Studies in Political Economy
59. J.M . Kramer, La corruption, 222 (Seen . 58 above); I. Zemtsov, La corruption en Union sovietique (1976); and also Dimov, Les hommes doubles,
123 (see n. 58 above).
Alvin Finkel
Populism and the
Proletariat: Social
Credit and the Alberta
Working Class
The emergence of the Social Credit movement in Depression-ridden
Alberta has long fascinated Canadian scholars interested in the
phenomenon of populism. Populism may be defined broadly to include all political movements which mobilize support on the basis
of an appeal that crosses class and ethnic lines and invokes the need
for popular control over "a network of concentrated political and/or
economic institutions allegedly wielding unwarranted power." 1
Movements of this type do not share a common ideology: there are
right and left variants of populism. Indeed, one author includes both
fascist parties and the Communist Party of Italy (PCI) as populist
organizations. 2 The PCI, despite its commitment to MarxismLeninism, appeals for support by presenting itself not as the representative of a single class but as the representative of the "people"
against the "power bloc."
Until recently, Canadian Marxists have presented an orthodox
viewpoint on the character of populist parties. Taking it as given that
political parties are the expression in the political sphere of the
interests of determinate social classes within the mode of production,3 they have analyzed party membership, rhetoric, and legislative
108
109
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
Studies in Political Economy
records to determine what class or classes these parties represented.
C. B. Macpherson, who analyzed closely the rhetoric and the record
of both the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) and Social Credit,
argued convincingly that the UFA and the Social Credit movement
in Alberta- and, by inference, other populist movements in Canadian history - formed the political expression of the petite
bourgeoisie, a petite bourgeoisie consisting largely of independent
commodity producers (i.e., private farmers). More recently, John
Conway has analyzed the major legislative achievements of both
Social Credit in Alberta and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan and has concluded that both reflected
the demands of the agrarian petite bourgeoisie for protection against
big capital. 4
Some theorists, however, now reject the view that a one-to-one
relationship exists between social classes on the one hand, and political
parties and political ideologies on the other. Ernesto Laclau, in particular, calls such a view "class reductionism." He says that it conflates two types of contradictions: those that occur in the economic
sphere (mode of production) and those that occur in the political
and ideological spheres. While the latter are "overdetermined" by
the former, the relative autonomy of the political-ideological level
invalidates class reductionism. Popular-democratic "interpellations"
at the political level make the confrontation between the ''people''
and the ''power bloc'' rather than between social classes the dominant form of political discourse. While social classes or class fractions present different articulating principles within the political
sphere, there is no necessary relationship between membership in a
social class and identification with a particular political party. 5
John Richards has recently called for a reappraisal of Canadian
populism, using Laclau's argument to cast doubt on earlier interpretations. Richards, however, appears to be concerned mainly with
restoring a balance to the assessment of the populist record; he
defends populists against the notion that they were petit bourgeois
reactionaires. He is less concerned with their impact on particular
classes than with their apparent ability to mobilize a variety of
classes.6 While Laclau can be criticized for failing to explain why
popular-democratic appeals prove more potent than class appeals,
and for putting too much stress on ideology as opposed to political
organization and economic structure, it cannot be said that he ignores the class basis of various populist movements. Unfortunately
it appears that John Richards has done precisely this.
This essay represents an attempt to understand the attraction of
working-class individuals to a populist organization lacking any
working-class leadership. In particular, we examine here the embrace
of the Social Credit party by working-class Albertans in the 1930s,
an embrace that occurred despite the opposition of the trade union
leadership to Social Credit and despit~ the presence of the alternative
of a socialist Labour Party tied to the unions. We shall argue that
Social Credit, a party that Macpherson was correct to identify as
rooted in the petite bourgeoisie, was nevertheless able to incorporate
working class elements because it developed policies and organizational structures that compared favourably in popular democratic
terms to working-class parties in Alberta. In particular, the failure
of the Labour Party to exert a continuous influence on populardemocratic struggles left the workers ideologically defenceless and
organizationally isolated. The result was that the individual worker
was left susceptible to what Laclau calls ''the non-class interpellations and contradictions in which the individual participates," even
as these became, through Social Credit, "subjected to the articulating
principle of a class distinct to that to which the individual belongs.' ' 7
Working-Class Politics in Alberta
In 1931, the labour force of Alberta consisted of 145,746 farmers
(including both farm operators and farm labourers) and 129,363 nonagricultural workers. 8 Consequently, the non-agricultural sector
represented about 47 per cent of the labour force. But, as Table 1
demonstrates, the agricultural sector was largely responsible for the
generation of many of the non-agricultural jobs. Manufacturing acTable 1
The Labour Force of Alberta by Sector, 1931
(agricultural occupations excluded)
Sector
Logging, fishing, hunting, trapping
Coal mining
Other mining
Manufacturing
Construction
Transportation and communication
Trade, commerce, and finance
Service
Other or unspecified
Numbers Employed
O?o of Total
2,649
8,177
924
14,819
8,623
14,860
20,807
42,010
16,444
2.1
6.3
.8
ll.5
6.7
ll.5
16.1
32.2
12.8
Source: Census of Canada (1931)
110
111
.
Studies in Political Economy
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
counted for only 11 .5 per cent of all non-farm jobs, and mining for
7 .l per cent. Most jobs were in the merchandising, service and
transportation sectors. Table 2 indicates that even in Calgary, the
major manufacturing city in the province, the distribution of jobs
was similar to that of the province as a whole and remained so as
late as 1951. As well, Calgary's manufacturing establishments produced mainly for a local market. 9
Another characteristic of the Alberta economy, apart from its
dependence on the health of the agricultural sector, was the small
size of most operations outside of the transportation and coal minTable 2
The Labour Force of Calgary by Industry
1911-1961
Industry
1911
1921
1951
1961
Primary
Manufacturing
Construction
Transportation
Trade and commerce
Service
Other or unspecified
4.2
15 .1
20.8
12.6
21.8
19.2
6.3
4.3
14.1
7.6
14.5
19.1
29.8
10.6
1.6
17 .2
9.7
7.2
19.2
27 .9
17 .2
1.4
12.0
9.7
11.2
21.8
30.4
13.5
IOOOJo
100%
100%
100%
Source: Max Foran, Calgary: An Illustrated History (Toronto 1978), 180.
See Census of Canada for the years 1911-1961.
Table 3
Ratio of Workers to Owner/Managers
1931
Sector
Coal mining
Other mining
Construction
Manufacturing
Transportation and communication
Trade and commerce
Ratio
42 .6
7.3
16.2
12.8
70.4
2.3
ing sectors. Table 3 indicates the ratio of workers to owners and
managers in six economic sectors. 10 While the inclusion of managers
with owners may tend to exaggerate the small size of average firms,
it is clear that in all sectors, most firms would have been small enough
to allow for personal paternalistic relations between owners and
employees. 11 Only the 800 employees of the Canadian Pacific
Railway's Ogden Shops in Calgary, the workers in a handful of foodprocessing establishments, and employees of the governments of
Alberta, Edmonton and Calgary worked for corporate employers
who formed personnel departments to deal with their workers .
It would be unsurprising if workers in such an undeveloped
economy dominated by the agricultural sector and small employers
- a quasi-colonial economy as Macpherson calls it 12 - embraced
petit-bourgeois ideology. As Richard Edwards notes, workers who
could see their "master" working alongside them rarely regarded
the employing class as parasites who should be removed from their
positions of economic power. 13 However, throughout Western
Canada in the early part of the twentieth century, socialist movements
had captured the imagination of various groups of workers. 14 In Alberta, the miners, who generally lived in company towns and experienced deplorable working conditions, were - as they were also
in British Columbia - the vanguard of the socialist movement and
the first to elect a socialist to the legislature. 15 The miners were also
the major unionized group in the province. Other unionized sectors
- particularly the railway workers - also embraced socialist ideology
and gained a reputation for militancy in their dealings with
employers. 16 The unionized workers formed a Labour Party in 1917,
a party which gained a great deal of electoral support from 1921 to
1935.
It is only in light of the history of that party and a specific examination of its weaknesses when confronted with the populist Social
Credit movement, that we can understand the full meaning of Social
Credit's electoral victory in 1935.
The Alberta wing of the Canadian Labour Party (CLP) was created
by the provincial trade union movement and remained under its control until the party's demise. Its declared aim was "the social ownership and effective control of the means of production, distribution
and exchange to the end that the results of productive industry may
accrue to the whole social membership. " 17
CLP branches included trade union affiliates as well as memberat-large groups; the latter organizations, in which unorganized labour
and middle-class allies of the labour movement could participate,
represented only a small percentage of party members . The affiliates
Source: Census of Canada (1931) .
112
113
Studies in Political Economy
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
provided the backbone of the party and most party leaders were also
trade union members. Fred White, for example, leader of the Labour
group in the provincial legislature from 1921 to 1935, served as president of the Alberta Federation of Labour (AFL) for much of the
same period. AFL's official organ, Alberta Labour News, edited by
future CCF leader Elmer Roper, served mainly as a propaganda vehicle for the CLP and for socialist ideas in general.
For a time, unionists participated enthusiastically in the Labour
Party. For example, an Edmonton meeting to choose party candidates
for the provincial election in 1926 drew 875 registered delegates,
representing a cross-section of all the unions in the city as well as
groups affiliated to the Labour Party, including the Communist Party
and ethnic organizations dominated by Communists. 18 The party won
five seats provincially and one seat federally in 1921. The high point
in terms of Labour representation in the legislature came in 1926,
when Labour won six seats - two from Calgary, one from Edmonton and three from coal mining seats. A CLP candidate also won
a Calgary riding in the federal election that year. 19
In 1930, the party lost its federal seat. In the provincial election
of the same year, Labour lost two seats; its Calgary representation
was reduced to one and the CLP proved unable to maintain its Rocky
Mountain organization in the face of a temporary collapse of the
United Mine Workers, the party's mainstay in the area. 20 However,
the setback of 1930 appeared to be temporary. In a city-wide provincial by-election in Edmonton in 1931, the party's vote increased
dramatically. And in early 1933, the party received over 12,000 votes
in a city-wide provincial by-election. It came close to defeating a Conservative candidate who had also been endorsed by the Liberals. 21
A similar Labour vote in the provincial election two years later would
have elected three Labour members. (The ups and downs of the
party's performance provincially are demonstrated in Table 4.)
While Labour's credibility on the provincial scene in the early 1930s
was demonstrated by its by-election successes, the party proved even
stronger as a force in municipal politics. Civic workers, including
even the police in Edmonton and Calgary, affiliated with the Labour
Party and worked hard for the party during municipal elections. In
1933, just over a year before Social Credit obliterated the party,
Labour held the mayor's chair in Edmonton and a majority of council
seats as well as half of the city council seats in Calgary and
Lethbridge. In all three cities, Labour won its council seats in tough
battles with business-dominated "citizens" associations in which
Liberals and Conservatives sank their differences to prevent Labour
victories. So while Labour' s electoral record had its downs as well
Table 5
Table 4
Edmonton Municipal Elections, 1930s (selected years)
Provincial Election Results, 1926-35
Labour Party Vote, Edmonton and Calgary
Election
Labour vote
in Edmonton
3,563
1926
4,657
1930
By-elections
(Edmonton 1931;
Calgary 1934)
5,583
1935
1,373
(O!o of total)
Labour vote
in Calgary (O!o of total)
(19.6)
(23.1)
5,377
4,085
(28. 7)
(18.2)
(32.2)
(3.8)
12,507
1,869
(44.9)
(4.5)
Note: Edmonton and Calgary seats were determined by a complex proportional-representation system. The votes indicated here are voters' first choices
on the ballot. In the 1935 election, Social Credit obtained 38.7 per cent of
the total vote in Calgary and 58.6 per cent in Edmonton.
Source: See Canadian Parliamentary Guide for the years 1927, 1931, 1934
and 1936.
114
Year
Votes for Labour
Groups Affiliated with Mayoralty Candidate
("lo of total)
Elected Aldermen
Organized Labour
1931
Labour Party
13014 (57.7)
3 Labour; 2 CGA*
1933
Labour Party
13453 (63.7)
4 Labour; I CGA
1934
Labour Party
5996 (21.8)
4 CGA; I Labour
1935
Labour Party
1937
No Labour candidate I Labour;
4 Social Credit
Labour-Social Credit- No Labour candidate 5 CGA and Citizens'
Committee candidates
Communist
1938
Labour Party
No candidate
5 Citizens' Committee
• CG A refers to the Civic Government Association, the Liberal-Conservative coalition
thnt challenged Labour for municipal supremacy. The CGA was replaced by the Citizens'
Committee when it proved unable to defeat Social Creditors.
Edmonton city council consisted of ten aldermen and the mayor . The alden:nen were
rlccted for two-year terms, with half of the aldermanic contingent chosen in a given
yeo r. The mayors served one-year terms. Dan Knott was Labour candidate for mayor
In 1931, 1932, 1933 and 1934.
Snurces: Edmonton Municipal Archives; Alberta Labour News , various issues.
115
..
Studies in Political Economy
as its ups, the party remained a credible force in the working-class
electorate - until the Social Credit alternative presented itself.
What were the weaknesses of the Labour Party, and the corresponding strengths of Social Credit, that contributed to the former
party 's demise and the latter party's success in winning over the
former Labour vote? We have already noted that the Labour Party,
at least rhetorically, was committed to socialism. Social Credit's success in 1935 would suggest that many Labour voters did not share
this commitment. And Warren Caragata notes that there is little
evidence that Alberta workers, despite their history of trade union
militancy, were politically sophisticated. 22 But Labour's own
behaviour could not have contributed to the development of political
sophistication. In the first place, the Labour Party's structure appears to have inhibited mass participation by workers . Any group
of workers, as we shall see, could form a Social Credit club and have
direct input in the operation of the Social Credit League (or at least
the appearance of such input) . But unionized workers could participate only indirectly in the Labour Party - through whatever union
structures existed to choose delegates for party conventions. In some
unions, particularly in the earlier years of the party, special union
meetings selected delegates. But by the 1930s, the custom appears
to have been that the union executives simply chose delegates, almost
invariably choosing men from their own ranks.
The party activists decried the lack of rank-and-file participation,
but no structural changes were made until after the electoral debacle
of 1935 . Indeed, some party activists recognized that many workers
viewed the party as being interested only in their votes and cautioned
that the party needed a more visible presence in workers' daily lives
if it was to maintain its credibility. 23 But the trade union officials
who ran the party resisted attempts to involve the party in demonstrations, in organizations of the unemployed, and other extraparliamentary, extra-union activities . Indeed the party only came to
life at election time. For a time, as we have seen, the party's electioneve conventions drew large numbers of delegates; but as the trade
union leaders, facing membership losses during the Depression, concentrated more on union activities and less on party matters, the
party's ability to attract convention delegates and election workers
declined. 24
Unlike populist parties, then, the Labour Party made little attempt
- especially in the 1930s - to involve or even to appear to involve
"ordinary folk" in party affairs . In 1935 the party reminded the
labour electorate that the leaders of the party were also the leaders
of workers' economic struggles. 25 But, as Laclau suggests, workers
116
Alvin Finkei/ Populism and Social Credit
did not see the need for such a link, particularly when a more exciting political alternative was available. Labour's unwillingness to
wear any populist clothing left the party threadbare in 1935.
The image of Labour as a conservative organization of a clique
of union leaders was furthered by the party's schizophrenic relationship with the United Farmers of Alberta, the populist organization
that had formed the government of Alberta in 1921. Although
Labour's socialist per.spective clearly set the party apart ideologically from the UFA provincial legislators, the two parties had agreed
informally not to run against one another. The UFA supported
Labour candidates in urban constituencies in return for Labour's
agreement to stay out of the running in rural constituencies with urban
pockets.26 The common desire to defeat Liberal candidates, rather
than political agreement, explained this political arrangement.
The alliance with the UFA did not prove harmful to Labour before
1930. Labour extracted some concessions from the government and
the government proved acceptable to most workers . But during the
Depression, the government, anxious to cut costs and appease the
province's creditors, established minimal levels of relief. When the
unemployed demonstrated to demand more generous treatment, the
government responded with repression by police forces .27 Yet Labour,
while encouraging the government to pay higher relief payments, appeared to be almost in bed with the provincial administration. Despite
its socialist politics, the Alberta Labour News kept its criticism of
the UFA government muted. 28 And the disastrous alliance of Labour
with the UFA organization to form the CCF in 1932 made it even
less possible for Labour to distance itself from the Farmers' government. The Labour leaders appear to have been unwilling to accept
that the UFA government could not be transformed into a radical
government even though the organization which had spawned the
government had decided that socialism was the solution. Anxious
to be part of the new nation-wide left-wing organization, Labour
activists such as Elmer Roper, editor of the Alberta Labour News,
agreed to co-operate with the UFA . At the same time, they preserved
the autonomy of the Labour Party and failed to understand the confusion of those who argued that the UFA and Labour had fused .29
Labour's alliance with the UFA also forestalled any possibility of
an extension of Labour into the rural areas, fixing the party forever
in the public mind as a small legislative faction with no hope and
no desire to form a provincial government. It might have been possible, of course, for the UFA and Labour to dissolve their separate
organizations and form a new CCF organization to repudiate the
government. But, as Myron Johnson notes, the UFA did not wish
117
.,
Studies in Political Economy
to sacrifice its organizational autonomy.30 Johnson fails to recognize,
however, that Labour was equally reluctant to abandon its existing
organizational structure. 31
Labour's alliance in the public mind with the enemies of the
unemployed was not limited to its uneasy- and, as far as the UFA
government was concerned, fictitious - alliance with the UFA
organization. The leaders of organized labour, while far to the left
of ordinary workers in their understanding of political economy, were
conservative-minded with regard to appropriate tactics for the class
struggle. In short, most believed that the regular casting of a class
ballot was a sufficient program of political activity for the masses
to carry out. Mass demonstrations, on the other hand, were regarded
as emotional picnics which yielded no concrete results. They seemed
to believe that Communist agitators, more than the desperation of
those with legitimate grievances that authorities ignored, were behind
the mass marches of the unemployed. And since the Communists,
once members of the Labour Party, denounced Labourites as socialfascists from 1929 to 1935 (before the line changed again), the orderloving Labour Party leaders could see no good coming from
Communist-inspired activities.
The contradiction between Labour's overall socialist perspective
and its desire to win bourgeois respectability was best demonstrated
in its handling of civic affairs in Edmonton. The problems faced by
the Labour municipal government were enormous and it could not
have been expected to effect long-term structural changes. Unemployment rose constantly and about fifteen per cent of the city's population was on relief in 1933; many other workers not on relief found
work for only part of any given week. 32 The city's only source of
revenue was the property tax and many workers who owned small
properties were among the unemployed and underemployed.
Municipal workers were the most solid supporters of Labour in the
municipal elections, counting on Labour to maintain the workers'
jobs and salaries. Labour did its best given the circumstances: it raised
property taxes on wealthier homeowners despite cries of confiscation, and it tried to maintain a decent - if minimal - standard of
living for those on relief without cutting municipal services that would
have led to layoffs.
Strangely, however, while other Canadian cities went deep into
debt and even defaulted to pay relief, Labour Mayor Dan Knott insisted on budgetting annual surpluses. 33 More ominously, the mayor
and some Labour councillors - with the backing of every member
of the opposition Civic Government Association council - insisted
on maintaining close control over how "reliefers" spent their meagre
118
Alvin Finkei!Populism and Social Credit
receipts through a system of ration vouchers for married recipients
and soup kitchens for single recipients . Some Labour activists
recognized that the existing relief system degraded the alreadydepressed recipients by implying that they would spend an unallocated
relief cheque unwisely. The use of relief spies by both the province
and the city added to the feeling on the part of relief recipients that
they were regarded as little better than criminals . The requirements
that reliefers do casual work for the city when called upon produced
demands for work -with-wages rather than casual labour and penury. 34
The parades of the unemployed became an emotional outlet in which
the "reliefers" could assert their claims to dignity : they were, after
all, not responsible for the lack of jobs and they could not understand why the "Labour" authorities followed policies that segregated
the unemployed from everyone else.
The crunch came in December 1932, when a province-wide Hunger
March was organized for Edmonton. The mayor and the Labourcontrolled council refused to grant a permit to the demonstration
organizers. But despite a blizzard and the attempt by city and provincial police to keep out-of-towners from entering the city for several
days before the march , over 12,000 people arrived to hear speeches
from the march organizers. A smaller group, perhaps about 2,000,
actually marched . They were viciously attacked by the police. The
Alberta Labour News, speaking for organized labour, defended the
actions of the civic and provincial authorities . Elmer Roper, editor
of the News and later the leader of the Alberta CCF from 1942 to
1955, commented:
What in the world could have been the outcome of such a demonstration as it was proposed to stage, had it been ever so peaceful? Could
it have had any end but an anaemic anti-climax? .. . Such abortive
demonstrations of mass helplessness can only have the effect of confusing the people who are misled into being involved, and thus is further delayed any movement toward a real political and economic
change. 35
But a letter writer to the News, while remaining personally loyal
to the Labour Party, accurately predicted that the Labour movement's hostility to demonstrators would be remembered at the next
elections:
[The Communists '] objective was to demonstrate that in the city of
Edmonton with a Labour mayor and Labour council majority and
in the province of Alberta with a Farmer government in the saddle,
unemployed workers and destitute farmers are beaten up if they want
to march to the Government buildings to protest their sorry plight.
And they succeeded admirably.
119
Studies in Political Economy
And those who are at the head of the industrial movement in Edmonton are as much to blame as the council. Why did they not protest against the action of the council? . . .
Thousands of people watched the demonstration and what do you
suppose they thought as they watched the police clubs descending on
the heads of unarmed men and women? They were disgusted, absolutely disgusted. They don't know that the federal government gave
orders to stop the hunger march and the local governments danced
to the tune, because they are dependent for their finances on the federal
government. They blame the local governments for this cowardly action and unless an explanation is coming forth their faith is shattered.
They will assert themselves in the next election. 36
While the repression of the Hunger March can be overstated as
a cause for the extinction of the Labour Party by Social Credit
forces, 37 it should be seen as symptomatic of the insensitivity of the
leadership of organized labour in the province to the problems of
the unemployed . Not until 1935 did the party agree to establish a
special organization for the unemployed to be affiliated with the party
-and the decision was never implemented. 38 The party's reaction
to Social Credit also demonstrated a blend of socialist philosophy
and conservative politics. Labour leaders damned Social Credit's
assumptions that the operations of the banking sector were divorced
from those of other sectors of private industry and emphasized that
state ownership of major industries, including banking, was the only
long-term alternative to capitalist crisis. 39 At the same time, however,
party leaders and trade union leaders - generally the same people
- condemned the Aberhart forces for allegedly scaring away new
private investments that would have created jobs for Albertans . 40
In this regard, the labour leaders echoed the sentiments of organized business in the province (although business extended the same
observation to the CCF), sentiments that many workers ignored
because they could see no evidence that the conservative UFA had
induced an influx of capital investment into the province.
We look now more generally at the relations between working
people and Social Credit in the period before the party's election
sweep in 1935.
The Social Credit Organization
Of the early Social Credit organization, Macpherson writes:
From the beginning, Aberhart's organization was strongly centralized,
in contrast with the U.F.A. His headquarters, not a delegate convention, decided and announced that candidates would be run in every
constituency, issued the draft platform and instructions to the constituencies, limited the agenda of constituency conventions, and laid down
120
Alvin Finkei!Populism and Social Credit
the procedure for nominations . ... The social credit political theory
and the inspirational quality of Aberhart's leadership, which demanded
and received the complete submergence of his followers' wills, combined to put any problem of the popular control of the legislature out
of sight, or at least in abeyance. 41
It should be noted, however, that superficially at least, the Social
Credit League's structure was very democratic -though, as time
proved, the government generally ignored league decisions. The
league consisted of about 32,000 members in a province of 760,000
people when Aberhart took power in 1935, and peaked at 40,000
members in 1937 (about one adult in ten) before government inaction caused a rapid decline, leaving the organization with 24,000
members for the second Aberhart election in 1940 and somewhat
fewer than 8,000 in 1944 when Ernest Manning won his first election as premier. 4 2
The basic unit of the Social Credit League was the local study
group. Any group of ten or more individuals within a constituency
who had gathered to study and support social credit principles could
apply for membership in the league. A group was expected to meet
regularly and to choose a delegate to a zone assembly which was to
meet not Jess than once every three months. Zone assemblies in turn
elected delegates to an annual constituency convention which passed
resolutions and forwarded them to a divisional conference; the province was divided into six geographical divisions for this purpose.
Finally, the resolutions from the divisional conferences were voted
upon by constituency delegates to an annual league convention. Each
single-member constituency elected one delegate to the league convention and the multiple-member constituencies of Calgary and Edmonton each elected six delegates, that is, a number of delegates equal
to the number of legislative seats allocated in Alberta to each of the
two major urban centres. 4 3
Thus in theory- and, to a large degree, in practice- the official
positions of the Social Credit League on various issues as determined by annual conventions emanated from resolutions passed by grass
roots local organizations. The tenor of these resolutions was social
democratic; but the government ignored these resolutions, or more
commonly, observed that the Alberta government could not introduce
desired social reforms until it first achieved a measure of control over
currency (which, of course, meant never, since court rulings in 1937
and 1938 established beyond all doubt that a province could not control the banks). So, for example, the second annual convention of
the league called for free textbooks for Alberta's primary and secondary students. "This is impossible under the present financial
121
"'
Studies in Political Economy
system," Aberhart scribbled on his copy of the resolutions. 44 Another
resolution resolved "that we request the Government to immediately formulate a scheme of state medicine and hospitalization and state
insurance to cover time lost while sick." Aberhart noted: "favourable
as soon as financially possible." Adequate relief "for all who need
it," requested by the convention, received the comment: "cannot
be done under present financial system. " 45
There were few calls from the province-wide conventions for state
ownership of industry, but there was general support for the type
of policies that would later be implemented by the CCF in Saskatchewan only to be denounced by Ernest Manning as socialist tampering with the rights of individuals. State medicine was supported at
every convention from 1937 to 1940; producers' marketing boards,
controlled by producers' representatives, with livestock to be
regulated immediately, passed in 1939; the eight-hour day in industry
passed in 1937. Perhaps most indicative of the tendency in the early
Social Credit movement to distrust the workings of private industry,
as well as the banking system, was the early league's stand that conscription of wealth should precede conscription of manpower - a
position which the CCF shared. As a resolution passed by the provincial convention expressed it, the party members
are opposed to profiteering out of the sale of armaments and also opposed to profiteering out of the sale of foodstuffs, clothing and the
necessities of life. Be it therefore resolved that conscription of capital
and finance must precede any other form of conscription that the exigencies of war may make.4 6
The need for close state supervision of industry and for the
strengthening of producers' rights relative to those of processors was
made clear in a number of resolutions passed in the 1930s- resolutions that would have been soundly defeated in the 1950s when both
the party's mass character and the positive evaluation of state intervention had disappeared. For example, the resolution in 1939 calling for the livestock marketing board stated that the free-market
system ''tends to place all profits of the livestock industry in the hands
of distributors." And a resolution in 1937 calling for a provincial
price spreads investigation declared that adequate purchasing power
for primary producers and wage earners was impossible "when our
industries handling and processing these products and employing this
labour are taking a large portion of the profit, through market control and price manipulation. " 47 While these resolutions were not
socialist, they indicated a desire on the part of early Social Creditors
to modify property relations through state intervention in favour of
122
Alvin Finkel/ Populism and Social Credit
workers and farmers. Social Credit's emphasis on the lack of purchasing power as the fundamental problem of the capitalist system
led to acceptance of the reformist aims of the labour movement and
of the organizations of urban unemployed .
Indeed, workers and the unemployed, both organized and
unorganized, provided a large percentage of Social Credit's membership in urban and industrial constituencies. In Calgary, the Labour
Temple was for years the major meeting place for the city's Social
Creditors and the headquarters for the Central Social Credit group,
the city's most active Social Credit club. A Trades and Labour group
made up of union activists began regular meetings at the Labour Temple in 1934, and a railway worker's group began meetings shortly
afterwards. Both the railway workers and a workers' group arthe
Burns packing plant sponsored Social Credit meetings and radio
broadcasts. 48 Most mining towns had a Social Credit group and even
the relief camps formed groups and sent delegates to constituency
conventions. In Lethbridge, the constituency that sponsored the successful forty-hour resolution, unemployed and underemployed
unionized miners apparently provided the bulk of constituency
members. 49 For the early Social Credit period at least, organized
labour was not a target of Social Credit petit bourgeois philosophy.
Indeed, as we note later, Social Credit united with the Labour Party
and with the Communist Party in Edmonton and Calgary to contest
civic elections on platforms that were clearly pro-labour.
Workers appear to have jumped onto the Social Credit bandwagon
only after the Labour Party had begun to appear almost as an enemy
of workers and the unemployed . Social Credit's promises in 1935
to create jobs and to treat the unemployed humanely impressed most
workers in the province. Its failure to deliver on these promises
created the disillusionment that robbed Social Credit of its mass
character as a party. Had the war and post-war prosperity not intervened, workers would likely have turned away from Social Credit
as they earlier turned from both Labour and the old-line parties.
Working-class Social Creditors, in fact, kept up a constant battle
with the government regarding its relief policies. Throughout the first
Aberhart term of office (1935-40), there was a concerted campaign
by the constituency associations and study groups in Edmonton,
Calgary, Lethbridge, and in mining areas, for the government to
adopt the work-and-wages policies advocated by unemployed groups,
most of which were led by Communists . It becomes obvious from
the correspondence of the urban and industrial Social Credit organizations with Aberhart that a large percentage of their members were
unemployed. The Communists, as we note later on, were able to exert
123
Studies in Political Economy
pressure on local Social Credit organizations because of their considerable influence within the associations of the unemployed .
Because Edmonton and Calgary formed one of the six divisions
that held an annual divisional conference, the annual league conventions received strongly-worded resolutions not only demanding
adequate relief for all unemployed persons but also condemning the
government for its failure to change the relief policies pursued by
the UFA administration. A resolution in 1938 went furthest, charging, in effect, that the unemployed were receiving even worse treatment from Social Credit than they had from the PFA. The resolution called for monetary payments to single men on relief and for
the closing of soup kitchens - symbols to the unemployed of their
degraded status . It noted that the conditions affecting single
unemployed men on relief "are worse than they ever were, and are
gradually getting worse." The urban Social Creditors charged that
the rt:gimentation of the unemployed which characterized provincial relief administration violated Social Credit teachings. These
teachings, they said , were "to keep money in circulation and thus
increase the turnover of goods and services.' ' 50 Instead, the existing
relief policy, involving food vouchers for soup kitchens and bed
tickets for bunkhouses, removed the unemployed from the larger
economy altogether . Aberhart left the policy unchanged.
Communists, the CCF and Social Credit
The Labour Party recognized that working-class support for Social
Credit was considerable. The Alberta Labour News claimed that most
of Labour's former supporters had voted Social Credit in 1935. 51
As well, Alf Farmilo, AFL secretary-treasurer and unsuccessful
Labour candidate in 1935, estimated that sixty per cent of AFL's
membership supported the government's monetary philosophy. 52
Labour's strategy for dealing with Social Credit was to expose the
Aberhart organization as an enemy of trade unionism and the
purveyor of a bogus socialism. Although Social Credit's early record
on labour and social legislation was better than the UFA's, the
Labour leaders denounced all of the government's works . Aberhart,
in turn, made little secret of his contempt for the views of the trade
union and Labour Party leaders. 5 3 Labour hoped, of course, that
its policy of non-cooperation with the government, so unlike its collaborationist policy with the UFA, would win workers back to the
party fold .
The Communist Party, however, adopted a different strategy in
its attempt to win political hegemony within the working class. The
party leaders recognized that many members of Communist-
124
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
controlled unemployed organizations had also joined that Social
Credit movement. They were also aware that most trade union rankand-filers voted Social Credit. The Communists called for a united
front of Communists, Social Creditors and Labourites both electorally and within the labour movement in the hope of dislodging the
social-democratic clique whose power within the unions remained
intact even though their political strength had been eroded. The Communists expected that their organizational ability and dedication
would propel them to leadership of such a united front, much as
it had propelled them to leadership of the unemployed
organizations. 54 And the positive response to united-front proposals
by urban and mining area Social Creditors convinced the CPC of
the feasibility of their strategy.
The Labour Party leaders, who feared Communist influence within
the trade unions even more than Social Credit electoral influence,
at first resisted all CPC attempts at a united front. But Communist
sympathizers within the Labour Party made such resistance difficult.
In 1936, the CPC was able to secure the joint Social Credit-CPC
nomination of Margaret Crang for a city-wide provincial by-election
in Edmonton . Crang, a left-wing Labour alderman, was expelled
from the CCF and the Labour Party for accepting the nomination.
The Edmonton CCF (which consisted of the Labour Party and a few
CCF clubs) nominated another candidate who ran on a more clearly
socialist platform than Crang. The split vote on the Left ensured a
win by the Liberal candidate, the candidate of a united Right. 55
One year later, however, the united front forces within the CCF
successfully argued for a united front both in policies and candidates
of the three parties in the municipal elections in Edmonton and
Calgary. Such a front was opposed both by the old guard of Labour
and by Aberhart, and its lack of success led to a reversion to a go-italone policy by the CCF-Labour forces in 1938. 56
Neither Communist nor Labour-CCF strategies worked. The CPC
abandoned its united-front strategy on the eve of World War II across
the country, and Alberta was no exception. And the Labour-CCF
group proved unable to -regain strength provincially or municipally
during the first Aberhart term of office. The parties to the right of
Social Credit formed an anti-Aberhart alliance to run against Social
Credit in the 1940 provincial election. Despite CCF protestations that
there was little to choose between the "Independents" - the candidates of the traditional Right - and Social Credit, most workers
accepted Aberhart's view that Social Credit must be for the "little
guy'' when all the guns of the wealthy and powerful were so eagerly
aimed at the government. 57 Shortly afterwards, the Labour Party
125
Studies in Political Economy
gave up its separate existence inside the CCF and its members became
members of the CCF organizations. 5 8 The CCF, unlike the Labour
Party, attempted to recruit rank-and-file workers into its own ranks.
The second Aberhart regime and the successor Manning regime
in 1943 directed their attack less against the international banking
conspiracy than against an alleged international socialist conspiracy
which, in turn, was also somehow connected to international financial capitalism. 59 The increasing conservatism of the government
caused many of its supporters to jump ship and go over to either
the CCF or the Communist Party. The CCF experienced a growth
from about 2,000 members in 1940 to 12,000 by the election of 1944. 6o
Social Credit, on the other hand, declined from 24,000 members to
8,000 during the same period and its study groups were moribund
almost everywhere. The character of the party had changed as well.
There had always been a healthy dose of religious fundamentalism
in the movement's message and a fraction of its members were more
attracted to the party because of its Christian leadership than because
of specific economic proposals . The larger group of party members
- including much of its working-class membership - had been as
interested in the material promises of the party as in its spiritual makeup . But the government's shift to a clearly conservative stand disillusioned such people and left the party to members of the pious petite
bourgeoisie who remained Manning's most zealous supporters for
a generation. 61
But the explosion in political activity occasioned by Social Credit's
advent could not be duplicated once the movement had disillusioned many of its early devotees. The Alberta CCF's recruitment in 1944,
while impressive, paled both beside the party's recruitment of over
30,000 members in neighbouring Saskatchewan, and the peak
recruitments of Social Credit and the UFA in their heydays (around
40,000). Clearly, many former political activists had become cynical
about all political movements. And organized labour's wariness of
partisanship after the 1935 debacle limited the CCF's drive for labour
62
affiliates . Meanwhile, Social Credit's conservatism and the threat
of the Left caused most of the business and professional communities
to unite behind Social Credit and ignore the Independents.
Nevertheless, the CCF received about twenty-five per cent of the
vote in the provincial election of 1944 and the Communists (Labour
Progressive Party) won five per cent. But this thirty per cent of the
vote only translated into two seats in a provincial house of fifty-two.
Analysis of the election results indicates that the left-wing parties
could have won four additional seats - three CCF and one Communist - if the two parties had agreed to direct their voters to give
126
Alvin Finkel/Populism and Social Credit
their second-ballot preferences to the other left-wing party. 63 But the
CCF opposed any coalition with the Communists, and the Communists, in turn, spread false propaganda that Roper, the CCF leader,
had an anti-labour record. Interestingly, the Alberta CCF, unlike
the party in Saskatchewan in 1944, ran on a forthright socialist platform that was indistinguishable from the Communist platform. Opposition by the national CCF leaders, especially David Lewis, proved
decisive in preventing an alliance of the Left, which was favoured,
for example, by provincial CCF secretary Willian Irvine. 64
Perhaps a stronger opposition group in the legislature could have
provided a plausible alternative to the Manning administration, which
combined fairly generous social welfare policies with right-wing
policies regarding trade unions, public ownership and the international situation. But the moment had passed. The CCF defeat in 1945
gave further ammunition to those in the Labour movement who
believed that Labour should be non-partisan; party members, confounded by the win of only two seats, decided Social Credit was unbeatable and abandoned the CCF in droves . 65
Conclusions: Class, Ideology and Populism
Of the workers' movement in Germany, Ernesto Laclau writes:
Class reductionism, then , was closely linked to the class practices of
the workers' movement before the First World War. In the immediate
post-war period it had still not been overcome: the workers' movement remained dominated by a narrow class perspective, and it lacked
any hegemonic will in relation to the exploited classes as a whole. For
the reformist faction the question was one of reconstructing the
machinery of the bourgeois state as soon as possible, to re-establish
the conditions of negotiation which had enabled the working class to
obtain increasing benefits. For the revolutionary faction the aim was
to carry out a proletarian revolution and install a soviet regime. But
in both cases, exclusively class policies were pursued, which totally
ignored the problem of popular-democratic struggles . ... The failure
of the various class attempts- revolutionary or reformist- to overcome the crisis led to the demoralization and demobilization of the
working class; the lack of articulation of popular interpellations with
socialist discourse left this flank increasingly exposed to the ideological
influence of fascism. 66
Laclau's analysis emphasizes the importance of subjective elements
in politics which may be discomforting for many Marxists. A
working-class party, that is a party formed through the autonomous
activity of workers, runs the risk of isolating itself within society and
finally losing the workers' support as well, if it is unable to win broad
support by demonstrating that it can represent all groups among "the
127
Studies in Political Economy
people" who are exploited by capital. Laclau tends to emphasize the
role of ideology as opposed to organization in determining whether
a working-class party can achieve broad-based support. But the two
are clearly interrelated.
In the case of the Labour Party in Alberta, as we have seen, a
small clique of Labour leaders, attempting narrowly to represent
working-class interests in the political sphere, made no attempt to
present their party as capable of articulating the demands of nonproletarians. The farmers were regarded as the political property of
the UFA; middle sectors as well as the unemployed were ignored as
the party increasingly restricted itself to protecting the immediate
interests of unionized workers. The alliance with the UFA reflected
crass opportunism and eventually became a handicap even in the
party's appeal to the workers. The party's discourse included equal
measures of abstract socialist theorizing and demands for legislative
reforms of benefit mainly to unionized workers . In short, the lack
of popular-democratic interpellations in party discourse went along
in tandem with a lack of popular-democratic elements in the party's
organizational structure. Both left the party unable to mobilize support behind a popular-democratic program that would act as an alternative to the Social Credit program. In other words , the failure of
the working-class party to become a "populist" party sealed its fate.
As Laclau writes:
The struggle of the working class for its hegemony is an effort to
achieve the maximum possible fusion between popular-democratic
ideology and socialist ideology. In this sense a "socialist populism"
is not the most backward form of working class ideology but the most
advanced - the moment when the working class has succeeded in condensing the ensemble of democratic ideology in a determinate social
formation within its own ideology. 67
The phrase "socialist populism" might cause some Marxists to
shudder. For many, the kindest view of populism would be contained
in this definition provided by Alistair Hennessy: " ... a political
movement which enjoys the support of the mass of the urban working class and/ or peasantry but which does not result from the
autonomous organizational power of either of these two sectors. It
is also supported by non-working-class sectors upholding an antistatus quo ideology. " 68 Social Credit, as we have seen, would conform to this definition. The Italian Communist Party, Tito's Partisans and the Chinese Communists under Mao, all regarded as
populist by Laclau, would be disqualified. If, however, one plays
down the class composition of populist movements and stresses the
128
Alvin Finkel/ Populism and Social Credit
character of their discourse, the phrase "socialist populism" appears
less strange.
What Laclau establishes, it would seem, is the necessity for a
socialist party to use populist discourse as well as class discourse.
Ignoring the class question is as great a problem as ignoring the
popular-democratic question. John Richards appears guilty on the
former count. While he correctly asserts that all populism cannot
be reduced to a form of petit bourgeois ideology a Ia Macpherson,
he tends to avoid entirely the question of the class character of parties, including populist parties. He observes that populist parties, including Social Credit, drew support from all the popular classes, an
observation that this paper substantiates and attempts to explain.
But, unlike Macpherson and Conway, Laclau ignores the actual
power structures of these parties, which biased them in favour of
the petite bourgeoisie. The problem for populist parties, he asserts,
is that "to exercise power successfully the populist base must either
develop indigenous bureaucrats or ally themselves with elites already
possessing such skills. " 69 Such technical problems, of course, face
any government and should not be dismissed lightly. But they are
of a secondary nature compared with the question of how a governing groups views its role with regard to the classes within the mode
of production. On this score, Social Credit, which Richards argues
only became a non-populist conservative party after the discovery
of oil in Leduc in 1947, was, in fact, always a conservative party.
Its ability to incorporate some working-class reformist demands in
1935 ought not t.o obscure this party's unwillingness, from the beginning, to raise questions about social relations of production. The
party's leadership was petit bourgeois even though party policies and
organization for a time created the illusion that working-class
elements might be able to force the government to take actions that
threatened the fundamental power of capital.
Richards is on solid ground in asserting that it is difficult for Marxists to explain why Social Credit, once its conservatism had become
well-established, remained popular among workers and farmers. But
it should be noted that Social Credit continued to evoke traditional
popular complaints against the banks and central Canadian domination and to present itself as the voice of the little guy in the West
against the power barons in the East. As Laclau notes, Marxist theory
has inadequately explained ''the relative continuity of popular traditions, in contrast to the historical discontinuities which characterize
class structures. " 70
It may be counter-argued that Laclau and others who follow his
line of argument have also not explained "the relative continuity of
129
Studies in Political Economy
Alvin Finkel/Populism and Social Credit
popular traditions;'' they have merely recorded that such continuity
appears to be present in a variety of social contacts. In this context,
it appears fair to ask why labour has failed to make a significant
impact on the Alberta political scene since the rise of Social Credit.
We have suggested reasons why the Labour Party proved a puny
challenge to Social Credit, but it can hardly follow that Social Credit's
initial ability to make non-class interpellations more important than
class interpellations at the political level wiped out all class discourse
in the province forever. One is forced to conclude that while the contradictions in the mode of production always create the possibility
that a working-class-based party can emerge and win both workingclass support and broader popular support, it is by no means
historically inevitable that it will happen. Alberta's "boom" after
1947 no doubt tells part of the story. But it is likely- though beyond
the scope of this paper - that socialist and Labourist class practices
on the political level remained, as they were in the 1930s, unequal
to the task of achieving working-class ideological hegemony - or
even much in the way of class influence.
Notes
1. John Richards, "Populism: A Qualified Defence," Studies in Political
Economy 5 (Spring 1981), 6
2. Erenesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory (London 1977),
174. Laclau notes, however, that many theorists attempt to characterize
populism in terms of a particular ideology or as the expression of a particular social class . For such theorists, the common elements of the
discourse of parties as diverse as the PC! and fascist parties are ignored
because of the clear differences in the class base and the underlying
ideologies of the parties.
3. Such a view of political parties is dominant in the influential writings of
Nicos Poulantzas, particularly Political Power and Social Classes (London 1975), though this book does not sit well with Poulantzas's overall
views on the relative autonomy of state-ideological apparatuses.
4. C.B. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta: Social Credit and the Party
System, 2d ed . (Toronto 1962). J .F. Conway, "To Seek a Goodly Heritage:
The Prairie Populist Response to the National Policy" (Ph.D. diss ., Simon
Fraser University, 1978).
7. Laclau, Politics and Ideology , 163-4
8. Census of Canada (1931) .
9. Max Foran, Calgary: An Illustrated History (Toronto 1978), 120
10. The census data lumps owners and managers together. But the removal
of managers does not significantly alter the ratio of business owners to
workers. One study demonstrated that there were 9,987 non-farm business
units in Alberta. Since the total non-farm work force, as indicated in Table
I, was 129,313, the ratio of units to workers was fourteen to one. While
the retail and service sectors, which included many one-person operations,
skews the picture, there were no fewer than I, 746 separate manufacturing firms. Of these, I ,449 were food processing plants, only 149 of which
were in the three cities. Nathan Laselle Whetten, "The Social and
Economic Structure of the Trade Centers in the Canadian Provinces with
Special Reference to Its Changes 1910-1930," (Ph .D. diss., Harvard
University, 1932), 37
11 . The existence of such relations, however, does not imply that workers
lacked class consciousness. Bryan Palmer's research on Hamilton workers
in the late nineteenth century and Gregory Kealey's parallel research on
Toronto workers of the period demonstrate that small factories with paternalistic employers could co-exist with militant unionism and a separatist
working-class culture.
12. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta, 6. (See n . 4 above.)
13. Richard Edwards, Contested Terrain: The Transformation of the
Workplace in the Twentieth Century (New York 1979), 26-67
14. See, for example, A . Ross McCormack, Reformers: Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement (Toronto 1977).
15 . In 1909 Charles O'Brien, a Socialist Party candidate, won "a solid victory" in the provincial constituency of Rocky Mountain, a Crow's Nest
Pass mining seat. Ibid., 62
16. Foran, Calgary, 132. (See n. 9 above.)
17. Report of the Canadian Labour Party Provincial Convention, 1928, United
Mine Workers of America papers, Glenbow Archives, box 4, file 20.
18.Alberta Labour News, 8 May 1926, I
19. Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold (Toronto 1979), 95
5. Laclau, Politics and Ideology, 166 (seen. 2 above). For an important critique of Laclau, see Nicos Mouzelis, "Ideology and Class Politics: A
Critique of Ernesto Laclau," New Left Review 112 (November-December
1978), esp. 50
20. Ibid., 89; Canadian Parliamentary Guide (Ottawa 1931), 361
6. John Richards, "Populism: A Qualified Defence," (See n . I above.)
22. Caragata, Alberta Labour, 121. (Seen . 19 above.)
21. Canadian Parliamentary Guide (Ottawa 1934), 353-4
130
131
Studies in Political Economy
23 . For example, an activist in the Calgary branch of the CLP reported :
We realize that there is a certain amount of prejudice against the
Labour Party but as a whole in this district at any rate, the prejudice as I have found it personally, and also those assisting in the
canvass, is that the Labour Party forgoes any real action until a
few weeks prior to an election, and most people thereby come to
a conclusion that the Labour Party is only a machine organized
by certain dominating influences to catch votes. It is claimed that
we are too often eager at these meetings to promote theories and
plans and activities, and then when the time comes to put these
plans into action we either invent a lot of excuses, or are too
downright lazy to get out to the public and carry out those very
plans we had promoted comfortably seated in a chair at a meeting .
See Alberta Labour News, 16 September 1933, I
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
36. Ibid ., 2
37. Swankey is guilty on this count.
38. Carl Berg, for example, a former IWW member who had become an executive member of the AFL and a Labour candidate in several provincial
elections, opposed any campaign to enlist the unemployed: "We are not
interested in dealing with great mases of people who do not know where
they stand .. . . We do not want a lot of people brought in just to get
a few votes, but must insist on our members having the Labour discipline
and our principles at heart." (Edmonton Journal, 20 May 1935, 13 .) Alf
Farmilo, another Labour candidate in several provincial and municipal
campaigns, as well as secretary-treasurer of the AFL, agreed with Berg
and noted that the unemployed had not been grateful to the previous
Labour majority on Edmonton city council for its relief policies,
24. The 1935 meeting in Edmonton to elect party candidates and determine
election policies for the provincial election that year, for example, attracted
fewer than 100 people. Edmonton Journal, 2 May 1935, II. This was a
tiny meeting compared to the group of 875 who selected candidates for
the city in 1926.
40. Berg and Farmilo are quoted to this effect in the Edmonton Journal, 31
May 1935, 17
25.Alberta Labour News, 17 August 1935, I
41. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta, 162
26. Macpherson, Democracy in Alberta, 52-3
42 . Premiers' (Aberhart and Manning) papers, Provincial Archives of Alberta,
files 1124, 1118
27. Caragata, Alberta Labour, 100, 105
39. Alberta Labour News, 30 March 1935, 4
43 . Ibid ., file !125B
28 . For example, when Richard Gavin Reid replaced J.E . Brownlee in 1934
as UFA premier, the News was still unwilling to accept that the UFA
government, unlike the UFA organization , was anti-labour. Alberta
Labour News , 21 July 1934, 4
45 . Ibid., file 1105
29. Alberta Labour News, 13 August 1932, 4
46.Ibid., file 1117B
30. Myron Johnson, "The Failure of the CCF in Alberta, " in Society and
Politics in Alberta, ed. Carlo Caldarola (Toronto 1979), 95
47 . Ibid., file 1106
44 . Ibid ., file 1105
48 . See various issues of Alberta Social Credit Chronicle, 1934-36.
31. As late as 20 March 1937, the People's Weekly, the quasi-organ of the
Labour Party (its editor, Elmer Roper, was president of the CLP), noted
that only a minority in the Labour Party favoured disbanding the party
and turning its component groups into CCF clubs . People's Weekly, 20
March 1937, I
32. Caragata, Alberta Labour, 96
33.People's Weekly, 29 February 1936, 4
34. Ben Swankey, "Reflections of an Alberta Communist: The Hungry Thirties," Alberta Historical Review (Autumn 1979), 9; People's Weekly, 9
June 1934, 4
35. Alberta Labour News, 24 December 1932, 4
49 . Albertan, 22 February 1936, 4; "Social Credit Supplement," Albertan,
7 March 1936, I; Premiers' papers, file 1010 (seen. 42 above); Social Credit
Chronicle, various issues in 1934.
50. Premiers' papers, file ll05
51. Alberta Labour News, 24 August 1935, I
52. Alf Farmilo papers, Provincial Archives of Alberta, "A Meeting with
Messrs. Glen L. MacLachlan, Powell, Bryan," n.d., box 3, item 44
53 . Aberhart, for example, defended his dismissive treatment of an AFL
delegation, claiming that "the leaders of the Alberta Federation of Labour
have evidently decided to make a political instrument out of the Federa-
132
133
Studies in Political Economy
tion ." He added that he was justly angry with them: "when the leaders
took the full hour in reading and explaining many resolutions that we
had discussed the previous year with them and of which we had pointed
out difficulties surely no objection or criticism is fair." Aberhart to A .
Orland, secretary, Cambrian Local Union No . 7330, District 18, United
Mine Workers of America, Wayne, Alberta, 3 March 1939. Premiers'
papers, file 1227
Alvin Finkei/Populism and Social Credit
65 . Nellie Peterson, president, Alberta CCF, to Lome Ingle, 20 May 1949,
describes the listless state of the party at that time. CCF papers, box 43
66 . Laclau, Politics and Ideology, 127-8
67 . Ibid ., 174
54. This expectation was expressed in various issues of the Western Clarion ,
a Communist Party organ, during 1936 and 1937.
68 . Alistair Hennessy, " Latin America," in Populism: Its Meaning and National Characteristics, ed. Ghita Ionescu and Ernest Gellner (New York
1969).
55. People's Weekly, 13 June 1936, 4; and 27 June 1936, I
69 . Richards , "Populism: A Qualified Defence," 8
56. People's Weekly, 23 October 1937, I; and 20 August 1938, I
70. Laclau, Politics and Ideology, 166
57 . Meier Serfaty, "Structure and Organization of Political Parties in Alberta,
1935-1971," (Ph.D. diss., Carleton University, 1977), 58-90; Harold J .
Schultz, "A Second Term: 1940," Alberta Historical Review 10:1 (1962),
17-26
58. People's Weekly, 28 March 1942, I
59. Today and Tomorrow (official organ of the Social Credit League), 2 March
1944, 5
60. William Irvine to David Lewis, 28 June 1944; Alberta Provincial Office
to Margaret Telford, 4 November 1944. Alberta CCF papers, Glenbow
Archives.
61. A comparison of the letters from individual Social Creditors and Social
Credit groups to Premier Aberhart from 1935 to 1939 with the letters from
Social Creditors to Premier Manning after he assumed the premiership
in 1943 reveals a dramatic change. During the Depression, the groups met
often and wanted the government to take decisive action in a variety of
areas. In the Manning period, the Social Credit organizations had become
social clubs for aging religious fundamentalists who found little to criticize
in the actions of Manning's "Christian" government.
62. In Calgary, only five affiliates with a combined membership of 189
members had joined and in Edmonton 168 workers in four affiliates had
joined. Irvine to Lewis, 28 June 1944, CCF papers (see n. 60 above).
63. Canadian Parliamentary Guide (Ottawa 1945), 381-2
64. People's Weekly, 16 September 1944, I, reported the Communist allegations . The willingness of leading Alberta CCFers to co-operate with the
Labour Progressive Party - and their capitulation to the national party
- is indicated in William Irvine to David Lewis, 2 March 1944 (CCF
papers, box 5, file 42); see also "Minutes of the Provincial Executive
Meeting of the CCF Alberta Farmer Labour Party," 20 November 1943,
Edmonton (CCF papers, box II, file 118).
134
135