 1938. 206 LAC, Trotskyist Movement fonds, MG 28 IV 11, vol. 1, file 6-1, Reunification of Canadian Section, 1938. 207 LAC, CCF, vol. 94, file Eugene Forsey, Forsey to David Lewis, 22 July 1937. 208 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (2 of 3), David Lewis to J.S. Woodsworth, 23 August 1937, and J.S. Woodworth to David Lewis, 27 September 1937; vol. 99, file David Lewis, 1936–39, David Lewis to J.S. Woodsworth, 29 September 1937. This is the constituency that Salsberg would subsequently represent from 1943 to 1955. John Manley, “‘Communists Love Canada!’” 73. 209 An informal group was established by Lewis in late 1936 to discuss “organizational problems.” He proposed that it include Carlyle King, Eugene Forsey, Frank Scott, Ted Joliffe, Frank Underhill, Carlton McNaught, M.J. Coldwell, as well as himself. LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file CCF General, 1935–Aug. 1938, Lewis to F.R. Scott, 24 November 1936. The quotation is from David Lewis in a letter to Frank Scott, ibid., 18 November 1936. Lewis was insistent that any differences among LSR types be worked out and that “our group should remain pretty firm and united.” LAC, CCF vol. 99, file David Lewis, 1936–39, Lewis to King Gordon, 4 November 1936.

388

Notes to pages 244–7

210 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file CCF General, 1935–Aug. 1938, E.A. Havelock to F.R. Scott, 22 March 1936. LAC, CCF, vol. 12, file 1938 Convention – Resolutions and Delegates, Eugene Forsey to David Lewis, 18 May 1938. 211 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file CCF General, 1935–Aug. 1938, David Lewis to Frank Scott, 16 July 1937. 212 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file CCF General 1935–Aug. 1938, David Lewis to F.R. Scott, 12 July 1937. See also “CCF Votes Trade Union Affiliation,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 23 April 1938. 213 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, leaflets, New Commonwealth, Jr., n.d. [1938]. This was a publication of the Toronto Regional Council designed for trade unionists. See LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 6 March 1938. 214 LAC, Scott Papers, vol. 12, file CCF General, 1935–Aug. 1938, David Lewis to F.R. Scott, 20 June 1936 and 16 July 1937. 215 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 11–12 February 1939. 216 Ibid. 217 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, 1938–45, David Lewis to Harold E. Winch, 14 April 1939. 218 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 4 March 1939. 219 LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 5, file 5–14, Eric Havelock to Graham Spry, 5 February 1938. Dennison owned the Dennison School of Speech Correction and was, in the eyes of some Trotskyists, a “Stalinist stooge.” “CCF and CP Hold Decoy Meetings,” Workers’ Voice (Toronto), 25 June 1938, and “Police Smash Anti-Fascist Rally,”ibid., 19 July 1938. 220 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, 1938–45, Harold E. Winch to David Lewis, 10 April 1939. 221 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, circular letter, Orliffe to “Comrades,” 26 April 1939. 222 “The Deepening Crisis,” British Columbia Clarion (Vancouver), April 1936. 223 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Min­ utes, minutes, CCF Provincial Convention, 3–6 July 1936. 224 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 10 December 1936. 225 Telford declared that “we simply haven’t time to take sides with either Josef Stalin or Leon Trotsky – in connection with our movement. We have our own business to attend to.” “The President’s Corner,” Federationist



Notes to pages 247–50 389

(Vancouver), 28 January 1937. On Lewis, see LAC, CCF, vol. 95, file E.J. Garland, 1934–40, Lewis to Garland, 8 March 1937. 226 “Federationist Campaign On,” Federationist (Vancouver), 18 February 1937. 227 “An Amazing Affair,” Federationist (Vancouver), 21 January 1937. 228 “The Facts of Life,” Federationist (Vancouver), 5 November 1936. 229 “Progressivism,” Federationist (Vancouver), 8 April 1937. 230 “Trotskyism and Stalinism,” Federationist (Vancouver), 14 January 1937. 231 “The President’s Corner,” Federationist (Vancouver), 28 January 1937. 232 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 26 September 1936, 24 October 1936. 233 “What Do You Think?” Federationist (Vancouver), 7 January 1937. 234 “Industry Meet Is Successful,” Federationist (Vancouver), 29 October 1936. 235 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 28 November 1936. 236 Ibid., 24 October 1936. 237 “Far Reaching Decisions Mark CCF’s Fifth B.C. Convention,” Federationist (Vancouver), 8 July 1937, and “Industrial Conferences Endorsed by CCF Council,” ibid., 2 September 1937; UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party) 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Convention, C.C.F. (B.C.), 2–5 July 1937, and minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 6 Decem­ ber 1937. 238 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-–3, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 5 April 1938, 2 May 1938. 239 Stephen dropped his charge against Young when he failed to produce any evidence. UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party), 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 2 January 1937, 9 January 1937, and 16 January 1937. Although it discusses primarily postwar conflicts, these incidents are related in Elaine Bernard, “The Rod Young Affair in the British Columbia Co-operative Commonwealth Federation” (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1979), 17–21. 240 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 463, CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 13 February 1937. 241 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party), 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 26 February 1937. 242 Ibid., minutes, Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 27 February 1937. 243 Ibid., minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), Special Meeting, 3 March 1937.

390

Notes to pages 250–5

244 Ibid., minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 15 March 1937; “Statement on Suspension of A.M. Stephen,” Federationist (Vancouver), 18 March 1937. 245 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party), 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 21 March 1937 246 Ibid., 21 March 1937, 26 March 1937, 31 March 1937, 16 April 1937, 17 April 1937, and 24 April 1937. 247 Ibid., 5 May 1937, 7 May 1937. 248 Ibid., 29 June 1937 249 UBC, AMMC, Box 46, File 46–1, CCF (Provincial Party), 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Convention, 2–5 July 1937; “What Happened at the Convention,” Federationist (Vancouver), 8 July 1937. 250 John Manley notes that, in the 1937 Ontario election, the CP had Stewart Smith drop out of the Toronto Bellwoods riding to allow for the election of Liberal Arthur Roebuck, who had resigned from Hepburn’s cabinet in opposition to the premier’s fight against the autoworkers in Oshawa. John Manley, “‘Audacity, Audacity, Still More Audacity’: Tim Buck, the Party, and the People, 1932–1939,” Labour/Le Travail 49 (Spring 2002): 26.

6  The Problem and Consequences of War 1 This argument has been made in James Naylor, “Pacifism or AntiImperialism? The CCF Response to the Outbreak of World War II,” Journal  of the Canadian Historical Association 6 (1997): 213–37. 2 For instance, in Brandon, Manitoba, and Windsor, Ontario. “Brandon Protests Cadet Training,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 17 April 1925; “The Cadet Movement,” Border City Labour News (Walkerville, ON), 7 May 1932; Library and Archives Canada (hereafter LAC), CCF Papers, MG 28 IV 1 (hereafter CCF), vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention – CCF (Ontario Section), 10–11 April 1936. 3 “Black ’Ell,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 13 May 1927 and “I.L.P. Dramatic Society Delights Fort Rouge Branch,” ibid., 17 February 1928. 4 “‘No More War’ at the Playhouse,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 20 November 1925. 5 See the following articles in the Winnipeg Weekly News: “Against Cadet Training,” 3 July 1925; “Little Tin Soldier,” 24 December 1926; “Agnes Macphail, M.P., Gave Inspiring Address at Strand Theatre,” 28 January 1927; “Where War Starts,” 14 October 1927; “I.L.P. Notes,” 22 June 1928; and “War!” 30 December 1932. 6 Weekly News (Winnipeg), “Local Notes,” 15 May 1925.



Notes to pages 255–7 391

7 SPC delegates to the Anti-War Conference committee were divided on their attitude. University of British Columbia Special Collections (hereafter UBC)], Angus MacInnis Memorial Collection (hereafter AMMC), box 45, file 45-3, Socialist Party of Canada, minutes, 1931–33, provincial executive, 8 August 1932 and 10 October 1932. 8 “Canada Prepares for War,” Socialist Action (Toronto), 16 March 1934. 9 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (hereafter UT), Woodsworth Memorial Collection (hereafter WMC), box 8, Socialist Party of Canada, Ernest E. Winch to Bert Robinson, 20 December 1932; LAC, CCF records, vol. 106, file E.E. Winch, 1934–35, E.E. Winch to Norman Priestley, 22 October 1934. 10 See for instance, her response to the Canadian Youth Congress poll of ­candidates in 1935, McMaster University Archives (hereafter MUA), ­canadian Youth Congress Papers (hereafter CYC Papers), box 14, file 3, Correspondence with Federal Candidates, questionnaire response from Rose Henderson. See also Peter Campbell, Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2010). 11 York University Archives (hereafter YUA), E.A. Beder Collection, box 9, file V.49, draft and drinted copies of minutes, National Bureau, Canadian League Against War and Fascism, 1935–37, minutes, Bureau, 21 September 1935. 12 MUA, CYC Papers, box 14, file 3, Correspondence with Federal Candidates, questionnaire response from Fred Fish. 13 “Canada and Sanctions,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 7 December 1935. 14 “The C.C.F. and the Sanctions,” Clarion (Vancouver), February 1936. 15 UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 18 January 1936. 16 UBC, AMMC, Box 45, file 45-12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–35, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 15 February 1936. 17 UBC, AMMC, box 46, File 46-1, CCF (Provincial Party) 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 9 January 1937. 18 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1935– Aug. 1938, F.R. Scott to David Lewis, 29 June 1936, and David Lewis to F.R. Scott, 2 July 1936. 19 “Europe and War,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 18 July 1936. 20 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 21 January 1937. 21 “M.J. Gauvin at the Met,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 4 March 1927; “I.L.P. Notes,” ibid., 24 February 1928; “I.L.P. Notes,” ibid., 5 October 1928; “Judge Stubbs Speaks on War and Civilization,” ibid., 8 April 1932; “Mrs.

392

22

23

24 25

26

27 28 29

30

31

32

Notes to pages 257–9

R.P. Steeves,” Commonwealth (Vancouver), 25 October 1933; MUA, CYC Papers, box 14, file 3, Correspondence with Federal Candidates, questionnaire response from D.M. LeBourdais. Even David Lewis, a member of the League of Nations Society, did not entirely disagree, referring to the “anti-communist prejudices of the majority of [the] National Executive.” LAC, CCF, vol. 93, file T.C. Douglas, David Lewis to T.C. Douglas, 28 November 1936. Trotskyist Earl Birney enumerated the various positions in the CCF on the League of Nations, describing the federation’s “national ambiguity.” Cited in Elspeth Cameron, Earl Birney: A Life (Toronto: Viking, 1994), 172. Paul Corthorn, “The Labour Party and the League of Nations: The Socialist League’s Role in the Sanctions Crisis of 1935,” Twentieth Century British History 13, no. 1 (2002): 62–85. Rose Potvin, Passion and Conviction: The Letters of Graham Spry (Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, 1992), 92. H.N. Brailsford, “A Socialist View of the League,” Canadian Forum 17, no. 196 (May 1937): 44; “A Socialist View of the League,” New Common­ wealth, 8 May 1937. Provincial Archives of Manitoba, MG 10 A 12–1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, Minute Books, 1934–42, minutes, 18 August 1936, 1 September 1936. UBC, AMMC, box 45, file 45–12, CCF Executive and Convention Reports, 1935–36, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 19 September 1936. “IFTU Secretary Toronto Speaker,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 26 Septem­ ber 1936. As the CP pointed out, the Toronto Regional CCF participated, but the ­national executive of the CCF was largely silent. LAC, CCF, vol. 362, file Correspondence re: Communist Party and Activities, 1935–43, Sam Carr to J.S. Woodsworth, 29 October 1936. The alternate committee included the League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party, the Workers’ Party of Canada, the IWW, and the Libertarian Group. LAC, CCF vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 8 August 1936, 28 August 1936. LAC, CCF R, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Council, 5 September 1936, and LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 1, file 1-25, Spry to Irene Biss, 31 August 1936. LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, minutes, 2 October 1936.



Notes to pages 259–60 393

33 LAC, Graham Spry Papers, MG 30 D 297, vol. 68, file 68-15, memoirs, “Remembering the Agitators of the Thirties,” (1969), 7. 34 “Montrealers Aid Spanish,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 31 October 1936. 35 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, 1934–41, David Lewis to Herbert Orliffe, 10 October 1936. 36 Larry Hannant, ed., The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 119, 122; Ted Allan and Sydney Gordon, The Scalpel and the Sword: The Story of Doctor Norman Bethune (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1973), 105–107. 37 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1935–38, minutes of Provincial Executive, 29 October 1936. 38 “Canadian Doctor Due in Madrid This Week,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 31 October 1936. David Vincent Moore discusses the origins of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy in David Vincent Moore, “Do the Right Thing: The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939” (MA Thesis, Queen’s University, 1991), 50. 39 In Tommy Douglas: The Road to Jerusalem (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1987), Thomas H. McLeod and Ian McLeod argue that, “in a reversal of the normal roles, Spry engineered a social democratic takeover of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and installed a long-time prohibitionist minister at its head” (80). The reference is to Rev. Ben Spence, who was the chair of the Toronto Regional Committee of the CCF. Spence was indeed a prohibitionist, but otherwise the McLeods are wrong. Spence had been a consistent advocate of the popular front, had been active as a central figure in the On-to-Ottawa events and May Day, and had been consistently supported by the left-wing Women’s Committee of the CCF. He had also been chair of the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy from its creation (well before Spry became involved). The question of who dominated the committee is reflected in its politics, which were consistently in line with the Communist Party. A similar, somewhat confused, chronology is presented by Michael Petrou in Renegades: Canadians in the Spanish Civil War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2008), 158. 40 “Committee to Aid Spanish People,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 21 November 1936. 41 “‘Tommy’ Douglas to Speak Here,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 30 April 1937. 42 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 23 October 1937.

394

Notes to pages 261–3

43 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, “Report on the Conference Held in the King Edward Hotel, 22 and 23 April 1939,” by William Dennison; LAC, CCF, vol. 43, file Ontario General Correspondence 1942 (Dec.–Oct.), David Lewis to Frank Ferguson, 23 November 1944. 44 There was a small but not insignificant number of CCFers in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion. Michael Petrou has calculated that about three-quarters of those who fought were CPers. He has been able to identify seven who self-identified as CCFers, although the records are by no means complete. Petrou, Renegades, 24. However “Canadians Fighting in Spain,” New Commonwealth, 15 May 1937, did report the wounding of two CCF Youth Movement members in Spain. The CCF also worked behind the scenes, as David Lewis lobbied O.D. Skelton in support of the MacPaps, LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (2 of 3), David Lewis to J.S. Woodsworth, 19 December 1938. 45 It had been made illegal under the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1937. Thor Erik Frohn-Nielsen, “Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act: Mackenzie King's Expedient Response to the Spanish Civil War” (MA thesis, University of British Columbia, 1982). 46 “Douglas Makes Strong Appeal for Spaniards,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 7 May 1937. 47 George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London: Penguin, 1989), 3. 48 New Commonwealth (Toronto), 22 August 1936, cited in David Vincent Moore, “Do the Right Thing,” 55–56. 49 “Problems in Rear Confront Spanish Workers’ Struggle,” Workers Voice (League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party, Canadian Section), (Toronto), January 1937. 50 Petrou, Renegades, 152. The small “right-oppositionist” Independent Labour League of Canada added its voice to the criticism of the repression of the POUM. LAC, CCF Records, file Ontario Council, Executive Minutes, 1938–39, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 9 December 1938. 51 “Many Workers Hear Com Krehm Speak on Spain,” Workers Voice (Toronto), 7 January 1938. 52 “Loyalist Militia Man Exposes Stalinist Treachery in Spain,” Workers Voice (Toronto), 2 October 1937. 53 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Research: Spanish Democracy, 1937–39, document, “Dr. Bethune and the C.C.F.” The CCF national council protested the attack and got a private apology from the committee. 54 LAC, CCF, vol. 363, file Research: Spanish Democracy 1937–39, Summary of the Minutes of the National Conference, Canadian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, 22 April 1939.



Notes to pages 263–5 395

55 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (3 of 3), J.S. Woodsworth to Earl Orchard, 27 March 1939. 56 Because most farm organizations quickly left the CCF, this was a significant legacy only in Saskatchewan. On rural youth protest in the 1930s, see Terry Crowley, “The New Canada Movement: Agrarian Youth Protest in the 1930s,” Ontario History 80 (September 1988). 57 On the history of the CCYM, see James Naylor, “Socialism for a New Generation: CCF Youth in the Popular Front Era,” Canadian Historical Review 94, no. 1 (March 2013): 55–79. 58 “War!” and “Youth in Russia,” Weekly News (Winnipeg), 30 December 1932. 59 “Youth in Revolt,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 7 September 1935, and “Astounding Progress Made,” ibid., 7 December 1935. 60 “F. Lazarus Youngest Candidate,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 27 July 1935; “Youth in Revolt,” ibid., 8 December 1934; LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, minutes, Annual Convention of the C.C.F. (Ontario Section), 20 April 1935. 61 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 181, Agenda, 9 April 1935. 62 Wayne Roberts, ed., Where Angels Fear to Tread: Eileen Tallman and the Labour Movement (Hamilton: Labour Studies, McMaster University, 1981), 9. She was the national secretary of the CCYM at the end of the decade when it had to deal with the issue of war directly. LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1933–39, Angus MacInnis to David Lewis, 30 August 1939. 63 “Youth in Revolt,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 1 December 1934. 64 See Cynthia Comacchio, The Dominion of Youth: Adolescence and the Making of Modern Canada, 1920 to 1950 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006). 65 “Youth Convention,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 13 October 1934. 66 “Young People Plan Future Activities,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 17 June 1938. 67 UBC, AMMC, vol. 45, file 45-5 Socialist Party of Canada, 1934–35, annual convention, 20 and 21 January 1934, report by T. Simington. 68 LAC, Communist International fonds, MG 10 K 3, file 158, “The Develop­ ment of the United Front Movement in Canada,” 16 September 1934. 69 “Capitalism Almost Unanimously Condemned by Youth,” New Common­ wealth (Toronto), 1 June 1935; “Youth Congress Deals with Problems Vital to Canada,” ibid., 23 May 1936; MUA, CYC Papers, box 15, file 1, Congress of Youth, CYC, 1935, credentials report.

396

Notes to pages 265–8

70 “Capitalism Almost Unanimously Condemned by Youth,” New Common­ wealth (Toronto), 1 June 1935. 71 “Fascism Opposed by Youth,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 5 December 1936. 72 MUA, CYC Papers, vol. 6, file 1, Alberta Youth Congress 1937–39, Gertrude Gillander to Kenneth Woodsworth, 4 February 1938, 22 April 1938. 73 “Congress Blocks Raps at Fascism,” Mail and Empire (Toronto); 27 May 1935; “Won’t Link Fascism with Anti-War Resolution,” Toronto Star, 27 May 1935; Dave White, letter to the editor, Toronto Star, 1 June 1935. 74 “Young Socialists Aid in Welding Unity of Canadian Youth,” Daily Clarion (Toronto), 26 May 1937; “C.C.Y.M. Report Greets Spirit of United Purpose at Congress,” ibid., 2 June 1937; “Young Canada,” Montreal Star, 3 July 1937. 75 LAC, CCF, vol. 344, file CCYM General 1935–50, David Lewis to Eamon Park, vice-president, CCYM, Ontario Section, 18 May 1938, and Angus MacInnis to William Grant, 18 May 1938; and vol. 88, file Dr. J. Stanley Allen, 1937–51, David Lewis to Stanley Allen, 17 May 1938. 76 MUA, CYC Papers, vol. 7, file 13, Greater Vancouver Youth Council, Jack Stanton to Ken Woodworth, 18 October 1938. 77 MUA, CYC Papers, vol. 1, file 3, National Committee (1938–42), minutes, 27 November 1938. 78 MUA, CYC Papers, vol. 14, file 7, First Saskatchewan Youth Congress, 1939. 79 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, resolutions, Ontario CCF, final agenda, April 1938. 80 “CCF Youth Take Stand against War Enlistment,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 19 February 1938. 81 LAC, CCF, vol. 1, file National Council and Executive Minutes, 1 August 1932–5 August 1936, minutes, CCF Annual National Convention, Toronto, Fourth Session, 4 August 1936. 82 “Take Profit Out of War,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 22 January 1937; LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 6 February 1937. 83 David Lewis, The Good Fight: Political Memoirs, 1909–1958 (Toronto: Macmillan, 1981), 167. 84 “Thousands Sign Petition,” People’s Weekly (Edmonton), 3 April 1937; “26,000 Manitobans Signed ‘Take Profits Out of War’ Petition,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 30 April 1937. 85 For example, LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1935–38, David Lewis to Dorothy Wincott, 5 March 1937.



Notes to pages 268–70 397

86 Saskatchewan Archives Board (hereafter SAB), Co-operative Common­ wealth Federation – Saskatchewan Section Papers (hereafter CCF-SK Papers), B7 II, file 192, National Defence, 1937, David Lewis to G. Mathers, 20 February 1937. 87 Ibid., George Williams to David Lewis, 5 April 1937. 88 The CCF national executive denied that the policy was one of “do nothing pacifism.” LAC, CCF, vol. 2, file National Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, National Executive, 3 March 1937. 89 LAC, CCF, vol. 2, “C.C.F. Statement on Sino-Japanese Conflict,” 14 Sep­ tember 1937. 90 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-2 CCF (Provincial Party), “Resolutions to be Presented to 1937 Annual Convention.” The pro-collective security ­resolution had been proposed by the Advance CCF Club, which also put forward a strong anti-Trotskyist resolution. 91 “Mental Balance,” Federationist (Vancouver), 30 September 1937. 92 “The Problem of War,” Federationist (Vancouver), 7 October 1937. 93 “Emotional Salvation of Democracy,” Federationist (Vancouver), 14 October 1937. 94 “CCF Backs Boycott of Japan,” Federationist (Vancouver), 4 November 1937; UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1 CCF (Provincial Party) 1937–38, ­minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 30 November 1937. 95 “What Do You Think,” letter from E.F.H., Federationist (Vancouver), 2 December 1937. 96 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-1 CCF (Provincial Party) 1937–38, minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 6 December 1937. 97 Provincial Archives of Manitoba, MG 10 A 12-1, Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, Minute Books, 1934–42, 2 November 1937. 98 “Mass Meeting to Condemn Jap Aggression,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 10 December 1937. 99 The Ontario CCF jumped on board immediately and confirmed this Activity at its 1938 convention. LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1934–37, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 16 October 1937, and vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935– 45, minutes, Fifth Annual Convention of the CCF (Ontario Section), ­15–16 April 1938. 100 The Communist Party attacked Woodsworth for supporting appeasement, LAC, CCF, vol. 362, file Correspondence: Re: Communist Party and Activities, 1935–43, leaflet, Stewart Smith, “Who Is Double Crossing Peace.” 101 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1935– Aug. 1938, F.R. Scott to G.V. Ferguson, 19 November 1938.

398

Notes to pages 270–3

102 UBC, AMMC, Box 46, file 46–3 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 26 November 1938. 103 “How Another World War Might Bring Fascism to Great Britain,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 15 October 1938. 104 There were many such characterizations, such as Bruce Hutchison, “Saint in Politics,” in “The First Ten Years, 1932–1942: Commemorating the Tenth Anniversary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation” (1942), in LAC, CCF, vol. 13, file CCF, National Conventions and Inter­provincial Conferences, and, of course, Kenneth McNaught, A Prophet in Politics: A Biography of J.S. Woodsworth (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1959). 105 Vancouver Daily Province, 10 September 1939, cited in McNaught, A Prophet in Politics, 312, speaking of Woodsworth’s “lonely route where conscience is the only compass.” 106 SAB, Carlyle King Papers, A225 II, file 2, Canadian Fellowship of Reconciliation – Correspondence with Members, 1938–47, Carlyle King to Mrs W.F. Osborne, 30 January 1939, and Carlyle King to Rev. R.E. Fairbairn, 20 April 1939. King became national president of the FOR. On the Fellowship for a Christian Social Order, see Thomas Socknat, Witness against War: Pacifism in Canada, 1900–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), esp. 138–47, and Frank Milligan, Eugene A. Forsey: An Intellectual Biography (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2004), ­162–65. This debate is well explored in Donald C. Kerr and Stan D. Hanson, “Pacifism and the Saskatchewan CCF at the Outbreak of World War II,” Prairie Forum 23, no. 2 (Fall 1998). 107 Socknat, Witness against War, 183. Knowles, however, claimed to be too busy to be active in the FOR: SAB, Carlyle King Papers, A225 II, file 2, Canadian Fellowship of Reconciliation – Correspondence with Members, 1938–47, Stanley Knowles to Carlyle King, 17 February 1939. This same file contains the membership list of the FOR. It does not overlap significantly with recognizable CCF activists. 108 Keith Hodgson, Fighting Fascism: The British Left and the Rise of Fascism, 1919-39 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010), 182. There, too, though, the debate was difficult. Stafford Cripps supported the war as a campaign against fascism, and was readmitted into the Labour Party. Hodgson, Fighting Fascism, 182. 109 MUA, CYC Papers, box 14, file 7, First Saskatchewan Youth Congress, 1939, Report, 2–3 June 1939. 110 Mills, Fool for Christ, 192. 111 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 2 and 5. William



Notes to pages 273–6 399

Walsh, the Quebec CCF provincial president, did speak in isolationist terms, saying that “Canada should be independent of European wars,” 13. 112 LAC, M.J. Coldwell Papers, MG 27 III C12, vol. 58, file Memoirs 17-32, Memoirs, No. 24, 21 April 1964. 113 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939. The bodies that had met were the Manitoba provincial council (p. 4) and the B.C. provincial executive (p. 8). 114 Visitors, who had a voice but no vote, included George Grube, Andrew Brewin, Frank Underhill, Ruth Jollife, and Eugene Forsey, among others. LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council Meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 1. 115 Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction, 151–52; R. Douglas Francis, Frank H. Underhill: Intellectual Provocateur (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986), 107. 116 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council Meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 6. 117 Ibid., 5. 118 Ibid., 12. 119 Ibid., 4. 120 Ibid. 23. On MacNeil’s background see Commonwealth (Vancouver), “Pertinent Portraits,” 18 January 1935. 121 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council Meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 11. 122 Ibid., 13. 123 Ibid. 22. David Lewis’s reconstruction of the meeting in his published memoirs provide a good example of the gloss placed it. Despite his ­account, there is no indication from any of the documentation around the meeting that “pacifism,” was a current that was articulated, and he minimizes the opposition to participation both at the meeting and among the CCF membership. Lewis does acknowledge, though, the “mixed ­motives”’ of the allies in the war. Lewis, The Good Fight, 170–77. 124 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council Meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 23. 125 SAB, CCF-SK, ffile 190, National Council: War Policy, 1939, G.H. Williams to Angus MacInnis, 10 October 1939. 126 Nelson Wiseman, Social Democracy in Manitoba: A History of the CCF/NDP (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1985), 23. 127 LAC, M.J. Coldwell Papers, MG 27 III C12, vol. 58, Memoirs 17-32, Memoirs No. 24, 21 April 1964.

400

Notes to pages 276–9

128 LAC, CCF, vol. 3, file National Council Meetings and Reports, Emergency National Council Meeting, 6 and 7 September 1939, 26. 129 This is Ted Jolliffe’s perception of the press. LAC, CCF, vol. 97, file E.B. Jolliffe, E.B. Jolliffe to David Lewis, dated Monday [September 1939]. 130 LAC, CCF, vol. 109, file War, 1939, J.S. Woodsworth to David Lewis, 5 October 1939. 131 LAC, CCF, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (3 of 3), H. Thiessen, Regina, to J.S. Woodsworth, 10 September 1939, and Chris Lorimer, Vancouver, to J.S. Woodsworth, 12 September 1939. 132 Socialist Workers League discussion, LAC, Trotskyist Movement fonds, MG 28 IV 11, vol. 1, file 13-1, Political Report of the Political Committee, 25 February 1940. 133 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1940 (February– January), Report on Ontario by E.B. Jolliffe. 8. 134 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 30 September 1939. 135 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, September 1938–1940, David Lewis to Frank Scott, 30 November 1939. 136 LAC, RCMP Papers, RG 18, vol., 3519, “Explanation to Subscribers and Readers,” Socialist Action (Montreal), n.d. [September 1939]. 137 LAC, RG 18, RCMP Papers, vol. 3519, “Frank Watson Defence Fund Formed,” Socialist Action (Montreal), November 1939, and LAC, CCF, vol. 2, file National Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, National Executive, 24 January 1940. 138 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1940 (February– January), David Lewis to Delmar Von Dette, 31 January 1940. On concerns about publishing generally, see LAC, CCF, vol. 109, file War 1939, Margaret Sedgewick to David Lewis, 15 September 1939. 139 LAC, CCF, vol. 97, file E.B. Jolliffe, E.B. Jolliffe to David Lewis, dated Monday [September 1939]. 140 LAC, CCF, vol. 77, file 77-4 British Columbia: Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, H. Gargrave to David Lewis, 15 September 1939. 141 LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1933–39, Angus MacInnis to David Lewis, 30 August 1939. 142 LAC, CCF, vol. 77, file 77-4 British Columbia: Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, H. Gargrave to David Lewis, 21 September 1939. 143 LAC, CCF, vol. 76, file 76-7 British Columbia: Correspondence, circular letter to all CCF clubs from Penticton CCF Club, 11 September 1939; Kenneth W. Richmond, Victoria, to National Secretary CCF, 12 September 1939; and F.P Norris, secretary treasurer, Renfrew CCF Club, Vancouver, 4 October 1939.



Notes to pages 279–80 401

144 “City Meeting Opposes Expeditionary Force,” Vancouver Daily Province, 30 September 1939. 145 UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-3 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 30 September 1939, and box 54A, file 54A-12, Corre­ spondence, 1939, Grace MacInnis to J.S. Woodsworth, 13 October 1939. 146 LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1933–39, MacInnis to David Lewis, 14 October 1939, and file Angus MacInnis, 1940–44, MacInnis to David Lewis, 18 April 1940. 147 LAC, CCF, vol. 41, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1939, Resolution unanimously adopted by the Humbercrest C.C.F. Club at its Regular Meeting, Monday, September 11, 1939. Despite the clear dissatisfaction, Archie Woods, who visited the Humbercrest Club on behalf of the provincial executive, described the situation there as “satisfactory.” UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 30 September 1939. 148 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, Ted Garland to Bert Leavens, 12 October 1939. 149 Ibid., George Grube to Bert Leavens, 17 October 1939. 150 LAC, CCF, vol. 101, file Angus MacInnis, 1933–39, MacInnis to David Lewis, 18 October 1939 and 7 February 1940; vol. 109, file War, 1939, J.S. Woodsworth to David Lewis, 27 September 1939, Lewis to Woodsworth, 2 October 1939, and Woodsworth to Lewis, 5 October 1939. 151 “CCYM Activities across Canada,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 28 September 1939. 152 A.A. Heaps argued that the Manitoba ILP was strongly pro-war; Woodsworth disagreed. LAC, CCF, vol. 109, file War, 1939, David Lewis to J.S. Woodsworth, 13 October 1939. Charlie Biesick, the new provincial secretary of the CCF, argued that the ILP convention was small and unrepresentative. ILP/CCF differences were harmed by the ILP’s rejection of the federal position. LAC, CCF, vol. 61, file Manitoba: Correspondence with the Provincial Secretary, 1934–46, Charles Biesick to David Lewis, 26 December 1939, 23 May 1940, and 8 June 1940. 153 SAB, Carlyle King Papers, A225, I, file 42, CCF War Policy, passim. According to David Lewis, Williams was the sole holdout on the pamphlet on the war, which the national council produced in order to explain its position. SAB, CCF-SK, National Council: War Policy, 1939, David Lewis to George Williams, 2 October 1939 and 10 October 1939. LAC, RCMP Papers, RG 18, vol. 3519, “C.C.F. Anti-War Group,” Socialist Action (Montreal), November 1939. Manitoba’s A.A. Heaps, though, was of a similar frame of mind, if somewhat less vocal and insistent, LAC, CCF, vol. 109, file War, 1939, J.S. Woodsworth to David Lewis, 27 September 1939.

402

Notes to pages 280–3

154 SAB, Carlyle King Papers, A225, II, file 2, Canadian Fellowship of Reconciliation – Correspondence with members, 1938–47, Carlyle King to Mrs Holtom, Ottawa, 16 August 1940. 155 SAB, Carlyle King Papers, A225, I, file 42, CCF War Policy, Circular letter, G.H. Williams to Federal Campaign Managers and Candidates, 18 Sep­ tember 1939. 156 Craig Heron and Myer Siemiatycki, “The Great War, the State, and Working-Class Canada,” in The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925, ed. Craig Heron (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998), 11–42. 157 “The Months Ahead,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 15 September 1939. 158 “Confidence and Unity Mark C.C.F. Convention,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 6 August 1938. 159 LAC, 1 CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, “Report to the National office on the Ontario C.C.F.” [1939]. 160 LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 30 August 1938. 161 LAC, CCF, vol. 106, file Harold E. Winch, Diary, “Notes on a Trip Across the Country in 1939,” and Harold Winch, M.L.A., “Report to the National office on the Ontario C.C.F.”; vol. 60, file Manitoba: General Correspondence, 1938–53, George R. Davidson to David Lewis, 21 April 1939; UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-3 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Council, C.C.F. (B.C.), 10 September 1938. 162 “Your Paper Needs Help,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 13 July 1939; LAC, CCF, vol. 49, file Ontario Council and Executive Minutes, 1938–39, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 19 May 1939, and minutes, CCF Provincial Council, 2 July 1939. UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 2 December 1939. 163 Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, 1890–1920 (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2008), 210. 164 The B.C. CCF suffered subscription declines as well in this period but placed a priority on maintaining the Federationist, at a considerable loss. UBC, AMMC, box 46, file 46-3, CCF (Provincial Party), 25 February 1939. 165 Norman Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988), 161–81. Jacob Penner, also a son of Winnipeg Communist notable Jake Penner, remembers the disorientation of suddently discovering that what he had supposed to be a coming anti-fascist war was, in Stalin’s view, now an “imperialist war.” Roland Penner, A Glowing Dream: A Memoir (Winnipeg: J. Gordon Shillingford, 2007), 55.



Notes to pages 283–7 403

166 From Herridge’s Ottawa speech officially launching the New Democracy movement, cited in Mary Hallett, “The Social Credit Party and the New Democracy Movement, 1939–1940,” Canadian Historical Review 47, no. 4 (December 1966): 304. 167 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file W.D. Herridge, 1939–41, Williams to Lewis, 4 January 1939. 168 UBC, AMMC, vol. 46, file 46-3 CCF (Provincial Party), minutes, Provincial Executive, C.C.F. (B.C.), 13 March 1939. 169 LAC, CCF, vol. 96, file W.D. Herridge, 1939–41, circular letter to provincial secretaries from David Lewis, 9 March 1939. 170 LAC, CCF, vol. 60, file Manitoba: General Correspondence, 1938–53, David Lewis to G.R. Davidson, 28 April 1939. 171 Hallett, “The Social Credit Party,” 322. 172 Walter D. Young, Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–61 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), Appendix B, 321. 173 LAC, CCF, vol. 77, file 77-1, British Columbia: Correspondence with Provincial Secretary, Gargrave to David Lewis, 3 April 1940. 174 “City Meeting Opposes Expeditionary Force, Conscription,” Vancouver Daily Province, 30 September 1939; “Vancouver CCF Plans Civil Liberties Meet,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 5 October 1939. 175 “New War Decrees Again Threaten Civil Liberties,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 18 January 1940. 176 Ross Lambertson, Repression and Resistance: Canadian Human Rights Advocates, 1930-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 71. 177 Arthur R.M. Lower, My First Seventy-five Years (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967), 236; Lambertson, Repression and Resistance, 92. 178 Lambertson, Repression and Resistance, 76–105. 179 Although issues of civil liberties, particularly around collective bargaining and discrimination, engaged CCF and union members much more broadly. Carmela Patrias, Jobs and Justice: Fighting Discrimination in Wartime Canada, 1939–1945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), 132–50. 180 Jeffrey A. Keshen, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers: Canada’s Second World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2004), 53. 181 Charles Biesick, “Remember,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 1 September 1939. 182 UT, WMC, box 1, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive Minutes, 2 December 1939; “Over 4,000 Petition Forms Now Distributed,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 14 December 1939. 183 LAC, CCF, vol. 48, file Ontario Conventions, 1935–45, resolutions, Ontario Provincial Convention, 1940.

404

Notes to pages 287–90

184 “Avoid Fascism in Canada,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 16 February 1940. 185 “‘A New Order Shall Arise!’ – Coldwell,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 30 November 1940. 186 LAC, CCF, vol. 102, file Grant MacNeil, 1934–41, “Notes for National Office,” 15 March 1941. 187 Tim Buck, “A National Front for Victory,” 28 August 1941, 10, cited in Norman Penner, Canadian Communism, 183. 188 LAC, CCF, vol. 2, File National Council and Executive Minutes, National Executive Meeting, 19 May 1940. 189 Ibid., 15 and 16 November 1941. 190 Ibid., 21 and 22 March 1942. 191 LAC, CCF, vol. 79, file 79-2, Harold Winch to David Lewis, 15 March 1942. 192 UT, WMC, box 1, CCF Ontario Provincial Council Minutes, 1 April 1942, and Provincial Executive Minutes, 17 April 1942. 193 LAC, CCF, vol. 43, File Ontario General Correspondence, 1942 (Dec.– Oct.), “Elaine” to David Lewis, 14 October 1942; vol. 79, file 79-5, British Columbia Conventions, minutes, C.C.F. (B.C.) Provincial Council, 5 June 1943; and vol. 79, file 70-1 David Lewis to Colin Cameron, 4 July 1941. 194 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1921–42, Scott to M.J. Coldwell, 4 May 1942. 195 Ibid., file C.C.F., General, Sept. 1938–40, W.J. Sauve to F.R. Scott, 30 November 1939. 196 H. Laski, “The Road to Democratic Victory,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 20 December 1940. Andrzej Olechnowicz, “Labour Theorises Fascism: A.D. Lindsay and Harold Laski,” in Varieties of Anti-Fascism: Britain in the Interwar Period, ed. Nigel Copsey and Andrzej Olechnowicz (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 214–15. 197 “Avoid Fascism in Canada,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 16 February 1940. 198 “Landslide for Liberals Conservatives Swamp Gains for the CCF,” Manitoba Commonwealth¸ 29 March 1940; “War Parliament Meets,” ibid., 24 May 1940. 199 “An Ideal to Fight For,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 7 June 1940. 200 SAB, CCF-SK Papers, National Council: War Policy, 1939, Williams to David Lewis, 23 October 1939. 201 LAC, CCF, vol. 107, file J.S. Woodsworth, 1933–42 (3 of 3), J.I. Johnstone, secretary, South York CCF Association, to Mr Dalton, 28 September 1940. 202 James Naylor, “Canadian Labour Politics and the British Model, 1920– 1950,” in Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, ed. Phillip Buckner and R. Douglas Francis (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), 288–308.



Notes to pages 291–4 405

203 LAC, F.R. Scott Papers, MG 30 D 211, vol. 12, file C.C.F., General, 1941–42, Lewis to Scott, 26 November 1941. 204 Paul War, “Preparing for the People’s War: Labour and Patriotism in the 1930s,” Labour History Review 67, no. 2 (August 2002): 171–85. 205 “We Carry on as Before,” Manitoba Commonwealth, 25 October 1940. 206 Williams to S.J. Farmer, 8 October 1940, cited in Nelson Wiseman, “The CCF and the Manitoba ‘Non-partisan’ Government of 1940,” Canadian Historical Review 54, no. 2 (June 1973): 183. 207 Wiseman notes Bracken’s record in ibid., 179; John Kendle explains it more fully in John Bracken: A Political Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1979). 208 Bracken to Farmer, 25 October 1940, cited in Wiseman, “The CCF and the Manitoba ‘Non-partisan’ Government,” 184. 209 Kendle, John Bracken, 176. 210 E.A. Beder, “The Bad Shape of Things to Come,” Canadian Forum, June 1944, 55–57. 211 Editorial, “The Bad Shape of Things to Come,” Canadian Forum, July 1944, 76. 212 LAC, CCF, vol. 90, file Caroll Coburn, 1943–51, Coburn to Lewis, 15 June 1944. 213 Keschen, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers, 258. For a more general discussion of wartime efforts, see Peter Neary, On to Civvy Street: Canada’s Rehabilitation Program for Veterans of the Second World War (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011). 214 Gerassimos Mochonas usefully equates social democracy “in its current and ‘usual sense’ – mature social democracy” with the synthesis of the “welfare state, advanced social policy,” and “full employment.” Gerassi­ mos Mochonas, In the Name of Social Democracy: The Great Transformation: 1945 to the Present (London and New York: Verso, 2002), 21. 215 William Beveridge, cited by Malcolm Smith, “The Changing Nature of the British State, 1929-1959: the Historiography of Consensus,” in What Difference Did the War Make? ed. Brian Brivati and Harriet Jones (London: Leicester University Press, 1993), 41. 216 T.H. Marshall, “Citizenship and Social Class,” in Marshall, Class, Citizenship and Social Development (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964). 217 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Provincial Executive, 4 December 1942. 218 Ibid., Lewis to Robert F. Hardy, 12 December 1942. 219 LAC, Herbert W. Herridge Papers, MG 32 C 13, vol. 3, File 3–12–2, F.J. McKenzie, Secretary, BC CCF to Herbert W. Herridige, 21 December 1942.

406

Notes to pages 294–7

220 Ibid., Hilary [Brown?] to H.W. Herridge, 14 December 1942. 221 LAC, CCF, vol. 43, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1942 (Dec.–Oct.), Robert F. Hardy to David Lewis, 8 December 1942. 222 “The Beveridge Report,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), January 1943. The editorial views of the Canadian Forum were similar, pointing out that the Beveridge report did not challenge capitalism; it only provided a scheme for social insurance. “The Beveridge Report,” Canadian Forum, January 1943. 223 “The Fruits of ‘Muddle Through’,” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 12 April 1940; “War Parliament Meets: Can Private Enterprize and Laissez Faire Methods Win the War?” ibid., 24 May 1940. The quote is taken from “National Registration,” ibid., 16 August 1940. 224 The proposal for communal kitchens came from the Toronto CCF Women’s Council. “Communal Kitchens Discussed,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 31 March 1941. 225 “Text of Radio Address by M.J. Coldwell,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), February 1943. 226 The CCF circulated a petition to nationalize war industries upon the outset of the war. UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 2 December 1939. 227 “Will Capitalism Survive the War?” Manitoba Commonwealth (Winnipeg), 10 May 1940, and “People Must Forge the Instrument to Bring in New Social Order,” ibid., 18 July 1941. 228 “CCF Planning to Be Aided by Full-time Research Director,” New Common­ wealth (Toronto), February 1943. 229 Michiel Horn, The League for Social Reconstruction, 167. 230 Wendy Cuthbertson, Labour Goes to War: The CIO and the Construction of a New Social Order (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 13–25. 231 Ibid., 26; Bryan D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800–1991, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1992), 285; Peter S. McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation: Shaping the Postwar Settlement in Canada, 1943–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 43. 232 Keshen, Saints, Sinners, and Soldiers, 60; Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “The Formation of the Canadian Industrial Relations System during World War Two,” Labour/Le Travailleur 3 (1979): 176. 233 See, e.g., Irving Abella, Nationalism, Communism and Canadian Labour: The CIO, the Communist Party and the Canadian Congress of Labour, 1935–1956 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1973); Laurel Sefton MacDowell, “Remember Kirkland Lake”: The Gold Miners’ Strike of 1941–42 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1983); Laurel Sefton MacDowell, Renegade:



Notes to pages 298–300 407

The Life of J.L. Cohen, Lawyer (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Donald Wells, “Origins of Canada’s Wagner Model of Industrial Relations: The United Auto Workers in Canada and the Suppression of ‘Rank and File’ Unionism, 1936–1953,” Canadian Journal of Sociology 20 (1995): 193– 225; Peter S. McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation: Shaping the Postwar Settlement in Canada, 1943–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002); Cuthbertson, Labour Goes to War. 234 Cuthbertson, Labour Goes to War, 118. 235 For the CIO, see ibid., 118–19. 236 Cited in Dorothy G. Steeves, The Compassionate Rebel: Ernest Winch and the Growth of Socialism in Western Canada (Vancouver: J.J. Douglas, 1960), 174. 237 Calculated from Leo Zakuta, A Protest Movement Becalmed: A Study of Change in the CCF (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), 62–63; UT, WMC, box 1, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 4 September 1942. The discussion of farmers is in the 7 August 1942 minutes, along with a critique of Agnes Macphail’s understanding of CCF principles by Ontario CCF provincial secretary Bert Leavens (this critique was ­expunged from the “corrected” version of the minutes). 238 “The CCF across Canada,” New Commonwealth (Toronto), 11 February 1944; LAC, CCF, vol. 60, file Manitoba: General Correspondence 1938–53, document “Prepared for Mr. Gray, MLA, Manitoba, May 1944”; J.F. Conway, “Labour and the CCF/NDP in Saskatchewan,” Prairie Forum 31, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 399. 239 Ian Radforth and Joan Sangster, “‘A Link between Labour and Learning’: The Workers Education Association in Ontario, 1917–1951,” Labour/ Le Travailleur 8/9 (Autumn/Spring 1981–82): 41–78; Marcus Klee, “‘Hands-off Labour Forum’: The Making and Unmaking of National Working-Class Radio Broadcasting in Canada, 1935–1944,” Labour/ Le Travail 35 (Spring 1995): 107–32. 240 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, CCF Ontario Provincial Executive, 17 April 1942. 241 UT, WMC, box 1, Ontario CCF Council and Executive Minutes, minutes, Ontario Provincial Council, 7 and 8 October 1944. Haas, an adult educator, had been hired a year earlier: minutes, Ontario Provincial Executive, 5 November 1943. 242 LAC, CCF, vol. 43, file Ontario General Correspondence, 1942 (Dec.–Oct.), Milton Clysdale to David Lewis, 14 October 1942. 243 “For Independent Labour Political Action: Vote CCF,” Labour Challenge (Toronto), 1 June 1945.

408

Notes to pages 302–5

Conclusion 1 The dominant current in the 1960s and 1970s was the “protest movement becalmed” tradition associated with Leo Zakuta, A Protest Movement Becalmed: A Study of Change in the CCF (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1964), Walter D. Young, The Anatomy of a Party: The National CCF, 1932–1961 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1969), and Michael Cross’s collection of CCF-NDP documents, The Decline and Fall of a Good Idea (Toronto: New Hogtown Press, 1974). 2 Gary Teeple, “Liberals in a Hurry: Socialism and the CCF-NDP,” in Capitalism and the National Question in Canada, ed. Gary Teeple (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972). 3 Alan Whitehorn, Canadian Socialism: Essays on the CCF-NDP (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1992), 25, 65. 4 As Norman Penner points out, early-twentieth-century Canadian socialists largely accepted Marx’s analysis of capitalist development and the “class struggle as the motive force in history” but, along with Marx, “had no idea as to how a revolutionary change from Capitalism to Socialism would take place.” Penner, “The Western Canadian Left: In Retrospect,” in Western Canadian Politics: The Radical Tradition, ed. Donald C. Kerr (Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1981), 8. 5 Craig Heron, ed., The Workers’ Revolt in Canada, 1917–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 6 Although he reaches quite different conclusions, David Cannadine noted the alignment of class perceptions in Britain during this period: “Whatever their internal disagreements, the trade unions, the Labour leadership, the ‘Red Clydesiders’ and the Communists were at one in their perception of interwar Britain as deeply riven.” David Cannadine, The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 137. 7 I make this argument in “The Winnipeg General Strike,” Canadian Dimension (online), 19 May 2009, accessible at http://canadiandimension.com/ articles/2320/. 8 Seymour Martin Lipset, Agrarian Socialism: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan: A Study in Political Sociology, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 99–117. This is subject to some ­debate. J.F. Conway, for instance, argues that the Saskatchewan CCF maintained, in large part, a petit bourgeois agrarian program that was largely indistinguishable from the program of Alberta Social Credit. At the same time, he acknowledges the provincial CCF’s growing emphasis on “its more general critique of capitalism” as well as its national connection to



Notes to pages 305–10 409

a working-class-based party. Conway, “The Prairie Populist Resistance to the National Policy: Some Reconsiderations,” Journal of Canadian Studies 14, no. 3 (Fall 1979): 85. As Conway notes in his “Populism in the United States, Russia, and Canada: Explaining the Roots of Canada’s Third Parties,”Canadian Journal of Political Science 11, no. 1 (March 1978). Other scholars such as Peter Sinclair, John Smart, R.T. Naylor, and Gary Teeple made similar arguments in the early 1970s. See Peter R. Sinclair, “The Saskatchewan CCF: Ascent to Power and the Decline of Socialism,” Canadian Historical Review 54, no. 4 (December 1973); John Smart, “Populist and Socialist Movements in Canadian History,” in (Canada) Ltd.: The Political Economy of Dependency, ed. Robert Laxer (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1973), 197–212; and R.T. Naylor and G. Teeple, “Appendix: The Ideological Formations of Social Democracy and Social Credit,” in Capitalism and the National Question in Canada, ed. Teeple, 251–56. My point is simply that, by the 1930s, farmers were willing to gravitate to a party that was identified with, and largely led by, the working class, as agrarian populism had exhausted itself with the collapse of the Progressive Party. 9 Mitch Diamantopoulos argues convincingly that the cooperative movement expanded in significant ways during the Depression, although he underplays the importance of gaining state power for the future of such autonomous economic activity during the ravages of the Depression and then during the war. This leads him to exaggerate, perhaps, the continuities of the agrarian cooperative ideology he explores. Diamantopoulous, “The Foundations of Agrarian Socialism: Co-operative Economic Action in Saskatchewan, 1905–1960,” Prairie Forum 37 (Fall 2012): 103–50. 10 “Farmers’ Union Page,” Western Producer, 9 October 1924, cited in Lipset, Agrarian Socialism, 100. 11 James Naylor, The New Democracy: Challenging the Social Order in Industrial Ontario, 1914–1925 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 215–44. 12 See especially, Norman Penner, Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond (Toronto: Methuen, 1988), chap. 6. 13 David Camfield, “Class, Politics, and Social Change: The Remaking of the Working Class in 1940s Canada” (PhD diss., York University, 2002), 306. Camfield usefully explores the importance of historicizing the working class in “Re-Orienting Class Analysis: Working Classes as Historical Formulations,” Science and Society 68, no. 4 (Winter 2004–5), 421–46. 14 William D. Coleman and Kim Richard Nossal, “The State and War Production in Canada, 1939–1945,” in Organising Business for War: Corporatist Economic Organization during the Second World War, ed. Wyn Grant, Jan Nekkers, and Frans van Waarden (New York: Berg, 1991), 47–73.

410

Notes to pages 310–13

15 Peter S. McInnis, Harnessing Labour Confrontation: Shaping the Postwar Settle­ ment in Canada, 1943–1950 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). 16 Alice Kessler-Harris, “In the Nation’s Image: The Gendered Limits of Social Citizenship in the Depression Era,” Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (December 1999): 1254. 17 This point has been made in the context of general debates about the relationship between political and social rights. See, for instance, Miriam Cohen and Michael Hanagan, “Politics, Industrialization and Citizenship: Unemployment Policy in England, France, and the United States, 1890– 1950,” in Citizenship, Identity and Social History, ed. Charles Tilly, Interna­ tional Review of Social History 40, supplement 3 (December 1995): 91–129. 18 Leonard Kufert, “‘Stabbing Our Spirits Broad Awake’: Reconstructing Canadian Culture, 1940–1948,” in Cultures of Citizenship in Post-war Canada, 1940–1955, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gavreau (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003). 19 Janine Brodie, “Citizenship and Solidarity: Reflections on the Canadian Way,” Citizenship Studies 6, no. 4 (2002): 378. 20 David Lewis and Frank Scott, Make This Your Canada: A Review of C.C.F History and Policy (Toronto: Central Canada Publishing Company, 1943). 21 Ibid., 14. 22 Ibid., 87. 23 V.I. Lenin, Notes for “Five Years of the Russian Revolution and the Prospects of the World Revolution,” Fourth Congress of the Comintern, November 13, 1922, Marxists Internet Archive, https://www.marxists .org/archive/lenin/works/1922/nov/13b.htm.; Lewis and Scott, Make This Your Canada, 163. 24 Lewis and Scott, Make This Your Canada, 155. 25 Ibid., 87. 26 Ibid., 162. Sean Mills also noted that “Democracy Needs Socialism rejects the LSR’s earlier definition of democracy that relied solely on parliamentary elections.” Sean Mills, “When Democratic Socialists Discovered Democracy: The League for Social Reconstruction Confronts the ‘Quebec Problem’,” Canadian Historical Review 86, no. 1 (March 2005): 78. 27 Ian McKay, Rebels, Reds, Radicals: Rethinking Canada’s Left History (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2005), 179. 28 Lewis and Scott, Make This Your Canada, 147. 29 Ibid., 89–110. 30 Ibid., 189. 31 M.J. Coldwell, Left Turn, Canada (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1945), 109

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Notes to pages 313–14 411

Lewis and Scott, Make This Your Canada, 104. Coldwell, Left Turn, Canada, 77. Lewis and Scott, Make This Your Canada, 83. Coldwell, Left Turn, Canada, 23. Ibid., 71. Ibid., 111, (my emphasis). Ibid., 117. Paul Craven, “An Impartial Umpire”: Industrial Relations and the Canadian State, 1900–1911 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980). The differences between the two books could be ascribed to the authors, although Coldwell’s voice more clearly echoed Make This Your Canada when he was speaking to Cape Breton miners in 1942, declaring that “a 100 per cent war effort” required “a new social order, based on economic justice.” Cited in Michael Earle, “Radicalism in Decline: Labour and Politics in Industrial Cape Breton, 1930–1950” (PhD diss., Dalhousie University, 1990), 351. 40 Coldwell, Left Turn, Canada, 76.

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Index

Aberhart, William, 169, 172, 235, 236, 241, 248 Ainlay, H.D., 225, 240 All-Canadian Confederation of Labour (ACCL), 26, 38, 69, 212 Allen, Richard, 22, 56 Almond, Lloyd, 97 Anderson, Harley C.E, 82 Archibald, Harry, 228 Armishaw, J.E., 50, 78 Armstrong, George, 51, 53 Armstrong, Helen, 53 Aronowitz, Stanley, 15 Baldwin, Oliver, 41 Barnetson, A.M., 37, 92, 133 Barrett, Silby, 208 Beattie, Harry, 262 Beder, Edward Arthur: CCF Clubs president, 89, 101; CCF resignation, 102, 128, 349n87; in League Against War and Fascism, 213–16, 256; and May Day, 197; and popular front, 197, 213–16, 377n54; in Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 146, 188–9, 352n129; on

Second World War, 292–3; support of A.E. Smith, 133 Bengough, Percy, 208 Bennet, R.B., 77, 88, 133, 191–2, 206, 218, 231–3, 252, 282, 283, 369n112 Bethune, Norman, 259, 262 Bevan, Aneurin, 211 Bevan, Ernest, 293 Beveridge Report, 293–4, 298, 313, 406n222 Biesick, Charles I., 58, 159, 225, 286, 401n152 Birney, Earle, 280, 392n22 Black, William, 36, 325n72 Bland, Salem (“The Observer”), 93, 119, 212, 215 Blatchford, Robert, 114–16 Bracken, John, 157, 161, 291–2 Brailsford, H.N., 60–1, 193, 258 Brewin, Andrew, 286, 300, 399n114 Brigden, Beatrice, 23, 159, 171–2, 231 British identity, 8, 17, 50–1, 159 Brockway, Fenner, 61, 187, 262 Brown, John B. (Jock), 95, 157, 160–1, 360n251 Bruce, John W., 212

414

Index

Buck, Tim, 133, 175, 182, 212, 233, 244, 265 Buckley, John W., 36, 41, 42, 192 Bukharin, Nikolai, 227 Bullock, Reg, 210 Burton, C.L., 207, 228 Campbell, Peter, 5, 29, 31, 54, 80, 91, 147–8, 154 Cameron, Colin: and popular front, 250–1; on war policy, 279, 288 Cameron, Kenneth N., 214, 376n40 Camfield, David, 309, 409n13 Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL), 297, 298 Canadian Forum, 84, 258, 292, 379n91, 387n201, 406n222 Canadian Labour Party (CLP): 25–8, 62–3, 175, 205; in Alberta, 94, 162–3; in British Columbia, 28, 44–5, 328n104; in Manitoba, 52–3; in Ontario, 27, 37, 132, 181; in Quebec, 27, 33, 96 Canadian Labour Defence League (CLDL): and A.E. Smith case, 133, 182–3; CCF, 182–3, 217; and Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 105; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 180–1, 183 Canadian Youth Congress (CYC), 254, 263, 265–7, 270 Caplan, Gerald, 141–2, 325n69, 339n96 Carr, Sam, 210–11, 214 Cassidy, Harry, 126 CCF Clubs: in Alberta, 94, 162–3, 240–1, 260; in BC, 80–3, 108–9, 144–6, 148–9, 151–4, 248; in Manitoba, 95, 157–61, 171–2; and League for Social Reconstruction,

88, 112, 124; in New Brunswick, 99; in Ontario, 85–94, 101–3, 109, 124–40, 167, 170–1, 196; in Quebec, 96–8, 164; at Regina CCF Convention, 101–3, 109, 128–9 Cherniak, J.A., 260 civil liberties, 186, 205, 209, 242, 276, 281, 285–6, 295, 403n179 Cloutier, J.O., 146 Coburn, Carol, 270–1, 274, 292–3 Cohen, Jacob L., 93 Coldwell, M.J., 165; and Alberta CCF, 162; on fascism, 207, 210; and George Williams, 236, 239, 268; and League for Social Reconstruction, 387n209; and May Day expulsions, 200; and Manitoba CCF, 157; and Ontario CCF, 189, 200, 246; on popular front, 185, 234, 239, 244; on post–Second World War planning, 295, 313–14, 411n39; on Social Credit, 236; and war policy, 268, 273–4, 276–8, 287, 290 Cole, G.D.H., 118 Cole, George (Geordie), 166 Cole, Margaret, 115–16, 118 Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, 254, 258–62, 393n39 Communist Party of Canada (CPC): in Canadian Labour Party, 28; and Canadian Youth Congress, 265–7; and CCF, 173–89; and League Against War and Fascism, 213, 216, 220; and Ontario CCF, 132; On-to-Ottawa Trek and, 231–4; transition to popular front, 16, 188–9, 194–7, 204–5; and popular front, 163, 168, 202–3, 210, 230–1, 240–1, 236–52, 256; and



Index

Saskatchewan CCF, 185–6, 232–40; and Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 49, 150, 230–1; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 131, 179–81, 186–8, 196–7; on Spanish Civil War, 258–60; Third Period, 175–9; and war policy, 270, 282–3, 287–8; in Winnipeg, 52–4, 183–4 Conference of Western Labour Parties (Calgary, 1932), 66, 68–9, 71–3, 80, 83, 113 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), 297, 298 Connell, Robert, 18, 153–5, 160, 217, 218 Conner, James McArthur: attitude to CCF, 86–9, 91, 138; in Labour Conference of Ontario, 85, 89–92, 138; and Labour Party of Ontario, 37, 90, 138; and Labour Party of Toronto, 37, 243; and Labour Representation Association, 243; and May Day, 198, 200 Conway, John F., 299, 408n8 Co-operative Commonwealth Youth (BC), 263 Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Federation, 171 Co-operative Commonwealth Youth Movement (CCYM), 263–7, 277, 280, 395n62 Corbett, Joseph, 181, 290 Cotterill, Murray, 190 Cotton (Cotton-Thomas), Laura, 125, 244, 274, 348n71, 387n202 Cripps, Stafford, 193–4, 203, 257, 398n108 Croll, David, 34 Cross, Michael, 302 Crowley, Terry, 141

415

Cruden, Thomas: CCF Club delegate at Regina CCF Convention, 103, 109; defends A.E. Smith, 133–4; in Labour Conference of Ontario, 85–7; president of Socialist Party of Ontario, 40–2, 197; and Toronto Regional Labour Council, 92–3 Cuthbertson, Wendy, 298 Dennison, William, 198, 246, 262, 388n219 Diamantopoulos, Mitch, 409n9 Dixon, Sophia, 238 Downs, A.H., Jr.: on class struggle in CCF, 137; death, 351n129; and Labour Party of Ontario, 92, 133; and popular front, 133; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 92 Douglas, T.C. (Tommy): CCF Youth Federation leader, 220, 265; and popular front, 220, 261, 265; and Social Credit, 235–6; as social democrat, 8; and war policy, 275 Earlscourt Labour Party, 36–7, 40, 42, 83, 180, 182 East York Workers’ Association (EYWA), 93; and CCF Youth Federation branch, 264; and May Day, 197–200; in Ontario Labour Conference, 139; at Regina CCF Convention, 103; and relief strike, 191; stays in Ontario CCF, 139–40, 190 Economic Reconstruction Association, 94, 162 Eggleston, Wilfrid, 352n125 Eisendrath, Maurice, 36, 212, 215 Evans, Arthur (Slim), 231, 382n140

416

Index

Fabianism: in BC, 148, 153; in Britain, 114–18, 192–4; as description of CCF, 71–2, 80, 93, 110, 113–14, 343n158; and League for Social Reconstruction, 118–21, 192–4, 343n158 Farmer-Labour Party, 68, 165-6 Farmer, Seymour J.: chairs relief camp strikers support conference, 241; Manitoba CCF leader, 291; in Manitoba Independent Labour Party/CCF dispute, 158–9; and Manitoba non-partisan government, 291; and war policy, 274, 276 farmers: in launching of CCF, 68–9; and labour socialists, 125, 127, 177, 307, 347n62, 409n8; political activity, 23–4; at Regina CCF Convention, 103, 107–8, 110–12; in Saskatchewan, 165, 234–5, 305 fascism: business promotion of, 207–8, 210; Canadian politicians as source of, 88, 156, 207–10, 233; European, 214; middle-class susceptibility to, 143; state capitalism leading to, 208; strategies to oppose, 217, 248, 263, 275, 289, 315; war increasing threat of, 270, 274, 290 Fast, Vera, 53 Fellowship for a Christian Social Order (FCSO), 84, 85, 119, 212, 232, 272 Ferguson, George, 104 Fines, Clarence, 233 Finkel, Alvin, 94, 162–3 Fish, Fred M.: and May Day, 198–200; on Ontario CCF Direct Action Committee, 191; and popular front, 221, 241; and war

policy, 256; writes Commonwealth column, 189 Fisher, Robin, 150 Fix, Fred, 166 Forsey, Eugene: as civil libertarian, 278; on fascism, 208–9; federalism of, 209; on Laura Cotton­-Thomas, 387n202; and League for Social Reconstruction, 123–4, 387n209; on Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 156; and popular front, 244; opposes CCF “extremists,” 144; travels to USSR, 223; and war policy, 399n114 Foucault, Michel, 303 Fraser, Blair, 142 Friends of the Soviet Union (FSU), 186, 222, 224–5, 227, 229, 379n88 Gargrave, Herbert: on middle class and fascism, 143, 207; and war policy, 278–9, 285 Garland, E.J. (Ted): on Alberta labour/ club relations, 163, 171, 240; on Manitoba labour/club relations, 158; and popular front, 138–9, 237, 240; reports on Ontario CCF dispute, 134; on Saskatchewan popular front debate, 237; and war policy, 274, 279 Gauvin, Marshall J., 30, 55–7, 212, 257, 260, 332n176 Gidluck, Lynn, 333n200 Gillander, Gertrude, 265–6 Ginger Group, 23, 66, 69, 83, 171, 274, 305 Glen, Andrew, 39 Glenday, Matthew, 250 Godfrey, William, 103, 107 Goldman, Emma, 57, 222



Index

417

Goldstick, David, 28; defence of A.E. Smith, 134; League Against War and Fascism, 213–4, 256; proposes new socialist party, 41; and war policy, 214, 256 Gordon, King: dismissed from United Theological College, 124; edits the Nation, 124; on fascism, 208; and League for Social Reconstruction, 123, 208, 243; on Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 159; travels to USSR, 223; and war policy, 268 Grube, George, 280, 286, 399n114 Gutteridge, Helen, 80, 83, 250 Guyot, Roger, 85

Herridge, W.D, 160, 168, 239, 240, 283, 284 Hitler-Stalin Pact, 229, 283, 289, 308 Hobsbawm, Eric J., 115, 119 Hodgson, Fred: analysis of CCF, 109, 367n81; on London socialists, 365n50; and popular front, 113, 181, 213; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 109, 348n71 Horn, Gerd-Rainer, 11 Horn, Michiel, 18, 104, 110, 119, 120, 123, 209, 223, 329n115 Huggett, Howard, 137 Hunter, Peter, 211 Hutchison, Bruce, 212, 398n104 Hutchinson, Earl, 38

Haas, Arthur, 300, 407n241 Hannam, Herb H., 134 Hardie, Keir, 115, 116, 117 Havelock, Eric A., 85, 89, 127, 190, 244, 246 Haydon, E.E., 97 Heaps, A.A.: and Communist Party, 212, 244; as labour socialist, 347n62; and Manitoba Indepen­ dent Labour Party, 52–3, 156, 157; One Big Union on, 55; and war policy, 280, 401n152, 401n153 Heaps, Leo, 347n62 Henderson, Rose: class identity, 87, 91, 338n88; as educator, 49; Labour Party of Ontario, 85, 87, 89, 91; and League Against War and Fascism, 214–15, 255–6; and May Day, 199–200; and Ontario CCF, 89 Hepburn, Mitchell, 125–6, 274, 390n250 Heron, Craig, 19, 25, 50, 196 Herridge, H.W. (Bert), 294

Independent Labour Party (BC), 28, 44–5; and Communist Party, 44–5; encourages middle-class allies, 49–50 Independent Labour Party (Hamilton), 33, 89, 127, 171 Independent Labour Party (Manitoba): attitude to war, 225, 280; and British Independent Labour Party, 60–1; composition of, 50, 158; dispute with CCF, 95, 156–61; educational activity of, 29–30, 53, 55–8; labour socialist character of, 10, 29, 51–2, 59–60, 63, 72, 95, 127, 158, 196; in municipal government, 58–60, 184–5; relations with Communist Party, 27, 52–3, 183–5, 196, 222, 260; relations with One Big Union, 29, 54–5; strength of, 171, 184; calls Western Labour Conference, 68 Independent Labour Party (UK): influence in Canada, 37, 60–1,

418 187–8, 245, 326n83; and League for Social Reconstruction, 192; leaves British Labour Party, 37–8, 333n199; in London Bureau, 262; and popular front, 92, 187, 261–2; and Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 188; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 40, 187, 245, 368n84; speakers in Canada, 40, 211, 326n83, 327n100 Ingle, Lorne, 18 Industrial Workers of the World, 19, 20, 175, 258, 303 International Labour League, 227 Irvine, William: and Alberta CCF Clubs, 163; and formation of CCF, 66, 69, 84, 100; and popular front, 268, 295; at Regina CCF Convention, 106; and social gospel, 22; and war policy, 268, 295 Isitt, Benjamin, 44, 318n10 Ivens, William, 22, 51, 56–7; and popular front, 260; on reformism, 59; and social gospel, 22, 56 James, Mary E., 219 Jamieson, Stuart, 296 Johns, R.J., 51 Jolliffe, Edward B. (Ted): animosity with labour socialists, 141, 201; and May Day, 201; and popular front, 260; and war policy, 275, 277–8, 400n129 Jones, Gareth Stedman, 14 Joyce, Patrick, 14 Kealey, Linda, 21 Kendle, John, 292 Kerr, Elizabeth, 225 Kessler-Harris, Alice, 310

Index King, Carlyle: and Canadian Youth Congress, 267; and League for Social Reconstruction, 166, 361n279, 387n209; and pacifism, 272; runs for Saskatchewan CCF leader, 280; use of “democratic socialism,” 11 King, W.L. Mackenzie: and Elmore Philpott, 126, 129, 136; Industry and Humanity, 81, 313; and Progressive Party, 23; and Second World War, 277; and welfare state, 10, 172 Knowles, Stanley: on fascism, 156; in Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 156; on Spanish solidarity, 260–1; and war policy, 272, 274, 280, 398n104 Krehm, William, 227, 262 Labour Church, 22, 56–7, 116, 332n177 Labour Conference of Ontario: and Communist Party, 183; founding conference of, 89–93, 155–6; purge of, 129–42, 145, 170–1, 187, 351n119; at Regina CCF Convention, 99, 101–3, 112; role in Ontario CCF, 99, 101–3; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 89, 92–3, 350n102 Labour Party (UK): and British Independent Labour Party, 37–40, 187; Canadian Labour Party modelled on, 25; Canadian labour socialists’ critique of, 39, 45, 53, 60–1, 64, 81, 109, 155, 224; and League for Social Reconstruction, 242; as middle class, 374n10; and war, 276, 290–1, 301; and



Index

Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council, 212 Labour Party of Ontario, 33–41; in formation of CCF, 68–9, 83–6; and Labour Conference of Ontario, 84–5, 89–91; and On-to-Ottawa Trek, 232; and purge of Ontario CCF, 138, 213 Labour Party of Toronto, 41, 132; and Labour Conference of Ontario, 85, 90, 92; and Labour Representation Association, 243; and Toronto CCF purge, 128; view of CCF Clubs, 86–7 Labour Representation Association (LRA), 243-4 labourism, 13–14, 19–20, 33, 147 Laing, Jean: and Labour Representation Association, 243; and May Day, 198, 200; and popular front, 214, 241, 243; returns to CCF, 243; and Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee, 200 Lambertson, Ross, 286 Laski, Harold, 289 Lawrence, Sam, 171; and popular front, 179, 220; travels to USSR, 224 Laycock, David, 11 Lazarus, Felix, 264 League Against War and Fascism (LAWF): CCF debates about, 216–21, 227, 242, 250, 255–8, 272; formation of, 211–13; policies, 214–16; Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario) active in, 213–14; and Spanish solidarity, 260 League for Peace and Democracy, 215, 218, 260 League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party, 227, 262, 359n240, 392n30

419

League for Social Reconstruction (LSR): attitude to USSR, 173, 223– 7, 252; “brain trust” of CCF, 104, 113, 307; in BC, 148, 152, 153, 251; and British Independent Labour Party, 192, 257; Communist Party view of, 177, 178; differences with labour socialists, 111, 305; as Fabians, 72, 113–14, 118–25, 343n158; and fascism, 208–9; and popular front, 174–5, 196, 197–8, 203, 220, 244–5, 252, 256–7; in Quebec, 98, 164, 208–9; and Regina Manifesto, 7, 18–19; role in national CCF, 144, 244–5, 387n209; role in Ontario CCF, 83–4, 88–9, 112–13, 125, 130, 136–7, 189–90, 243; in Saskatchewan, 166; and Socialist League, 192–4, 257–8; and war, 256–8, 272, 274, 311–12; in Western Conference of Labour Parties, 66, 69 Leavens, Bert: on Agnes Macphail, 407n237; and May Day, 198, 200; and popular front, 244, 260 LeBourdais, Donat M., 86, 348n70; Ontario CCF Clubs secretary, 86, 89, 125–30; and Ontario CCF purge, 132–5, 138–40; and postpurge Ontario CCF, 189, 196; at Regina CCF Convention, 125; and war policy, 257 Lee, Jennie, 40, 326n83 Lefeaux, Wallis W., 44–6; on Associated CCF Clubs, 82, 144, 152;; BC Independent Labour Party president, 47; and Connell affair, 153–5; educational role of, 47–8, 150; on Lenin, 47, 186; and popular front, 219; Socialist Party

420

Index

of Canada (BC) president, 152; transition to socialism, 75, 147; trips to USSR, 224–5, 228 Left Turn, Canada, 313 Lenin, V.I.: BC CCF references to, 47, 82, 108, 150, 186, 218; influence of, 55, 264, 323n30; labour socialism and, 28–9 Lestor, Charles, 53, 156, 331n154 Lévesque, Andrée, 96–8, 164 Lewis, David: and British socialists, 194, 257, 326n83; CCF national secretary, 271; on Communist Party, 242, 244–6, 392n22; and League for Social Reconstruction, 387n209; Make This Your Canada, 311, 313; and Manitoba Indepen­ dent Labour Party, 159, 293; and popular front, 203, 247, 259–60, 266, 284; on post–Second World War policy, 311–13; on USSR, 229; and war policy, 268, 275–6, 278, 280, 291, 294, 399n123, 401n153 Lipset, Seymour Martin, 165, 239, 305 Litterick, James, 171, 231, 237 Loeb, Alice E.: and May Day, 200, 202; and popular front, 215, 256; member of Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee, 200; and war policy, 215, 256; and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 212 Loeb, Bernard, 189 Lopes, Duarte Nuno, 341n119 Lower, Arthur R.M., 286 Lyon, Alex, 39, 93, 129, 140, 182 Lyon, H.E., 78 MacAuley, A.J., 68 MacDonald, Jack, 93, 129, 227

MacDonald, Ramsay, 38, 61, 64, 116, 248, 276 MacDowell, Laurel Sefton, 297 MacInnis, Angus, 45, 144–5, 149; in Connell affair, 154; as labour socialist, 81–2, 105, 107, 144, 159, 178; on Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 95, 158–9; and Ontario CCF purge, 136, 138–9, 142, 145; and popular front, 234, 246, 247, 266; and Regina CCF Convention, 105, 107, 145; and war policy, 275, 279 MacInnis, Grace, 244, 246 Macintyre, Stuart, 30 MacLeod, A.A., 213 MacNeil, Grant, 274–5, 299n120 Macphail, Agnes: and formation of Ontario CCF, 84, 86; Ontario CCF president, 101; and Ontario CCF purge, 125, 127, 130, 132, 134–5, 138, 141–2; and Regina CCF Convention, 102, 105–6 Madiros, Anthony, 381n123 Make This Your Canada, 311, 313 Manley, John, 185, 214, 377n54, 390n250 Manning, Ernest, 238 Marsh, Leonard, 123, 223–4, 312 Marshall, T.H., 294 Marxist Educational League, 92 Mather, Barry, 279, 380n104 May Day: in Alberta, 240; in BC, 212, 231; in Manitoba, 196, 373n165; Ontario controversy and expulsions over, 195–203, 247, 260, 371n145; post-expulsion in Ontario, 242, 245; Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario) and, 42 McBriar, Alan, 117



Index

McCormack, A. Ross, 19, 50 McDonald, Robert A.J., 212, McGeer, Gerald, 150, 231 McKay, Ian, 9–10, 98, 312, 282, 318n6, 325n66 McKenzie, F.J., 81 McKillop, A. Brian, 60 McManus, T.G., 233 McMurray, E.J., 211, 260 McNaught, Carlton, 123, 387n209 McNaught, Kenneth, 66 Mentz, Walter (“De Bunker”), 228, 239-40, 381n123 middle class: in Alberta CCF Clubs, 163; in BC CCF Clubs, 79–80, 143; definition, 80, 85, 87, 304, 312–13; Fabianism and, 115, 117, 124; in League for Social Reconstruction, 124, 226; in Manitoba CCF Clubs, 159–61; in Ontario CCF Clubs, 85– 6, 80, 125, 130, 140; pacifism, 272; and popular front, 173–4, 202, 211, 219, 223, 229, 257; susceptibility to fascism, 206–7, 209; undermining socialism, 86–7, 90, 91, 107, 109, 130, 226, 305; as universal class, 15, 124, 140–1 Midgley, Victor, 44, 154, 378n71 Mikkelson, Peter, 185, 237 Mills, Alan, 30, 32, 222, 272 Mills, Sean, 208-9, 410n26 Mitchell, Humphrey, 33, 127 Mitchell, John: in Hamilton Independent Labour Party, 85; and Labour Party of Ontario, 85, 89; and Ontario CCF purge, 137; and popular front, 244, 246; role in Ontario CCF, 89, 92, 191, 244, 246 Mochonas, Gerassimos, 405n214 Monkman, Ronald, 200

421

Mooney, George S., 97, 164, Moore, Tom, 26, 33–4 Moriarty, William: and International Labour League, 227; and Labour Conference of Ontario, 92; on League for Social Reconstruction, 104; Lovestone supporter, 36, 92–3, 227, 325n69; and purge of Ontario CCF, 129; at Regina CCF Convention, 103–4, 106–7, 128, 145, 157 Morris, William, 10, 116–17 Morton, Elizabeth: on Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy, 260; in East York Workers’ Association, 93, 103, 140; and Labour Conference of Ontario, 85, 89, 350n102; in League Against War and Fascism, 213–14, 216; and May Day expulsions, 197, 200, 216; and National Labour Party, 39, 42, 366n53; and Ontario CCF purge, 129–30, 133–4, 140; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 42; in Toronto CCF Women’s Joint Committee, 200 Mosher, Aaron R., 69, 84, 98, 212 Mould, Arthur: and formation of Ontario CCF, 90–2; joins Communist Party, 216; and Labour Conference of Ontario, 85, 90–2; and Labour Party of Ontario, 34–5, 85, 90–2; and League Against War and Fascism, 213; and Ontario CCF purge, 130–1, 133, 138; and popular front, 181, 213; at Regina CCF Convention, 102–3 National Labour Party, 38–40, 42, 129 National Unemployed Workers’ Association (NUWA), 183, 205

422

Index

Nearing, Scott, 212 New Deal (U.S.): influence on New Democracy movement, 283; potential fascism of, 208, 210; response to R.B. Bennett on, 191–2; as state capitalism, 74, 120, 146, 189, 210, 287, 301 New Democracy, 168, 239, 283, 284 Nielsen, Dorise, 240 Nixon, Harry, 126 O’Hanley, John, 37, 325n74 One Big Union (OBU): and British socialists, 61; and Communist Party, 29, 180, 183, 196; education in, 29–30, 53–5, 58; as labour socialists, 8,19, 21, 141, 303; and Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 53–5; and Socialist Party of Canada (Winnipeg), 76, 86; and unemployed, 183–4; on USSR, 222; on war, 255; in Winnipeg, 51–6 On-to-Ottawa Trek, 173, 179, 230–4 Orliffe, Herbert, 201, 242–4, 259, 260 Park, Eamon, 264 Parkin, Louise, 123 Parkinson, Joseph F., 123, 190 Parti ouvrier du Canada, 164 Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), 261–2, 394n50 Patullo, T. Dufferin, 172, 285 Penner, Norman, 28, 114, 176, 408n4 People’s Party, 49–50, 77–9 Penfold, Steve, 196 Péron, Jean, 96–7, 164 Peto, E.J., 160 Philpott, Elmore, 125–6; Communist Party on, 349n96; and Regina CCF

Convention, 102, 128, 348n72; and Ontario CCF purge, 125–32, 142 Pierce, G. See Smith, Stewart Price, John, 79 Priestley, Norman F., 80, 107, 131, 132 Pritchard, William, 17, 44, 51; in BC Associated CCF Clubs, 80, 147–8; and Connell affair, 154–5; publishes the Commonwealth, 147–8, 356n192; on Regina Manifesto, 17, 109; on violence, 31, 107 Puttee, Arthur W., 52 Queen, John, 51; Communist Party attitude to, 27, 185; at Conference of Western Labour Parties, 69; and Manitoba Independent Labour Party dispute with CCF, 158; at Regina CCF Convention, 107; Winnipeg mayor, 59–60, 171, 185 Reconstruction Party (BC), 79–81 Reconstruction Party (H.H. Stevens), 168, 208, 210 Regina Manifesto: Communist Party critique of, 177; debate at Regina CCF Convention about, 100, 106–8, 145; final clause of, 110; iconic status of, 5, 7–8, 17–18, 66, 302, 320n5; reference to violence, 106, 145; role in Connell affair, 160; role of League for Social Reconstruction in, 74, 105; Walter Young on, 114 Reid, Escott, 104, 123 Roberts, Tom, 265 Robin, Martin, 28, 319n16 Robinson, Bert, 28, 37, 43; on Communist Party, 186; in Labour Conference of Ontario, 85, 89, 92,



Index

99, 120–30, 350n102; and May Day debate, 42, 197; on popular front, 187, 213; and purge in Ontario CCF, 127–30; and Regina CCF Convention, 101–3; on Regina Manifesto, 109–10; role in orga­ nizing Ontario CCF, 39, 83–5, 87, 89; in Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 37, 42, 43, 197, 350n102 Ronning, Chester, 274 Roper, Elmer, 177, 281, 340n111 Rosenfeld, Kurt, 211 Russell, R.B., 51, 53, 56–7 Ryerson, Stanley, 211 Salsberg, Joseph B., 242, 244, 387n208 Samuel, Raphael, 14 Sangster, Joan, 12 Sassoon, Donald, 10, 318n6 Saville, John, 117, 320n21 Saywell, John, 126 Schatz, Alex D., 207, 213, 215, 373n8 Schroeder, Allan, 300 Scott, Frank R.: and civil liberties, 286; and Connell affair, 154; on fascism, 209, 274; federalism of, 98, 209; and League for Social Reconstruction, 7, 243, 387n209; and League of Nations Society, 220, 256–7; Make This Your Canada, 311, 313; popular front, 244; as public intellectual, 123–4; and Quebec CCF, 98; on USSR, 223; and war policy, 256–7, 270, 273–4 288 Scott, R.J., 134 Sharpe, Agnes, 220 Shaw, Lloyd R., 296 Shaw, Matt, 231 Siegel, Ida, 214

423

Simpkin, James, 158 Simpson, James, 23, 41, 191 Sinclair, Peter, 385n186 Sissons, Anna, 212 Skinner, Robert, 79, 145; British Columbia CCF president, 82, and British Columbia Independent Labour Party, 47; and popular front, 230; at Regina CCF Convention, 107 Smart, Russel, 193 Smith, Albert E., 22, 133, 138, 182, 186, 207, 217 Smith, Stewart (G. Pierce), 175-9, 194, 215, 242, 390n250 Snowden, Philip, 61 Social Credit: in Alberta, 94, 160, 162, 172; and Canadian Youth Congress, 265; compared to CCF, 408n8; and New Democracy movement, 284; and popular front, 210, 218, 234–9, 241, 284; in Reconstruction Party (BC), 79; in Saskatchewan, 234–9 Social Democratic Party of Canada, 6, 19, 51 social democracy: characterization of the CCF as, 5, 12, 72, 318n10; Communist Party use of, 176; labour socialists and, 11, 28–9, , 137, 146, 188, 293, 319n11, 374n24; and Manitoba ILP, 50, 72; post–Second World War application of, 8, 109, 146, 192, 293, 315, 319n11, 405n214 social gospel: and labour church, 56; strength in CCF, 7, 21–3, 62, 71–2, 119, 156, J.S. Woodsworth and, 50, 273 Social Planning for Canada, 113, 119–24, 152, 178, 192, 209, 311

424

Index

Social Reconstruction Clubs, 95, 157, 171 Socialism and the C.C.F., 176–9 Socialist League, 192; Aneurin Bevin in, 211; League for Social Reconstruction and, 120, 192–4, 257–8; Stafford Cripps and, 257–8 Socialist Party of America, 40, 132, 193, 327n100 Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 45, 46; amalgamation with Associated CCF Clubs, 151–2, 154–5; attitude to CCF, 49–50, 70; Communist Party and, 186, 217–18, 222, 230–1; “moderates” in, 143–6; at Regina CCF Convention, 101, 105, 108–9; relationship with Associated CCF Clubs, 73–9, 81–3, 147–51, 154–5; role of education in, 47–9, 144, 170, 217–18; self-identification as revolutionary, 46–7, 70, 147–8; at Western Conference of Labour Parties, 69 Socialist Party of Canada (Manitoba), 53, 76, 167 Socialist Party of Canada (NB), 99 Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario): on fascism, 206–7; founding of, 45; and May Day, 196–8; popular front activity and, 180–1, 183–4, 186–9, 213–16, 232, 241, 155–6, 260; and Ontario CCF purge, 131–42; and Regina CCF Convention, 101, 109; role in forming CCF, 93–4; support of CCF Clubs, 85–88; and war policy, 213–16, 255–6 Socialist Party of Canada (pre–First World War), 6, 18–19, 21, 29, 44, 51, 63, 76

Socialist Party of Canada (666 Homer Street group), 76, 78, 86, 109, 219 Socialist Party of Ontario, 28–9, 40–3 Socialist Workers’ League (SWL), 278 Spanish Civil War, 205, 254, 258−62, 269,273, 394n44 Spanish Medical Aid Committee, 259–60 Spector, Maurice, 227 Spence, Ben, 23, 198, 200, 260, 371n145, 393n39 Spry, Graham, 136–7; leadership role in Ontario CCF, 189–91, 194, 196; and League for Social Reconstruction, 123, 124, 126; and May Day expulsions, 196; and Ontario CCF purge, 126, 136–8; and popular front, 232, 234, 242–4, 259–60, 393n39; publishes Change, 88, 126, 223; at Regina CCF Convention, 104; resignation from CCF, 386n202; and Socialist League, 193; on USSR, 223 Steeves, Dorothy G., 148–9; and Associated CCF Clubs, 81; and Connell affair, 153; and popular front, 231; in Reconstruction Party (BC), 79; at Regina CCF Convention, 107–8; and war policy, 257, 274, 279, 285 Stephen, Alexander Maitland, 217; educational activity, 48, 217–18, 369n112; and popular front, 218–20, 247, 250–1, 389n239; and war policy, 269 Stevens, H.H., 168, 172, 208, 210 Stevenson, T.F., 92 Stewart, Alistair, 286



Index

Stewart, Charles G., 159–61 Stinson, Lloyd, 286 Stobart, Matthew, 158 Stubbs, Louis St. George: beats CCF in Manitoba election, 171; and League Against War and Fascism, 211, 257, 260, 375n32 Tallman (Sufrin), Eileen, 264, 280 Tandy, Bryer, 89, 339n97 technocracy, 3, 172–3, 235, 306 Teeple, Gary, 302 Telford, J. Lyle, 149–50; and Connell affair, 154; and popular front, 230–1, 247–8, 388n225; publishes Challenge, 149–50, 356n192, 382n131; radio activity, 150, 382n131; in Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 149–51 Thomas, Norman, 193 Thomson, John F., 41 Temple, William H., 200–2, 373n166 Tipping, Fred, 161 Toronto Regional Council of the CCF (TRC): and May Day, 198, 200–1; and popular front, 231–2, 244, 246, 258–60, 392n29, 393n39; relief activity of, 190 Toronto Regional Labour Council, 92–3, 102, 105 Trades and Labour Congress (TLC), 24, 26, 39, 182, 297 Trotsky, Leon, 55, 60, 222, 229, 264 Trotskyists: and British Independent Labour Party, 60; on Communist Party, 180, 194; on CCF’s evolution, 300; and CCF Youth Federation, 264; and East York Workers’ Association, 139;

425

on fascism, 210; and League for a Revolutionary Workers’ Party, 227, 228; on Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 159; and May Day, 197; and One Big Union, 55, 222; on popular front, 219, 244, 247–51; and Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 187; and Socialist Workers’ League, 278; and Spanish Civil War, 258, 262; supports Canadian Labour Defence League, 182; and war policy, 277, 278, 280; and Workers’ Party of Canada, 227, 228 Turner, Arthur J., 76, 81, 144, 145 Underhill, Frank H.: and CCF Ontario purge, 132, 137, 190; characterization of CCF, 113; and civil liberties, 286; in Fabian club, 118; on fascism, 208; in League for Social Reconstruction, 124, 137, 387n209; middle-class identity, 104, 124, 140, 141; and Ontario CCF Clubs, 84–5, 89; and war policy 274, 399n114 unemployment insurance, 34, 41, 42, 49, 63, 126, 179, 184, 221, 225, 295, 300 United Farmers of Alberta (UFA): abandons political activity, 162–3; affiliates with CCF, 70; at Conference of Western Labour Parties, 69; government of Alberta, 94, 112, 162 United Farmers of Canada, Saskat­ chewan Section, 68–9, 162, 165 United Farmers of Manitoba (UFM), 57, 68, 69, 95, 157

426

Index

United Farmers of Ontario (UFO): anti-socialism of, 9, 84, 126–7, 134, 141; connection to Ontario CCF, 84, 89, 101–2, 127–8, 135–6, 170; and purge of Ontario CCF, 129, 131, 134–6 United Women’s Educational Federation (UWEF), 89, 92 Uphill, Tom, 212, 225 USSR: defence of, 226–7, 253, 257, 269, 271, 275, 283, 287, 289; and Hitler-Stalin Pact, 229, 283, 289, 308; Labour Party of Ontario on, 33–5; labour socialist attitudes to, 173, 197, 214, 222, 224–6, 229; League for Social Reconstruction attitudes to, 173, 223–4, 229, 252; Stalinism, 227–9; travellers to, 222–6; J.S. Woodsworth on, 222–3 Van, Gerald R., 219, 247, 250 Van Paassen, Pierre, 213, 216, 376n40 Walter, John, 102–3, 106 Watson, Frank, 278 Watson, George W., 85, 92, 192, 198, 200 Weaver, George, 209, 269, 374n24 Webb, Beatrice, 114, 116 Webb, Sidney, 114, 116, 117, 120 Weir, John, 242 White, Fred, 67, 68, 128 Whitehorn, Alan, 18, 72, 74, 302–3, 319n13 Whitty, J.L., 98, 105 Williams, Arthur W., 149, 190–1, 197–8, 200 Williams, George H., 165; in FarmerLabour Party, 165–6; on Manitoba

non-partisan government, 291; on popular front, 195, 201, 233, 236– 40, 283; and war policy, 268–9, 272–3, 275, 280, 290, 401n153 Winch, Ernest E.: attitude to CCF, 70, 77, 81, 108–9, 143, 146; communication with Socialist Party of Canada (Ontario), 43; and Connell affair, 153; on Ontario CCF purge, 138; and popular front, 231, 251, 255; at Regina CCF Convention, 101, 106, 108, 128, 206; and Socialist Party of Canada (BC), 44, 46–7, 70, 77, 145, 149, 155, 186 Winch, Harold: on Labour Party/ CCF Clubs conflict, 158, 163; and Connell affair, 153; and popular front, 217, 246; at Regina CCF Convention, 109; on revolution, 298; on state of Ontario CCF, 282; and war policy, 288, 356n190 Wise, E.F., 193 Wiseman, Nelson, 95, 291, 318n10, 343n158 Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), 79, 148, 212, 232, 270, 272, 287 Women’s Joint Committee (Toronto CCF), 200, 215, 241 Woodsworth, J.S.: on fascism, 192, 207; and founding of CCF, 39, 43, 66, 352n125; image of, 7, 23–4, 30; in Manitoba Independent Labour Party, 52, 158–9; and Marxism, 30, 169, 177; One Big Union on, 55; and Ontario CCF formation, 85–8; and Ontario CCF purge, 85–8, 125, 127–8, 130–2, 134–6, 138–9; and popular front, 156, 182, 185, 195,



Index

200, 224, 232, 234, 236, 238, 240–1, 244, 265; support of CCF Clubs, 80, 85; at Regina CCF Convention, 108, 111; and USSR, 222, 228; and war policy, 254, 263, 270, 271–80 Woodsworth, Kenneth, 212 Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), 299 Workers’ Party of Canada, 197, 210, 227, 278 Workers’ Unity League (WUL), 139, 181, 211

427

Young Labour Federation, 263 Young Peoples’ Socialist League, 40, 264 Young, Rod, 219, 250, 256 Young Socialist League, 263, 265 Young, Walter D.: on Angus MacInnis and E.E. Winch, 81, 145– 6, 155; characterization of CCF, 12, 71–2, 113–14, 302; on farmers, 100; on Regina Manifesto, 110 Zakuta, Leo, 302