Communism & Marxism

The BC Workers’ News was published by the Communist Party beginning in 1935. It changed its title several times in ensuing years. This collection includes issues since its inception until 1946.   Visit the BC Workers' News digital archive.

John David (Jack) Harrington (1879 – 1970), recounts his long history with the labour and socialist movements in North America, starting with his arrival in Canada around 1904. The interview was conducted in the 1960s by the BC Federation of...

Fred Wilson recounts his life and work in the labour movement, including his early involvement with the Young Communist League, his time as a labour reporter at the Pacific Tribune, his role in the Operation Solidarity movement, and his work...

This 24-minute video documents the widespread unemployment and economic hardship experienced in Canada, particularly in British Columbia, during the Great Depression.

The Fisherman bi-weekly newspaper documents shore workers and other labourers working in the fishing industry. Canneries, Indigenous peoples, commercial fishing activities, equipment, and processes, union and alliance meetings and demonstrations, protests, and other aspects of the fishing industry in British...

The Pacific Tribune, was a consistent source of reporting and analysis of labour movements and people's struggles in British Columbia. Originally established by the Communist Party of Canada as the BC Workers’ News in 1935, the newspaper began publishing under...

The Western Clarion was a pivotal publication in Canadian labour and socialist history. From 1903 to its final issue in 1925, it served as the official organ of the Socialist Party of Canada, offering a unique window into the revolutionary...

The Commentator was the official organ of the Trail and District Smelter Workers, Local 480 International Union of Mine Mill and Smelter Union (IUMM&SWU). The newspaper was published in Trail, BC between November 1938 and December 1954. Visit The Commentator...

This booklet chronicles the significant contributions of Charles Howard Webb (1896-1977) to the labour movement in Prince George and the Interior region of British Columbia. Webb began his career as a sawmill worker.

This is a joint interview with Charles McGregor Stewart (1891-1968) and Peter Campbell Munro (1887-1971), who were active in the Street Railwaymen’s Union in Vancouver, British Columbia in the early decades of the 20th century. They discuss the impact of...

Dan Radford (1902-1977) was a Nanaimo coal miner who held held many union positions, including President of the BC. Federation of Labour, director of the Canadian Congress of Labor, and the Canadian Labour Congress. The interview was conducted in the...

Garry Worth was a red diaper baby whose father joined the Labour Progressive Party (a front for the Communist Party) in 1946. Garry was born and raised on Vancouver Island where his father worked in logging. When he finished high...

Sean grew up in Burnaby where he began his political activism early as a paperboy delivering Pacific Tribune newspapers for Harold Pritchett. Sean’s father was the longtime editor of the Pacific Tribune and Sean’s mother was also politically active. Due...

Sy Pederson was born into a logging family of fallers in Courtenay and followed the family tradition when he turned 21. Falling was a dangerous job and Sy recognized the hazard posed by the piecework system. He organized fallers in...

Darshan Singh Sangha made a huge contribution to the early organizing efforts of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) and campaigned relentlessly for justice for South Asians in the 1940s. In this episode of our On the Line podcast we...

With a population of 2,479 in 1931, the city of Prince George, BC had hundreds of unemployed. That year, a branch of the communist-led National Unemployed Workers Association (NUWA) was established in the Prince George District. Under the watchful eye...

In this 2023 conversation, Colleen Fuller talks about growing up in a politically active family and her life of political and labour activism. She was born in the United States to parents active in the Communist Party and the labour...

In 1947, youth in Chemainus and Ladysmith, BC led the first ever children’s strike. It was a protest against the rising cost of chocolate. The price of a typical bar had ballooned suddenly from five cents to eight cents.

Despite police predictions that it would be a “dismal failure”, 6,000 men, women and children descended on the Powell Street grounds (now Oppenheimer Park) in Vancouver on February 22, 1932 for a “Hunger March”, organized by the Communist Party of...

In the early 20th C, the large, exploited workforce of the smelter at Trail was ripe for organizing. Those efforts were contentious and the politics formidable. Company unions versus legitimate unions, communist union leaders versus anti-communist union leaders, International unions...

During the dirty ‘30s, thousands of single, unemployed men were forced into federally run relief camps: isolated, militarized work sites where they worked under punishing conditions for just 20 cents a day. In this episode of On the Line, we...

Labour’s May Day (sometimes called International Workers’ Day) on May 1 has been held around the world for over 120 years. In many countries May Day is a statutory holiday that celebrates international solidarity and the long history of labour...

A fiery Irish-Catholic who lost both parents before he turned 12, Jack Kavanagh came to Vancouver in 1908 after serving in the British Army in South Africa during the Boer War. Upon arriving in BC, Kavanagh took up the tile-laying...

With the end of the Great Depression, labour’s long hostility towards Asian workers slowly began to change. The International Woodworkers of America led the way by hiring three non-Caucasian organizers to break down the barriers of race and unite workers...

In November 1944 and again in 1945 — as the Second World War neared its end — two art exhibitions celebrating labour took place at the Vancouver Art Gallery. The first exhibition included 150 works; in 1945 there were over...

At the time of this interview, Audrey Keely was over 100 years of age. She spent her early life with her family in the Cariboo and shares some of those experiences and personal tragedies. This interview was conducted by Patricia...

The On-to-Ottawa Trek in 1935 is a fabled part of Canada’s labour history. Thousands of unemployed men, frustrated with the lack of compassion from government to their plight, hopped atop freight trains in Vancouver with a plan to confront Prime...

Grace Stevens was born in Saskatchewan to Finnish and Norwegian parents, moving to Webster’s Corners in BC as a girl where her parents farmed and fished the Fraser River. Growing up in the Depression years, she learned to fight for...

George Hewison grew up in Campbell River where he learned his unionism and politics at “the kitchen table” during the Cold War years. He was an organizer and executive member of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union (UFAWU) for...

Bill Zander was born at home in the small town of Myrtle, Saskatchewan in 1934, but spent his childhood in Vancouver, BC He started working in a lumber mill after returning from the Royal Canadian Airforce, and became a plant...