50 years without Tim Buck

On March 18, 2023, the YCL’s Vancouver club organized an event at the Centre for Socialist Education commemorating the life of Tim Buck. Artefacts and books were on display, including a photo of the Soviet vessel named after the longtime General Secretary. Once the guests had arrived and settled, the programme began with speeches by Communist Party of B.C. leader Kimball Cariou and YCL Vancouver club organiser Stasi, followed by a screening of the Party’s centenary documentary, A Century of Struggle: The Story of the Communist Party of Canada. 

The 50th anniversary of comrade Tim Buck’s passing very nearly coincides with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the YCL in 1924, which will hold its 29th Central Convention later this year. For these reasons, this article — nearly identical to the speech delivered by Stasi, with only minor alterations — illustrates and emphasizes the historic role played by the Young Communist League in helping to maintain the ideological integrity of the Party during a tumultuous period, and in propelling Tim Buck to the position of General Secretary. Under Buck’s leadership, the Party would go on to play a vital role in a variety of struggles, ranging from building the labour movement, to the fight against fascism in Europe, to the advancement of the rights of women, to developing an analysis of the multinational character of Canada and a recognition of its founding being based on the violent theft of Indigenous lands. 

Comrade Tim Buck, a stalwart of the Communist Party of Canada, held the position of General Secretary for an impressive 33 years, from 1929 to 1962. Throughout his tenure, the global community of socialist leaders and organizers faced an unrelenting series of crises, affording little reprieve from the exasperating demands of their shared struggle for progress and justice. At times, the internal strife within the Party proved no less existential a threat than the external struggle against reaction, which included arrests of leading cadres and a ban on the Party altogether. One such instance occurred during the period following the sombre month of January 1924, which saw the untimely passing of Vladmir Lenin. The premature death of the leader of the October Revolution — hastened by a bullet fired by a cowardly ultra-leftist assassin from the Socialist Revolutionaries — had sent shockwaves across communist parties around the world, leaving many anxious and uncertain about who would step forward to take on the historic role, and what this might mean for the future of the Soviet Union. All eyes turned to Moscow, as the fate of the movement hung in the balance. 

After delivering a well-received speech during a memorial for comrade Lenin in Montreal, Buck returned to Toronto with a greater sensitivity to the necessity for a deeper understanding and appreciation of Leninist ideology among both the Party’s lower ranks and its leading cadre. Buck proposed that the Central Committee carry out a party-wide educational campaign on the threat of right opportunism and left deviation. This suggestion met with disapproval, particularly from then-General Secretary Jack MacDonald, and Morris Spector, the Party’s chairman and editor of the Worker newspaper. MacDonald felt there was no rightist problem, and that Buck’s paranoia was making a “mountain out of a molehill,” whereas Spector vehemently objected to what he perceived to be the imposition of a “political straight-jacket.” This heralded the simmering of a deep rift within the ranks of the Party — a rift that remained subdued for four years until it resurfaced during a critical dispute. In 1928, a sense of unease had begun to take hold within Canada’s communist movement, as many felt that the Party was losing its fervour, becoming increasingly institutionalized, turning inward, and shying away from the struggle. 

However, it was the Young Communist League, only four years old, which acutely recognized the ideological contradictions surfacing amidst the Party dispute. The young guard, along with those elders who were steadfast in their resolve, insisted that this was no time for complacency or idleness, that the class struggle was intensifying by the minute, and that comrades must consistently remain vigilant and organised in order to provide leadership to the leftward-moving masses. 

Later that year, it was revealed that MacDonald and Spector, the two who were quite outspoken against firmer ideological education, were in fact straying away from Marxism-Leninism. Letters and telegrams exposed an intimate relationship between Spector and a trotskyite group in the United States. It was revealed in his correspondences that he advocated for a “permanent revolution,” and had intentions to lead a breakaway movement in Canada. After Spector’s expulsion, MacDonald began a national tour to speak out against his trotskyite activities. However, less than 200 km into the tour, reports to Toronto suggested that MacDonald’s position against Spector was not shared by the world communist movement, but rather resembled right opportunism and promoted an American exceptionalist viewpoint. Needless to say, MacDonald did not finish his national tour and was sent straight back to Toronto, where Party leadership confronted him about his American exceptionalist position. Buck noted that this issue “dominated all Party discussions, the life of the Party, in fact, from then until the sixth National Convention in May 1929.”

During the pre-convention discussions, the Young Communist League had played a significant role in its firm opposition to the rightist tendencies of MacDonald, who had garnered quite a large base of support. Buck had stated multiple times that the YCL’s leadership vigorously battled the MacDonald majority, and abetted the determination of the minority Buck group. The tenacity of the youth league not only greatly influenced Buck and his supporters but was also instrumental in saving the Party from the right opportunism and left deviation that had infected many of its members. Comrade Buck was elected as General Secretary in 1929 and remained in the position for the next thirty-three years. Without the decisive ideological steadfastness demonstrated by the YCL, it is no exaggeration to suggest that the Communist Party may not have survived.

The reason why the communist youth took on such a prominent ideological role in the latter half of the 1920s is surely a question worth considering — but that question I will leave for the contemplation of our readers. However, we can look to Lenin just as they did then for guidance on how to build a strong YCL-LJC. In his 1920 work “The Tasks of the Youth League,” Lenin wrote that ”the tasks of the youth in general, and of the Young Communist Leagues and all other organisations in particular, might be summed up in three words: study, study, study.”

As we approach the YCL-LJC’s historic 29th Central Convention and begin the vital political and ideological work demanded by the increasingly dangerous contradictions of capitalism, let us not forget that the youth league is much more than just a place for “junior communists.” Indeed, the YCL-LJC has a distinct and essential role to play in building the youth and student movements, as well as in the struggle for socialism, and Young Communists across the country must rise to the occasion.