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The Canadian labour revolt was about more than wages and working conditions. The year 1919 was also a moment of socialist possibility in which the Russian Revolution and the influence of Marx and Engels fuelled the revolutionary intent of a radicalizing Canadian working class. The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat, long since lost in the shadow of Stalin’s terror, fuelled this moment of socialist possibility. The longing for a workers’ state was a nation-wide phenomenon, but it manifested itself more deeply and broadly in western Canada than in the east. West of the Great Lakes, the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat was hotly debated in the pages of socialist papers and in the halls of the labour movement. Knowledge of the debate concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat provides a more complete understanding of the labour revolt of 1919 and its legacy for Canadian history and the international left.
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Members of the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) played a prominent role in the labour revolt of 1919, the One Big Union, and the Winnipeg General Strike. The “failure” of all three has led labour historians to focus on the inability of the party to connect with Canadian workers, an inability fuelled by dogmatism, “impossibilism,” and the exclusion of women and workers of colour. This article turns this approach on its head, pointing out that these events have been unequalled in Canadian history, and seeks to explain why this should be so. It challenges the perception of the party as being wed to evolutionary thinking that caused its members to wait around for the revolution to happen. Instead, it reveals the powerful influence of the dialectical method developed by G. W. F. Hegel; its focus on human action was the philosophical underpinning of the spc’s relentless attack on the wage system and the capitalist system’s commodification of labour power. Far from being “metaphysical” or “otherworldly,” the SPC’s insistence that workers must gain control of the product of their own labour spoke directly to them, including women and workers of colour. In the creation of the One Big Union, in the solidarity of the Winnipeg General Strike, and in the promise of the labour revolt of 1919, we find the legacy of a party committed to workers rising up.
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Feminism and the political left come to life in this account of an important early twentieth-century social activist. The political movements and social causes of the turbulent 1920s and 30s are brought to life in this study of the work and times of feminist, socialist, and peace activist Rose Henderson (1871-1937). Her commitment to social justice led to frequent monitoring and repression by the authorities but her contributions to activist thought continue to pose challenges for interpretations of the history of Canada, leftism, labour, and women. In the first biography of Henderson, Peter Campbell provides a broader vision and deeper analysis of the period, drawing together the history of labour and of women's movements in French and English Canada, as well as the rise of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and its relationship with the Communist Party. Through analysis of Henderson's ground-breaking ideology Campbell shows that in the interwar years she and her comrades developed a distinctive feminism that differs from that of the first and second waves of feminist thought. A fresh look at the turmoil of the early twentieth century from an eye in the storm, Rose Henderson: A Woman for the People brings well-deserved attention to an influential feminist and leftist. --Publisher's description.
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The article reviews the book, "Strike! The Radical Insurrections of Ellen Dawson," by David Lee McMullen.
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The triumphs and failures of four Canadian Marxists who advocated organization and education rather than armed struggle in the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the creation of socialism. Literature on Marxist socialists in Canada has usually been written by those within the social democratic or Marxist-Leninist traditions and has generally failed to break free of the political biases of the defenders of these traditions. Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way steps outside these approaches to appraise early Canadian Marxists on their own terms. Peter Campbell argues that their Marxism was a changing and evolving product of their intellectual development and day-to-day interaction with the Canadian working class. It was a dynamic, theoretical system that provided a "third way" to look at Marxism, a revolutionary socialism that rejected violence in favour of the broadest organization and education of the working-class majority. Focusing on four individuals, Canadian Marxists and the Search for a Third Way describes the lives and ideas of Ernest Winch, Bill Pritchard, Bob Russell, and Arthur Mould and examines their efforts to put their ideas into practice. Campbell begins by looking at their childhoods in Great Britain, particularly their religious upbringing. He considers their family life, their attitudes toward women and ethnic minorities, what they were reading, and what effect that reading had on their theory and practice. He describes their lives as labor leaders and advocates of socialism, revealing how tenaciously, in an increasingly hierarchical, bureaucratized, and state-driven capitalist society, they held to the idea that socialism must be created by the working class itself. This is a unique look at four Canadian Marxists and their struggle to create an educated, disciplined, democratic, mass-based movement for revolutionary change. --Publisher's description
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