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Ontario History

‘No Sense of Reality’ George A. Drew’s Anti-Communist Tour of the USSR and the Campaign for Coalition Government in , 1937 Kirk Niergarth

Volume 107, Number 2, Fall 2015 Article abstract In 1936 George Drew, future , was greatly concerned that a URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1050636ar false and very dangerous impression of the Russian experiment in government DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1050636ar was being spread in Ontario. So he traveled to Russia in 1937 where he confirmed his preconceived ideas with first-hand observation. For him, See table of contents toleration of domestic communism could lead either to the horrors of Stalin’s USSR or to the fascism of Hitler or Mussolini. Canada’s best option, he felt, was to follow Britain in ending partisan politics and establishing a “National Publisher(s) Government.” Thus, in the 1930s, he worked, unsuccessfully, to create coalition governments in and Ottawa. This article concludes that the lens The Ontario Historical Society through which Drew viewed the USSR can be reversed to gain insight into the Canadian political culture of which he was a part. The right-wing solutions that ISSN Drew advocated were conveyed to the public through international comparison and analogy based on Drew’s eye-witness account of his European 0030-2953 (print) tour. 2371-4654 (digital)

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Cite this article Niergarth, K. (2015). ‘No Sense of Reality’: George A. Drew’s Anti-Communist Tour of the USSR and the Campaign for Coalition Government in Ontario, 1937. Ontario History, 107(2), 213–239. https://doi.org/10.7202/1050636ar

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This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 213 ‘No Sense of Reality’ George A. Drew’s Anti- Communist Tour of the USSR and the Campaign for Coalition Government in Ontario, 1937

by Kirk Niergarth

hen George Drew returned for historians what Drew actually saw in from the Soviet Union in the Soviet Union may be less signicant 1937, he pledged to tell Ca- than what he said he had seen. Wnadians the truth about the reality of Drew’s travelogue, which was given a conditions in the USSR. In the context great deal of space and attention in the of tours of the Soviet Union in the 1930s, press, used international circumstances, however, “reality” and “truth” were oat- comparisons, and analogies to advocate ing signiers. Hindsight has revealed that for right-wing policies in Canada. In the substance of George Drew’s eyewit- Drew’s eyes, the Soviet Union was the ness critique of Stalin’s USSR was sub- greatest threat to world peace: Canada stantially correct. Yet, as we shall see, the should re-arm to support Great Britain, then-future premier of Ontario’s reports which might be wise to ally with fascist about his tour are in several respects less Italy and Germany to resist the Soviet creditable than those of more sympa- menace. Domestically, unchecked com- thetic travellers, who, we can see in retro- munism endangered Canadian liberties. spect, conveyed fundamentally mistaken To meet this threat, inspired by Britain’s ideas about life in the Soviet Union. Is “National Government,” Drew advo- accurately describing an illusory experi- cated the merger of Ontario’s Conserva- ence more honest than dissembling to tive and Liberal parties. Parliamentary describe something true? Moral philoso- democracy would be preserved by turn- phers might pause over this question, but ing Ontario, essentially, into a one-party

Ontario History / Volume CVII, No. 2 / Autumn 2015

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Abstract In 1936 George Drew, future Premier of Ontario, was greatly concerned that a false and very dangerous impression of the Russian experiment in go ernment was being spread in Ontario. So he traveled to Russia in 1937 where he conrmed his preconceived ideas with rst-hand observation. For him, toleration of domestic communism could lead either to the horrors of Stalin’s USSR or to the fascism of Hitler or Mussolini. Canada’s best option, he felt, was to follow Britain in ending partisan politics and establishing a “National Go ernment.” us, in the 1930s, he worked, unsuccessfully, to create coalition go ernments in Toronto and Ottawa. is article concludes that the lens through which Drew viewed the USSR can be reversed to gain insight into the Canadian political culture of which he was a part. e right-wing solutions that Drew advocated were con eyed to the public through interna- tional comparison and analogy based on Drew’s eye-witness account of his European tour.

Résumé: En 1936, bien avant de devenir premier ministre de l’Ontario, George Drew était fort préoccupé par le sentiment qui se répandait en Ontario en ers le système expérimen- tal du gouvernement russe. Craignant la fausseté et les dangers potentiels de cette idéologie, il eectua, en 1937, un oyage en Russie, lors duquel il conrma ses appréhensions. Selon lui, la tolérance du communisme domestique pouvait mener soit aux horreurs de l’URSS de Staline, soit au fascisme d’Hitler et de Mussolini. La meilleure option pour le Canada était d’imiter la Grande-Bretagne et de mettre n aux politiques partisanes pour établir un « gouvernement national ». Il tenta donc, à la n des années 30, de créer un gouvernement de coalition à Toronto et à Ottawa, mais sans succès. Les solutions de droite de Drew étaient transmises au public par les comparaisons et les analogies internationales basées sur sa pro- pre expérience lors de sa tournée européenne. Cet article conclut qu’en examinant l’attitude de Drew en ers L’URSS, il est possible de mieux comprendre le climat politique canadien auquel il appartenait.

state. Ottawa might then follow suit. If to create coalition governments feder- eliminating competition between politi- ally and provincially.1 As part of this cal parties seems, from the perspective of campaign, Drew’s travelogue re ected the present, a strange way to oppose Sta- political ideas he had developed before linist Communism, Drew was far from he departed on his trip. For Drew, as it the only proponent of the idea. In the was for many western visitors, a visit to 1930s, he was only one of a number of the USSR only amplied but did not al- in uential political and business leaders ter the ideological trajectory of a political who actively, if unsuccessfully, worked journey begun at home. e lens through

1 is campaign gathered momentum in 1934, driven principally by Edward Beatty of the CPR, but was closest to achieving success in Ontario in 1937. See Don Nerbas, Dominion of Capital: e Politics of Big Business and the Crisis of the Canadian Bourgeoisie, 1914-1947 (Toronto: Press, 2013): 105-106, 135-47, 196-98. See also, John T. Saywell, ‘Just Call Me Mitch’: e Life of Mitchell F. Hepburn (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991), 329-32, 341-43.

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which Drew viewed the Soviet Union al Organization [CIO] gained members can be reversed to gain insight into the in Ontario. He urged authorities to “take Canadian political culture of which he an uncompromising stand against the was a part. inroads of an organization which is an What led a conservative, anti-com- exact counterpart of the Soviet in Russia munist such as George Drew to visit the and is directed by men who have actually USSR? In 1930s Canada, the Soviet Un- gone to Russia to study their organiza- ion was the subject of much debate, a de- tion methods.”3 In July 1937, Drew de- bate in which those who had visited the cided to undertake his own travel study USSR spoke with special authority. e in the USSR. Apparently, his experience success or failure of communism in the matched his expectations perfectly and USSR mattered to both those on the Le completely. He returned having wit- and on the Right for reasons less connect- nessed rsthand the failure of the Soviet ed to international relations than to do- experiment. “In a nutshell,” he wrote to a mestic political possibilities. What rami- friend, “I doubt if ever since Man le the cations did the Soviet experience—in cave state has civilization been reduced terms, for example, of state planning, so- to such an appalling condition.”4 cial security, and gender equality—have A signicant number of Canadians for Canada? In February 1936, writing were among the roughly 100,000 inter- to another supporter of “National Gov- war international visitors to the USSR ernment,” CPR president Edward Beatty, who attempted to read the results of Drew explained that he was “greatly con- the “Great Experiment” with their own cerned about the eect of the attitude of eyes.5 Drew’s hostility to the USSR—be- papers like the Toronto Daily Star which fore, during and aer his journey there— are giving a false and what may conceiv- dierentiates him from the majority of ably be a very dangerous impression of visitors from Western nations who were the Russian experiment.”2 A year later, most oen, at least initially, sympathetic Drew had progressed from concern to to or curious about “actually existing alarm when the Committee for Industri- Communism.”6 Historians who have

2 Library and Archives Canada, George Alexander Drew Fonds, MG 32 C3 [Drew Papers] V.23, F.88, “Beatty, Sir Edward, President CPR,” Drew to Beatty, 23 February 1936. 3 Drew Papers, V.23, F.1256, “Rowe, Hon. Earl,” Drew to Rowe, 30 April 1937. 4 Drew Papers, V.23, F.25, “Balfour, Gordon.” 5 Michael David-Fox, Showcasing the Great Experiment: Cultural Diplomacy and Western Visitors to the So iet Union, 1921–1941 (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2012), 1. 6 In addition to David-Fox’s recent work, see: Sylvia Margulies, e Pilgrimage to Russia: e USSR and the Treatment of Foreigners, 1924-1937 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968); Paul Hol- lander, Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the USSR, China, and Cuba, 1928-1978 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981); David Caute, e Fellow-Travellers: Intellectual Friends of Com- munism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988); David C. Engerman, Modernization om the Other Shore: American Intellectuals and the Romance of Russian Development (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003); Ludmila Stern, Western Intellectuals and the USSR, 1920-1940: om Red Square

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studied these travellers—Paul Holland- Hitler as a hero, but in comparison to his er calls them “political pilgrims”—have dystopia-seeking in the USSR, he found focused on the intellectual climate that a great deal to admire in nations he vis- produced their attraction to the USSR ited governed by right-wing regimes. and the “techniques of hospitality” used Few Canadians who visited the by the Soviets to “lure and seduce” in- USSR in the 1930s were unreservedly ternational visitors.7 In most cases, as enthusiastic about what they saw during Hollander writes, “visitors in the 1930s their tours. Particularly this was the case were deceived, not necessarily by staged for social democrats, whose judgments events, fake settings, or the unrepresenta- ranged from being unimpressed (in the tive sampling of the sights, but by the case of Agnes Macphail) to being opti- overall image of Soviet life and society mistic about the USSR’s future (in the conveyed to them.”8 Drew was certainly case of King Gordon) with most falling not swayed by Soviet hospitality. When in between (including J.S. Woodsworth, assessing his travel narrative, however, Frank Scott, and George Williams). ese it is worth considering what Hollander travellers oen found that in standard of notes as a limitation of his study, Political living and personal freedom, the USSR Pilgrims: “While a fair amount has been compared unfavourably to Canada and written here (and elsewhere) about the to the Scandinavian countries they also political attitudes and errors of Western visited. ey did oen report positively, intellectuals connected with their sympa- however, about aspects of the USSR: thy for Marxist movements and regimes... particularly regarding education, prison much less is known and has been said reform, socialized healthcare, and the about political misjudgements of the op- role of women in Soviet society.10 posite character.” Hollander then quotes By contrast, aside from ex-patri- Malcolm Muggeridge’s 1940 observation ate Russians, Drew was among a small that “as many adhering to the Le jour- number of Canadian travellers who en- neyed to the USSR, there to oer thanks tirely condemned the Soviet system af- and admire all that they were shown, so ter witnessing conditions in the USSR. did their corresponding type of the Right Notably, among their number was An- make Hitler their hero and the ird Re- drew Cairns, an Albertan in the employ ich their paradise.”9 Drew did not claim of the Empire Marketing Board, who

to the Le Bank (Routledge: New York, 2007); Sheila Fitzpatrick and Carolyn Rasmussen, eds., Politi- cal Tourists: Travellers om Australia to the USSR in the 1920s-1940 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2008). 7 “Techniques of hospitality” is Hollander’s phrase (Political Pilgrims, 16); “lure and seduce” is Stern’s description of the aims of the Soviet tourism apparatus (Western Intellectuals, 35). 8 Hollander, Political Pilgrims, 19. 9 Ibid., 57-58. 10 J. L. Black, Canada in the So iet Mirror: Ideology and Perception in So iet Foreign Aairs, 1917- 1991 (Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1998), 102-105.

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spent ve months in the Soviet Union in Canadians more sympathetic to 1932 and wrote an unpublished, detailed Communism were, likewise, more enthu- and devastating account of the famine in siastic about the USSR. Margaret Gould, Ukraine.11 Drew stands out in the degree Executive Secretary of the Child Welfare to which his negative view of the USSR Council of Canada, spent ten weeks in was used directly in support of a domestic the USSR in 1936 and wrote about her right-wing political agenda. In some re- experiences in a series of articles in the spects, Drew’s interpretation of the USSR .14 e same month she le, shared much with American diplomatic April 1936, her name appeared as one of personnel of the 1930s who thought the the editors of the Communist-sympa- Soviet Union could be better understood thetic magazine New Frontier.15 Her re- by studying the national and racial char- ports from the USSR were characteristic acteristics of Russians than the ideology of a fellow traveller: decidedly, though of communism.12 Anticipating the Cold not uniformly, sympathetic.16 As Drew War, however, ideology gured promi- was “concerned” about the Star’s portray- nently in Drew’s essentially Orientalist al of the USSR before Gould began pub- view of the USSR: it was because of Rus- lishing her dispatches, it is not dicult sian racial inferiority that Communism to imagine the mood in which he greeted had spread and come to power there and, the arrival of her articles and book. Per- hence, Anglo-Saxon Canadians should haps a desire to refute her account played take whatever measures were necessary to some role in Drew’s decision to see the prevent the proliferation of the contagion USSR for himself. of Communism in Canada.13 Drew has been called the “most Tory

11 Andrew Cairns, e So iet Famine 1932-33: An Eye-Witness Account of Conditions in the Sprin and Summer of 1932, Tony Kuz, ed. (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1989). 12 Engerman, Modernization om the Other Shore, 244-71. 13 Drew’s racial worldview was on display six months before he travelled to the USSR when he orchestrated a by-election campaign in East Hastings in December of 1936. Here, he was, in Jonathan Manthorpe’s words “responsible for one of the strongest appeals to racial prejudice in modern Canadian history.” At one point in the campaign Drew told a crowd that “it is not unfair to remind the French, that they are a defeated race, and that their rights are rights only because of the tolerance by the English ele- ment who, with all respect to the minority, must be regarded as the dominant race.” During his European tour the following summer, he wrote oen about racial characteristics—Stalin was, invariably, “Asiatic”— and allowed that a visit to England made a visitor especially “proud of the race to which he belongs.” Col. George A. Drew, “Government Capable of Governing”, Globe and Mail, 19 August 1937, 1. e quota- tion above is from Jonathan Manthorpe, e Power and the Tories: Ontario Politics—1943 to the present (Toronto: Macmillan, 1974), 25. On Drew’s perception of the necessity to take dramatic measures against Communism based on his observations of the USSR see, among many examples,“‘Section 98 for Ontario’ Advocated by Col. Drew,” Toronto Star, 17 September 1937, 22. 14 Margaret Gould, I Visit e So iets (Toronto: Francis White Publishing Ltd., 1937), i. 15 New Frontier, 1.1 (April 1936). 16 “A country, like a human being,” Gould wrote, “can neither be completely villainous nor completely angelic.” Gould, I Visit e So iets, iv.

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of Tories,” and certainly he had an appro- prompting Drew to return to the party priate lineage for such a designation.17 to contest and beat Rowe for the leader- Born into a prominent family in Guelph, ship in 1938. Drew was elected to the Ontario, in 1894, both Drew’s grandfa- legislature in a 1939 by-election and led ther and father were lawyers who were the opposition until he became premier, elected under the Conservative banner.18 with a minority government, in 1943. Drew followed in his father’s footsteps Drew won a majority government in the in attending Upper Canada College, election of 1945. His party won again in the University of Toronto, and Osgoode 1948, but Drew lost his own seat and le Hall law school. Aer serving in the First provincial politics following the election World War, Drew returned to Guelph to lead the federal Progressive Conserva- where he practiced law and entered mu- tives until 1956. He continued his pas- nicipal politics, becoming an alderman in sionate denunciations of Communism 1922 and mayor in 1925. Between 1926 into the 1950s, becoming, in the view of and 1934 he was appointed to positions Reg Whitaker and Steve Hewitt, one of by the Conservative government of On- Canada’s “would-be Joe McCarthys” dur- tario: he was assistant master and then ing the Cold War.19 master of the Ontario Supreme Court be- Drew’s 1937 trip to the USSR oc- fore becoming, in 1931, the rst chair of curred during his self-imposed exile from the Ontario Securities Commission until the Conservative Party. His break with he was replaced following the election leader Earl Rowe and the extensive cov- of a Liberal government under Mitchell erage Drew’s travelogues received in the Hepburn in 1934. Globe and Mail were both connected to In 1936, Drew entered provincial the alliance Drew developed with that politics and lost his campaign for the paper’s charismatic publisher, George leadership of the Conservative Party to McCullagh. By the spring of 1937, Drew Earl Rowe. He served brie y under Rowe and McCullagh both agreed that On- as a party organizer, before breaking from tario could not aord the democratic the party and running unsuccessfully as luxury of competing political parties in an Independent Conservative in the pro- the legislature. An alliance of the Liberal vincial election of 1937. Rowe led the and Conservative parties would free the Conservatives to defeat in this election, government to enact the kind of policies

17 Manthorpe, e Power, 29. A full scholarly biography of Drew has yet to be published. Accord- ing Donald C. MacDonald, J. L. Granatstein was forced to abandon his Ontario Historical Studies Series biography of Drew when Drew’s son Edward restricted access to his father’s papers in the early 1980s. See MacDonald, e Happy Warrior Political Memoirs (Toronto: Dundurn, 1998), 295. My thanks to the anonymous reviewer who directed me to this source. 18Robert Bawtinhimer, “e Young George Drew and his Guelph Background, 1894-1925,” MA esis, University of Guelph, 1975, 27-33. Bawtinhimer published some of the ndings of this thesis in “e Development of an Ontario Tory: Young George Drew,” Ontario History 69:1 (March 1977), 55-75. 19 Reg Whitaker and Steve Hewitt, Canada and the Cold War (Toronto: Lorimer, 2003), 35-39.

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Drew and McCullagh thought were de- Cullagh tried, personally, to mend bridg- sirable, even if they might not be popular es between the two leaders; publicly his with the voting public. newspaper had already begun advocating McCullagh, unlike Drew, was not a move away from party government alto- born into the Canadian elite; he rose to gether.22 e idea of a union or “national” wealth and prominence through a com- government brought about through a bination of hard work and stock specula- merger of the Liberal and Conservative tion. McCullagh’s standing in Canadian parties was the idea that brought McCul- public life rose signicantly when mil- lagh, Drew, and Hepburn into alliance in lionaire mine owner William H. Wright the spring of 1937, spurred by fears about purchased the Globe and then the Mail the arrival of the CIO in Ontario. and Empire in 1936 at McCullagh’s urg- Aliates of the CIO led strikes in ing. McCullagh was then installed as Sarnia and in March and April of publisher of the newly merged papers.20 1937. e well-known confrontation at In September of that year, Ontario’s in Oshawa spurred an ex- Liberal premier ap- traordinary response from Hepburn. To pointed him as the youngest governor in ght the forces of “John L. Lewis and of the University of Toronto’s history.21 Mc- Communism,” Hepburn created a special Cullagh was Hepburn’s ally, friend, and police force (dubbed almost immediately, (clandestinely) investment adviser, but Hepburn’s Hussars) and attempted to this did not prohibit him from simulta- convince the Federal government to de- neously cultivating a close relationship port and bar American union organizers with then-Conservative Party organizer from Ontario.23 e Globe and Mail was George Drew. behind Hepburn’s anti-CIO stand—and, Initially in McCullagh’s tenure the according to McCullagh’s recollection, Globe and Mail supported Liberal pro- was behind it in both senses of the term— vincial and federal governments under with front page coverage hailing Hepburn Hepburn and William Lyon Mackenzie as “Canada’s Man of the Hour.”24 King, respectively. In June 1937, when Drew supported Hepburn’s anti- Hepburn announced that he was “not a CIO campaign and, like Hepburn, Mackenzie King Liberal any longer,” Mc- thought the issue was serious enough to

20 Brian J. Young, “C. George McCullagh and the Leadership League,” Canadian Historical Review 47:3 (September 1966), 204. 21 Neil McKenty, Mitch Hepburn (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967), 88. 22 Mackenzie King recorded a Liberal organizer named Nathanson’s version of this political evolu- tion in his diary: “[Nathanson] says... McCullagh is wholly inexperienced, and his idea is to do away with party government altogether. Hepburn is lending himself to this idea and is really in alliance with Colonel Drew, the former aspirant for the Tory leadership, who is secretly writing for the Globe.” King Diary, 6 July 1937. 23 McKenty, Mitch Hepburn, 105-114. 24 Ibid., 109.

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Figure 1: Moscow in Canada. is 1935 pamphlet by Rev. Gustave Sauvé is among the large collec- tion of anti-communist materials in George Drew’s papers. (Library and Archives Canada, George Alexander Drew Fonds, MG 32 C3, V.35, F. 309- B “Communism Printed Material.”)

justify the creation of a union govern- ment in Ontario. Such a government, Drew told his party’s leader Earl Rowe, would be able to “eect reforms which every thinking person believes should be carried out, but which in the very nature of party politics are extremely dicult for any party to do.”25 On 23 April, the day the Oshawa GM strike ended, Hep- burn advised Lieutenant Governor Her- bert Bruce that he might dissolve parlia- ment and ask for a union government. Only two days later, Drew told Bruce and his wife that he was to serve as at- torney general in the new government.26 Rowe, however, would not acquiesce to the scheme and, on 30 April, when Rowe Globe and Mail’s editorial page, expressed refused Hepburn’s proposal, Drew re- his sympathy with Drew, wondering how signed. e next day, when the Toronto Rowe could nd anyone “except the Reds Star broke the story of the union govern- and the Pinks and others who thrive on ment negotiations, Hepburn denied such discontent and agitation, to stay with a proposal had ever been made. him.” 27 e Globe was enthusiastic about Drew’s resignation was not an- the idea of union government and the To- nounced until 6 May, the day aer Rowe ronto Telegram suggested it might help told an audience that his party “stands for ght “class warfare.” Among Toronto’s the right of employees to bargain collec- major dailies, only the Star denounced tively through their own representatives.” the idea as one of the most “dangerous” in is made plausible Drew’s explanation Ontario’s history. Such a coalition against that he was leaving the Conservative party labour, the Star wrote, would amount to because he agreed with Hepburn’s stance “naked fascism.”28 against the CIO. McCullagh, through the Having failed with Rowe, McCullagh

25 Drew Papers, V.23, F.1256, Drew to Rowe, 30 April 1937. 26 McKenty, Mitch Hepburn, 120. 27 As quoted in McKenty, Mitch Hepburn, 124. 28 Ibid., 123.

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advised Hepburn to proceed in forming a in July of 1937, Drew was not ‘curious’ “national government” with Drew as the about conditions there—his clippings leading Conservative member. McCul- les and correspondence reveal him to lagh described his version of events in a have been closely following news of the lengthy discussion with Mackenzie King USSR and of Communism in Canada in January of 1938, which King recorded since the 1920s (Figure 1).30 Rather it in his diary: seems probable that Drew intended to McCullagh’s idea was that he could get ‘debunk’ the favourable reports of trav- millions from Americans and other capital ellers such as Gould. When Drew wrote invested into Canada if he could make clear his own account, he explained how other that both political parties were united in tourists “had failed to see what was actu- suppressing the CIO and movements of ally before their own eyes.” Drew imag- the kind. He had gone to Hepburn....When ined that such travellers would be preoc- Rowe turned the proposal down, McCul- cupied playing Bridge on the train while lagh talked it anew with George Drew, and suggested to Hepburn uniting with him to passing by the “ghastly squalor of a large form a sort of National Government again city like Minsk.” Adjourning the game in using the CIO as the excuse therefor.... Hep- the station at Moscow, aer having been burn gave McCullagh his assurances that “far too busy to notice the haggard faces everything would be worked out satisfac- and sordid unhappiness of the crowded torily with Drew, and [McCullagh] le for streets on the outskirts of the city,” they England himself with the understanding that will begin “a day or so of carefully super- when he returned, arrangements would be vised visits” before moving on to “Len- completed and an election brought on.29 ingrad or some other point of interest Drew, like McCullagh, embarked for where the same process is repeated.”31 Europe in the summer of 1937 and, if ar- Drew would be much less easily rangements had been worked out with fooled. His account of the USSR appears Hepburn, they are not a matter of pub- in retrospect to have been essentially cor- lic record. Having le his party because rect. Hindsight has veried the accuracy it had refused to stand rmly enough of his signicant charges—that Stalin against Communism and having, in the was a despotic dictator in the process process, been accused of conspiring to of ‘liquidating’ his political opponents; create a Canadian variant of Fascism, that the USSR was a society in which Drew set out to see both systems of gov- an elite was privileged while the masses ernment in practice in Europe. faced deprivation; that major infrastruc- When he travelled to the USSR ture projects were being carried out by

29 King Diary, 6 January 1938. 30 Drew corresponded with other Canadian anti-Communists, including Watson Kirkconnell, and made connections with anti-Communist Russian émigrés. Drew Papers, V.35, F.309-B, “Communism Printed Material” and V.82, F.152-D, “Kirkconnell, Watson.” 31 Drew Papers, V.298, F.56, “Articles Russia Oct-Dec. 1939,” n.d., 4.

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Figure 2: Canadian in Moscow. Drew’s tour of the So iet Union was conducted by Intourist [State Joint- Stock Company for Foreign Tour- ism]. Foreign visitors to the USSR had many complaints about this organization. As Michael David- Fox explains, Intourist tours fea- tured “heavy handed propaganda in guides’ interactions with foreigners, loading visitors down with notori- ously long schedules that also served to prevent wandering around.” (Showcasing the Great Experiment 2012, 178). or length of stay. He trav- elled by train from Poland to Moscow—and, as in the quotation above, saw Minsk, at minimum, from the win- dows of his train. Drew was in Moscow, he reports, on 14 July when Mikhail Gromov completed his record-setting ight between Moscow and prison labour; that many basic freedoms California. He was also there for the for- were severely curtailed and the secret po- mal opening of the Moscow-Volga canal, lice services were widely and deservedly an event that is featured in the copy of feared. In this sense, at least, it is possible the 17 July Moscow Daily News in Drew’s to regard Drew as one of the most clear- papers. He has a copy of the next day’s eyed observers of the USSR of his era. issue as well. He saw the sights in Mos- It is dicult to verify, however, what cow guided by the Soviet tourist agency Drew actually observed in the USSR. Intourist—including the new subway, While travellers such as King Gordon, Lenin’s tomb, the Park of Rest and Cul- Frank Scott, Graham Spry, and Freder- ture, and the Museum of the Revolu- ick Banting kept detailed diaries record- tion (Figure 2). He visited a collective ing their daily activities on their tours, farm close to Moscow and the Kazan- such a document has not survived in sky railway station in northern Moscow. Drew’s massive archive. In his numer- Visits to the Mother and Child Rooms ous publications about his trip, Drew at this station were a regular feature of provides few details as to his itinerary Soviet tours in the mid-1930s.32 Drew

32 Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278, “Russia, 1937-1939;” and Stern, 122.

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also visited Kolomenskoye, just south of rst installment provided an introduc- Moscow—formerly a royal estate, it had tion, an overview and a rationale for the become an architectural museum with articles that followed. Europe was in “se- relocated churches and other buildings rious crisis” and Drew would provide a from pre-revolutionary Russia that were “real understanding of what is going on moved there to make way for Soviet con- in Italy, Germany and Russia.” Canadi- struction. It was at this tourist attraction ans ought to know “the causes which that Drew wrote that he saw a camp of have led so many countries to voluntarily prison labourers surrounded with barbed choose dictatorship [Drew’s emphasis].” wire and machine gun nests. is choice, in Drew’s view, was Given that on 1 August he had al- to a great extent the result of Communism. ready been in Paris attending the World’s It is most unlikely that Mussolini would ever Fair for at least a day and that in the in- have been dictator of Italy were it not for the terim he spent time in (at minimum) fact that Communists had so disorganized the whole economic and social structure of Latvia and Lithuania, Drew’s time in the the country.... In Germany, it is doubtful if USSR must have been no longer than Hitler would every have been heard of, had two weeks. Over the course of his trav- it not been that the people of Bavaria... had els in June and July, Drew also claimed seen the horrors of Communism under the to have visited: England, Portugal, Spain government of Kurt Eisner. (where, if he saw any of the Civil War, he Mussolini and Hitler were “obvious- wrote nothing about it), Italy, Greece, ly inspired by a passionate love of their Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslo- own country” and, outside of the “cruel vakia, and Yugoslavia.33 Hence, his time despotism of Russia,” the “vast majority in the USSR may have amounted com- of people in all the dictatorships are sin- paratively to a long stop. cerely behind their governments in the In spite of his wide-ranging tour, violent hatred of Communism.”34 Drew wrote at length about only four Mussolini’s Italy was the rst dicta- countries: England, Italy, Germany and torship Drew described for readers of the the USSR. His re ections upon current Globe and Mail and it was the one that conditions in these four states were pub- most impressed him. In an article pub- lished in eight lengthy front page stories lished the same day that Hepburn an- in between 11 and nounced that there would be a provincial 19 August 1937. ese articles, written election in Ontario in October, soon-to- retrospectively in London, are less trav- be candidate Drew explained that what elogues than commentaries on interna- Mussolini had achieved in Italy was “lit- tional aairs supported with evidence tle short of a miracle.” Admittedly, “con- drawn from rst-hand observation. e ditions have been imposed which, it is to

33 Col. George A. Drew, “Europe Wants Peace But War is in the Air,” Globe and Mail, 11 August 1937, 1. 34 All quotations in this paragraph from Drew, “Europe Wants Peace,” 1.

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be hoped, will never be imposed in any ment to deal on any friendly basis with British country,” but “if the question of either Italy or Germany, while being Mussolini’s continued leadership of the prepared to listen somewhat favourably Italian people were put to a completely to arguments by Russia.” It was intoler- free popular vote, he and his form of gov- able that Britain would align itself “even ernment would be supported by an over- remotely and indirectly, with the most whelming majority.” It was worth con- sinister and oppressive government in sidering that if Italians “willingly accept the world to-day.” In Italy and Germany, their loss of personal freedom... there Drew had found a “real feeling of friend- must obviously have been much that is ship towards the British Empire.” Much good as well as much that is bad.”35 Drew could be accomplished “if Great Britain, was particularly impressed with the revi- France, Germany and Italy sit down on talization of the Italian military, but he a friendly basis to discuss their common believed that Mussolini “wants peace.”36 problems.” Whether or not the actual ap- Drew made no mention of the Italian peasement policy Chamberlain would go invasion of Abyssinia or the involvement on to pursue was what Drew had in mind of Italian forces in the Spanish Civil War. is unknowable, but clearly he believed ese lacunae were not noted in an edi- that if war was to come he had preferenc- torial in the same paper praising Drew’s es about with whom the British Empire “unbiased and constructive appraisal of should be allied. As the title of his article Italy under Mussolini.”37 put it, “Friendship with Soviets seen as Drew’s next article expressed pleas- Mistake.”38 ure that Neville Chamberlain had as un- During Drew’s time in Germany, he biased a view of Mussolini’s Italy as he noted some dierences between Hitler did. Reports of the “friendly discussion” and Mussolini. For one thing, Hitler was between the new British Prime Minister more anti-Semitic. is, too, could be and El Duce, Drew wrote, were welcome blamed on communism. “It is doubtful news to “people in England who have if Hitler’s bitter and unreasoning antago- been in touch with events in Europe, nism to the Jews within Germany was and particularly those who have been in as much the result of any racial feeling,” Russia.” Drew did not name the “people” Drew wrote, “as it was of the unfortunate who shared both his recent experience fact that most of the Communist leaders and political perspective, but they “have in Germany immediately aer the War be- been gravely concerned with the appar- longed to that great race.39 Hitler, accord- ent unwillingness of the British Govern- ing to Drew, had also antagonized Germa-

35 All quotations in this paragraph from Col. George A. Drew, “42 Million People Seen Ready to Obey Dictator of Italy,” Globe and Mail, 12 August 1937, 1. 36 Drew, “42 Million People,” 1. 37 “Freedom v. Force,” Globe and Mail, 12 August 1937, 6. 38 Col. George A. Drew, “Friendship with Soviets Seen as Mistake,” Globe and Mail, 13 August 1937, 1. 39 Col. George A. Drew, “Duce Secure but Foes Beset Adolf Hitler,” Globe and Mail, 14 August 1937, 1.

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ny’s Roman Catholics and, with the arrest policy: on, for example, social security, of Protestant ministers such as Martin education, or the rights of women. Drew, Niemoller, Protestant opinion was begin- observing fascist governments, likewise ning to shi against the Nazis.40 Yet, Drew oered selective praise. From fascism’s wrote, it would be “nonsense” to suggest economic eciency and militarism, that Germans were “oppressed, fearful, and Canada could draw lessons, but Drew terrorised.” As in Mussolini’s Italy, it was alerted readers to the “excesses” that if “inspiring” to see busy people and “public applied in Canada would violate British works of every kind under construction.” liberties. Drew blamed these excesses, in- Drew was convinced that the youth of cluding Hitler’s anti-Semitism, on com- Germany were rmly “behind Hitler and munism. If further evidence was needed what he is doing.” While Drew claimed to convince Canadians to oppose com- to “dislike Nazism,” Canada had much to munism both at home and abroad, Drew learn from the advances in eciency the claimed to have found it during his visit Germans had made in “almost every eld to the USSR. of purely material development.” e Ger- Drew introduced his own experience man army and airforce were the “strongest in the USSR by rst describing how the in the world, and they are ecient with an USSR wanted to be seen by the rest of eciency which only comes from pride the world. At the Paris World’s Fair, Drew in the job they are doing.” In spite of this wrote, the Soviet pavilion was a “master- strength—and, clearly, “eciency”—Hit- piece of propaganda.” On display was ler, Drew thought, was not an imminent the new Soviet constitution, which pro- threat to world peace. A number of Hit- fessed to be the most democratic in the ler’s advisors had what Drew called “strong world. Drew, however, “had le Moscow pro-British tendencies” and he felt an un- just a few days before, having been there derstanding between Germany and Great at a time when an open shooting season Britain was a “very real possibility.”41 had been declared for generals, commis- Drew’s comments about fascist Italy sars, engineers, and anyone who looked and Germany have some parallels to the as though they might possibly agree with kinds of comments social democratic Trotsky that the Revolution has been Canadian travellers made upon their re- betrayed.” e descriptive panel beside turn from visits to the USSR. ey were the displayed Soviet-built tractor, Drew generally appalled at the lack of personal noted, “did not explain that two-thirds of freedom aorded Soviet citizens. ey all the tractors in Russia are out of com- did, however, note areas in which Can- mission at the present time.” Drew pro- ada might consider the merits of Soviet vided no source for his statistics on tractor

40 Niemoller, a conservative who initially supported the Nazis, was arrested on 1 July 1937. Drew, “Duce Secure but Foes Beset Adolf Hitler,” 1. 41 Col. George A. Drew, “Finds Germany Touches Peak of Eciency,” Globe and Mail, 16 August 1937, 1.

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Figure 3: So this is Russia! In 2015 dollars, the $160 suit Drew has photographed would cost about $2,650; the $50 high-heeled shoes about $828. Because part of Intourist’s mandate was to accumulate hard foreign curren- cy, the exchange rates charged to tourists for rubles was exorbitant. Drew’s prices were likely those advertised in TORGSIN, a chain of stores with expensive imported goods where tourists were encouraged to shop. Photograph om Maclean’s, October 1937, 14. maintenance in the USSR, but he could the USSR could be found and “there is speak from personal experience to contra- much to be seen that is both interesting dict the “complete sham” display of Soviet and attractive.” Drew’s opinion of Mos- railroad equipment: “I travelled on the cow would decrease as his distance from main line from Warsaw to Moscow and I it in space and time increased, but even was not aware... that there was still in ex- at this early juncture, he wanted readers istence such primitive railway equipment to know that the Revolution was not re- in the world.” He had seen troop trains sponsible for the highlights of Russian as well, and the men “were lthy... with a cultural life: “there is not a single theatre general appearance of ineciency.” Soviet in Moscow which was not built in the ineciency—in contradistinction to Nazi time of the Czars,” Drew concluded.42 eciency—was a frequent theme. e next day’s article, under the front Surprisingly, Drew ended his rst page headline “Workers in Russia Starv- article about the USSR with a positive ing,” contained not even grudging praise account of the capital. Moscow was a of Soviet society. Drew focused on the “show place of Russia” where propagan- prices of consumer goods in Moscow. dists “seek to convince the few tourists ese prices made goods such as suits, that Russia is really the Workers’ Para- dresses, and high-heeled shoes complete- dise.” In Moscow, “headquarters of the ly unaordable for most citizens (Figure vast bureaucracy,” the “better brains” of 3).43 In terms of wealth and poverty, Drew

42 Col. George A. Drew, “Soviet Exhibits Seen Sham and Propaganda,” Globe and Mail, 17 August 1937, 1. 43 I discuss tourist shopping experiences in the USSR and their oen frustrated eorts to as-

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Figure 4: Drew visits a collective farm. Drew (as if there could be any doubt) is the adult gure on the right, in the white shoes. Photograph illustrating George Drew, “How Powerful is Russia?” Satur- day Night, 11 No ember 1939, 2.

world.” Drew anticipated that “hundreds of thousands of Russians will die of star- vation during the coming winter, unless a miracle of reorganization takes place in the next few months.”44 One of Drew’s photographs shows that he did visit at least one farm (Figure 4). e man Drew is posing beside is de- scribed in the caption as an “old peasant whose frank criticisms of the present re- gime were apparently tolerated as the re- sult of age or eccentricity.” e man does not appear to be on the brink of starva- tion, but a few of the children on the right do appear to be barefoot (although, as an anonymous reviewer of this article noted, in the 1930s a rural child in the USSR or wrote, “I doubt if there is any country in in Canada might be barefoot in summer the world in which the extremes are any by choice rather than necessity). As was greater than they are in Russia today.” the case for most tourists to the USSR, While Soviet workers “get about 200 ru- Drew was taken to a relatively prosperous bles a month, ‘according to their needs’,” collective farm in proximity to Moscow. some commissars and bureaucrats, “the rough his interpreter, Drew inquired new aristocracy of Russia,” were paid about the income of the farm and the “7,500 rubles a month and more, ‘accord- farmers. Drew’s arithmetic quickly de- ing to their needs.’” Meanwhile, “peo- termined that while the farm manager ple in the villages and smaller towns are claimed the annual income per farmer mostly in bare feet and in tattered rags. was 5000 rubles, the total income divid- I have never before seen whole masses ed by the number of inhabitants worked of people literally on the verge of starva- out to only 1573 rubles. is was one of tion. I had not realised that such ghastly Drew’s favourite illustrative anecdotes destitution still existed anywhere in the about the USSR and he used it oen to

sess the Soviet cost-of-living in a short lm available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=YUPMjVr oU 44 Col. George A. Drew, “Workers in Russia Starving,” Globe and Mail, 18 August 1937, 1.

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demonstrate the unreliability of Soviet Drew. Any Soviet achievement Drew statistics and propaganda claims.45 observed appeared either absurd, hypo- Exaggerated claims made by a collec- critical, or both. e Moscow subway tive farm manager and evidence of masses stations were impressive, but “there does on the brink of starvation are, however, seem something just a little strange about quite dierent things. Hunger was a killer spending 160,000,000 dollars for a little in Stalin’s USSR, but Drew was visiting in more than six miles of tube in a country a summer of relative plenty. As Sheila Fit- where they can’t nd any means to put zpatrick notes, “the only really good year even the cheapest leather boots on the of the 1930s in Russia seems to have been feet of their peasants.” As for other cel- 1937—ironically, the rst year of the ebrated Soviet building projects, Drew Great Purges—when the harvest was the was equally unimpressed. e House of best in the decade and there was plenty of the People’s Commissars was only “the food in the stores.”46 is does not mean size of some of our smaller oce build- that Drew did not see evidence of depri- ings in Toronto.” e Hotel Moscow vation and inequity in his travels in the “would probably be classed as a cheap USSR. It does seem likely, however, that commercial hotel in New York.” e Drew may have on occasion supplement- opulence of these buildings, constructed ed his own experiences with secondary amid widespread deprivation, was “typi- research. His comments on the salaries of cal of everything one sees in Russia today. commissars and bureaucrats, for example, ere is no sense of proportion. ere is aligned perfectly with the gures cited in no sense of reality.”48 an article by Max Eastman in Harper’s e Gromov polar ight was a “great that was abstracted by Maclean’s on 15 ight,” but, on the whole, Canada’s record May 1937 and clipped by Drew before in arctic ying was superior to the Sovi- he himself visited Russia. Unlike Drew, ets. e Volga-Moscow canal had been Eastman, who had lived in the USSR for presented by the Soviet Press as being an two years in the 1920s and was still at this unrivalled achievement in engineering, time a socialist, pointed out that the dis- but Drew wondered what “would have parity in income in the USSR was “not happened if I had written to the editors radically dierent from conditions under and pointed out that the Welland Canal American capitalism.”47 in a place called Ontario... had been a far Inequality was only one of many greater undertaking” and had not been aspects of Soviet society that oended built with prison labour. Drew claimed

45 For example, George Drew, “So this is Russia!” Maclean’s, 1 October 1937. 46 Sheila Fitzpatrick, Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: So iet Russia in the 1930s (Cary, NC: Oxford University Press, 1999), 7. 47 Max Eastman, “Rich Russians,” Maclean’s, 15 May 1937, 28. 48 Drew, “Workers in Russia Starving,” 1. Images of the Hotel Moscow that make questionable Drew’s assessment of it are discussed in a short lm available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=iERJZ5P1nMo

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to have seen Soviet canal workers sur- the purges for both tourist organizations rounded by barbed wire and machine and the Soviet prison system, Drew’s guns near Kolomenskoye: “I could not tour came upon a prison camp by mis- help thinking at the time that some of take or perhaps Drew escaped, somehow, our Communist friends in Canada, who from the Intourist itinerary. Or, perhaps, pretend to be so interested in prison re- he described, quite accurately, a kind of form, should go to Russia and do a little prison camp which he knew existed in job there.”49 Drew took several photo- the Soviet Union based on sources other graphs at Kolomenskoye that were pub- than his own observation. lished in Saturday Night in 1939; he did Drew’s clipping les reveal that he not, it would seem, manage a snap of the had been closely following news of Sta- 15-foot barbed wire fences surrounding lin’s show trials before his departure. e the canal labourers. e GULAG mu- recent past and the present of Drew’s seum in Moscow has no record of either rst-hand account were brought together a permanent or a temporary prison camp in the Globe and Mail as Drew described in the vicinity of Kolomenskoye.50 Given the reign of a leader who made “Ivan the that the Moscow-Volga canal enters Mos- Terrible look like a cooing dove.” “10,000 cow from the north and Kolomenskoye is had been shot following the assassina- located in the south, this certainly would tion of Stalin’s favorite, Kirov” and “more not have been a convenient location for than 200,000 people were ordered out of workers engaged on that project. Never- Leningrad and sent into exile in Siberia” theless, there was no shortage of prison- and now “wholesale executions are tak- ers in the Soviet Union in the summer of ing place in Russia almost daily... Several 1937 and it is not impossible that Drew executions were ocially announced by saw some of them. If, however, he saw the the Russian press while I was in Russia.” kind of camp he described it would have It was a “marvel” to Drew, that Stalin, a been a remarkable oversight by Drew’s “Georgian of that race which has lived by Intourist guide. e summer of Drew’s the gun and sword for centuries” had not visit, controls over tourists’ activities were yet provoked another Russian revolution. tighter than they had been at any time It was as though, Drew wrote, “Al Capone in the 1930s.51 One prison was part of were President of the United States.”52 many tours, the “show” GULAG at Bol- e “Red Dream,” Drew concluded, shevo where conditions were liberal and had nearly come to an end. ere was no interactions with tourists were carefully comparison, Drew thought, between Sta- managed. Perhaps, in the chaos caused by lin’s tyranny and that of the fascist regimes

49 Drew, “Workers in Russia Starving,” 1. 50A short lm showing my visit to Kolomenskoye and describing my inquiries at the GULAG mu- seum in Moscow is available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbPugu9mVEs 51 Stern, Western Intellectuals, 122. 52 Drew, “Workers in Russia Starving,” 1.

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he had visited. He had heard “that ardent foundation of all democracy, is to have [British] Socialist, Sir Staord Cripps, strong government which is capable of stirring up crowds with his assertion that governing as eciently as any dictator- Nazism is Public Enemy No. 1 in the ship.” To achieve this end, Drew wrote, world today. Bad though Nazism is, any “the Labour, Liberal and Conservative man who makes that statement today has Parties [had] joined to form a National no right to be taken seriously.” e Globe Government which could do those nec- and Mail agreed. An editorial the next essary things which no one Party could day repeated the highlights of Drew’s as- have done alone.” us Britain was not sessment “for the benet of the lengthy “cursed with the apostles of Party War- list of dupes who gaze toward that distant fare.” In British industry, according to alleged Elysium of the proletariat.” Drew Drew, there was “no suggestion anywhere could be believed, by contrast, because of antagonism between employers and “political dogma does not change a race employees.” Contrary to the role of the of less than average practical ability into CIO in Ontario, “British workers never one of genius.” Drew’s “British idealism, have and never will permit international rare courage and brilliant intellect” had al- interference of any kind with their inter- lowed him to provide the kind of “public nal aairs.” Drew concluded that service which shows him to be the kind of if the other democracies which still survive are 53 man... who is needed in public life.” e not to succumb to the disease of Fascism or editorial did not go on to congratulate Communism they must assure the same strong voters in the riding of Wellington South form of government and the same good-will for having been given the opportunity to between all classes which makes everyone who comes to this wonderful little country proud be “represent[ed] by one of the keenest- 55 minded, most outstanding men in public of the race to which he belongs. life”—that compliment the Globe saved e following day’s editorial explained for the following month when the pro- that Drew had shown that a “strong Na- vincial campaign was well underway.54 tional Government was more ecient Drew’s British idealism was in full than one limited to party” and “we of this display in the nal installment of his Dominion... shall deceive ourselves if we Globe and Mail series. How had Britain go elsewhere for an example.”56 avoided the “extremes” and “factional- Drew’s articles attracted favourable ism” that had resulted in dictatorships attention and were reprinted in newspa- elsewhere? It “found that the only way pers in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Kitch- to preserve that freedom which is the ener, and Regina.57 ey evoked outrage

53 “e Facts About Sovietism,” Globe and Mail, 19 August 1937. 54 As quoted in McKenty, Mitch Hepburn, 134. 55 Col. George A. Drew, “Government Capable of Governing,” Globe and Mail, 19 August 1937, 1. 56 “e British Way,” Globe and Mail, 20 August 1937. 57 See “Colonel Drew Writing about Russia,” Ottawa Journal, 23 August 1937; “Soviet Sham,”

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in the Communist press. e Daily Clar- ‘national government’ platform and pro- ion interviewed John Buckley, Secretary posing a provincial ‘Section 98’[making of the Toronto District Trades and La- the Communist Party illegal]...?”60 bor Council, who had visited the USSR Drew made use of Communist attacks in May. Buckley called Drew’s article on against him during his election campaign. starving workers “a deliberate lie.” Buck- One of his pamphlets reprinted a circular ley had traveled further than Drew and letter that had been distributed in South he “never saw anybody in rags neither did Wellington accusing him of carrying the I see anybody starving.”58 T.A. Barnard, “germ” of fascism. Drew reprinted the let- identifying himself as a veteran, a me- ter as evidence that his Liberal opponent, chanic and a trade unionist, also rebutted Dr. J.H. King, was allowing Communists Drew. Barnard claimed to have traveled to campaign on his behalf. Communism more than 10,000 miles in the USSR had “become an issue in South Welling- over a period of four months the previ- ton,” Drew wrote. “I went to Europe as a ous year. Drew described, Barnard wrote, Canadian to see what I could learn” and “the reverse to what I saw.” Barnard cited returned convinced that the “only way the opinion of other Canadian visitors, we will ever turn to Fascism is if we will Margaret Gould and Agnes Macphail, permit Communism to create the disor- who also found conditions much better der which led to dictatorship in Italy and than those “Col. Drew unearthed in his Germany.” Drew promised that, if elect- brief visit to a Moscow hotel.”59 Other ed, he would introduce “laws which will contributors to the Clarion pointed con- prevent the spread of Communism.” e spiratorially to a link between Drew’s ar- pamphlet concluded in large bold type: ticles and his election campaign: “Can it “A Vote for Drew is a Vote Against Com- be an accident that Col. Drew had that munism” (Figure 5).61 series of articles praising Hitler and Mus- Drew’s opponents were less con- solini printed in the Globenmail [sic] vinced that communism was a key issue and now, with the support of both that in the campaign. e incumbent, King, paper and the Telegram is running as an suggested at an all-candidates meeting ‘independent’ in Wellington South on a that “you could put all the Communists

Montreal Beacon, 27 August 1937; “Just as Ecient,” Regina Leader Post, 24 August 1937; “e Truth or What?” Regina Leader Post, 28 August 1937; “Another Russian Revolt Brewing, Col. Drew inks,” Kitchener Daily Record, 2 October 1937; “Russian Stores and their Customers,” Maritime Merchant [Hali- fax], 7 October 1937; “Russia no El Dorado,” Nokomis Times [Sask.], 7 October 1937. 58 “Surplus of Food in USSR Today,” Daily Clarion [Toronto], 19 August 1937. 59 T.A. Barnard, “Col. Drew Went to Moscow,” Daily Clarion, 2 September 1937, 4. 60 “Hitler’s Agents Invade Canada,” Daily Clarion, 11 September 1937. See also, “Hitler’s Agents in Ontario,” Daily Clarion, 19 August 1937; J.S. Wallace, “When and by whom were your articles written COL. DREW?” Daily Clarion, 20 August 1937; “Who is Financing Col. George Drew?” Daily Clarion, 21 August 1937. 61 Drew Papers, V.126, F.1279, “Russia (6)”.

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Figure 5:Drew campaign pamphlet, 1937. Library and Archives Canada, George Alexander Drew Fonds, MG 32 C3,,V.126, F.1279, “Russia (6)”. in Guelph in a our sack.” Drew respond- ently spoke about the USSR and its rel- ed that it was “imperative” that Canadi- evance to Canada. e content of Drew’s ans realize that communism stood for speeches about his experiences in Russia prevention of the “co-operation which varied little. He had a repertoire of ma- was vital to the solution of Canada’s terial, largely drawn from his Globe and problems.”62 Drew had already explained Mail articles, that he repeated with mi- to Guelph audiences that the CIO was “a nor variations. Occasionally, he would political organization led by 250 known say something moderately positive: “I communists who are committed to a pol- saw an athletic demonstration at the great icy of lawlessness and opposed to British Moscow sports eld, which seats 90,000 ideals and traditions.”63 people which was really an extremely in- In September and October of 1937, spiring sight.” He also had seen cheerful Drew was in demand as a speaker at people on the streets of Moscow, but this conventions and clubs and he consist- could be easily explained: “Laughter dies

62 Ken MacTaggart, “Red Menace Draws Fire of Candidates,” Globe and Mail, 29 September 1937, 1. 63 “‘Section 98 for Ontario’ Advocated by Col. Drew,” Toronto Star, 17 September 1937, 22.

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hard when one is young. But everyone of Control as evidence that there was, who served during the Great War knows on a percentage basis, more sympathy that cheerfulness is not in itself evidence for Communism in Toronto than there that those who are going through such an had been in the USSR at the time of the experience really enjoy it.”64 revolution. It was “time for Canadians to As Drew explained to one audience, wake up to the fact that Russia is waging a “misunderstanding of what is happen- an undeclared war within our borders.... ing in Russia may... considerably eect An enemy to everything that is decent the course of events in Canada.”65 Drew and British and Christian has invaded had two framings for the relevance of our country. ere is only one word for his impressions of the USSR. First, succour intentionally given to that en- Canada should re-arm, support British emy. It is treason.”67 re-armament and oppose any possibil- Drew’s rhetoric accorded nicely with ity of alliance with the USSR. Rearma- Premier Hepburn who defended his ment, in Drew’s thinking, was the only policy against the CIO on the hustings, road to disarmament. As he explained claiming at one point that there had been it, “if the Anglo-Saxon people work to- 15,000 armed Communists in Ontario gether..., the disarmament of which we at the time of the Oshawa Strike. To deal dreamed so short a time ago may come with a threat like communism, Drew about through the knowledge that no agreed, required strong government that powers, which seek to rely on force, can was not preoccupied with “rigid party hope to prevail over the united strength politics.” It was time, Drew suggested, to of the Anglo-Saxon people.”66 Second, “end the burlesque in the Legislature.”68 the Soviet experience should convince George McCullagh agreed. In a prov- Canadians of the need to adopt policies ince-wide radio broadcast the Saturday to counter the threat of domestic com- before the election, McCullagh endorsed munism. Drew cited the number of votes Drew, supported Hepburn, raised again tallied by Communist Party leader Tim the idea of national government, and Buck in elections for the Toronto Board criticized the Conservative party for its

64 Speaking notes in Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278. See also press reports: “‘Section 98 for Ontario,’” 22; “Russia Held Peace Menace by Col. Drew,” Globe and Mail, 23 September 1937; “Gloomy Picture of Russia is Painted by Col. Drew,” Toronto Tel eg ram, 13 October 1937; “Lack of Food Seen in Soviet,” Globe and Mail, 14 October 1937; “‘Worst Disease Is Communism’: Col. Drew Again Assails ‘Workers’ Para- dise’ in Russia,” Toronto Telegram, 21 October 1937. 65 Speaking notes in Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278. 66 Speech in Drew Papers, V.29, F.25, “Speeches, 1937.” Occasionally, Drew suggested policies suited to his audience, as when he addressed the “Reunion Conference of Clerical Graduates of the Union of Trinity College” and told them that his experience in the USSR had convinced him that the “time has come for the restoring of religious beliefs in our schools where it belongs” since it constituted a “vital part of British life.” Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278. 67 Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278. 68As quoted in McKenty, Mitch Hepburn, 134.

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weak stance against the CIO.69 Conserv- article “So this is Russia!” in Maclean’s.73 ative leader Rowe thus had to campaign Hopkins corrected Drew’s identication against the Liberal party, the Globe and of the stone on the front of the Moscow Mail, and Drew, the Independent Con- Hotel as “marble” in that article: it was, servative candidate in Wellington South. Hopkins said, a “dark, almost black Bal- On 6 October, the election went tic rock that is one of the hardest stones better for Hepburn than for Drew or to cut and consequently the most expen- Rowe. J.H. King was returned in Wel- sive.” Drew corrected this detail in sub- lington South by a margin of more than sequent speeches and articles.74 Unlike 2,000 votes over Drew.70 Hepburn won Drew, Hopkins had travelled in a reason- a majority government and within a year ably modern train, had seen new rolling Rowe had resigned as leader of the Con- stock between Moscow and Leningrad servatives. In 1938, over the objections and found a hotel, the Savoia, where the of Rowe, Drew was elected leader and meals were fairly good. He told Drew the schism he had caused in the party ap- an anecdote about the highly exagger- peared to have been forgiven. “I may have ated gures of Soviet oil production that been mistaken [in resigning],” Drew told were presented to conference delegates. the delegates, “but I was honest.”71 is anecdote, and not the review of the Aer the 1937 election, Drew con- Savoia, was repeated by Drew in subse- tinued campaigning against communism quent articles where it joined his story based on his experiences in the USSR. about the arithmetically-decient col- Among his papers is an undated note lective farm manager in illustrating the describing a conversation Drew had meaninglessness of Soviet statistics.75 with a Mr. Hopkins of Imperial Oil who e next thing Hopkins told Drew had been in Moscow at the same time as suggests a more serious instance of bor- Drew, attending the World Geological rowing. According to Hopkins, “one Conference.72 Drew’s use of the informa- man in his party got arrested twice in one tion provided him by Hopkins is sugges- day for taking pictures.” Henceforward, tive of the way Drew incorporated or ap- Drew, too, claimed to have been likewise propriated second-hand sources into his arrested, though he had neglected to re- rst-hand accounts of life in the USSR. call it in any of his previous articles or is conversation must have taken place speeches. On 21 October, speaking to the aer the publication of Drew’s 1 October Canadian Independent Telephone Asso-

69 Ibid., 135. 70 King received 9,006 votes, Drew 6,923. Toronto Star, 7 October 1937. 71 Manthorpe, e Power and the Tories, 28. 72 Drew Papers, V.126, F.1278. 73 Drew, “So is is Russia!” 15. 74 George Drew, “How Powerful is Russia?”Saturday Night, 11 November, 1939, 2. 75 George Drew, “e Riddle Wrapped in Mystery that is Russia,” Saturday Night, 4 November 1939, 2.

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ciation, Drew described being detained out a Fascist party in Canada” that was by Soviet police for trying to photograph “prepared to use Hepburn, Drew, and a “building where six engineers who were others.”78 A few weeks aer Drew’s nal subsequently shot by the ring squad article on Russia appeared in Saturday were on trial.”76 is was an appropriate Night, Mitchell Hepburn would endorse anecdote to tell the Telephone Associa- opposition leader Drew’s censure of the tion because Drew had “wanted to call federal government’s handling of the Ca- the British embassy and tell them where I nadian war eort and Mackenzie King was but I wasn’t permitted to do so.” is would seize the issue to ght and win a element of the story also made it very dif- federal election. cult to verify: the British embassy sta e more immediate prompt of would have been accessible to Canadian Drew’s mainly recycled Saturday Night reporters; the Soviet police would not. articles, however, was the Hitler-Stalin e Russia of Tim Buck, Drew told the pact of August 1939 and the Soviet in- Telephone Association, “simply doesn’t vasion of Finland. As Drew explained, exist at all.” True, but had the Soviet ar- “Finland has proved and is proving that rest of Drew, in fact, existed? e anec- the Russian ghting forces are inecient dote’s exclusion from his numerous ear- and badly equipped. e time to deal lier accounts—when it would have been with them is while we are strong. Soviet so in keeping with their argument and Russia is dangerous only as a friend.”79 It theme—raises doubts about its veracity. is not entirely clear why Drew’s recollect- Drew’s reminiscences about his time ed impressions of 1937 Moscow qualied in the USSR were given another exten- him to comment on the relative strength sive airing in a series of articles in Satur- of the Soviet military in 1939, but he day Night in November and December believed certain extrapolations could be of 1939. In that year, George McCullagh made: “a sloppy civilian makes a sloppy had again tried to forward the idea of na- soldier and a sloppy soldier is rarely of tional government through an organiza- much use... With very few exceptions tion called the “Leadership League” that the people in Moscow dress and act as was promoted through radio broadcasts though they cared nothing about their and the Globe and Mail.77 Mackenzie appearance and little about themselves.” King thought this was an eort to “work Having clearly forgotten his previous ob-

76 “Drew Says ‘Reds’ Refused to Let Him ‘Phone Embassy – e Russia of Tim Buck Simply doesn’t Exist,’ He Declares,” Toronto Star, 21 October 1937. is story is repeated, brie y, in a caption accompany- ing “A Canadian Camera Shows How Russia’s People Live,” Saturday Night, 11 November 1939, 1. e caption of a photograph of a Russian courthouse reads “for taking this picture with a telephoto lens, Col. Drew ran foul of OGPU and was held for some time.” 77 See Young, “C. George McCullagh and the Leadership League.” 78 King Diary, 27 February 1939. 79 George Drew, “Morale of Russia’s Army Was Destroyed by Purges,” Saturday Night, 9 December 1939, 10-11.

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Figure 6: Submission is written on their faces and in their bearing. Or, so Drew thought in 1939 when this 1937 photograph was published. Photograph illustrating George Drew, “How Powerful is Russia?” Saturday Night, 11 No ember 1939, 2. servation that “laughter dies hard when tawdry beyond belief.”80 Stalin, however, one is young,” Drew now recalled that remained “the very spirit of evil incarnate “even among the young people [in Mos- on this earth.”81 While “our rst enemy cow] smiles are rare. ere is no spirit of is Germany,” Drew advised his Canadian enthusiasm in their expressions, no sug- readers, “...We can and must deal eec- gestion of initiative of any kind. Submis- tively with Russia as part of any settle- sion is written on their faces and in their ment of this war.”82 bearing” (Figure 6). Moscow had become For Drew, the Cold War began be- more unpleasant than it had been when fore and continued during the Second Drew described it in 1937. Now, in 1939, World War. In this as with many of the Drew recalled that the city was “dull and other ideas expressed in his travelogues,

80 Drew, “How Powerful is Russia?” 2; and “If You Want Real Communism, Don’t Go to Russia,” Saturday Night, 18 November 1939, 2-3. 81 George Drew, “How Serious is the Russian reat to the World?” Saturday Night, 23 December 1939, 2. 82 Drew, “How Serious is the Russian reat,” 2.

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Drew was only a particularly vocal ex- edented. Public interest is suggested by ponent of opinions commonly held on the reiteration of the articles about the the Right in 1930s Canada. Don Nerbas USSR in Maclean’s and Saturday Night has shown how signicant the support (unlike Grin or Gould, Drew could not of the idea of “National Government” compile articles into a monograph, since was among Canada’s business leaders be- it would consist of only one chapter re- ginning in 1934 and persisting through peated with minor variations). In Drew’s the decade.83 On the USSR, too, Drew’s speeches about his travels to a variety of views were widely shared. Outside of groups in the fall of 1937, he spoke al- the Toronto Star, stories akin to the ones most exclusively about the USSR—the Drew told in 1937 and 1939 could be clubs, if they had any choice in the mat- regularly found in the Canadian press. ter, seemed more interested in life under ere is ample evidence of this in Drew’s Stalin than under Mussolini or Hitler. clippings les. Drew could have written International comparison and, par- his reports without having le home. ticularly, discussion of conditions in at Drew felt the need to visit the the USSR was of major discursive sig- USSR is suggestive of the power of the nicance in arguments about Canadian rst-hand observational narrative as a domestic issues in the 1930s for both propaganda device. To counter an eye- the Le and the Right. While gures on witness account such as that of Margaret the Le would cite the USSR in mak- Gould required Drew to also become a ing arguments for socialized medicine, witness. Whether or not Drew found a expanded access to education, and oth- fourth for Bridge on the train from War- er policies associated with the ‘welfare saw to Moscow, his travels gave him a state’, Drew’s USSR pointed not only trump card in his battles against commu- against those policies but towards legally nism at home: he had seen these horrors repressing the Communist Party and with his own eyes. Drew’s travels are also unions such as the CIO, expanding reli- indicative of the lively Canadian public gious instruction in Ontario classrooms, interest in the USSR in this period. In and strengthening the Canadian mili- addition to Gould’s book, Toronto Star tary to support the British Empire. Drew readers had earlier in the decade encoun- used his travel experiences to argue that tered a long series of articles by reporter neither communism nor fascism was ap- Frederick Grin that had resulted in the propriate for a British country such as publication of his So iet Scene (1932).84 Canada. Rather Canada should follow us, the prominent placement and at- Britain in creating a “National” govern- tention given to Drew’s travel articles ment. Aside from the fact that this pre- in the Globe and Mail was not unprec- scription neatly coincided with Drew’s

83 Nerbas, Dominion of Capital. 84 Frederick Grin, So iet Scene: A Newspaperman’s Close-ups of New Russia (Toronto: Macmillan, 1932).

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domestic politics, it is worth noting how in the press but had limited popular ap- central “Britishness” was to Drew’s self- peal. Drew lost in the provincial campaign perception and the ways in which this of 1937. When Hepburn joined him in self-perception both subtly and explic- rebuking the federal government in Janu- itly racialized his descriptions of many ary1940, Mackenzie King responded by “others,” both those encountered in for- winning a resounding new mandate. If eign lands or organizing CIO-aliated Drew’s support for “National Govern- unions in Ontario. ment” stemmed from a suspicion that his Finally, it might be noted that Drew’s ideals could not be enacted by parties in “imagined community,” the British, Tory, need of support from the electorate, his anti-communist Canada for whom he suspicion appears to have had some foun- presumed to speak, was well represented dation. When Drew was elected premier

Figure 7: 1943 Ontario Liberal campaign advertisement. Ultimately, the ad pro ed unsuccessful as sailed the go erning Liberals to a 15-seat third place electoral trouncing. Drew’s Progressive Conservatives and Edward (Ted) Jolie’s CCF won 38 and 34 seats respectively. e advertisement, pub- lished in the Globe and Mail, 28 July 1943, is reproduced at

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of Ontario in 1943, it was on the basis of in the 1930s (Figure 7). A further irony: his “22-point” platform that promised in 1948, aer the Cold War had actu- the expansion of Ontario’s welfare state, ally begun, Drew’s party won a majority labour legislation acknowledging col- government but he lost his own Toronto lective bargaining rights, and a series of seat in the legislature to a CCF candi- reforms that placed Drew, apparently, on date. Political “reality” in Ontario was the progressive side of the Progressive- shiing and complex. Even more so was Conservative spectrum. While Drew’s the Soviet reality that Drew believed he vocal anti-communism and Red baiting understood perfectly. Instead, the USSR of the CCF were undiminished, there is was for Drew, as it was for so many visi- considerable irony in the fact that Drew tors, a kind of distorting mirror re ecting was in 1943 championing similar policies back ideas in such a way that visitors did to those “parlour pinks” who had been not always recognize them as those with “duped” during their trip to the USSR which they had arrived.

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