First Published: Canadian Revolution No. 3, October-November 1975
Transcription, Editing and Markup: Malcolm and Paul Saba
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The article which follows is a first attempt to present and analyse the history of the Canadian Communist Party, from its foundation in 1921, as a part of the upsurge in the world communist movement that followed the October Revolution in Russia, to its decline since the end of the Second World War into an unimportant revisionist sect. It is an attempt to understand the development of the Canadian Communist Party, to learn from its strengths and weaknesses, to understand how a party which began in the tradition of Lenin and the Bolshevik party, and which mobilized thousands of workers in struggle at its height, could become the insignificant reformist group that it is today. It is an attempt to draw lessons that are centrally important for the work of Marxist-Leninists today.
The article was first published in Mobilisation at the beginning of 1975. On the one hand it was written to learn from the past, to understand the roots of the Communist Party’s present revisionism and reformism.
After all, despite the bourgeoisie’s constant attempts to erase the history of the working class and its struggles, the Communist Party had been an important force in the workers’movement, it had been a party of the Communist International, a party of socialist revolution. For Marxist-Leninists today it was clearly important to understand why the Communist Party did not lead the revolution.
At the same time, the article in Mobilisation was a part of a process of breaking from a developing reformist tendency in the socialist movement in Quebec. The criticism of the Communist Party’s errors was not unrelated to the clarification of the criticism of the rightist tendency in the movement.
What the article that follows shows is that the Canadian Communist Party was a central force in the Canadian workers’movement through the 30’s and 40’s and even into the early 50’s. After an initial period of errors and difficulties, the Communist Party moved forward from simple propaganda and agitation to the organization of the mass movement. It acted above all in the unions, through the Workers’Unity League, either setting up left caucuses in already existing unions, building new industrial unions among the workers left unorganized by the craft unions of the AFL, and its Canadian subsidiary, the TLC. The Communist Party did unify the best elements of the working class, the most militant, the most dedicated to the struggle.
In the early 30’s up to 90% of the strikes in Canada were led by communists; in 1937 almost a third of CIO unions in Canada were controlled by the Communist Party; in the early 40’s the Party had 20,000 members. Party members were indeed “the best trade unionists”, working among the masses and supported by them. And this strength was at the same time their basic weakness.
From the early days of the party, its orientation had been overwhelmingly economist: the party developed the daily struggle of the workers, the unemployed, for better conditions, higher wages, for jobs, but the concrete and practical connection of these struggles with building the socialist revolution remained very weak. The theoretical level of the Party and its members was low: there was never any effective attempt to develop the members’understanding of Marxism-Leninism; and their ability to use it.
Alongside the economist approach was a tendency to put into practice mechanically the directives of the Communist International. There was never an overall strategy for the revolution in Canada based on a concrete analysis of the Canadian situation. This was reflected in a lack of understanding of the role and position of U.S. imperialism and an incorrect position on Quebec and the national question.
In the final analysis, the basic error of the Communist Party was spontaneity; its identification of the growth of the Party with the growth of the mass movement, its conception that finally, the developing of workers’struggles and linking them together would somehow build the revolution. The Party’s economism, its inability to analyse concretely the situation in Canada and Quebec and its low theoretical level were all linked to this underlying spontaneist conception.
The importance of “Some observations on the history of the Communist Party of Canada” is essentially its presentation of these basic errors, their presence and their development throughout the history of the Communist Party, and their effects on the Party’s political line and its work. It also shows how these errors are at the base of both the Party’s revisionism and its decline and disappearance, a decline based on the combination of internal weakness and external repression.
As stated earlier, the article is & first attempt to analyse the Canadian Communist Party. As such it has many weaknesses which will only be rectified by a lot more study and work. In general, it tends to be a bit sketchy; certain positions are presented that lack a thorough enough discussion to really back them up.
Some specific aspects require more discussion: the nature of links between the Canadian Communist Party and the United States Party as well as with the International are discussed only minimally. The effect on the Party of changes in policy in the International are not always clear. Undoubtedly, there are other examples.
Nonetheless, Mobilisation considers the article a worthwhile and necessary beginning. We would clearly be interested in receiving any comments, criticism, additions, etc. concerning both the description and the analysis presented.
A final point: although we consider as basic the criticism of the Communist Party’s economism and of its lack of a concrete strategy for the revolution, revolutionaries must also be aware of the opposite error. Any attempt to build the Party and the revolution apart from the masses and their struggle will fail. The error is not in leading the day to day struggles of the masses; it is in doing nothing more than that.
The claim we lay to the heritage of the communist militants of the 20’s and 30’s depends on our ability to learn from their successes and errors and apply these lessons to the struggle for building a new revolutionary communist party. When this article was written, Mobilisation was deepening its criticism of the reformist deviation within the revolutionary movement, a criticism which has since been concretized politically and organizationally. Mobilisation has now become the organ of one of the organized tendencies which have emerged within the revolutionary movement in Quebec. As such, Mobilisation will pursue the active ideological struggle against reformism and the other deviations present in the revolutionary movement, while avoiding the pitfall of claiming to have a monopoly of correct positions.
The coming period will be one of ideological debate amongst revolutionaries and of sinking deeper roots into the masses. The junction of the revolutionary movement and the workers’movement today is concretized by the priority we must give to the formation of working-class cadres – revolutionary militants issued from the working class who will take into their own hands the building of the party. What is at stake is the construction of the revolutionary communist party and Mobilisation is determined not to spare any effort in the struggle to assure its revolutionary character.
Mobilisation
We would like to thank all those who helped us in this work especially several ex-members of the CP who, by their advice and explanations, made this article possible. Of these, we reserve a special place for Jack Scott, a communist militant active for many years in British Columbia. His political analysis of the Party’s history has guided us throughout our research.
At a time when Marxist-Leninist militants are working to build the revolutionary party of the proletariat and all our tasks are guided by this strategic objective it is essential that we learn from the experience of the communist movement in Canada and throughout the world. More than 53 years ago on a little farm in Western Ontario a handful of progressive militants from different regions of Canada pooled their efforts to found the Communist Party of Canada, a party allied with Lenin and the Bolshevik movement and with the Communist International. Although it had little immediate impact, this act would nevertheless have a profound influence on Canadian history and on the working class which built this country with the sweat of its brow. The history of the CPC is rich with lessons. In spite of its many mistakes and weaknesses and in spite of the fact that since the 50’s it has been no more than a sect dedicated to pro-Soviet and revisionist propaganda we must make use of the glorious heritage of Canadian communists, recognizing their solidarity with the world revolution and their countless struggles under extremely difficult conditions.
We lay claim to the legacy of thousands of little known militants who built the same industrial unions whose current leaders revile communism and socialism. We claim the heritage of Norman Bethune and the 600 Canadian militants who died in Spain. We claim the heritage of the strikers at Vallyfield and in the Textile industry in Montreal, and at Ford and General Motors in Ontario, and we claim the heritage of the unemployed of the 30’s who were led by many exceptional militants like Madelaine Parent. We must win this heritage by learning how to base the development of our struggles and our organizations on the reality in which we work. However, this reality will be incomprehensible if we do not learn from the past or if we are not capable of applying its lessons.
The title of this article gives an idea of its objectives as well as its limits. Its framework is obviously too limited to provide an overall and systematic history of the Communist Party of Canada. Nevertheless we hope to sketch out the broad outlines: the main stages of the CPC’s development and its politics and practice. In this way we hope to provide a political context within which we can pinpoint certain questions and elaborate on the struggles and other particulars of the history of the communist movement in Canada.
With this in mind we are, at present, preparing a series of articles which will analyse the experience of certain periods in greater detail. These periods are: 1) the period of the 20’s; 2) the period of the 30’s and the formation of the Workers’Unity League; and 3) the later years of the thirties and the beginning of the forties marked by the building of mass industrial unions and by the anti-fascist war. These articles will appear in Mobilisation during the next year. At the end of the series we will attempt a systematic evaluation of the CP’s complete history. For the time being we present the reader with the following article. We think that it provides both sufficient general information and enough examples of the political experience of the CP for immediate study.
In closing, we have one more thing to add. We would like to get in touch with the older militants who read this article, especially those who were in the rank and file of the CP. We need your help and criticisms in order to continue our research. If you think you can help us on any aspect whatsoever of the CP’s history, please contact us. One of the greatest obstacles to the clarification of working class history in Quebec and Canada is precisely the absence of direct living contacts between the militants of this generation and militants of earlier generations. We hope that you will respond to our call. – The editors of Mobilisation
In December 1921, a number of Canadian socialist militants representing groups, met in Guelph, Ontario to declare the founding of the Communist Party of Canada. These militants came together under particularly difficult circumstances. The infamous “War Measures Act”[1] making all “legal” activities by revolutionaries impossible was in force at this point and many revolutionaries were in prison. The founding of the party was more a formality for propaganda and agitation purposes than anything else. In a widely distributed manifesto the Communist Party declared open class warfare:
“Workers! We are calling on you to rally to us so that you can take an active part in the construction of a true working class party. Such a party will eventually be in a position to form itself into a powerful fighting machine capable of organizing and directing the oppressed masses in their struggle for political and economic emancipation. United around this call for freedom! Unite around our battle cry – Workers of the world unite!”
At a conference near the end of the following year, after a year of meetings and discussions with numerous groups of militants, the party formed itself into a centralized political organization. To avoid a confrontation with the law, they took the name “The Workers Party of Canada”.
The party declared that it was based on the principles of Marxism-Leninism and the experience of the bolshevik revolution. It confirmed its intention to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. The party also considered itself a “section” of the international communist movement and of its leading organization, the Communist International whose programme they adopted:
“... Communist parties can only develop in struggle. Even the smallest communist parties should not limit themselves to simple propaganda and agitation. In all mass organizations of the proletariat they must constitute a vanguard which by defining goals for the backward and hesitant masses, formulating for them concrete goals of the struggle, inciting them to struggle for their basic needs, shows how the struggle must be fought and as a consequence exposes the treachery of all non-communist parties.
“Only to the extent that the communist parties put themselves in the leadership of the proletariat in all its struggles, will they be able to have the real support of the broad proletarian masses in the struggle for proletarian dictatorship.
“All agitation, propaganda and activity of the party must carry the idea that under capitalism no lasting improvement in the living conditions of the proletarian masses is possible; and that only the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the smashing of the capitalist state will allow the improvement of the working class’s living conditions and the revitalization of the national economy that has been ruined by capitalism.” (Third Congress of the Communist International)
The great majority of the original communist militants were implanted in the working class. The majority of those were of proletarian origins. As well, the progressive petty-bourgeoisie provided a significant number of intellectuals to the communist ranks.
At this point the young communist party was faced with its first great problem: how to link the party to the broad working masses and lead their daily struggles. In order to deal with this question it was necessary to confront the problem of the unions, the defensive organizations of the working class – a question at the center of discussions within the International Communist movement. Following the publication of Lenin’s work “Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder”[2] (in which the bolshevik leader criticized the position of the anarcho-syndicalists and the “revolutionary trade unionists”) communists all over the world decided to follow Lenin’s analysis and work “from within” the unions in order to show the workers in practice that communists could properly lead their everyday struggles.[3] This strategy was counterposed to another position solidly entrenched among Canadian and American militants who had often preferred to withdraw from unions controlled by bureaucrats in order to build revolutionary unions – unions of class struggle. This was the strategy of the Industrial Workers of the World[4] who had greatly inspired the progressive union militants of Western Canada when they founded the “One Big Union” in 1919.
This controversy caused many heated debates within the CP as it engaged in internal discussion for the first time. Many communist militants thought it necessary to build unions independent of the AFL and its counterpart in Canada (the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada-TLC); others thought it necessary to follow the tactic of working “from within” the already existing unions and trying to take over the leadership.
But in Canada this debate had a special significance. In point of fact, Canada’s official union movement was (and continues to be) controlled from outside the country by the powerful and extremely reactionary American Federation of Labour (AFL). This special circumstance meant that the margin of autonomy in the “international” AFL unions was somewhat reduced, and with it the possibility of transforming them from within. As a general conclusion we can say that the union controversy, which was of extreme importance for the young communist movement, led to two incorrect positions. The first position prevailed because of its “official” character (i.e., the official line of the Comintern). It consisted of working to build unions within the TLC – which amounted to building affiliates of the American AFL unions. Although it was supported by a correct theoretical analysis (e.g. the criticism of anarcho-syndicalism) this position did not take into account one essential element: the foreign domination of Canadian Unions, a situation that would normally have led to a massive struggle to build a progressive and autonomous union movement. The other position which was defended by supporters of the OBU put the emphasis on the need to build revolutionary unions –unions of class struggle. Given the position of the international communist movement on the subject, this tendency was easily defeated. But the result was that the Canadian communists set about building unions dominated by the AFL[5].
These mechanical positions on union strategy which would later colour the party’s whole method of developing links with the masses, were connected with other mistakes in the analysis of the conjuncture. The party made the following analysis: the principal contradiction was situated between the Canadian people and British Imperialism. This analysis obviously missed the whole point, since in point of fact, it was during this period that American imperialism clearly replaced the British at both the level of control over natural resources and the level of manufacturing and “service” industries. This process was well understood by the dominant fraction of the Canadian bourgeoisie who used their party (the Liberal Party) to encourage it. On the other hand the fraction of the bourgeoisie represented by the Conservative party was bent on going “against the tide” and wanted to maintain links with Britain. At the level of the legal and juridicial superstructure, these links were still very strong. This led the Communist Party to make the mistake of identifying these political and juridical ties with the forces that really controlled the country.
The virtual absence of communists in Quebec can be attributed to another incorrect analysis that was deeply rooted in the Communist Party from its beginnings. This was a failure to examine the question of Quebec as a national question and, consequently, a failure to struggle for national liberation[6]. This error was fatal for the Communist Party in Quebec. Up until the 30’s it remained a mere sect without an audience or any real strength. Led by the well known pamphleteer Albert St-Martin, the quebecois communist groups limited their activities to propaganda and minimal agitation, specializing among other things in extremely violent attacks on the Catholic Church and apposing the participation of militants in economic and union struggles.
These two fundamental errors of the CP (their lack of analysis of the national question in Quebec and their analysis of the principal contradiction in Canada) prevented them from developing correct overall tactics and strategy. For this reason the Communist Party did not grow as an instrument of political leadership in the struggle of the Canadian and Quebecois people against a principal enemy to be isolated little by little. Instead it became more an instrument of immediate economic struggle.
In accordance with the Party’s strategy, communist militants tried to implant themselves among the working masses and to work “from within” the unions. The Trade Union Educational League[7] was set up to coordinate their actions and orientations. The League had the task of uniting the left within the unions, progressive local executives, rank and file groups and many isolated and often un-unionized militants. It was not considered to be an actual “organization” so much as a “pressure group” within the unions. As a start party militants put a great deal of energy into distributing the League’s twelve point program in all union locals. Those points were:
1. unionization of the unorganized, wage increases and reduction of work hours;
2. organization of a left-wing movement within the union movement;
3. organization of rank and file caucuses working to democratize the unions;
4. political action in the unions;
5. the autonomy of the Canadian union movement;
6. the affiliation of all unions with the TLC;
7. the affiliation of all unions with the regional councils of the TLC;
8. the establishment of a workers press;
9. the nationalization of industry;
10. the amalgamation of craft unions;
11. international union solidarity;
12. the abolition of capitalism.
This general and imprecise program accurately reflected the tactics adopted by the Communist Party in the unions during this period. In reality the CP did not have an authentic analysis of the concrete conditions prevailing in Canada.
In spite of this weakness, rank and file communist militants threw themselves wholeheartedly into the class struggle and became fierce supporters of day to day struggles. The twenties were a period marked by the expansion of capitalism and the growth of American imperialism in Canada. Because it was a period of relative stability and growth the bourgeoisie launched a general offensive against the workers and their unions in order to consolidate its expansion. This offensive took the general form of repression (firing of union militants, changes in the Labour Code discouraging the setting up of unions, witch hunts against, progressive militants, etc., etc.) but also developed into a vast anti-worker and anti-communist ideological campaign. This campaign was launched by the bourgeoisie in its press, schools and churches to convince the masses that capitalism had reached a period of permanent prosperity and that “the class struggle was a thing of the past”.
The campaign was also taken up by the reactionary leadership of the unions. These latter had been content to unionize skilled workers into craft unions leaving to the side the great mass of unskilled workers situated in the basic industries (steel, automobile, textile, food, etc.). But the reactionary union leadership did not restrict themselves to spreading the propaganda of the bourgeoisie. They also tried to bar progressive militants from the unions, going so far as to disaffiliate whole union locals. Afterwards, they would set up another union local which, with the help of the bosses, would smash the militant local. The concrete result in this period was a general weakening of the union movement as a whole. It lost more than a third of its members, leaving only 250,000 organized workers.
In spite of the repression and the ideological campaign, the communists in the League organized many workers’struggles against wage reductions and the deterioration of working conditions. For example, workers in the coal mines of Alberta fought under the leadership of communists, a seven month strike against the bosses and the international unions. At the other end of the country in the mining and steel region of Nova Scotia several thousands of workers living under atrocious conditions, went on strike in 1923. This amounted to a general strike of miners and steelworkers throughout the region. The federal government rushed to the aid of the bosses with 2,000 soldiers. The strike ended with the spilling of blood and the arrest of the principal leaders. But in spite of the savage repression the struggle continued and wildcat strikes multiplied in that area for several years afterwards.
At the same time as they were trying to build the first large industrial unions, communist militants began to organize the forestry workers in Northern Ontario. In 1929, two communist militants belonging to the forestry workers union were murdered by the bosses’private police.
The first industrial unions were also organized in the automobile industry at this time forming the skeleton of militants and contacts which would permit the wide scale organization of the autoworkers into the United Automobile Workers-UAW near the end of the 30’s.
The CP continued to grow in spite of its lack of a real analysis of Canadian society and its lack of revolutionary strategy. New militants were joining the party. Most of the militants’energy was occupied with participation in economic and union struggles which allowed the communists to link themselves with the masses, even if the strategical and tactical aims of this linking remained obscure. The theoretical and political level of these militants continued to be generally weak. This defficiency was regularly pointed out by party directives without any real improvement of the situation.
An important factor in this respect was the “federated” nature of the party. The party was born of an amalgamation of several different groups, particularly ethnic groups formed into associations and federations (the Ukranian, the Finns, the Jews, etc.) which joined the party en bloc. As a result of this the party became a sort of super-network of diverse associations, a situation which impeded the building of a centralized and politically unified organization. The different sections retained a great deal of autonomy rendering a truly communist operation of the organization impossible. At the 3rd congress of the CP in 1924, the affiliation of organizations was banned. Those that wanted to join the party had to disband leaving their members to apply separately.[8] But the damage had been done and the absence of political and organizational unity remained one of the characteristics of the CP.
The bourgeoisie’s ideological campaign raged throughout North America. This was the era of “permanent prosperity” and “wealth for all”. The campaign was supported by the relative economic prosperity of the pre-crisis years. These ideas were echoed widely in the working class and union movements. The ideology of class collaboration had infiltrated the vanguard organization of the working class itself: a theory of the “exceptional” character of North American capitalism was developed by the general secretary of the American CP Jay Lovestone[9]. Lovestone claimed that American capitalism had found the means to develop in the interests of all classes of society. According to Lovestone the role of the working class and communist movements was to isolate the “backward” fractions of the bourgeoisie which had not yet realized this fact and to build, in collaboration with the “progressive” bourgeoisie, a “social” or welfare capitalism within the U.S. which would transform itself little by little into a kind of American style socialism.
At the 6th Congress of the CP in 1929 the new leadership of the party took up Lovestone’s position. The fact that a completely anti-Marxist and counter-revolutionary faction of the party was able to take over the leadership at this point is an indication of the extreme weakness of the party’s political and theoretical development. At this point the party was no longer an isolated propaganda sect. It was made up of militant workers implanted in the basic industries and in mining, agriculture and the forest industry. However, it could not be said at this point in time that the party really deserved the name “communist”, if this word is taken to mean the concrete and revolutionary application of a scientific program for proletarian revolution.
It was during this period as well that Trotskyism made its appearance in Canada and in many other communist parties of the world. Because of the extreme political confusion prevailing in the CP, a small group which included the leaders of the communist youth movement took up Trotsky’s positions. Trotsky who had just been expelled from the Soviet Union for his counter-revolutionary positions, was attempting to create groups within the different communist parties faithful to his anti-soviet positions. In Canada the Trotskyist group was expelled from the party not because of a debate on the tasks of the CP but on the question of Trotsky and the Soviet Union. Afterwards, Canadian Trotskyists formed into diverse sects whose principal activity was to slander the communist parties and the Soviet Union.
In the space of a few months after the 6th Congress, the leadership became isolated by a combination of pressure from the Comintern and the rebellion of important factions of the party because of pressure from rank and file militants. It was on this occasion that the head of the Trade Union Educational League, the machinist, Tim Buck, rose to the leadership of the party to remain there until his death in 1973.
What was the Communist Party of Canada in 1929? It was an organization with a rank and file of 4,000 revolutionary militants. It was an organization which, through the Trade Union Educational League, led an impressive number of local struggles and union organizing campaigns. Through municipal elections and campaigns against repression, it was also beginning to penetrate into non-proletarian strata of the people (the farmers, petty-bourgeois intellectuals, etc.) But it was also an organization without a program or revolutionary strategy and did not really exist as a party amongst the masses. What the party put forward as its program was often little more than the repetition of general slogans of the international communist movement. It was an organization whose militants had an extremely low political and theoretical level. It was a revolutionary organization for union agitation rather than a communist organization. For the working masses there still existed no organization which they recognized as their leader.
The great depression was to put a temporary end to all illusions about the future of capitalism. A few days before the crash of the New York Stock Exchange signaling the beginning of the crisis the president of the United States was still talking about the permanent prosperity of American capitalism. Unemployment mounted rapidly until it included nearly a quarter of the work force (350,000). Factories closed down by the thousands and farmers and small businessmen were ruined[10].
This situation had been foreseen by the Comintern at its 6th Congress (1928). Its analysis was that capitalism was entering a ”third phase” after the war during which the contradictions would be aggravated to the breaking point.
This change in the objective conditions radically modified the circumstances under which the CP was developing. Suddenly they found themselves in the middle of an explosive situation with the masses waiting for revolutionary leadership. More and more the party found itself forced to assume the day to day leadership of struggles at the economic and union level. In practice the Trade Union Unity League almost became an independent union federation, especially since the reactionary unions were expelling whole union locals led by progressive militants from their ranks.[11]
This change led the League to officially reconstitute itself. At the end of the year in 1928 the Workers Unity League was founded with a much greater emphasis on autonomy from the TLC.[12] The new organization still tried to work within the established unions (organizing caucuses of militants, rank and file groups, and coordinating the left, etc.) but now militants doing union organizing could affiliate directly with the WUL which for all intents and purposes had taken on the appearances of a red union federation. Its organizing program called for both economic and political demands. It called for:
1. The unionization of all un-unionized workers;
2. The establishment of an unemployment insurance scheme;
3. Solidarity between unionized and un-unionized workers;
4. An emergency program for the building of low rent housing;
5. Industrial unionism;
6. The independent political action of the working class;
7. The nationalization of primary industry;
8. Inter-union solidarity;
9. The international solidarity of unions (affiliation to the Red International of Unions)
10. The establishing of commercial relations with the Soviet Union.
Later we will show how this organization became the vanguard of worker struggles at the beginning of the 30’s.
In the summer of 1930 the conservative party was elected to power in Ottawa. They took ultra-reactionary and anti-worker stands from the beginning. With the help of the clergy and the big bourgeoisie, fascist movements developed in several parts of the country, particularly in-Quebec. The political climate had become reactionary. The political analysis of the CP in this situation was still based on the false premises explained earlier, i.e., according to them the principal contradiction was between the whole Canadian people and the British bourgeoisie. This position grossly underestimated the rise of the Canadian bourgeoisie in alliance with American imperialism. It also led the CP to defend “Canadian unity” in the abstract and to refrain from recognizing the right of self-determination for the people of Quebec. These serious theoretical errors prevented the CP from providing leadership in an all out struggle against the Canadian bourgeoisie who, well aware of the weakness of the communists, did not hesitate to exploit those weaknesses in repressing them.
In 1931, one year after the conservative government came to power, the RCMP coordinated a series of raids across the country and captured 8 party leaders.[13] These leaders were accused of seditious conspiracy. Several hundred other militants were harassed and intimidated by the state and the police. After a long trial in which the accused communists tried as best as they could to explain the class significance of this repression, 7 of the 8 CP cadres including the party leader Tim Buck[14] were sentenced to 5 years in prison.
But in spite of all the obstacles the Communist Party tried to correct its errors and push forward. At a special conference held in February 1931, the party cadres analyzed the situation in the light of recommendations made by the executive committee of the Comintern. This was their evaluation:
“... we have no contact with workers in the factories and our activity is limited to the organizing of demonstrations and meetings. Our agitation and propaganda are too abstract and pass over the heads of the workers . . . The workers see us not as a unified organization but as parts of an organization. There is too much emphasis put on work with ethnic minorities. Our party still lacks collective leadership. . .”[15]
Given this situation the executive committee of the International outlined the following priorities for the Canadian party:
“. . . the principal task consists in assuming the leadership of often spontaneous mass actions (strikes, unemployed movements, etc.) and providing leadership in these actions while relating them to the political struggle. . . ”[16]
According to the Comintern the CP had to break with its previous work methods which had been too limited to agitation and propaganda. It has to fully enter into the struggle. The priority in regard to organizational tasks remained the building of the Workers Unity League as a revolutionary mass organization. In the context of building the League, another priority emerged: the movement of unemployed workers.
In order to realize its goals the communist party had to reorganize. Centralized leadership had to put an end to all forms of sectional autonomy. Communist cells located in factories and neighbourhoods had to constitute the base of the party and be coordinated at the regional level. Mass organizations (unions, ethnic groups, woman’s groups, etc.) had to be led in a centralized fashion by cells of communists. In short, the party had to reorganize itself in order to become a tool for leading and organizing workers struggles. But certain questions were not really dealt with: the question of political education[17] and the analysis of the Canadian reality. From this point on the Communist party became a party of mass struggle. Its political level, however, still remained very low and they had no political strategy adapted to the national reality.
While the unions of the TLC and the “Pan-Canadian Congress of Labour”[18] (which mainly represented the railworkers) were passive in the face of the crisis (not to mention the straight-forward bootlicking of the CTCC in Quebec) the communists were showing that it was possible to gain important union and economic victories. In fact, even though it had a membership of only about 50,000 workers because of repression and the bosses policy of refusing to recognize progressive unions, the League was becoming the union federation with the most presence in the struggle. As a result the international business unions were isolated from the most militant workers struggles. Because of their perseverance and their organization at the rank and file level, the unions in the League were able to prove that it was possible to win even during a crisis. Some of these struggles were of epic proportions. For example, the miners of Estevan (Saskatchewan) went on strike in September 1931 demanding higher wages and union recognition. Although at first confined to only a few mines, this struggle soon spread throughout the area until it included several hundred miners. In a pitched battle with the local police 3 miners were killed and several dozen wounded.
The Workers Unity League along with the Workers Defence League (an organization formed to mobilize against repression) launched a country-wide campaign against the murderers of the miners. The leaders of the anti-repression campaign were arrested in turn and accused of seditious conspiracy. After many months of trials and negotiations, the end result was a partial victory for the miners, although about a dozen of them suffered prison sentences and/or deportations.
Organizing campaigns by the League grew among workers in the lumber, mining (e.g. the famous strike at Noranda in 1933) automobile and electrical products industries. In Montreal, textile workers organized industrial unions affiliated with the League. In 1934, they led a two month strike, several times confronting the police in the streets of the city.[19] Furniture workers in the Stratford, Ontario area[20] went on strike in September 1933 under the leadership of a union affiliated to the League. Confronted with the militancy of the workers, the bosses, one of whom was a member of the provincial government, brought in the army and surrounded the workers with troops and armoured cars. This repression inspired a solidarity movement among workers in other factories in the area and sympathy strikes took place. The final outcome of this struggle was another partial victory for the strikers. On the union front the militants of the Workers Unity League made some important breakthroughs. Their work laid the groundwork for building the major industrial unions which would come into being during the second half of the 30’s.
It was also during this period that the many battles of the unemployed developed under the leadership of the Councils of the Unemployed affiliated with the Workers Unity League. Young workers were particularly hard hit by unemployment. With the purpose of preventing any movement of dissent among these workers the conservative government organized a kind of work camp where they were paid 20 cents a day for their labour and housed and fed under particularly poor living conditions. The communists organized in these camps for the unemployed. At the end of 1931 they set in motion a strike of the unemployed in Western Canada. The unemployed left the camps to form into a demonstration intending to march across the country to present their demands in Ottawa. The size of this movement (which involved several hundred unemployed) and the solidarity of the people (who welcomed them with receptions and support demonstrations in each city along the course of the march) forced the bourgeoisie to suppress it.[21] Arriving in Winnipeg by train, they were met by the RCMP who shot into their midst, wounding several of them and causing a general panic. Because of this the great Trek to Ottawa was discontinued but the movement of unemployed workers continued to grow. At the same time the League’s campaign for an unemployment insurance scheme was gathering momentum, forcing the TLC unions and several liberal MP’s to endorse the demands of the WUL.
In June 1934, following a campaign for their freedom, the party leaders were freed after more than 3 years in jail. The party was fighting for legal recognition and had in effect won it.
During these years the party became more of a political force as well. The Older bourgeois parties were losing ground and new reformist or populist parties were created (social credit, etc.) In 1932, some cooperatives, union locals and different reformist groups united to form the CCF, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, which began by building a base in Western Canada and soon after became a force on the national level. After analyzing these new developments, the communists tried to ally themselves at different levels with these reformist forces at work among the masses. At the beginning of 1935, the party proposed an electoral alliance with the CCF. The leadership refused but the alliance took place in practice at the rank and file level in the various local election committees. At this time, the party put forward a program which reflected the fact that it was close to the mass struggles. The program emphasized popular demands like an unemployment insurance scheme, the abolition of the work camps, aid to small farmers, the abolition of property seizures for payment of debts and the legal recognition of unions. The program also included demands of a political nature like the lifting the ban on the Party, the freeing of political prisoners, a halt to preparations for war, and the establishing of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
Because of the campaign of repression, the communists’share of the vote was small (25,000 votes)[22]. But the political impact of the party was larger than the vote indicated. The party was mobilizing the most advanced and militant elements of the masses, those who led the day to day struggles, organized the unions and led the struggles of the youth and the unemployed. The party was integrated into the struggle of the masses.
From a party of agitation and propaganda around economic struggles, the Communist Party of Canada became a real force in the organization of the economic and union struggles of the masses. It is estimated for example that during this difficult period economic crisis, 90% of all strikes were led by the unions of the WUL.
However, it became apparent that there was a serious deviation developing in the party. This was the result once again of the low political level of the party and its leadership, the lack political strategy and the lack of importance put on political education. This economist deviation led militants to see their tasks in practice as almost exclusively centered on economic and union struggles. According to some militants the economic struggle would automatically flow into the political struggle at a given moment when the unions and other mass organizations of the workers had become stronger. In this context, the political tasks of formation and education, propaganda and agitation lose their real importance. This deviation also had some consequences at the party level. For all intents and purposes the party cadre were a group of extremely militant unionists unable to work in the reactionary unions and left with only the WUL and the party as possible frameworks for struggle. Nevertheless it would be an exaggeration to say that the CP had become a kind of militant union. There was still a minimum of political work done (e.g., the explanation of the role of capitalism and the state, the necessity of socialism, etc.) But these political lessons were drawn from a practice which was too spontaneous and economist and did not lead to a real effort to turn the advanced elements of the masses into politically developed revolutionary militants. For example, throughout this period the party had no theoretical organ. Militants read only the classics or publications of the Comintern. There was no party school for educating cadres. All this work was being done, but locally, and on a small scale. For example, the party sent to Quebec a young student from Toronto who had studied in Paris to become a party leader. This person was supposed to provide the political framework for the work of a whole communist organization! So even though the level of participation in mass struggles was growing, this process was happening on the political level. The party now had about 15,000 members, but members who lacked any real communist political training.
The role of the leadership reflected this situation. It can be said without too great an exaggeration that the party had no real leadership in the sense of a group of militants capable of outlining strategy and tactics in relation to an overall analysis of national and international reality. Instead the party leadership tailed after the international communist movement, especially the Communist Party of the U.S. whose victories and successes w regarded here with unquestioning admiration. Several Canadian militants admitted in later years that they had ignored the publications of the Canadian CP and preferred to read the journal the American party to gain an overall political view. These mistakes were accentuated in the following period. In our opinion they were the main cause of the degeneration and disintegration of the CP after the war.
[1] This law dates from 1919. It was originally meant to deal with war deserters and other “subversives”. Many militant workers and socialists were imprisoned under this law, first during the first world war, then again in 1941, and finally in Quebec in October 1970.
[2] See Mob. Vol. 3 No. 7 “La greve general de Winnipeg”.
3] Lenin’s analysis was as follows: [missing text – MIA]
[4] See “le Mouvement ouvrier americain” in Mobilisation, 1974, Vol. 3 No. 4 and 5.
[5] This tactic was incorrect in the context of the initial stages of communist movement in Canada and the U.S. However this does not mean that the same tactic is incorrect today and that it is therefore necessary to fight for dissafiliation from the international unions.
[6] Their position on Quebec was never really clear. Even if the right to self-determination had been recognized fairly early, it was done in a very abstract and academic fashion. It is true that we still have to clarify just what the correct position on Quebec should be. But it is clear that the CP paid little attention to the question and in practice it made no effort to develop a plan of action for Quebec.
[7] This organization had been set up first in the U.S. by the American CP. Although in the beginning the Trade Union Educational League in Canada was something of a branch of the American organization, this relationship was only theoretical and the League was completely autonomous.
[8] The dissolving of their organizations was required of socialist groups and organizations. However, certain mass based ethnic organizations which had previously been affiliated to the party did not disband. They were simply not allowed to enter the party as organizations.
[9] This sadly notorious figure became one of the main advisors to the leaders of the AFL on the question of repression of communists, after his expulsion from the CP.
[10] In the United States unemployment affected more than 17 million workers.
[11] The CP strongly denied that with the formation of he Workers Unity League it had fallen into the “dual” unionism criticized during the previous period. The party explained the change in union work by the necessity to undertake the organization of large industries, which had been rejected by the TLC. There they had to have the necessary framework for doing this and that meant a union center. Still, as indicated by the WUL program, the party also struggled for “inter-union solidarity” which meant the affiliation of the League unions with the TLC.
[12] During this period, in the States, the Trade Union Educational League became the Trade Union Unity League for similar reasons.
[13] Tim Buck, J. Boychyvk, M. Bruce, S. Carr, T. Hill, T. McEwen and M. Popvitch.
[14] While he was imprisoned in Kingston, Ontario, Buck became involved in a prisoner’s rebellion against the atrocious living conditions of the prison. He was accused of “inciting a riot” but was acquitted after exposing the schemes of the prison guards to kill him.
[15] Resolution of Enlarged Plenum of Communist Party of Canada, 1931.
[16] Resolutions of the Comintern on the conditions and tasks of the Communist Party of Canada, February 1931.
[17] The instructions of the Comintern to “bolshevize” the CP were really only applied at the level of form rather than content. The reorganization into cells did not raise the party’s political level because the activity of the cells was mainly in the union and economic sphere.
[18] This center was formed of unions expelled from the TLC in 1927 for demanding the formation of industrial unions. It joined the Canadian branch of the CIO in 1946.
[19] On this subject refer to Dans le summed de nos os by Evelyn Dumas.
[20] Refer to “On Strike” by Irving Abella, an anthology of accounts of 6 strikes in Canada between 1919 and 1949.
[21] The unemployed commandeered the trains that carried them from city to city. For this reason it was the CNR and CPR who convinced the government to stop this dangerous march.
[22] Indirectly the communists supported the victory of the liberals under McKenzie King.