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Women and the Communist Party of Canada, 1932-1941, with Specific Reference to the Activism of Dorothy Livesay and Jim Watts

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Women and the Communist Party of Canada, 1932-1941, with Specific Reference to the Activism of Dorothy Livesay and Jim Watts Mother Russia and the Socialist Fatherland: Women and the Communist Party of Canada, 1932-1941, with specific reference to the activism of Dorothy Livesay and Jim Watts by Nancy Butler A thesis submitted to the Department of History in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Queen’s University Kingston, Ontario, Canada November 2010 Copyright © Nancy Butler, 2010 ii Abstract This dissertation traces a shift in the Communist Party of Canada, from the 1929 to 1935 period of militant class struggle (generally known as the ‘Third Period’) to the 1935-1939 Popular Front Against Fascism, a period in which Communists argued for unity and cooperation with social democrats. The CPC’s appropriation and redeployment of bourgeois gender norms facilitated this shift by bolstering the CPC’s claims to political authority and legitimacy. ‘Woman’ and the gendered interests associated with women—such as peace and prices—became important in the CPC’s war against capitalism. What women represented symbolically, more than who and what women were themselves, became a key element of CPC politics in the Depression decade. Through a close examination of the cultural work of two prominent middle-class female members, Dorothy Livesay, poet, journalist and sometime organizer, and Eugenia (‘Jean’ or ‘Jim’) Watts, reporter, founder of the Theatre of Action, and patron of the Popular Front magazine New Frontier, this thesis utilizes the insights of queer theory, notably those of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler, not only to reconstruct both the background and consequences of the CPC’s construction of ‘woman’ in the 1930s, but also to explore the significance of the CPC’s strategic deployment of heteronormative ideas and ideals for these two prominent members of the Party. iii Acknowledgements I have had a lot of help, both in researching and writing this thesis and in living through it. Ian McKay has been an excellent advisor, in every sense. His knowledge is astounding, and his incomparable sensitivity and support was vital. My respect for him – as a scholar and a friend - is heartfelt and immense. The Department of History at Queen’s has been a stimulating environment, and the interest and encouragement I received from faculty and staff members was unfailing. I thank Karen Dubinsky for her early and important support, and especially for her comments on earlier drafts, her advice was key to the development of my dissertation. This dissertation has been a very long time in the making. The person who has borne the weight throughout is my partner, Kate Callaghan, whose faith and support made it possible. I dedicate this work to my beautiful Kate, and to the memory of my very beloved parents, Rosemary and Harry Butler. iv Abbreviations ACCL All-Canadian Congress of Labour AFL American Federation of Labor CCF Co-operative Commonwealth Federation CEC Central Executive Committee CI Communist International CLDL Canadian Labour Defence League CLP Canadian Labour Party CPC Communist Party of Canada CPSU Communist Party of the Soviet Union CPUSA Communist Party of the United States ECCI Executive Committee of the Communist International JWMS Dorothy Livesay, Journeys With My Selves LAC Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa LPP Labor Progressive Party of Canada NEP New Economic Policy PAC Progressive Arts Club RHLH Dorothy Livesay, Right Hand, Left Hand RILU Red International of Labor Unions TLC Trades and Labor Congress of Canada TUEL Trade Union Education League USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics WLL Women’s Labor League WPC Workers’ Party of Canada WUL Workers’ Unity League YCL Young Communist League v Table of Contents Abstract............................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................iii Abbreviations ……………………………………………………....…….....................… iv Chapter One. Beyond the Historical Dichotomies: Depression-era Communism and the Woman Question.............................1 Chapter Two. The Turbulent Transnational World of Interwar Canadian Communism ............................................................. 74 Chapter Three. The CPC and ‘The Woman Question’: Gender in Class Politics................................................................................ 155 Chapter Four. The Cultural Front of Communism in Canada................213 Chapter Five. “This struggle is our miracle new found”: Dorothy Livesay and the Cultural Front …………………………….................. 288 Chapter Six. “Every Waking Moment Promoting the Party”: Jim Watts and the Cultural Front ……………………………………….................335 Chapter Seven. Gendered Melancholy: Memory and the Personal Politics of Jim Watts and Dorothy Livesay ……………......………………....... 386 Conclusion. Looking Backward, Looking Ahead …………......…………....... 437 Bibliography …………………………………………………………............................. 448 1 Chapter One Beyond the Historical Dichotomies: Depression-era Communism and the Woman Question The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) was organized in May, 1921, at a legendary meeting in a barn near Guelph, Ontario. Initially working under the shadow of illegality, it created the “Workers’ Party of Canada” (WPC) as its public face in 1922, then assumed its full public identity upon its legalization in 1924. It was the product of difficult negotiations between two rival Communist organizations also active in the United States, which were facilitated by emissaries from the Communist International (CI or Comintern). From its inception, the CPC was hence strongly influenced by Communist parties beyond Canada, notably those in the United States and Great Britain, and particularly by the directives from the Communist International. Members of the CPC regarded themselves as “Soldiers of the International,” sworn to uphold what they understood to be Lenin’s model of politics, which centrally entailed a vanguard party of revolutionaries leading the working class in Canada towards the dictatorship of the proletariat -- that is, the overthrow of the existing Canadian political order and establishment of the rule of the workers, who would use state power to liquidate the bourgeoisie and institute a new order of things, ultimately culminating in the abolition of classes and the state itself. In its early years, and following Lenin’s advice in Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, provincial wings of the WPC/CPC affiliated with the Canadian Labour Party, founded by the Trades and Labour Congress in 1917 as the political arm of labour. This “united front” strategy, whereby Communists would enter pre- existing labour unions and political parties, not only brought Communists into positions of influence in the mainstream labour movement, but also entailed 2 controversy with such bodies as the One Big Union (OBU) that followed a strategy of organizing workers in unions opposed to those affiliated with the TLC. Such a strategy of the “united front” would also characterize CPC politics in other fields. Then, in the late 1920s, the “line” of the Comintern shifted, and the very different “Third Period,” one in which the Communists established their own unions and critiqued social democrats and other leftists as “social fascists,” took hold. This new direction was also associated with the purge of the top leaders of the old party, and the arrival of a new cohort, ostensibly more loyal to Joseph Stalin. It was this new leadership that implemented yet another “line change” in the mid-1930s, when in the name of resisting Fascism, the CPC committed itself to the creation of a Popular Front, which it envisaged uniting not only Communists and social democrats, but also anti-fascist “progressives” of all stripes. Thus, in focusing on the period 1932- 1941, this thesis is looking at a period of Communist history in which the CPC underwent, for the second time in its history, a major transformation of its perspective. Much about the history of the CPC is controversial, and this chapter sets out to introduce the historiography dedicated to the Party, explore unresolved and highly contentious issues, and set out the agenda for the remainder of the thesis. In essence, I argue that debates about the Party have been limited by a variety of dichotomies, and I see my thesis as a way of advancing beyond them. Little controversy attaches to one crucial point about the CPC: it was profoundly inspired by the Russian Revolution, militantly committed to the defence of the Soviet Union as the first place in which workers had set out to establish a thorough-going socialist state, and equally respectful of the advice it received from the leaders of that revolution, both in Russia and in the Comintern. Counsel received from the Comintern was anything but idle advice--in the minds of Communists, it had much greater symbolic and political force. In the Third Period, 3 for instance, the Comintern repeatedly warned of a war against the Soviet Union that would wipe out the gains the workers of the world had won from the revolution. For Depression-era Communists, the Soviet Union was proof of the possibility that society could be remade to enable the development and freedom of all of its members. The importance of the Soviet Union as socialist homeland, the model inspiring workers to take control of their lives and demand equality, prompted a level of support from members that is difficult to fathom in our post-Soviet times. In the crisis years of the
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