Chapter 21 - Communists and Section 98 of the Criminal Code

Following the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919, the federal government implemented Section 98 of the Criminal Code banning “unlawful associations” and specifically aimed at any progressive group or organization considered to be “communist” Because the League had a very left-wing membership, the entire organization was quickly branded “red” and placed under RCMP surveillance. Dad was often asked about the “communist” connection and this was his reply:

“We had a vast following of people in Montreal.  Church people, radical people, labour movement people, trade unions and of course, lots of communists.  People used to say to me “We support your movement but you should get rid of the communists.” And I said, “Well my position on that is when you’re fighting a fire – a house or two houses on the street – and everybody runs out to put out the fire, you don’t stop to ask whether he’s a communist or not.  The most important thing is to put out the fire. Our society is on fire at the moment. Fascism is rising across the world and you have to fight against them.  If you don’t, we’ll be just like the German people.  We’ll be overtaken and ruled by fascism.  We’ve got to go fight.” So that was my position.  The objection that communists were involved was invalid to me.”

Commenting on Section 98, Dad recalled:

"This section of the Criminal Code gave rise to a great many jokes and one song that was sung at the time was a song base on the tune “Mademoiselle from Armenties”. One of the verses I remember sang:

“The red fire plug, red underwear, parlez-vous

  Your red tie and my red hair, parlez-vous

  Red anything the Mounties state

  Comes under Section 98

  Inky dinky parlez-vous”

Chapter 20 - The Ten Days That Shook The World



Binky Marks and Arnold Roberton



Separate from League Against War and Fascism, Dad and Binky Marks managed to purchase a copy of Sergei Eisenstein’s film The Ten Days That Shook the World, a film based on journalist John Reed’s book about the Russian Revolution. Sometime in 1935 they took it “on the road” in Ontario. Dad recalls:
“It was a long film. I think it was about eight or ten reels. It was based on John Reed’s book of the same name. John Reed, as you know, was a young American journalist who went to Russia to study the Russian Revolution from an academic point of view. It became a very famous book. The film was made and based on that book and directed by Sergei Eisenstein. Binky Marks and I bought a copy of that film down on Broadway, New York. We went down there to interview a man about films and we bought this copy and showed it through Canada, through Ontario.

That was a most interesting phase of my film business because nearly every town that we went into in Ontario refused allowing the showing of any picture of Russia. It was just a wall of blank refusals that we met. So I had to devise a program to overcome that wall of resistance. Other times it was just pass-the-buck resistance – “well it’s alright with me if you see the Chief of Police and get his approval and if you see the Mayor and get his approval”. Always passing-the-buck.... Many times you’d get what you thought was the necessary approval and then the Fire Chief would appear and say you had too many people for the hall. All kinds of open and hidden resistance had to be overcome. I found the most successful tactic was to point out the fact that John Reed’s book was available in every public library in North America. “Now as Mayor, you don’t want to put yourself in the position of banning a film, the book of which is available in every public library.” That was a good one! Any sort of ridicule in the press and it was a successful tactic in dealing with the small political opportunists that were mayors and fire chiefs and police chiefs.

There was tremendous [interest]. Sometimes the fire chiefs had a legitimate complaint! The crowds were so big that it was dangerous. Aisles had to be cleared etc. But the interest at the time was tremendous. Nothing in the press...you know Russians were just a bunch of bastards. People knew nothing about Russia. They’d just been led to believe the North American press that the Russian people were just a bunch of nudnicks walking neck-deep in snow. You know, the idea that Americans have of Canada...so all these prejudices had to be broken down. There were dozens and dozens of cases where they told us we couldn’t proceed with showing a film about Russia but they couldn’t make it stick. We overcame it by open ridicule and sheer logical insistence. There was one case I remember: We said “Well if you don’t allow us to run this film we’ll run another film and I’ll use the platform time explaining to the audience that you wouldn’t allow us to show it and giving your reasons and discuss that aspect of democratic government. They couldn’t stand that. It was most interesting to see the ingenious ways to pass the buck from one department to the other.”