Publications

Our first major project will be republication of Canadian Bolsheviks: The Early Years of the Communist Party of Canada, by Ian Angus. This path-breaking work, originally published in 1981, has been out of print for some time. Our new edition, tentatively planned for release in the Fall of 2004, will include a new introduction by the author.

Reviews of the first edition ...

William Rodney in the Globe & Mail: “Canadian Bolsheviks is a book that cannot be overlooked by anyone interested in Canadian labour history and the part played in its development by Canadian Communists. It is a story too little known, and Angus, to his credit, has done much to rectify that imbalance.” (William Rodney is the author of Soldiers of the International)
Bryan D. Palmer in Labour/Le Travail: “Canadian Bolsheviks demands attention from all of those professing interest in the history and nature of Canadian communism.” (Bryan Palmer is Senior Canada Research Chair in Canadian Studies at Trent University)
Irving Abella in Canadian Dimension: “His description of the origin and growth of the Communist Party in the 1920s is the best yet to appear. He tells us much that was not widely known before, and describes in great detail the internecine struggles that were a hallmark of the party’s first decade of existence.” (Irving Abella is Shiff Professor of History at York University)
Desmond Morton in Histoire Sociale/Social History: “Even those with little ideological engagement in the factional struggles of half a century ago must concede that Angus has performed a service. Readers of the forthcoming official history of the Communist Party of Canada will now be much better equipped for that heavy task if they keep a copy of Canadian Bolsheviks by their side.” (Desmond Morton is director of the Institute for the Study of Canada, McGill University)
James Dyer in the Vancouver Sun: “[Ian] Angus’s most interesting and valuable account of the beginnings of the Communist Party of Canada …. Angus’s denunciation of the [Tim Buck] myth deserves consideration because of the voluminous documentation he brings to it.”
Brian McDonald in Socialist Worker: “Deserves to be read by every serious Marxist … a long overdue and invaluable account of the first and most important years of the CPC … Angus has given revolutionary socialists an important base for more detailed investigation of our tradition.”
Alan Twigg in The Magazine: “[a] coherent and groundbreaking foray into the field of Canadian political history.”
John Knowles in The Peak: “Highly detailed and packed with excerpts from original sources that transmit the enthusiasm of the early bolshevik revolutionaries and the hypocrisy of the Stalinists… Canadian Bolsheviks gives a clear understanding of the present moribund state of the Communist Party of Canada.”