Canadian Communist Party - Definition and Overview

The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada.

History

The CPC was organized with great secrecy in a barn near the city of Guelph, Ontario, in May 1921. Many of its founding members had belonged to groups such as the Socialist Party of Canada, One Big Union, the Socialist Labor Party, the Industrial Workers of the World, and other socialist, Marxist or Labour parties or clubs. The party was founded as the Canadian section of the Comintern, and was thus similar to Communist parties around the world.

The CPC alternated between legality and illegality during the 1920s and 1930s. It was initially illegal, and created the Workers' Party of Canada in 1922 as its public face. The CPC was legalized in 1924, and the Workers' Party ceased to exist.

In 1922-24, the provincial wings of the WPC/CPC affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party, as part of a "united front" strategy against the capitalist classes. The CPC came to dominate the CLP organization in several regions of the country; the CLP itself, however, never became an effective national organization. The Communists withdrew from the CLP in 1928-29, following a shift in Comintern policy.

In 1931, eight of the CPC's leaders were arrested and imprisoned in under Section 98 of Canada's Criminal Code. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harrassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1936.

Although the party was banned, affiliated groups such as the Workers' Unity League, the Relief Camp Workers Union, and the National Unemployed Workers Association played a significant role in organizing the unskilled and the unemployed in protest marches and demonstrations and campaigns such as the On to Ottawa Trek. Party members were also active in the Congress of Industrial Organizations attempt to unionise the auto sector.

The party also mobilised the 1,500-man Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to fight in the Spanish Civil War as part of the International Brigade. Among the leading Canadian Communists involved in that effort was Dr. Norman Bethune, who is known for his work with the Chinese Communist Party.

From 1928 to the mid-1930s, supporters of Leon Trotsky, such as Maurice Spector, the editor of the party's paper The Worker and party chairman, were expelled. Jack MacDonald, who had supported Spector's expulsion, was removed as the party's general secretary for not supporting the Stalinist position, and was ultitmately expelled. MacDonald later became a Trotskyist and joined Spector in founding the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) Canada, which was part of the Trotsky's International Left Opposition. Also expelled were supporters of Nikolai Bukharin and Jay Lovestone's Right Opposition, such as William Moriarty. J.B. Salsberg was initially sympathetic to the Right Opposition but quickly recanted, allowing him to remain in the party.

Tim Buck replaced MacDonald as party general secretary in 1929, and remained in the position until 1962, steering a course of unswerving loyalty to the leaders of the Soviet Union.

The Communist Party opposed Canada's entry into World War II until the 1941 invasion of the USSR and the collapse of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. During the Conscription Crisis of 1944, the CPC set up "Tim Buck Committees" across the country to campaign for a "yes" vote in the national referendum on conscription.

The party's first elected MP was Dorise Nielson. Nielson was elected in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1940 under the popular front Progressive Unity label.

The party was banned in 1941, and henceforth ran candidates as the Labour-Progressive Party until 1959. Several party members were elected at various levels:

• Fred Rose was elected to represent a Montreal riding in the Canadian House of Commons.
• Mary Kardash and William Ross were school trustees in Winnipeg
• Jacob Penner and Joseph Zuken were popular aldermen in Winnipeg.
• W. A. Kardash and James Litterick were Manitoba MLAs.
• A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg were members of the Ontario legislature.
• Stanley Brehaut Ryerson and Stewart Smith were Toronto aldermen.
• Harry Rankin sat on Vancouver's city council on behalf of the Committee of Progressive Electors which he helped found. Though not officially a Communist Party member he was a supporter of the party and a member in all but name.

Nikita Khrushchev's 1956 Secret Speech exposing the crimes of Josef Stalin and the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary shook the faith of many Communists around the world. Many, perhaps most, members of the Canadian party left, including a number of prominent party members. Many ex-Communists joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its successor the NDP. Some joined the Liberals. The USSR's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party.

In common with most communist parties, it went through a crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequently split. The pro-reform majority formally dissolved the Communist Party in 1991 and created the Cecil-Ross Society as a political foundation to continue its efforts. (The name comes from the intersection of Cecil Street and Ross Street in Toronto where the headquarters of the party was located.) The orthodox minority faction refused to accept the dissolution of the party and relaunched itself as the Communist Party of Canada in 1992. However the pro-reform majority took possession of the Canadian Tribune, which had been the party's weekly newspaper for decades, as well as most of the party's property, such as its headquarters at 24 Cecil Street in Toronto. The Cecil-Ross Society ended publication of the Canadian Tribune and attempted to launch a new broad-left magazine, New Times which failed after several issues and then Ginger which only published twice.

The reconstituted Communist Party operated by the old CP minority was deregistered and its assets seized by Elections Canada when it failed to run more than fifty candidates in the 1993 general election. The party launched a legal challenge that went to the Supreme Court of Canada (Figueroa vs. Canada; named for the current party leader Miguel Figueroa). With lawyer Peter Rosenthal representing the CPC, The Supreme Court of Canada ruled the law (originally put in place by the Mulroney government) as unconstitutional. This vicory was celebrated by many of the other small parties - regardless of political differences - on the principle that it was a victory for the people's right to democratic choice.

The CPC publishes a fortnightly newspaper called The People's Voice.

The Communist Party is one of two Communist parties in Canada, the other is the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). The CPC-ML was founded in 1963 as the Internationalists, an anti-revisionist Maoist party rejecting the reforms of Nikita Khrushchev. Today, the CPC-ML is known during elections as the Marxist-Leninist Party, and functions as a Stalinist party.

General Secretaries of the CPC

• Jack MacDonald 1921-1929
• Tim Buck 1929-1962
• Leslie Morris 1962-1964
• William Kashtan 1965-1988
• George Hewison 1988-1991
• Miguel Figueroa since 1992

Election results

By-elections

The party has also nominated candidates in numerous by-elections:

1943**: 1

1947**: 1

1949**: 2

1950**: 2

1954**: 5

1955**: 1

1958**: 1

1977: 5

1978: 5

(*) A ninth candidate, Dorise Nielson was a member of the Communist Party but ran and was elected as a Progressive Unity candidate.

(**) The Communist Party was banned in 1941. From 1943 until 1959 they ran candidates under the name Labour Progressive Party.

(***) In 1972 the party ran its candidates as independents. It is unknown how many party members ran in that election.

(****) The party failed to register at least 50 candidates in time for the 1993 election. As a result the party was deregistered and its candidates ran as independents. Party status was not regained until prior to the 2000 general election. It is unknown how many party members ran in the 1993 and 1997 elections as independents.

See also

• Communist Party of Ontario
• Communist Party of Canada - Manitoba
• Communist Party of Canada (Saskatchewan)
• Labour Progressive Party of Canada
• Liberal-Labour
• List of political parties in Canada
• Jack Kavanagh
• Norman Bethune
• James Gareth Endicott

External links

• Communist Party of Canada (http://www.communist-party.ca/)
• Communist Party of Canada history (http://www.communist-party.ca/archive/History/index.html)
• Maurice Spector on the founding of the Workers Party of Canada, 1922 (http://www.socialisthistory.ca/Docs/Leninist/WPC_Founding_22.htm)

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