Norman Bethune: Anti-Imperialist and Martyr

Final part of a 3-part series on the life of Norman Bethune: Canadian doctor, internationalist, and revolutionary hero.

by J.D. Benjamin
Basics Issue #13 (Apr/May 2009)

The year 1937 marked the beginning of full-scale war between the Republic of China and the Japanese empire. Bethune saw China as the next great flashpoint in the worldwide struggle against fascism. "Spain and China, are part of the same battle," he wrote. "I am going to China because that is where the need is the greatest."

In 1938, Norman Bethune arrived in China and insisted on traveling to the North to join the Communists who were fighting a guerrilla war against the Japanese. Once there, he set about performing emergency battlefield surgery, training new medical staff, producing manuals and organizing mobile medical facilities. The conditions were extreme. Bethune traveled 4,800 kilometers in the course of his duties and once operated on 115 cases in 69 hours without rest, even when his team came under heavy artillery fire. Yet Bethune did not complain. "It is true I am tired," he wrote, "but I don't think I have been so happy for a long time. I am needed."

The Chinese were amazed by this foreigner who had adopted their cause as his own and was literally willing to give them his blood. Bethune in turn was humbled by the Chinese dedication to liberate themselves and build a better world.

In late October 1939, Bethune was on a tour inspecting hospitals when a nearby brigade of the People’s Liberation Army came under attack by the Japanese. While operating on wounded soldiers, Bethune cut his finger, something he had done several times before. This time, infection set in. Bethune continued to work as best he could until the regimental commander, seeing Bethune’s deterioration, ordered him sent back. On November 12, in a small village in Hopei Province, Bethune died of blood poisoning.

Chairman Mao Zedong, leader of the Communist Party of China, had only met Bethune once, but upon hearing of his death Mao wrote an essay that would be studied by hundreds of millions of people in China and around the world. ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune’ praised his internationalism and devotion to the people. Mao held up Bethune as a model to be emulated, writing, "We must all learn the spirit of absolute selflessness from him. With this spirit everyone can be very helpful to each other. A man's ability may be great or small, but if he has this spirit, he is already noble-minded and pure, a man of moral integrity and above vulgar interests, a man who is of value to the people."

When we compare Mao's estimation of Bethune with Bethune as a younger man, we can see the profound changes he had gone through. Gone was the Bethune of just a few years previous, with his drinking, womanizing, impatience and individualism. His commitment to serving the people and being part of a movement for a better society made him overcome these problems. He became not just a better person, but a hero for working people all over the world.

Norman Bethune: The Anti-Fascist and Propagandist

Part 2 of a 3-part series on the life of Norman Bethune: Canadian doctor, internationalist, and revolutionary hero.

by J.D. Benjamin Basics Issue #12 (Jan/Feb 2009)

In 1936, civil war broke out in Spain between the democratically-elected government and foreign-backed fascist rebels. Wanting to help in the fight against the rising tide of fascism, Norman Bethune joined the Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and agreed to head the Canadian Medical Unit in Madrid. Travelling by steamship, Bethune arrived just as the fascist forces were launching a savage offensive against the city.

As a renowned surgeon, Bethune was offered a post at either the military hospital or the training centre for the International Brigades. Instead, he refused both and took the radical step of creating a new form of medical team – a blood transfusion unit that would operate where it was needed most, right on the front lines of the conflict. The anti-fascist Spanish Republican forces already had blood transfusion units, but they were centralized in Barcelona, far from the front. At the time, it was standard practice in warfare for wounded fighters to be transferred into the rear before receiving treatment. Many would die during the trip from shock as a result of blood loss.

Bethune and his team quickly organized a mobile medical unit, which was the first of its kind in the world. It contained enough medical equipment to dress 500 wounds and perform 100 operations and had its own delivery service that collected blood from thousands of donors in the rear and delivered it to the unit on the front. This unit saved countless lives and was so innovative that it would be used as the model for war-time medical care all over the world. It was a major accomplishment and Bethune was honoured by the Spanish government with the rank of major, the highest rank held by any foreigner in the medical service.

While a skilled organizer, Bethune could also be harsh, impatient and demanding and his translator frequently had to soften Bethune’s words when dealing with Spanish authorities. While these qualities were helpful in the initial establishment of the unit, they did not serve well later on when managing political conflicts and dealing with petty personal rivalries. With tensions within the medical service rising and his most important tasks completed, Bethune believed that he could be of better use to the anti-fascist cause back in Canada where he could carry out propaganda work.

Bethune had already shown a flair for publicity and promotion of the anti-fascist cause. His work had attracted extensive press coverage and he helped produce Heart of Spain, the famous documentary about the Canadian Blood Service. On his return to Canada, Bethune went on a tour to raise money, material supplies and volunteers, speaking before tens of thousands across the country. Even though the country was in the midst of the Great Depression, the people responded enthusiastically. In the spirit of international solidarity, they gave tens of thousands of dollars to Bethune’s blood transfusion unit and rushed to join the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion to go fight in Spain. (For more on the Mac-Paps, see Basics issue #8)

The Canadian state, rather than supporting the heroic work of Bethune and his team of medics, went out of its way to undermine the anti-fascist movement. Enlistment in the International Brigades was made a criminal offence under the 1937 Foreign Enlistment Act. The government even went so far as to amend the Act to ban participation in any humanitarian agency that did not assist the fascists as well as the Republicans – deliberately making Bethune’s work in defence of Spanish democracy illegal.

The final chapter in Bethune’s life was to begin with the invasion of China by fascist Japan. In China, Bethune would join the next flashpoint in the world wide fight against fascism and for revolution...

Africville: The Destruction of an African-Canadian Community

by Chevy X King
Basics Issue #10 (Aug/Sep 2008)

Today, peoples of African descent in Canada are referred to as “visible minorities” and are treated as foreigners everywhere they turn. However, peoples of African descent have a very long-standing history in Canada, with Africville being an important case in point.
Africville was one of Canada’s oldest African-Canadaian communities, located just outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, until it was ordered destroyed in the 1960s.

To former African slaves in North America, Africville was a certain freedom - a means of escaping the social discrimination and racism of Canadian and American society. However, as much as the tenants could escape these negative aspects of Canadian society, there was no escape from their economic situation in Canadian society.

The first set of settlers of Africville was a combination of the freed black slaves that pledged loyalty to the British crown. These slaves migrated all over Nova Scotia after the American Revolution. The initial number of settlers was around 3500. The former slaves were promised land by the ruling government, but what they were given was miserable agricultural land far from the communities of other settlers.

When the opportunity was provided for African settlers to migrate to Sierra Leone in 1791 by the Canadian government, it was quickly seized on by some 2000 of the settlers. Poor working conditions, poor agricultural lands, and the social and economical injustice that these black settlers faced in Canada made the choice to move an easy one. The government’s next strategy was to import 550 maroon refugees from Jamaica that rebelled against slavery. The maroons eventually resisted from working because of the infertile land they were given. The province then aggressively shipped the maroons to Sierra Leone in 1800.

The past lands of the maroons and former loyalist slaves were then given to black war veteran and refugees in the 1812 war against the United States. The main reason the government gave the land to those veterans was to replace the labour it lost with the last two sets of refugees. This new set of refugees and their descendants established what has come to be known as Africville. The refugees obtained land from the coastal areas of the Bedford Basin from former slave owners in the 1840s.

Africville slowly began to be torn apart as the city of Halifax grew in the nineteenth century. In 1853, train tracks were laid down right through the community, resulting in many families losing their lands and livelihood. A prison was established on the hills overlooking the community. The prison’s dump was accumulated on the eastern point of the freed refugee’s community that also added to harsh conditions of the land.

In 1954, a city manager presented to Halifax city council a proposal for the residents of Africville to be moved to other lands owned by the government. The proposal stated, “The area is not suited for residents but, properly developed, is ideal for industrial purposes. There is water frontage for piers, the railway for siding, a road to be developed leading directly downtown and in the other direction to the provincial highway.”

The residents were never informed of the original plans of relocation and favour drew closer to the city’s reasons for the bulldozing of the community. One tenant stated, “Those who refused or were slow to leave often found themselves scrambling out of the back door with their belongings as the bulldozers were coming in the front.” Most people were given just under $500 for compensation. The last building was bulldozed in 1970.

Today, the historical site where Africville once stood has been turned to a dog park with a sundial commemorating the community.

Africans have inhabited this country for centuries. Yet people of African descent, with the exception of indigenous peoples, are still the most marginalized and exploited people in Canadian society. The destruction of Africville plays into the Canadian state’s attempt to wipe away the historical memory of African peoples in Canadian history, thus making it easier to continue the exploitation and marginalization of African peoples in the present.

With no historical understanding of ourselves - and this goes for all oppressed people - there’s no way to understand how we got to where we are today, and no way to understand where we are going tomorrow.

May Day 2008: 117 Years on, The Struggle Continues

by Ellis Mayfield
Basics Issue #9 (May 2008)



This May 1st, 2008, marked the 117th anniversary of International Workers Day, or May Day. The governments of Canada and the United States recognize Labor Day in September in an effort to disassociate labor activism, protest, and struggle from its origins in police brutality and worker repression. Although the September holiday is a welcome one, the significance of May Day is a much more symbolic one as it is an international day of solidarity as declared by the working people, and not the state.

May Day celebrations commemorate the Haymarket Massacres of 1886, when Chicago police officers open fired on workers during a general strike. At this point in history, most workers would work between 10 hours and 16 hours a day and death and injury were a common occurrence. The general strike’s aim was to try and get the 8-hour work-day.

Through organization and solidarity with their fellow workers in 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history.

In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day struggle, 40,000 went out on strike. on May 1. More and more workers continued to walk off their jobs until the numbers swelled to nearly 100,000, and yet peace prevailed. It was not until two days later, May 3, 1886, that violence broke out at the McCormick Reaper Works between police and strikers. The police and the Pinkertons (a 19th century private spy agency, forerunner to the FBI) open fired on the Haymarket killing many and arresting dozens more. A bomb thrown into the crowd by a Pinkerton agent triggered the police firing. Eight protestors were then tried and convicted for the bombing by a biased jury comprised of upper class business-men who sought to prolong the unsafe and long work days to ensure their profits. The jury returned guilty verdicts for all eight defendants – death sentences for seven of the men, and a sentence of 15 years for the other. Four of the workers were eventually executed and one eventually committed suicide in prison.

Despite these hardships and the loss of the martyrs, workers would soon be successful in their goal of attaining the 8 hour work-day. This shows us that May Day is undoubtedly the real Labor Day. The welfare of workers is rooted in struggle and organization not gifts handed down from the bosses and their governments.

This year in the United States, May Day was used by our fellow workers as a rallying point to assert the rights of migrant workers, the most exploited workers today. Protests were held against deportations, anti-immigrant legislation, brutality against migrant workers, the militarization of the border, and racist detention programs.

Here in Toronto, No One Is Illegal held a rally on May 3rd at Christie Pits, with a march that took hundreds of workers and activists across Bloor to Dufferin Grove Park. The rally was drawing attention to the racist and exploitative Bill C-51 immigration changes being rammed through by the Federal Conservatives. ∗

Mackenzie-Papineau Brigades of the 1930s: Yesterday’s Heroes Would be Today’s ‘Terrorists’

by Corrie Sakaluk
As a regular feature, Basics will cover important events in the history of popular struggle in Canada.

Though our school’s official history books ignore it and our government has always tried to stop it, there is a long history of revolutionary political organizing and international solidarity amongst Canadians.

One example is the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade of 1936-1939, formed to fight in solidarity with the Spanish Republicans in resistance to fascism during the Spanish Civil War. These brigades were organized by the Communist Party of Canada and were made up almost entirely of workers who became politicized after witnessing the Great Depression of the 1930s, the crisis of capitalism that destroyed thousands of people’s lives and livelihoods.

This brigade fought with great enthusiasm and discipline, despite a powerful fascist opposition backed by Nazi Germany and Italy and a complete lack of support from any of the Western democracies.

The Canadian state actually did everything possible to stop working-class Canadian citizens from showing international solidarity with our working-class brothers and sisters in Spain. In April 1937 the Canadian government made it illegal for Canadians to fight in the Spanish Civil War.The Canadian government refused to issue passports to those who they thought might be going to fight in Spain and they sent the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to spy on the organizing of activities to aid the anti-fascist struggle.

Canadians who wanted to serve in Spain had to travel under false pretenses. For the most part they went first to Toronto, where they met at the headquarters for the operation at the corner of Queen and Spadina.

When it was time to return to Canada, the Canadian government ignored and persecuted members of the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade. They were kept from returning home after the conflict was over, some were arrested in France, others were investigated by the RCMP and denied employment.

The Canadians who died in the Spanish Civil War are not included in the Books of Remembrance in the Peace Tower and their sacrifice is not commemorated on federal war memorials or in Remembrance Day services. Those who survived the war are not entitled to veterans’ benefits.

These tactics of the Canadian state should come as no surprise given what we see today and what we saw about the Winnipeg Strike of 1919 in the last issue of BASICS. There is much more to our history than we are taught in Canadian schools. The Mackenzie-Papineau brigade is an inspiring example of a working-class people’s army that heroically fought the spread of fascism.

721 of the 1,448 Canadians known to have fought in Spain against the fascists lost their lives.

March 8, 2008: 100 Years of Int'nal Women's Day

by Corrie Sakaluk



IWD Poster from Soviet Union, 1920

This year on International Women’s Day our Iranian sisters made this call: “In 2008, on the 8th of March we intend to exclaim ‘Enough is enough!’ We no longer want to tolerate the hell created by the patriarchal systems stretching from Kosovo to Iraq, Afghanistan to Philippines, the USA to France, Britain to Turkey and Iran to Pakistan.”

The 8th of March is the date of an historic 1857 protest of women workers in the clothing and textile industries in New York, in demand of better working conditions. These women were attacked and dispersed by police but kept organizing, and established their first labour union two months later.

On March 8th 1908, fifteen thousand women marched through New York City demanding shorter hours, better pay, and voting rights.

March 8th also commemorates the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New York in 1911 where over 140 women who worked inside lost their lives, and the rallies held by women across Europe in 1913 that called for peace in the face of a looming war.

The first stage of the Russian Revolution was kick-started by demonstrations marking International Women’s Day in 1917. IWD was made an official holiday in the former Soviet Union shortly after the revolution, and was declared a non-working state holiday in 1965 to honour “the outstanding merits of the Soviet women in communistic construction, in the defense of their Motherland during the Great Patriotic War, their heroism and selflessness at the front and in rear, and also marking the big contribution of women to strengthening friendship between peoples and struggle for the peace.”

In 1975, designated as International Women’s Year, the United Nations gave official sanction to and began sponsoring International Women’s Day.

Across the world on March 8th this year, there were parades, rallies, and marches to commemorate IWD.

Let us hope that the next 100 years results in changes that can change the still horrible situation of most women in the world today. This situation cannot be fixed until global capitalism is replaced with a more just and equitable political and economic system.

As long as the economy and the fat wallets of the rich people who control the state and the economy require workers, women’s rights will be of minimal concern to the ruling global capitalist class.

History of Struggle: The Winnipeg General Strike

As a new regular feature, Basics will cover important events in the history of popular struggle.

Canada’s working peoples have a proud history of resistance and, even today, the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike is a great example to learn from.
In spring of 1919, employers refused to negotiate with workers who wanted higher wages and union recognition in Winnipeg-based building and metal jobs. Workers turned to the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council (WTLC) for help and within a week a democratic vote was held in which over 11,000 members of the WTLC chose to hold a general strike in support of the building and metal workers demands. Less than 600 votes were cast against the strike. Based on these results and widespread support from other unions, the WTLC formed a Central Strike Committee and declared a general strike.
On May 15, 1919, at 11am the general strike began with approximately 30,000 workers participating over the 6 weeks it lasted. As word of the general strike spread across the country, workers in other areas declared their solidarity. Sympathy strikes were called in Brandon, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Prince Albert, Regina, Vancouver, New Westminster, Victoria, and in as many as 20 other towns.
The response of the federal government to the Winnipeg strikers was similar to what we might expect today: members of the federal parliament refused to meet with the WTLC or the Central Strike Committee but instead met only with a committee formed by employers, business elites and media. This group represented no more than 1000 Winnipeg citizens.
The federal government then ordered all workers back to work under threat of being fired. On June 6, the federal cabinet changed the Immigration Act to allow for the arrest and deportation of “enemy aliens”. Workers not born in Canada were targeted as agitators and publicly referred to as “alien scum”. On June 17, twelve strike-leaders and strikers born in other countries were arrested and held in Stone Mountain Penitentiary, outside of Winnipeg. Some were later deported.
Workers and strike-supporters were outraged and planned a parade and rally on Saturday June 21, 1919, now known as “Bloody Saturday”. The Royal North-West Mounted Police were used by the government to break up the crowds, which they did by killing one worker and seriously injuring at least 30 workers. A special police force put together by the City of Winnipeg and the Canadian army then beat many workers using baseball bats and wagon spokes.
Faced with the combined forces of government and employers, and under constant threats of violence and intimidation, the strikers decided to return to work in late June 1919.
The militancy set off in Canada amongst workers for almost thirty years after the Winnipeg General Strike finally resulted in a victory of union recognition, collective bargaining, and social welfare programs for the unemployed.
It is disappointing today to see these hard-won rights whittled away by high-paid labor bureaucrats like Buzz Hargrove (see CAW/Magna, p4). Let us take the lessons of the Winnipeg Strike and organize for higher wages, better working conditions in our workplaces, and a better society!