My earliest recollection of first meeting Jack Scott was when I was just finishing off my term at UBC and looking for employment when Scott told me I should go on welfare. This seemed a little odd to me, that a Communist worker would tell me to go on welfare rather than help me find a job. Prior to this, I first had met two cronies of Scott when I was hanging around the New Left SDU at the University of British Columbia. These two friends of Scott had just recently fled the Canadian Student Movement Conference in Montreal in December of 1968. Upon their return to Vancouver they applied to join Progressive Workers’ Movement and were assigned to organise a student group at UBC which was to oppose the Canadian Student Movement. I should point out that the two characters promoted themselves as former members of the Internationalists. However one of these guys was known to openly promote the use of LSD and one time, at a coffeehouse called the Advance Mattress (a New Left hangout) he told everyone that they should go take a “trip”. So these were the ex-Internationalists the PWM was gathering around itself.
How they began was to look and see who was at UBC – where some people were considered more serious than others including Trotskyists as well as a number of anarchists. What the PWM supporter wanted was a so-called non-sectarian broad front student group. They set out to organise a voluntary student union which would be outside of the Alma Mater Society, which was the student union which all the UBC students belonged to. This was a form of dual unionism which PWM attempted to promote among the students. The tentative name this committee adopted was the Committee for a Progressive Student Union (CPSU).
The group began to hold regular weekly meetings and the main discussion was whether Canada was a colony or an independent capitalist country. The Trotskyists which belonged to this group also put forward the position that Canada was independent and they called for a “socialist” basis of unity, whereas PWM and their spokesmen put forward their view that what was needed was a broad anti-imperialist student group. After several weeks of debate the Trotskyists split, leaving PWM’s position dominant.
Another main item of discussion after that of the national question was that of the Vancouver Student Movement (VSM). The supporters of PWM put forward the view that the VSM was sectarian and wouldn’t grow. The policy followed by VSM was to try and build unity on a principled basis with CPSU but they were always turned away by the PWM supporters who would bring up one triviality after another in order to prevent any principled discussion. In the meetings of CPSU, we had a verbal agreement that we wouldn’t even discuss the VSM but it was impossible to ignore VSM because it existed in the real world and was doing a number of things. So on the one hand CPSU wasn’t supposed to talk about VSM but on the other hand most of our time was spent discussing VSM and individuals in it.
By the beginning of the 1969-70 school term, CPSU had changed its name to Campus Left Action Movement, whose organ was the Barnacle, which was going to be a regular newspaper. This newspaper came out three times. Interest amongst the students quickly faded. CLAM organised an orientation programme for the first week of the school year which centered on democratisation of the university. Other examples of their activity was to organise a departmental union and the showing of a completely bourgeois film called, Bethune which was on the revolutionary Canadian doctor, Norman Bethune.
CLAM started out with quite a big splash and held a number of programmes but the only campaign that CLAM actually launched was to get students to spoil their ballots for the elections for student Senators. The idea CLAM put forward was that students shouldn’t sit on the Senate, at least until such time that the students had won parity. This position was in line with the Trotskyist position of the Red base and the idea PWM put forward is that the university would be turned into some kind of anti-imperialist base. This campaign to get the students to spoil their ballots was basically a flop. CLAM had a series of regular public meetings that went on for the first few weeks of class but were rejected by the broad masses of students.
CLAM quickly disintegrated into an irrelevant little group which met to talk to itself. In the spring of 1970, what was left of CLAM had a hand in organising a week long programme on Canadian nationalism. Speakers were Jack Scott, Michel Chartrand, Stanley Ryerson, Robin Mathews and James Steele.
During the spring and summer of 1969 l had been having discussions with the VSM, and had participated in a number of demonstrations with VSM and attended a number of public meetings. In the spring and summer of that same year the workers at B.C. Tel, a U.S. imperialist company, went out on strike. The company hired student scabs in an attempt to smash the strike. Various New Leftists around Vancouver at that time expressed token support for the workers in the form of going down to the picket line once or maybe twice and try and keep the issue purely one of just scabs. At first I spent up to 7 or 8 hours a day on the picket line with the workers carrying a sign which said, “Student Protests Student Scabs”. VSM was also on the picket line on a regular basis and had done analysis on the nature of B.C. Tel, as to who controls it and how it is a U.S. imperialist company. After having discussion with VSM who were picketing on the basis that the U.S. imperialist company was hiring student scabs, I began to participate on the picket line with the VSM.
CPSU, the forerunner of CLAM, did not participate in this strike struggle at all. However when the first issue of the Barnacle was assembled, I was asked to write an article on this strike. I wrote an article which generally was the line that VSM had adopted. This article was censored and some of the leaders of CLAM said that it was sectarian, full of Internationalist jargon which would turn people off because they wouldn’t be able to understand. So this article was re-written and words such as imperialism and so on were not acceptable. I remember the supporters of PWM who were in CLAM opposed the idea of professional revolutionaries by saying that the revolution would be made by “ordinary people living ordinary lives”. And of course they never discussed the need for a Marxist-Leninist Party.
One day I visited the PWM headquarters in the summer of 1969 and ran into a henchman of Jack Scott. They cornered me and told me that they were concerned about me and that they felt I was one step away from the Internationalists. They criticised me for talking to VSM and the fact that I had sold Mass Line a couple of times. They said I should spend my time looking for a job and live an ordinary life. One member of CLAM gave me an ultimatum – I had to leave VSM or else. My politics being quite liberal at that time turned me away from VSM.
During the years that I hung around left-wing circles I ran in the Arts Under Graduate Society in the elections at UBC, under a national chauvinist slogan of “Canadianisation of Canadian Unions”. Also during this early period in 1969-1970, I was seriously thinking about joining PWM but they never attempted to mobilise me. PWM put on a few forums in 1969 and again in 1970, but these were liquidated as was their journal the Progressive Worker. Next PWM published a monthly newsletter which possessed a national chauvinist and anarcho-syndicalist line. This Newsletter supported CLAM at UBC, as well as a group called the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which operated a table at UBC. At the same time the PWM through their Newsletter criticised the VSM as sectarian saying that the VSM turned people off.
Occasionally, PWM would call me up to lick stamps and stuff envelopes. PWM had a number of people around it which they called upon in order to carry out these sort of tasks but they never attempted to mobilise people in any disciplined work.
Towards the end of 1969 the PWM had ceased all public activity and its dwindling membership set out to work on a document called Independence and Socialism in Canada – A Marxist-Leninist View. In this document they call for an independent movement by putting forward the position that the socialists in the independence movement will someday get together and form a Party. On the cover of this document was a maple leaf being held in the beak of an eagle. I helped to sell this journal around UBC and hoped that it would give rise to some practical work. But this document proved to be PWM’s last gasp. They never put out any more documents or newspapers or had any real organisational form. Before they actually liquidated the last five to six members took part in the founding of a newspaper called the New Leaf with the leadership coming from the remaining members of PWM. The New Leaf was supposed to be a community newspaper that promoted Canadian independence. This paper combined articles on pollution, housing, legal aid, national chauvinism, etc. Anything that was anti-American was promoted, especially Canadian unions as opposed to international unions, as well as opposition to American professors teaching at Canadian universities. Like the Barnacle, the organ of CLAM, the paper made an initial splash but quickly became irrelevant.
The most notable article was about a Mountie who was involved in a fatal accident. Jack Scott was never formally associated with New Leaf. He preferred to stay behind the scenes pushing his line through various henchmen. On one occasion he was invited to write a guest editorial in which he wrote on the immediate takeover of American business without compensation.
In October of 1971, I was invited to move into Jack Scott’s communal house. Living in Scott’s house was his crippled wife and five or six Canadian nationalists. During this period of time I was active in left-wing circles at UBC, although I was not a student. At this time Scott was doing research at his home into the One Big Union (OBU), which he was promoting as the first attempt at revolutionary unionism in Canada. He was planning on writing an article on the OBU but he expanded his work to a so-called history of Canadian labour. His first volume is presently out which is called Sweat and Struggle.
Scott spent most of his time in his extensive library and at the UBC library going through various documents and books. I remember Scott as a cold, aloof individual who wanted everyone to listen to him sit and talk about the good old days when he was supposed to be a trade union organiser. Scott always stressed the fact that he never held any office in any union. He was always amongst the so-called rank and file. He would put forward the position that any responsible office is bureaucratic by its very nature and that he didn’t want to get caught up in the bureaucracy. About the only time Scott was willing to listen to anyone was if they had some gossip about somebody or group and what they were doing.
Scott promoted himself as the only communist left in Canada. He never offered any self-criticism as to why PWM collapsed as he was the founder and the leading member of PWM. If he took the collapse of PWM seriously he should have looked at his own role and analysed it. Rather he tried to shift the blame on other members saying that they were all drunks and degenerates or he would say conditions weren’t ready for the building of a Marxist-Leninist Party. He said, “we tried but the people wouldn’t listen to us.”
Around this time during the early 1960’s Hardial Bains came to him for advice and Scott said that he freely gave his advice but that it was never heeded. Just before I moved into Scott’s house he made a speaking tour in eastern Canada, which was sponsored by the national chauvinist Canadian Liberation Movement, which is an organisation which grew out of PWM. Scott came from this tour and said that he had met various CPC(M-L) comrades and he was saying that CPC(M-L) seemed to be on the right path, that it had some good things about it, with some good young people around it but it had a problem – Hardial Bains. He said as CPC(M-L) grew, Bains’ influence would diminish and he would gradually be pushed aside. This is the same splittist line that Scott gave in the B.C. Newsletter in an article attacking the CPC(M-L). PWM said that there were young inexperienced people around the CPC(M-L) and they could be excused but Hardial Bains should know better and that this man had a great deal of experience. One of these mistakes Scott pointed out was a demonstration which was actually not a demonstration but a group of comrades who had gone to a steel mill in Vancouver to disseminate literature and when they were attacked they vigorously resisted.
PWM attacked this resistance and attacked the comrade who was sentenced to prison by saying that his action was ultra-leftist and they inferred that the “Party was trying to fight the Cultural Revolution before the seizure of state power in Canada.” I also remember Scott speaking fondly of his trip to China in 1967.
He boasted that he had criticised the Chinese revolutionaries and that the PWM sent criticisms to the Chinese Party along the lines that they didn’t like the language in Peking Review. Scott also stated that Kang-Sheng, a member of the Central Committee in China, is a leftist. In November of 1971, I attended a meeting held by the Vancouver Branch of the CPC(M-L) commemorating the death of Comrade Norman Bethune. Jack Scott was invited to be the main speaker, and was introduced by Comrade Dave Danielson.
After the meeting I asked Scott who was Danielson and he replied “Nitwit”. He then proceeded to spout some gossip that Comrade Danielson was not very clever. He said Danielson claimed to be a member of PWM but in fact never was associated with PWM.
In the winter of 1971-1972, Jack Scott signed a petition for a People’s Canada. The Party began to hold meetings to unite various left-wing people in town. Scott began to hold meetings with responsible comrades and certain proposals were made to him which were entirely from the position that all Marxist-Leninists should unite in one Party. Scott had actually signed an agreement with the Party but even before the ink was dry Scott had begun attacking the Party.
Even though he was having discussions which were confidential and secret he would come home and gossip about what was taking place. In January and February of 1972, the Party had discussion with all sorts of individuals and groups on the petition in order to found the Canadian People’s United Front Against U.S. imperialism. The group with which I was associated called the Radical Union was approached. Various people from the Radical Union came forward for the founding of the Vancouver Revolutionary Committee. Scott’s position was that the Party was only interested in recruiting one or two people and told many people that he was going to attend the founding meeting of VRC. But on the day of the meeting Scott announced that he wasn’t going to be attending because he had to do the cooking. This was nothing more than a flimsy excuse by Scott which would enable him not to have to face Comrade Bains and try to oppose him publicly. This so-called Anti-Imperialist Caucus of the Radical Union and friends attended the meeting but walked out after a long argument over who should chair the meeting. No discussion took place on the political line and this group after walking out of the meeting collapsed. Scott told various people after the meeting that what took place was what he had expected. He also did propaganda that someone who was living in a house connected with the Radical Union, who attended this meeting and agreed to work with the VRC had actually already belonged to the Party secretly. Several instances come to mind in this early period in 1972. One evening I came home and Scott had boasted that he had thrown Bob Cruise out of the house that morning. Scott said that, “I won’t talk to anyone at 8 o’clock in the morning.” Another time I came home and Scott said that the existence of a letter had come to his attention. This letter had been slipped under the door of a certain paper and it was signed H.B. Scott claimed “that the letter had to be written by Bains because the letter knew too much.” This letter was supposed to have exposed the writer as a drunken degenerate, who was tired of organising CPC(M-L). Scott got on the phone and told all sorts of people about the letter. I believe he had a copy which he read over the phone. I didn’t actually read this letter until several months later but it was obvious that this letter was concocted by the agents of the state to discredit Comrade Bains. Scott was the leading promoter of this letter saying that it was virtually written by Comrade Bains.
I would like to say a few words about the house on 48th Street. The place had a morbid atmosphere like a tomb. The living room had thousands of books lying around in it with which Scott occupied himself most of the time. The house was organised on a communal basis with a duty roster posted and one person in charge of finances. Scott stayed out of the organisational part of the house. He was the grand old man who would monopolise conversations around the dinner table. Most of the other people living in this house had a hand in New Leaf, which at that time was on its last legs. Mostly they read and engaged in idle conversation. One person who was living in this house and a leading member of a Canadian union, was responsible for introducing Madeline Parent to a group of women at UBC who were trying to organise women office workers into unions. After meeting Parent these women withdrew their membership from an international union and went on to form AUCE which is now led by the neo-trotskyists.
Scott and his associates did propaganda that Comrade Bill Shpikula, who was arrested at the Canron steel mill in Vancouver in 1969, was mentally ill. Comrade Bill was sentenced to two years in prison for his revolutionary activity and Scott was doing the propaganda of the state machine which had Comrade Bill committed to Riverview Mental Hospital by saying that Comrade Bill was indeed mentally ill. Also Scott and his associates did propaganda in support of Fred Ferdman’s deportation. The line given was that Ferdman was an American and deserved to be deported similarly, like any other comrades who were Americans should be deported to the U.S. A person living in Scott’s house said that CPC(M-L) would never go anywhere because its leader was an East Indian. He put forward the line that the Canadian people were basically racist.
In the basement of this house there is a printing press which had belonged to PWM. This press was at the disposal of anyone in left wing circles except CPC(M-L). PWM had previously had this policy of letting anyone use this press except the Party. The Party gave Scott a complimentary subscription to PCDNR and the paper arrived at the house regularly and was one of the few bright spots in this mountain of literature.
Scott did have three sets of Lenin and other Marxist-Leninist works which I don’t ever recall Scott reading. His library had thousands and thousands of books on all sorts of subjects. I would glance over PCDNR quite regularly even though I never read it thoroughly. Other people in the house criticised me for this by saying “what are you wasting your time looking at this for.” I found the atmosphere in this house so stagnating, I spent as little time as possible there. I left this house in April 1972.
In the next few months I saw Scott several times and not on an unfriendly basis. During the summer of 1972, I began to have discussion with the Partisan Organisation. One day I attended the annual picnic the Canada-China Friendship Association which Scott had played a leading role organising and still does today. Scott was at this picnic and I heard him say that the Partisans were doing pretty well however that they were making mistakes that had been made before and that it was forgiveable to make mistakes once, but twice was unforgiveable. He never elaborated on the mistakes that the Partisans were supposed to be making.
Scott made it clear that he was completely refusing to work in any organisation, however, he was willing to give freelance advice and tell stories. Various members of the Partisans and other groups across Canada visited Scott and he liked to sit on a comfortable chair on the lawn with several young people sitting around him listening to him tell his stories.
On one occasion he told one group that he didn’t see any hope for developing unity amongst the left in the near future. Only several weeks after this the Partisan Organisation united with the Party. This trend of unity is continuing today. Scott gave the Partisans a set of Lenin and was a guest at a Partisan Plenum held in August 1972. I became formally associated with the Partisans in August 1972 when the Partisans had just adopted a generally correct line on the working class movement. However, the Partisans were having difficulty developing a programme based on this line. When the federal election was called in October 1972, CPC(M-L) announced it was running candidates in the federal elections. The Party had approached the Partisans to nominate a fraternal candidate to oppose the capitalist parties. The Partisans agreed to nominate a candidate and then went to Scott to get his support. He gave the excuse that he was old and tired. This excuse is completely fraudulent as politics is the main thing in Scott’s life. Scott refused to support the Partisans because of its fraternal relationship with the CPC(M-L). The Partisans after the election united with the Party on the basis that all Marxist-Leninists should unite in one Party and not split.
Shortly after the Unity Conference was held I met Jack Scott in the cafeteria at UBC. I said, “Hello Jack” and he said, “You’re out of your mind. They’re just as crazy as ever.” So I said fine, I’m keeping good company and left, and we haven’t spoken since. In the six odd years that I’ve known Jack Scott and his associates, they have never developed a line on revisionism. Scott would make references to the “Communist” Party of Canada sometimes but I can only think of one example – this union in Sudbury, the Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers’ Union from the Canadian Council of Unions. Scott would say that’s because the union is led by CP, they were trying to take it into steel. He also regularly attacked the CP for breaking up the OBU in the early 1930’s.
Scott has a book in his library which is autographed by Comrade Norman Bethune which he likes to pull out and show people. He likes to promote the fact that he met Norman Bethune and shook hands with him. But he never developed any discussion on the political line of Comrade Bethune.