Militant Minority: British Columbia Workers and the Rise of a New Left, 1948–1972 by Benjamin Isitt (review)

To paraphrase an old saw, nobody disagrees with Marxists with more vehemence and conviction than other Marxists. This is one of the lessons of Canadian historian Benjamin Isitt’s Militant Minority, a dense and carefully presented study of working class politics in Canada’s westernmost province in a time of significant upheaval. Tracing the political movements, battles and achievements on the British Columbian Left from the early Cold War period up to the triumphant (if unsustainable) victory of the New Democratic Party (NDP) in the provincial election of 1972, Militant Minority provides a thick and reasonably comprehensive approach to its complex subject. A deeply committed reading of the shift from an “Old” to a “New” Left politics (a shift that he, following American historian Maurice Isserman, takes pains to stress should not be understood as a rupture or a break but rather a continuity), Isitt offers a brave excursion into some pretty fraught territory.

Indeed, this book aims in no uncertain terms to be provocative, and to unsettle its readers. Opening with an anecdote regarding a 1954 “incident” at which a representative of the Victoria Library Board declared that “any book which incites the downtrodden working man to revolt should be removed,” Isitt explains that he “hope[s] this book is worthy of that description” (3).

And yet, as politically motivated as the author claims to be, Isitt is no mere cheerleader. The great strength of this book is, rather, in its unflinching determination to present a warts-and-all portrait of a multivalent (and not always pretty) association of left actors. Throughout this study Isitt is compelled to point out the inconsistencies, absurdities and stupidities that went hand in glove with the brilliance, commitment and integrity that characterized this burgeoning political movement. As a result, feathers will almost certainly be ruffled, as long-held beliefs are here frequently disassembled, and many names are named.

Isitt explains that he has a three-fold purpose with Militant Minority: “(1) to restore political economy, and an emphasis on labour institutions, as valid subjects of working class and social history; (2) to provide a regional Canadian equivalent to Isserman’s study of the transition from the Old Left to the New Left, a ‘horizontal history’ grounded in the major political traditions of the Canadian working class and broader economic and political currents; and (3) to expand our understanding of B.C.’s political culture, class-polarized party system, and volatile labour-relations climate in a way that is relevant to a wider, interdisciplinary Canadian and international literature” (17). For the most part, Isitt succeeds on all three scores.

Beginning with a chapter devoted to “The Political Economy of British Columbia” is a clever decision, as the reader is provided with the wide and sturdy base onto which Isitt can build his arguments. (Indeed, for those readers unfamiliar with British Columbian politics in these years, or Canadian politics more generally, this chapter will prove utterly crucial to understanding the subsequent chapters—though broad in implication, Militant Minority is a highly local history.) This is followed by chapters on the fortunes of the British Columbia Communist Party (a.k.a. the Labour-Progressive party), the rise of the provincial CoOperative Commonwealth Federation (a social democratic party which would be reborn as the NDP in the 1960s), the outlying voices of Trotskyists and Maoists as well as anarchists and anti-war activists, the wildcat activism of (and within) many unions in the late 1960s, and a concluding chapter on the 1972 election which was won by the NDP.

It must be said that Militant Minority is heavy on footnotes and appendices, even for an academic text—the book (based on a Ph.D. dissertation) appears to be twice as long as it actually is—and it is marked by an abundance of local detail and attention to internecine battles between...