Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy by Mark Leier (review)

Book Reviews 723 tions I might have are of a minor nature, and really are more points for further discussion than outright criticism. For example, Burr claims that 'there is no doubt that the [labour] papers were widely read among labour reformers and union activists,' but offers no evidence to back this up. But even granting her claim, can we know what readers made ofthe poetry and prose they discovered in The Palladium and other papers? On this point, perhaps, while the content ofsuch poetry might appeal directly to workers, there is little evidence to suggest that there emerged a distinctly working-class poetry per se. The most Burr can claim, as she does, is that 'the masculine rhetoric oflabour reformers, with its emphasis on progress, citizenship, and self-culture, was not entirely unlike [sic] that ofthe late Victorian middle class, but it was inscribed with a distinctively working-class politic.' Having elected to scrutinize the world of labour poetry, it might have been interesting had Burr spread even more light on the nature ofthis source. DAVID BRIGHT Calgary Rebel Life: The Life and Times of Robert Gosden, Revolutionary, Mystic, Labour Spy. MARK LEIER. Vancouver: New Star Books 1999. Pp. 238, illus. $19.00 Anyone familiar with the history ofwestern Canadian labour in the early 1900s will probably know the name Robert Gosden. Like a cross between Martin Guerre and the Scarlet Pimpernel, this elusive character flits across the pages and footnotes of various books, but always defying precise identification. Even his very presence is sometimes in doubt. In Rebel Life, Mark Leier takes on this 'contradictory, shadowy man' and attempts to pin him down. For the most part he succeeds, and in the process has produced one of the finest books on Canadian labour to appear in recent years. As Leier freely admits, Gosden 'won no elections, headed no corporations , led no troops into battle ... wrote no books, painted no art, invented no useful gadget, performed no act ofgreat heroism, inspired no myths.' Why, then, a full-length study of this minor character's life? There are at least two good reasons, Leier argues. First, the life of Gosden the transient worker and labour radical throws a useful revisionist light on 'romanticized notions of the hobo and tramp,' revealing instead an existence that 'boils with ... the rage ofthe oppressed, ofthose who are damned to a life ofharsh toil.' Class conflict was not simply an unfortunate byproduct ofwestern settlement, empting now and then as in 1919, but was built into the fabric ofthe West. Second, the life ofGosden the labour spy illustrates the need to revise 724 The Canadian Historical Review categorizations such as 'radical' and 'conservative' when describing working-class activism. Gosden's dramatic transformation from an outspoken critic ofcapitalism before the First World War to a paid agent of the state in 1918-21 is rightly the centrepiece of Leier's study, for it counsels new caution in our understanding of class consciousness and class loyalty. As Leier notes, Gosden's 'motives were contradictory and complex, but perhaps they suggest ways to fathom the apparent logic of right-wing movements among working people.' The three first chapters of Rebel Life cover Gosden's involvement with the Industrial Workers of the World before 1914, his activities as a free speech supporter, and his role in a Vancouver political scandal in 1916. He then disappears from view, only to re-emerge in 1918 as an informer for the Mounties. 'We do not know how Gosden signed up for his loathsome duties,' admits Leier, but he is willing to propose a few possible answers. Money was one consideration: Gosden earned twice as much as a spy than as an unskilled labourer. Gosden was also 'a frustrated intellectual,' whose 'rough life and volatile politics isolated him from the respectable labourists and even the radical socialists who controlled the BC labour movement.' His detailed spy reports provided an outlet for his abilities, as well as the chance to influence the thoughts and actions of those in power. Ultimately, however, Gosden's motivation remains a mystery, with Leier finally opting for 'a blend of resentment and hope, personal tragedy and immediate need, feelings ofbetrayal...