- James Litterick
Infobox Person
name = James Litterick
birth_date =July 15 1901
death_date = Unknown
death_place =Glasgow , flag|Scotland
education =Clydebrooker
occupation = PoliticianJames Litterick (
July 15 ,1901 -?) was a politician inManitoba ,Canada , and was the first member of theCommunist Party of Canada to be elected to that province's legislature.Litterick was born in
Glasgow ,Scotland . He received an education atClydebrooke and Glasgow, and became a member of theBritish Socialist Party at age sixteen (his father was also a lifelongsocialist ). He was jailed for his role in a rent riot atClydebank in 1920, and joined the newly-formedCommunist Party of Great Britain the same year.Litterick moved to
Canada in 1925 and initially worked as a miner inAlberta andBritish Columbia . In 1926, he became the district secretary of theCommunist Party of British Columbia . He moved toMontreal in 1930, and became an organizer for theWorkers Unity League , a Communist trade union umbrella designed to build a revolutionary trade union movement in Canada. When Communist Party leaderTim Buck was arrested in 1931, Litterick moved toToronto to take over some of his responsibilities.In 1934, Litterick was selected as Provincial Secretary of the Communist Party of Manitoba. He was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the provincial election of 1936, during a period of increased popularity for the party. His campaign focused on eliminating the province's 2% wage tax.
Litterick placed second on first-preference votes in the riding of Winnipeg, which elected ten members via preferential balloting. He was declared elected on the second count, after receiving numerous transfer votes from first-place candidate
Lewis St. George Stubbs . Litterick regarded himself as an ally of Stubbs, a popular left-wing judge and Independent candidate. Litterick's primary support base was in Winnipeg's working-class north end, and he received considerable support from the city'sJewish community (his wife, Molly, was Jewish).Litterick was not a major figure in the national Communist Party. He delivered a speech entitled "Whither Manitoba" in 1937, which was subsequently issued as a pamphlet; beyond this, he did not play a significant public role in the party's national activities.
Because of his loyalty to
Moscow , Litterick expressed contradictory views on Canada's involvement inWorld War II in late 1939. OnSeptember 9 , he urged bothPremier John Bracken andPrime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to give full support toPoland againstNazi Germany 's invasion. AfterJoseph Stalin andAdolf Hitler signed anon-aggression pact onOctober 7 , Litterick was required to retract this position, and oppose the war as animperialist venture.He was expelled from the Manitoba legislature in 1940, after the Communist Party was declared an illegal organization. He had already gone into hiding, apparently the subject of a
Royal Canadian Mounted Police manhunt.Litterick's whereabouts after 1940 are a mystery. He appears in a photograph of Canada's wartime Communist Party leaders, apparently taken in Montreal in 1942. Beyond this, there are no definitive reports of his activities after going into hiding.
Rumours have long circulated that he was killed as a traitor by other Communist Party members, and his body left in British Columbia's
Fraser River . In the 1980s, longtimeNew Democratic Party MPDavid Orlikow concluded that Litterick was actually a spy for theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police . These reports have never been verified.
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