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Norman Bethune (1890-1939) was a man who had everything, and yet had nothing. Although he had achieved international prominence as a surgeon, he was unhappy in his personal life and deeply frustrated by a failed attempt to introduce medicare to Canada. An uncompromising humanitarian in search of a cause, Bethune became immersed in the Spanish Civil War. In Bethune in Spain, Roderick Stewart and Jesús Majada recount Bethune's achievements in Spain and the events that led to his decision to assist the Loyalist forces. The narrative contains Bethune's letters and reports, some of them reproduced here for the first time, as well as newspaper articles, and interviews with him. It covers his creation and operation of a mobile blood transfusion unit, his rescue of fleeing Loyalist civilians during the Malaga-Almeria road tragedy, and his efforts to aid children orphaned by the War. It also deals with the gruelling public-speaking tour Bethune undertook on his return to Canada in 1937 to plead for intervention in support of democracy in Spain and to raise awareness of atrocities committed against civilians by the fascist-backed Spanish Nationalists. Illustrated with photographs from Bethune's seven months in Spain, Bethune in Spain is a poignant portrait of an early advocate for universal health care, an unwavering communist, and a crusader for the Spanish Republican cause.

Under Bolshevik and Nazi rule, nearly one-third of all Soviet Mennonites – including more than half of all adult men – perished, while a large number were exiled to the east and the north by the Soviet secret police (NKVD). Others fled westward on long treks, seeking refuge in Germany during the Second World War. However, at war’s end, the majority of the USSR refugees living in Germany were sent to the Soviet Gulag, where many died. Paths of Thorns is the story of Jacob Abramovich Neufeld (1895–1960), a prominent Soviet Mennonite leader and writer, as well as one of these Mennonites sent to the Gulag. Consisting of three parts – a Gulag memoir, a memoir-history, and a long letter from Neufeld to his wife – this volume mirrors the life and suffering of Neufeld’s generation of Soviet Mennonites. In the words of editor and translator Harvey L. Dyck, “Neufeld’s writings elevate a simple story of terror and survival into a remarkable chronicle and analysis of the cataclysm that swept away his small but significant ethno-religious community.”

James Mellon Menzies (1885-1957) was a Canadian engineer, Presbyterian missionary, and archaeologist active in China in the 1920s and 1930s. In a tradition that saw archaeology as a means of gathering artefacts for the collections of Western museums, Menzies believed in collecting for the people of China. He also saw his archaeological work as an extension of his missionary work, connecting, through his discoveries, the religious beliefs of ancient China to those of evangelical Christianity. InCross Culture and Faith, Linfu Dong sheds new light on the modern encounter between China and the West through Menzies's life, work, and thought. He elucidates the difficult 'negotiation' processes that Menzies endured on multiple levels and with multiple forces, including Chinese nationalism, Western imperialism, the evangelical Mission, and his own personal interest in Chinese archaeology within that world. Despite his belief in assuring Chinese artefacts remained in China, some of Menzies's personal collection was donated to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria in British Columbia. This has assured his place in the cultural memory of both East and West - appropriate, since his life so often straddled the two worlds.

This collection of the artistic and written work of Dr Norman Bethune reveals the many sides of his identity, exploring not only the life of a revolutionary doctor, but of an intense and compassionate artist.

THE ELECTION OF WILLIAM KOLISNYK as alderman for Winnipeg's Ward Three in the fall of 1926 was celebrated as one of the first times that any candidate in North America running under the banner of a Communist Party was elected to public office. Although he was only an alderman for four years, a study of Kolisnyk's political life contributes to the study of communist history in several ways. His term in office was split roughly in half by the introduction of Third Period ideology. As the Communist Party's sole elected representative at the time, Kolisnyk's political activity demonstrates the practical implications of this dramatic policy shift. While the Third Period radically changed Kolisnyk's politics, several local issues significantly influenced his politics. Ethnicity, both within the Party and in Kolisnyk's constituency, profoundly affected his career. The paper also examines the political issues pursued by communists at the municipal level and the communist community that brought Kolisnyk to office. Therefore, this examination of William Kolisnyk's aldermanic career reveals the importance of international influences as well as the political realities of Winnipeg's communist community, both of which contributed to the political activities of one of Canada's first elected communists. L'ÉLECTION DE WILLIAM KOLISNYK comme conseiller municipal pour la troisième circonscription de Winnipeg en automne 1926 a été célébrée comme l'une des premières occasions qu'un candidat en Amérique du Nord se présentant sous la bannière d'un parti communiste a été élu à un poste de fonctionnaire. Bien qu'il soit conseiller pour seulement quatre ans, une étude de la vie politique de Kolisnyk contribue à l'étude de l'histoire communiste dans plusieurs façons. Son mandat a été à peu près divisé en deux parties par l'introduction de l'idéologie de la troisième période. En tant que le seul représentant élu du parti communiste à ce moment-là, l'activité politique de Kolisnyk démontre les implications pratiques de ce changement de politique dramatique. Bien que la troisième période ait changé de façon radicale les politiques de Kolisnyk, plusieurs questions locales ont influencé ses politiques de façon remarquable. L'appartenance ethnique dans le parti et dans la circonscription de Kolisnyk a profondément touché à sa carrière. Cet article examine également les questions politiques poursuivies par les communistes au niveau municipal et la communauté communiste qui a favorisé l'entrée en fonction de Kolisnyk. En conséquence, cet examen de la carrière de William Kolisnyk en tant que conseiller municipal révèle l'importance des influences internationales ainsi que les réalités politiques de la communauté communiste de Winnipeg, les deux ayant contribué aux activités politiques de l'un des premiers communistes élus au Canada.

The leaflet was written by Sam Walsh and [Dave Kashtan]. [deletion: 2 lines] The leaflet is entitled \"Youth must Fight for Life, Not Die For Profits.\"... Under the sub-title \"Lest We Forget\", the article states, \"In 1914-18 our fathers were led and conscripted into the terrible slaughter of imperialist war under the false slogans of 'save democracy', 'a war to end all wars ', ' a land fit for heroes to live in. ' Now again we are expected to uphold an empire that holds 500,000,000 human beings in virtual slavery, to defend capitalism, which breeds imperialist war and poverty for the people...It is a brutal, unjust robber war of rival imperialisms.\"11 One day I asked one of the guards if there was a library. \"Oh yes,\" he responded. \"If you're interested in reading, I'll take you to the library room.\" I was surprised when I came across a four-volume hard-covered set of The Forsyte Saga by Galsworthy. The prison 'librarian' said \"You can take the whole set, but don't tear out the pages.\" I didn't know what he was talking about until I returned to my cell and discovered that there were numerous gaps where pages were missing in each of the four volumes. This edition was printed on soft paper, ideal for rolling the tobacco shag which was given on request to prisoners. The smokers recognized good literature. 5 John Manley has produced the best works on the CPC's Popular Front period. His introduction, \"From United Front to Popular Front: The CPC in 1936,\" to [Gregory S. Kealey] and [Reg Whitaker], eds.,R.C.M.P. Security Bulletins: The Depression Years, Part III, 1936 (St. John's 1996), 1 -24, with its focus on the youth activities of the Party (16-23), is perhaps most relevant to Kashtan's story, but his other works are also well worth reading, including '\"Communists Love Canada' : The Communist Party of Canada, the 'People' and the Popular Front, 1933-1939,\" Journal of Canadian Studies, 36 (Winter 2001-2002), 59-86, and '\"Audacity, audacity, still more audacity': Tim Buck, the Party, and the People, 1932-1939,\" Labour/Le Travail, 49 (Spring 2002), 9-41.

Joseph baruch salsberg was one of Canada's best known and respected communists when he left the Labor-Progressive Party in 1957 after years of anguish over clear evidence of antisemitism in the Soviet Union. After a 30-year career in the Party in which he and numerous Jewish radicals had invested their belief that communism heralded a \"better world's in birth\" and solutions for all mankind's troubles, including the \"Jewish question,\" Salsberg concluded that the poison of antisemitism was alive and well in the communist nirvana - and, with a broken heart, he walked away after vainly trying to convince Soviet leaders to reverse the trend. /// Joseph baruch salsberg était l'un des communistes les plus connus et les plus respectés du Canada quand il a quitté le Parti ouvrier-progressiste en 1957 après des années d'angoisse sur l'évidence d'antisémitisme au sein de l'Union soviétique. Après une carrière de 30 ans au Parti dans lequel de nombreux militants juifs et lui-même croyaient profondément que le communisme ouvrait la voie à la \" naissance d'un meilleur monde \" et aux solutions de tous les problèmes des êtres humains, y compris la \" question juive \", Salsberg est enfin arrivé à la conclusion que le poison de l'antisémitisme était tout aussi répandu dans le nirvâna communiste - et, avec le cœur brisé, il est parti après avoir essayé en vain de convaincre les dirigeants soviétiques de renverser la tendance.

The autobiographical writings of the sometime Canadian resident Ilona Duczynska (1897-1978), born near Vienna of a Polish father and Hungarian mother (both of the lower nobility), were designed to show how experiences within the family during childhood and youth led to her becoming a revolutionary. Duczynska claimed to have experienced a species of class struggle-involving the families of her idealized father and her much criticized mother-that brought about the death of the former and marked her personally with the sign of inferiority. It followed, then, that education was powerless to amend what Duczynska decided she had already 'learned' within the family, including her malcontent father's characteristic spirit of negation. Consequently, Duczynska describes the various stages of her distinctly privileged education in Austria, Germany, Switzerland and Hungary-almost entirely in terms of how she availed herself of opportunities to take a 'stand' against existing institutions. Inevitably, in 1922 even the 'party school' of the Hungarian Communist Party forfeited her confidence. Further research, drawing on psychological insights, may show why Duczynska's family experiences should have led to a mistrust of the family as an institution, fascination with 'revolutionary violence', and life-long hatred of liberal democratic (and capitalist) institutions.

Although Reuther successfully eliminated the US Communist Party (CP) from the UAW beginning in 1947, which became a precursor to the purge of the eleven CP-led unions from the CIO in 1949-1950, Reuther's relationship with the CP in the early tumultuous years of the UAW is a topic that has generated controversy among UAW scholars and Reuther biographers for more than five decades. Reuther's earliest involvement with radical politics dates back to the fall of 1930 as a student at Detroit City College (DCC), now Wayne State University, where he helped to organize the DCC Social Problems Club, a League for Industrial Democracy (LID) affiliate, which was, in essence, a branch of the Socialist Party (SP). Considering himself a Socialist at this time, Reuther actively campaigned throughout the nation for the SP presidential candidate, Norman Thomas, in 1932. Reuther's first exposure to CP politics may have come while working at Ford in 1931 when he joined the Auto Workers Union (AWU), a radical group that functioned within the CP milieu. Beginning at this time, Reuther developed an enthusiasm for the Soviet experiment, which may have been originally inspired by his close friendship with John Rushton, an older tool and die maker who was a Communist and had traveled to the Soviet Union in 1930. This enthusiasm for the construction of Soviet socialism resulted in Reuther, and his brother Victor, traveling to the Soviet Union and working in the toolroom of the Gorky Auto Works from November 1933 until June 1935. Upon returning to the US in 1935, over a period of several months, Reuther spoke quite favorably about his Soviet experience at meetings sponsored by either the Friends of the Soviet Union or the SP.(3) Clearly the most comprehensive and intellectually rigorous Reuther biography, The Most Dangerous Man In Detroit, discusses the issue of Reuther's possible membership in the CP in much more detail than other biographies. There Lichtenstein cites Nat Ganley's claim that he collected Reuther's membership dues when Reuther was in the CP, as outlined in the Glaberman article. In addition, Lichtenstein reports that in the fall of 1935, William Weinstone, the CP district organizer for Detroit, stated that Maurice Sugar brought Reuther to a weekly district CP meeting. Shortly thereafter, Weinstone asked Reuther to join the party, which he did. In January 1936, Reuther attended a twelfth anniversary commemoration of Lenin's death where CP leader Robert Minor spoke and Lichtenstein notes that Reuther made plans \"to listen to an Earl Browder radio broadcast in early February 1936.\" Finally, at this time, Reuther began to speak on behalf of the Friends of the Soviet Union and he visited with Anna Louise Strong when she lectured in Detroit. In spite of these activities, Lichtenstein claims only that Reuther may have had \"a possible brief membership\" in the CP.(13) Still, the existence of this document does not fully explain all of Reuther's political behavior during the period when he was secretly affiliated with the Communists. In spite of being a party member, Reuther still exhibited an independent streak in response to various party decisions. For example, although the Unity Caucus nominated Victor Reuther for the Michigan CIO council secretary-treasurer at the state CIO convention in April 1938, Frankensteen, a new recruit to the Unity Caucus, huddled with the leading UAW Communists, who decided to abandon Victor Reuther in favor of Richard Leonard, a previous supporter of Martin's Progressive Caucus. Walter Reuther felt betrayed by this action and argued that these tactics of the UAW Communists would destroy the Unity Caucus. When Michigan CP State Secretary William Weinstone stated that they knew what they were doing, Reuther replied, \"If you carry through this double-cross, then count me on the other side, not only in this fight, but from here on out!\"(39) While a number of Reuther biographies indicate that this incident was decisive in Reuther's ideological break from the CP but not the Unity Caucus, Reuther's behavior may be explained, purely and simply, by family loyalty to his brother whom he felt had been mistreated by the party.