A look at the class struggle in Canada, the strikes of Nova Scotia’s miners and the struggle to build a Labor Party, in the run-up to the Communist Party’s third convention from a founder of the movement there.

‘The Workers (Communist) Party of Canada and the Canadian Situation’ by Maurice Spector from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 4 No. 13. February 21, 1924.

I. The Nova Scotia Struggle.

The most important class struggle of 1923, was the strike. of the Nova Scotia mine workers against the intervention of the military in the industrial dispute which arose between the Halifax Steel Workers and the British Empire Steel Corporation. These troops were called in by the Federal and Provincial Governments, ostensibly “to protect property”, in reality to terrorize the workers and to protect strike breakers. In their own past strikes against the intolerable labour conditions of the British Empire Steel Corporation, the miners had been confronted with the same military intervention, and they determined to demand the withdrawal of the troops. There is no doubt that in this action the miners had the sympathy of nearly the whole of Canadian labour. The reactionary Executive of the Dominion Trades and Labour Congress had been compelled to protest against the same thing in 1922. Even the conservative railwaymen’s organizations, the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Employees, for instance, took a stand in favour of the miners. But the reactionary President of the United Mineworkers, Lewis, and the Canadian Congress President, Moore, placed themselves on the side of the Corporation, condemning the strike in the U.S. because, as an “American patriot”, he “could not fight against the American Government”, assumed the same attitude with respect to the Canadian Government. When the miners refused to obey his ukas to return to work on the ground that his intervention was a violation of their district autonomy in a political action against the Canadian authorities, Lewis deposed the constitutionally progressive district executive, headed by Jim Mc Lachlan and Dan Livingstone, appointing a set of his own reactionary tools to rule the district. Mc Lachlan was arrested on the charge of spreading seditious information and sentenced to two years. Confronted by the alternatives of expulsion with the re-organization of the district under Lewis’ auspices, or giving up the struggle for the time being, the miners decided to go back and prevent a split.

The defeat the miners of Nova Scotia suffered, has an important bearing in the issues it raises on the immediate development of the Canadian Labour Movement. In retrospect it must be admitted that there were shortcomings and strategical mistakes in the leadership of this strike on the part of the radicals. Lewis had been waiting all along for a chance to crush the radical Mc Lachlan regime on account of its endorsement of the Profintern program at the Truro Convention. Lewis’ intervention in the strike, as well as the treachery of Moore, were therefore to have been as logically awaited as the intervention of the troops in the steel workers’ strike. The Canadian workers as a whole are against the intervention of the military. Labour public opinion should therefore have been mobilized as much as possible in connection with the action of the miners, But the strike of the miners was called too hastily, without sufficient preparation of the public opinion and sympathy of the rest of Canadian Labour, which therefore lent a passive and not an active support to the miners throughout the conflict. In the next place, when it became clear that the miners were more or less isolated in their struggle, particularly after the refusal of the officials of District 18 in Alberta to call a sympathy strike, the leadership of the Nova Scotia strike prolonged it somewhat inflexively till after the ultimatum of Lewis. In other words, the retreat was not carried out under the best circumstances. A fight with Lewis is inevitable. The question is how to conduct it under the most favourable circumstances for our side.

It must also be admitted that the Workers’ Party was caught somewhat unprepared for the struggle, in spite of the fact that trouble had been brewing between the steel workers and the Corporation for some time. The Party Executive played little part both in the question of calling the strike and its breaking off, in spite of the fact that the strike leaders were Party members. Nor, it must be admitted did the Party, on account of its unpreparedness, develop a sufficient campaign on the political and industrial issues which the Nova Scotia miners had raised for the whole of Canadian Labour.

II. The Canadian Autonomy and the Trades Congress.

An issue that has cropped up as a result of the strike, is that of Canadian autonomy for the Trade Union movement. The behaviour of Lewis in attempting to throttle a political action of specific concern to Canadian workers, makes it necessary to enlarge the right of Canadian trade unionism to use industrial action for political purposes and against the Canadian authorities, without being interfered with from the United States trade union bureaucracy. Another consideration in connection with raising the slogan of national trade union autonomy, is to stem certain nationalist influences at work, both in the Nova Scotia district and elsewhere, in favour of splitting away “at the border” or seceding from the A. F. of L. The slogan was hastily raised in view of the shortly impending Trades Congress Convention. There was scarcely any time to conduct a widespread propaganda and agitation for this autonomy. The Toronto Trades Council endorsed it, and it was brought before the Trades Congress, to be rejected by a two-thirds majority as an attempt on the part of the radicals to split the Internationals. In spite of the defeat of the autonomy issue at the Congress, it is being more widely agitated for by the progressive forces now as a necessary measure for Canadian Labour to develop its class struggle, not only in the form of strikes against the employers, but also to enable it to carry out mass actions in favour of political objectives.

At the Congress the left wing regularly pulled a third of the votes for the progressive issues amalgamation, autonomy, and so on. It has become quite clear, with all the shortcomings of the Party, that the Workers Party nevertheless is the strongest element in the left wing, and perhaps without the Party there would be no left wing at the Trades Congress or in the organized trade union movement.

III. The Canadian Labour Party and the W.P.C.

The Workers Party has continued to apply the united front tactics in Canada in the form of lending its support to and developing the movement for the dominion-wide Canadian Labour Party. The Labour Party movement continues to grow even though it has not yet taken on the character of a real mass movement. The Workers Party is everywhere affiliated with the C.L.P. Some recent extensions of the Labour Party have been the organization of a section in British Columbia and in the maritime provinces. The Labour Party has now sections in every province. The Winnipeg I.L.P. is considering the question of affiliation and the Quebec section of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway Carmen is negotiating for the affiliation of their entire membership. In Edmonton, the Labour Party has some election successes to record in the municipal contests. The movement is strongest in Ontario and Alberta. In the latter province it is assuming the character of a mass movement owing to the affiliation of the miners. An interesting development in connection with the Labour Party movement is the question of an alliance with the Farmers that has arisen in Nova Scotia, where the question of a Labour-Farmer Party has been placed on the order of discussion. It is a question that should be thrown open for discussion in the Workers Party, the Labour Party and the farmers’ organizations, whether a united front in the form of a Canadian Labour-Farmer Party does not meet the requirements of Canadian conditions more than a strict Labour Party, modelled after the British example. The Farmers’ Movement in Canada is politically in a state of flux and even of disintegration. After their great victories in the Ontario provincial elections after the war, where they became the governing party, as well as in the Alberta provincial elections and federal elections, the farmers’ political movement is experiencing a relapse. It suffered a defeat in the last elections in Ontario. The farmer rank and file is dissatisfied with the record of the Alberta Farmer Government. Inside the movement as a whole, there are two conflicting points of view, one of which would harness the farmers’ movement to the Liberals, or at least form a so-called progressive party; the other would like to retain the class organization and consciousness of the farmers’ movement. In this state of flux and dissatisfaction inside the farmers’ movement, it is possible to bring about an alliance between workers and farmers, with advantages to the Labour movement. In these manoeuvres it goes without saying there is a danger that the Workers Party might be swallowed up. It must therefore be pointed out, as before in relation to the Nova Scotia struggle, that the Party must develop greater initiative and directing force than it has hitherto. It must increase its industrial membership, strengthen the organization all round and discuss the political and industrial questions of the order of the day more thoroughly and more widely than it has hitherto. The level of education among the Party membership must be raised, and the leading role of the Workers Party as a Communist Party must be continually kept in view.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecor” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecor’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecor, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly

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