"Canadian Communism is an original and scholarly history of the Communist Party of Canada (1921-1981). This work puts the Party into an international setting and compares it with similar movements in Great Britain, the United States, and France. The CPC was organized by Canadian socialists influenced by the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and its leader Vladimir Lenin. They decided to become a section of the newly formed Communist International and to follow its guidelines. But the rise to power of Joseph Stalin, after the death of Lenin in 1924, changed the outlook and tactics of the Communist International and its affiliates. Penner traces the specific way these changes affected the CPC at every important stage in Canadian and world events. He shows how the frequent battles within the Party, and especially among the leaders, were in response to directives from the Communist International or the Soviet party. Penner credits the Canadian Communists with contributing to the building of the trade union movement, with assistance to the unemployed during the thirties, and with helping Spain's democratic government fight the fascists during the civil war. These activities, often undertaken in the face of state repression, resulted in the emergence of such popular figures as Tim Buck, Norman Bethune, Jacob Penner, J. B. Salsberg, A. A. MacLeod, and Dorise Nielsen. Penner presents a new evaluation of the Canadian Communists' tactics, the popular front, the alliance with the Liberals in the trade union movement, and the bitter conflict with the CCF. He describes the year-long debate within the Party over the Khrushchev revelations about the brutal nature of Stalin's rule, a debate that split all the Communist parties in the West and from which they have never recovered. Norman Penner has drawn the material for his book from major Canadian archives, as well as public and private collections in Britain and the U.S. He has talked with Communists and ex-Communists in all three countries and has also drawn from his own material and recollections." --

Not for King or Country tells the story of Edward Cecil-Smith, a dynamic propagandist for the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression. He is most well-known for commanding the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion during the Spanish Civil War.

In 1919, Bolshevik Russia and its followers formed the Communist International, also known as the Comintern, to oversee the global communist movement. From the very beginning, the Comintern committed itself to ending world imperialism, supporting colonial liberation, and promoting racial equality. Coinciding with the centenary of the Comintern's founding, Left Transnationalism highlights the different approaches interwar communists took in responding to these issues. Bringing together leading and emerging scholars on the Communist International, individual communist parties, and national and colonial questions, this collection moves beyond the hyperpoliticized scholarship of the Cold War era and re-energizes the field. Contributors focus on transnational diasporic and cultural networks, comparative studies of key debates on race and anti-colonialism, the internationalizing impulse of the movement, and the evolution of communist platforms through transnational exchange. Essays further emphasize the involvement of communist and socialist parties across Canada, Australia, India, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, Latin America, South Africa, and Europe. Highlighting the active discussions on nationality, race, and imperialism that took place in Comintern circles, Left Transnationalism demonstrates that this organization - as well as communism in general - was, especially in the years before 1935, far more heterogeneous, creative, and unpredictable than the rubber stamp of the Soviet Union described in conventional historiography. Contributors include Michel Beaulieu (Lakehead University), Marc Becker (Truman State University), Anna Belogurova (Freie Universitat Berlin), Oleksa Drachewych (University of Guelph), Daria Dyakonova (Université de Montréal), Alastair Kocho-Williams (Clarkson University), Andrée Lévesque (McGill University), Lars T. Lih (Independent Scholar), Ian McKay (McMaster University), Sandra Pujals (University of Puerto Rico), John Riddell (Ontario Institute of Studies in Education), Evan Smith (Flinders University), S.A. Smith (All Souls College, Oxford), Xiaofei Tu (Appalachian State University), and Kankan Xie (Peking University).

Canada and the Cold War is a fascinating historical overview of a key period in Canadian history. The focus is on how Canada and Canadians responded to the Soviet Union -- and to America's demands on its northern neighbour.

From German conspiracies along Ontarios borders to monitoring mail between Canadian communists and Moscow an exploration of newly declassified documents.

"Canadian communism did not spring out of the ground suddenly at the end of World War I, and it was not smuggled into the country by Russian agents. The men and women who built the new movement were long-time socialist and labour militants in Canada. Inspired by the Russian Revolution and by their own experiences as leaders of the post-war labour revolt in Canada, they set about to create a new kind of party, one that could lead the fight for workers' power. The new Communist Party, formed between 1919 and 1921, quickly became the largest party on the left, with strong roots and influence in the unions and basic industry. Its members led heroic strikes. They fought for labor unity, and engaged in united electoral activity with other currents in the workers movement. They were in the forefront of the struggle for democratic rights.

First book about key Soviet spy and Canadian communist. Fred Rose was deeply involved in atomic espionage.