Full bibliography

At the end of the nineteenth century, the socialist movement in Canada began a campaign to create national political organizations and to forge links with the working class, The strongest of these organizations was the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), which elected several provincial deputies in the West after 1903, and won the affiliation of a number of unions, above all District 18 of the United Mine Workers of America. This article analyzes the socialist project in the coal mining regions of Alberta and British Columbia, 1900-20. Here, mining conditions provoked long and hard working-class struggles, such as the violent strike of non-union miners on Vancouver Island in 1912-4, or the general strike of miners in the Crow's Nest Pass in 1919. Socialist politics had the sympathy of the militants but more importantly, of the mass of electors in these regions. Contrary to the mythology of the frontier, the majority of working-class socialists comprised stable industrial communities. And the Marxist programme of the SPC offered an alternative to each of the great ethnic blocks in the coalfields: European immigrants on the one hand, and English-speaking workers on the other. Be that as it may, the socialists suffered a decisive defeat after 1914. The historical juncture of 1919 created new marching orders for the miners: towards the Communist Party, or the "reformist" socialism of the CCF.