Press for Conversion! (Issue # 68) March 201636

Canadian antiSemites, antiReds and the Internment of TrotskyBy Richard Sanders

In Strangers Within our Gates (1909),J.S.Woodsworth revealed his con-tempt for east Europeans, Aboriginals,

Asians and Blacks. However, he had aslightly higher regard for Jewish immi-grants, in large part because he saw a bet-ter chance of assimilating them.

Labelling all “Hebrews” as “[n]at-urally religious,...industrious and ambi-tious,” Woodsworth concluded “the Jew isbound to succeed.” Then, saying “theymay be miserly along some lines,” hebranded all Jewish people as having “keenbusiness instincts,” from the “pedlars orsweat-shop tailors to the money-baronswho control the world’s finances.”1

After explaining that young Jewishnewcomers to Canada were “drifting awayfrom the Synagogues,” Woodsworth sadlynoted the disturbing fact that “they are notbecoming Christians, but atheists or secu-larists.” He then concluded his section on“Hebrews” by saying that the “most seri-ous danger” faced by “our immigrants,” is“the loss of old faith in the new land.”2

Woodsworth made no secret of hisview that this vulnerability among Jewishimmigrants was an opportunity that Chris-tians should exploit. In his chapter, “AChallenge to the Church,” he used anec-dotes about Hebrew children straying fromJudaism, “to plead the cause of Jewish mis-sions.” Stating that the “old faith is lost,”he asked: “Have we a better to offer? Then,can we refuse to make the Jews sharers ofour Gospel liberty?”3 His answer lies instories promoting church efforts to convertJews who had wandered from their faith.

Woodsworth gave praise to the“London Society for Promoting Christian-ity amongst the Jews” for its missionarywork in Montreal and Ottawa. He alsoblessed Presbyterian and AnglicanChurchs’ efforts to convert Jews in Torontoand Winnipeg. In advertising the Method-ist Mission in Winnipeg, of which he wasthen Superintendent, Woodsworth rejoicedthat “Russian-Jewish children are takingan active interest in the Sunday School.”4

English professor Terrence Craigcompared “racial attitudes” in Woods-worth’s “pseudosociological” work withthose in Rev.Charles Gordon’s novel, TheForeigner. Calling the latter “a fictional-ised version of Strangers Within ourGates,” he noted that while Woodsworth

“deplored...Jewish middlemen actingdishonestly as interpreters and business

agents for less educated immigrants, thevillain in The Foreigner is such a char-acter. Rosenblatt, a greedy, conniving,and immoral Jew, is the antithesis of theChristian missionaries. He exploits thesimple Galician [Ukrainian] communityin Winnipeg both financially and im-morally.”5

Craig also explained that:“For Gordon and Woodsworth..., theidea of Jews being God’s chosen peo-ple contradicted their own claim for pre-destined Anglo-Saxon superiority inCanada.... Theirs was a narrow national...and unhistorical view, so ethnicallyegotistic that racism was its inevitableresult.... [I]t was popularly believed thatJewish immigrants would ...compete inbusiness with the WASP entrepreneurialsuperstructure.”6

Canada’s rabid anti-Semitism andthe widespread prejudice against east Eu-ropeans went hand in political hand. Jewsand Slavs were often tarred as seditious,leftwing radicals. Woodsworth not onlylinked east Europeans with Judaism, butwith an atheist brand of socialism that wentfar beyond the accepted, religious pale:

“Many of our immigrants from Russiaand Roumania are Socialists, some ofthem of the most extreme type. Thisseems rather strange, as naturally theJew is individualistic.... Socialism hascome as a gospel, and they have wel-comed it with almost religious devotion.Some of them have preached anarchy.”7

(Emphasis added.)Woodsworth was suggesting that “ex-treme” Socialism, which replaced “reli-gious devotion” with a political “gospel,”threatened the Canadian establishment. Hedevoted his life to crafting Social Gospelpolitics as an acceptable alternative. Chris-tian social democrats were tolerable to theestablishment because they rejected theatheist, anticapitalist Socialism attributedto radicalised Jews and east Europeans.Compared to these “extremists,” Woods-worth’s middle-of-the-road socialism wastame, loyal, compliant and easily co-opted.

Blaming “extreme” socialism on“despair” caused by “intolerable condi-tions” abroad, Woodsworth believed thatbetter conditions in Canada meant that “ex-tremists cannot secure a large following.”8

His narrative did not mention the Czar’suse of extreme violence, including massmurder, to crush general strikes and massprotests for democracy. Nor did Woods-worth note that the Czar had forced hun-dreds of thousands into internment. (See“The Russian Revolution...,” pp.38-39.)Instead, Woodsworth’s worries dovetailed

nicely with the paranoid antiRed delusionsof the Canadian elite. They shared an in-tense phobia that godless, east Europeansocialist fanatics were threatening the es-tablished social, religious and political or-der of our so-called Peaceable Kingdom.

Jewish Socialists in RevoltIn the 20th century’s first decade, the im-perial Christian rulers of Britain, Russia,Germany and Austria—besides being anintermarried racist elite—all faced a com-mon threat from popular socialist upris-ings. Jewish socialists were active in allof these multiethnic movements. The Bundfor example, which began in 1897, was amilitant Jewish trade union and politicalparty in Russia. Between 1903 and 1905,Bundists organised “a succession of strikesin factories, in railways, in sweatshops andtextile mills” and in one summer alone,4,500 of them were arrested.9

Russia’s reactionary backlash in-cluded state repression of the Left anddeadly antiSemitic rampages. Between1903 and 1906, 2,500 Jews were killed inOdessa Ukraine alone. In the worst Ukrain-ian pogrom of 1905, 400 to 800 were kill-ed when blamed for a general strike.10 Af-ter the Czar crushed the Bund and othersocialist groups, “many Jewish radicalsfled to North America...[and] both secu-larists and radicals became a driving forcein the life of North American Jewry.”11

In 1906, while radicals—Jewishand otherwise—were being killed, exiledor interned by Czarist forces, a Conserva-tive MP presented Canada’s Parliamentwith a resolution denouncing Russia’s“reign of terror.” It stated that “large num-bers of helpless men, women and childrenof the Hebrew race were massacred in amost brutal and inhuman manner.” Whilesaying the murder of 100,000 Hebrews was“a disgrace to...civilization,”12 the resolu-tion did not mention the mass killing andinternment of those who were not Jewish.It also failed to mention the huge strikesand protests that were then threatening totopple the Czar’s brutal regime.

After uttering a few niceties, Lib-eral Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurierspoke out against the idea of even debat-ing the motion. Conservative Sir RobertBorden agreed, as did Liberal Quebec na-tionalist, Henri Bourassa, who argued:

“[S]o far as Russian Jews are con-cerned, perhaps we might be a littlecareful about our expressions of sym-pathy, in view of the well established

March 2016 (Issue # 68) Press for Conversion! 37

gering rants about the horrors of “extreme”socialism—put these aliens into the crosshairs of a fierce AngloProtestant hatred.

Trotsky Fever Hits LargestPrison Camp in Canada

Leon Trotsky, the infamous Soviet revolu-tionary of Jewish Ukrainian origins, wasthe best known prisoner ever held in a Ca-nadian concentration camp. His account ofthe physical, social and psychological con-ditions inside Canada’s largest internmentfacility provides insights into the potentialfor radicalisation among internees.

Trotsky, who later became the firstleader of the Red Army and a member ofthe Soviet Politburo (1919-1926), wasborn Lev Davidovich Bronstein in theUkraine. By the age of 21, in 1900, he wasa devout Marxist and had helped form amajor union, spent two years in prison andhad been sentenced to four years in Sibe-ria. Later, after his arrest for taking a lead-ing role in Russia’s failed 1905-1907 revo-lution, Trotsky was again forced into ex-ile. Besides his radical politics, Trotsky didnot endear himself to imperial elites withhis outspoken self-identification as an “ir-reconcilable atheist.”14

By 1917, Trotsky was rabble-rousing in New York City. When the Feb-ruary Revolution ousted the Czar, he andhis family boarded a steamer to returnhome to Russia. His narrative states that:

“At Halifax British naval authorities in-spected the steamer, and police offic-ers made a perfunctory examination ofthe papers of the American, Norwegianand Dutch passengers. They subjectedthe Russians, however, to a downrightcross examination, asking us about ourconvictions, [and] our politicalplans….”15

After removing Trotsky, his wifeand two children, and others from the ship,he was separated from his family and takento the prison camp in Amherst, NovaScotia. Once there, he endured

“an examination the like of which I had

never before experienced, even in thePeter and Paul fortress. For in theCzar’s fortress the police stripped meand searched me in privacy, whereashere our democratic allies subjected usto this shameful humiliation before adozen men.”16

Trotsky said Camp CommanderCol. Arthur Morris “made his career in theBritish colonies and in the Boer war.”Morris had led imperial forces in Egypt,India, Burma, Ireland and the Gold Coast.17

Not surprisingly, the two men did not ex-actly get along. “I did not show proper re-spect when I spoke to him,” said Trotsky,“which made him growl behind my back.”18

Trotsky described the “Amherstconcentration camp” as “an old...very di-lapidated iron-foundry...confiscated fromits German owner.” Its prisoners, he said,were segregated into two distinct classes:

(1) 100 “officers and civilian prisonersof the bourgeois class,” and(2) 500 “sailors from German boatssunk by the British” and 200 “workerscaught by the war in Canada.”19

Trotsky’s relations with his fellowinmates depended on their view of “revo-lutionary socialists.” While “officers andpetty officers, whose quarters were behinda wooden partition, immediately set usdown as enemies,” Trotsky said, the “rank-and-file...surrounded us with an ever in-creasing friendliness.”20

To Trotsky, it was a chance to pro-selytise. “The whole month...was like onecontinuous mass-meeting,” he said. “I toldthe prisoners about the Russian revolution,about Liebknecht [a German socialist],about Lenin,…and the intervention of theUS in the [Russian civil] war.” With “con-stant group discussions ....[o]ur friendshipgrew warmer every day.”21

When German officers complainedabout his sermonising, Camp CommanderMorris “locked Trotsky in the foundry’sold blast furnace as a form of solitary con-finement.”22 Trotsky’s narrative states that

AmherstConcentration

Camp,Nova Scotia

Amherst guard,Capt.F.C.Wightman,

said that Leon Trotsky“gave us a lot of trouble

at the camp, and if he hadstayed there any longer

would have madecommunists of all

the Germanprisoners.”

fact...that the Jews have been at the bot-tom of most of the social troubles thathave risen in Russia—that a great dealof the money that has been raised...onbehalf of the Russian Jews has beenused...in purchasing firearms and sup-plies for the revolutionists.”

Bourassa added that it would be“embarrassing for the British govern-ment ...if we...express[ed] sympathy forpeople who, having taken a large sharein the revolution in Russia, are now...sufferers from that revolution.”13

Official Canadian criticism of the Csar’smass murder of Jews would have been es-pecially “embarrassing for the British gov-ernment” because Czar Nicholas II was thefirst cousin of King George V. And, Can-ada’s then-Governor General, PrinceArthur, who passed laws by decree withBorden’s Cabinet, was a son of Queen Vic-toria. Also, both Czar Nicholas II andQueen Victoria were both descended fromBritain’s King George II, a German.

Bourassa supported the Christiankilling of Jews by saying “the Jews hadprepared a conspiracy to slaughter theChristians.” No MPs countered his narra-tive to excuse the mass murder of RussianJews. Neither did MPs criticise the Czar’sregime for quelling protests and strikes bykilling thousands and interning hundredsof thousands more. Russian “Reds,” likethe “Reds” in Canada or anywhere else,were the diabolical enemies of empire. Ca-nadian Liberals and Conservatives, wouldnot deign to embarrass British authoritiesby issuing resolutions denouncing theslaughter and imprisonment of anti-impe-rialist “Reds,” especially Jewish ones.

The Canadian elite’s burgeoningopposition to radicals found loyal supportin the Social Gospel. By 1909, whenCanada faced the nascent stirrings of itsfirst Red Scare, right-wing bigotry was athome in the pages of reformist Christianliterature, from Rev. Woodsworth’s mis-sionary diatribes to Rev. Gordon’s popu-list novels. The Canadian public’s grow-ing distrust of east Europeans and Jews—spurred on by Social Gospeller’s fearmon-

LeonTrotsky