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In the early twentieth century, the Canadian Lakehead was known as a breeding ground for revolution, a place where harsh conditions in dockyards, lumber mills, and railway yards drove immigrants into radical labour politics. This intensely engaging history reasserts Northwestern Ontario's rightful reputation as a birthplace of leftism in Canada by exposing the conditions that gave rise to an array of left-wing organizations, including the Communist Party, the One Big Union, and the Industrial Workers of the World. Yet, as Michel Beaulieu shows, the circumstances and actions of Lakehead labour, especially those related to ideology, ethnicity, and personality were complex; they simultaneously empowered and fettered workers in their struggles against the shackles of capitalism. Cultural ties helped bring left-wing ideas to Canada but, as each group developed a distinctive vocabulary of socialism, Anglo-Celtic workers defended their privileges against Finns, Ukrainians, and Italians. At the Lakehead, ethnic difference often outweighed class solidarity - at the cost of a stronger labour movement for Canada. --Publisher's description. Contents: Part 1. The Roots of Revolution?: 1. Early socialist organizations at the Lakehead, 1900-14; 2. Repression, revitalization, and revolutions, 1914-18 -- Part 2. From Winnipeg to the Workers' Unity League: 3. "The Hog Only Harms Himself if He Topples His Trough": The one big union, 1919-22; 4. "Into the Masses!": The Communist Party of Canada at the Lakehead, 1922-25; 5. Bolshevization and the reorganization of the Lakehead Left, 1925-27; 6. Turning to the left, 1928-30 -- Part 3. The Great Depression and the Third Period: 7. "Class against Class": socialist activities, 1930-32; 8. Wobbly relations: The Communist Party of Canada, the Industrial Workers of the World, and the Lakehead, 1932-35.
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During the last two days of December in 1911 the Finnish Labour Temple in Port Arthur, Ontario, was the scene of one of the most significant events in both Canadian and regional political history before the First World War. Chosen for its geographic position, the temple hosted a pan-national gathering of socialists who, in an attempt to unite the Canadian left, established Canada’s first social democratic party, the Social Democratic Party of Canada (SDPC). The goal of the SDPC was to educate the workers of Canada to consciousness of their class position in society, their economic servitude to the owners of capital, and to organize them into a political party to seize the reins of government and transform all capitalist property into the collective property of the working class. Its activity during the next decade would have a profound influence on both the various manifestations of socialism regionally and nationally over the next century and on mainstream Canadian social politics. However, the hundredth anniversary of its establishment has gone unnoticed by political and labour historians. Part of the reason rests with the simply fact that, although many works mention and even briefly discuss the SDPC, no full-length study has yet been written. In an attempt to rectify this situation, this paper provides an overview of its actions and activities at the Lakehead,between 1911 and 1918. --Introduction
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