Canadian Communism: The Stalin Years and Beyond"Canadian Communism is an original and scholarly history of the Communist Party of Canada (1921-1981). This work puts the Party into an international setting and compares it with similar movements in Great Britain, the United States, and France. The CPC was organized by Canadian socialists influenced by the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and its leader Vladimir Lenin. They decided to become a section of the newly formed Communist International and to follow its guidelines. But the rise to power of Joseph Stalin, after the death of Lenin in 1924, changed the outlook and tactics of the Communist International and its affiliates. Penner traces the specific way these changes affected the CPC at every important stage in Canadian and world events. He shows how the frequent battles within the Party, and especially among the leaders, were in response to directives from the Communist International or the Soviet party. Penner credits the Canadian Communists with contributing to the building of the trade union movement, with assistance to the unemployed during the thirties, and with helping Spain's democratic government fight the fascists during the civil war. These activities, often undertaken in the face of state repression, resulted in the emergence of such popular figures as Tim Buck, Norman Bethune, Jacob Penner, J. B. Salsberg, A. A. MacLeod, and Dorise Nielsen. Penner presents a new evaluation of the Canadian Communists' tactics, the popular front, the alliance with the Liberals in the trade union movement, and the bitter conflict with the CCF. He describes the year-long debate within the Party over the Khrushchev revelations about the brutal nature of Stalin's rule, a debate that split all the Communist parties in the West and from which they have never recovered. Norman Penner has drawn the material for his book from major Canadian archives, as well as public and private collections in Britain and the U.S. He has talked with Communists and ex-Communists in all three countries and has also drawn from his own material and recollections." -- |
Contents
The TwoParty System | 44 |
The End of the Beginning 19241929 | 70 |
The United Front of the Communist | 97 |
Copyright | |
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affiliation American Communist Britain British Browder Buck Buck's Canadian Communists Canadian Labour Canadian Party Canadian Tribune capitalist Central Committee Comintern Communism Communist International Communist movement Communist Party countries CPSU debate declared delegates democracy Duclos elected Executive Committee fascism federal fight Fred Rose French Hitler Ibid issue J. B. Salsberg J. S. Woodsworth Kashtan Khrushchev Labour Party leaders leadership Lenin Leslie Morris Liberal Mackenzie King Marxism-Leninism Marxist mass Maurice Spector ment Montreal Moscow munist Party Norman Penner Ontario organizations Party of Canada Party's political popular front Progress Books provincial Quebec resolution revolutionary Russian Sam Carr Seventh Congress social democrats Socialist Party Soviet Party Soviet Union speech Stalin Stanley Ryerson Stewart Smith struggle Supra note tactics Tim Buck tion tional Toronto trade union TUEL Twentieth Congress Ukrainian united front Unity League victory votes Winnipeg Woodsworth Workers