Communist Party of Canada From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Communist Party of Canada Active Federal Party Founded May 1921 Leader Miguel Figueroa President Miguel Figueroa Headquarters 300 - 279 Laurier Avenue West Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5J9 Political ideology Communism International alignment Solidarity Network Colours Red, Yellow Website http://www.communist-party.ca/ The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. It is a minor political party without elected representation at present in either the federal Parliament or in any provincial legislature. Contents [hide] • 1 History o 1.1 Origins o 1.2 Expulsion of factions o 1.3 Great Depression o 1.4 Labour-Progressive Party o 1.5 Collapse of the Soviet bloc and party split o 1.6 Reconstituted party o 1.7 2005 split • 2 General Secretaries of the CPC • 3 Central Executive Committee • 4 Election results o 4.1 By-elections • 5 See also • 6 External links [edit] History [edit] Origins The Communist Party 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 party 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. [edit] Expulsion of factions 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 factionalism, and was ultimately expelled with the support of the majority of party members. MacDonald was also a Trotskyist and joined Spector in founding the International Left Opposition (Trotskyist) Canada, which was part of 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. [edit] Great Depression In 1931, eight of the CPC's leaders were arrested and imprisoned under Section 98 of Canada's Criminal Code. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, 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 unionize 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. 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 Member of Parliament (MP) was Dorise Nielson. Nielson was elected in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1940 under the popular front Progressive Unity label. [edit] Labour-Progressive Party The party was banned in 1941, and thereafter 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 as an LPP MP, and was then revealed as a Soviet spy by Igor Gouzenko. • Mary Kardash and William Ross were LPP and then Communist school trustees in Winnipeg • Jacob Penner and Joseph Zuken were popular aldermen in Winnipeg. Zuken was an LPP school trustee before succeeding Penner on city council by which time the LPP had changed its name back to the Communist Party. • W. A. Kardash and James Litterick were Manitoba LPP Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs). • A.A. MacLeod and J.B. Salsberg were LPP members of the Ontario legislature. • Stanley Brehaut Ryerson and Stewart Smith were LPP Toronto aldermen. • Harry Rankin sat on Vancouver's city council on behalf of the Committee of Progressive Electors which he helped found in the late 1960s. 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 New Democratic Party (NDP). Some joined the Liberals. The Soviet Union's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia caused more people to leave the Canadian Communist Party. [edit] Collapse of the Soviet bloc and party split In common with most communist parties, it went through a crisis after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequently split. The reformist group led by George Hewison, which held a narrow majority on the Central Committee, argued for the reorientation of the party away from the official doctrine of Marxism-Leninism. The minority group on the CC, led by Miguel Figueroa, Elizabeth Rowley, and former leader William Kashtan resisted and, after being defeated at the party's 1990 convention and expelled from the party, took the CPC to court. Owing to the inner-party conflict, membership of the party fell by half, leaving it with several hundred members. As a result of an out-of-court settlement, the Hewison faction left the Communist Party in 1992, and the Marxist-Leninist forces, led by Miguel Figueroa and Elizabeth Rowley assumed the "Communist Party of Canada" name. The former Communists retained the Cecil-Ross Society as a political foundation to continue their political efforts. They also sold off the party's headquarters at 24 Cecil Street, having earlier liquidated various party-related business such as Eveready Printers (the party printshop) and Progress Publishers. The name of the Cecil-Ross Society comes from the intersection of Cecil Street and Ross Street in Toronto where the headquarters of the party was located. The Cecil-Ross Society took with it the rights to the Canadian Tribune, which had been the party's weekly newspaper for decades, as well as roughly half of the party's assets. 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 Young Communist League ceased to function at this point as most of its members either left with the majority or dropped out. [edit] Reconstituted party The minority reconstituted itself as the official Communist Party of Canada but had 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 victory 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 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". The CPC is active in several trade unions, particularly the Canadian Union of Public Employees and various buildings and trades unions. They have also been active in the movement against the war in Iraq. A conference was held in 2004 to strike a preparatory committee to refound the Young Communist League of Canada. [edit] 2005 split In 2005, the Parti communiste du Québec split into two rival groups, both of which claim to represent the party.