Editing Maurice Spector

{{Short description|Canadian politician, editor and Trotskyist activist}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2008}}
'''Maurice Spector''' (March 19, 1898 – August 1, 1968) was a [[Canadian]] politician who served as the chairman of the [[Communist Party of Canada]] and the editor of its newspaper, ''[[People's Voice (newspaper)|The Worker]]'',<ref name=gaz/> for much of the 1920s. He was an early follower of [[Leon Trotsky]] after Trotsky's split from the [[Communist International]].<ref name=palmer/>

==Early life==
Spector was born in the [[Russian Empire]] and immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant.<ref name=gaz>[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=xoY1AAAAIBAJ&sjid=1Z8FAAAAIBAJ&pg=2753,604781&dq=maurice+spector&hl=en "Maurice Spector,"] ''The Gazette'' [Montreal], January 29, 2012.</ref> He graduated from [[Queen's University at Kingston|Queen's University]] and practiced [[labour law]] in [[Toronto]] when he was not employed in political positions.<ref name=starobit>{{cite news |title=Once expelled by Reds here Maurice Spector, 70, dies |page=26 |date=2 August 1968 |work=Toronto Daily Star |id={{ProQuest|1418722097}} }}</ref>

==First radical political activity==
Spector was influenced by Trotsky's work ''The Bolsheviki and World Peace,'', which was published in the Toronto ''[[Mail and Empire]]'' in January 1918 and by [[Social Democratic Party of Canada]] (SDP) Dominion Secretary [[Isaac Bainbridge]], who introduced him to Lenin's writings and inspired him to join the SDP. Spector engaged with the left wing of the Canadian SDP and eventually left to form the Communist Party of Canada.{{fact|date=April 2021}}

==Turn to Trotskyism==
In 1928, Spector, while attending the Sixth Congress of the [[Comintern]] in [[Moscow]], accidentally got hold of a copy of Trotsky's ''Critique of the Draft Programme of the Communist International'', which criticized the position of [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and [[Joseph Stalin]] and especially the theory of "[[socialism in one country]]". The critique was a landmark in the ideological arming of the [[International Left Opposition]]. In a truly-prophetic statement, Trotsky warned that if this position were adopted by the Communist International, it would inevitably mark the beginning of a process that would lead to the nationalist and reformist degeneration of every communist party in the world. Three generations later, his prediction, which was then ridiculed by the [[Stalinism|Stalinists]], has been shown to be correct.

Stalin had no intention of circulating Trotsky's document, but by a strange accident of history, that is what happened. The Stalinist regime had not yet been consolidated, and the Communist International still had to observe certain norms of [[democratic centralism]], which permitted the circulation of minority opinions. Although Trotsky had been expelled from the Russian party a year earlier, he took advantage of the Congress to appeal to the Communist International. In the process, he submitted his document on the Draft Programme. Through a blunder in the apparatus, it circulated Trotsky's document to the heads of the delegations, including members of the programme commission. It was then that the American [[James P. Cannon|James Cannon]] and Maurice Spector first saw and read Trotsky's document.

Cannon recalled:

<blockquote>
"Through some slip-up in the apparatus in Moscow," recalls Cannon, "which was supposed to be airtight, this document of Trotsky came into the translating room of the Comintern. It fell into the hopper, where they had a dozen or more translators and stenographers with nothing else to do. They picked up Trotsky's document, translated it and distributed it to the heads of the delegations and the members of the programme commission. So, lo and behold, it was laid in my lap, translated into English by Maurice Spector, a delegate from the Canadian party, and in somewhat the same frame of mind as myself, was also on the programme commission and he got a copy. We let the caucus meetings and the Congress sessions go to the devil while we read and studied this document. Then I knew what I had to do, and so did he. Our doubts had been resolved. It was as clear as daylight that Marxist truth was on the side of Trotsky. We had a compact there and then - Spector and I - that we would come back home and begin a struggle under the banner of Trotskyism."<ref>James P. Cannon, ''The History of American Trotskyism.''  New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1944; pp. 49–50.</ref></blockquote>

Spector was a founder of the Canadian [[Trotskyist]] movement, which was first constituted as a branch of the [[Communist League of America]] in 1929.

== Workers Party of Canada ==
In 1932 he co-founded, with [[Jack MacDonald (communist)|Jack MacDonald]], the [[League for Socialist Action (Canada)|Workers Party of Canada]]. The new organization represented the first Canadian section of the International Left Opposition.

== Leaving Canada ==
Spector moved to [[New York City]] in 1936 and became a leading member of the Trotskyist movement there. He presented the International Report at the founding convention of the [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] at the end of 1938 but dropped out of the party in 1939. (Contrary to some reports, he did not take part in the 1939-40 debate between [[James P. Cannon|James Cannon]] and [[Max Shachtman]].)

He joined the [[Socialist Party of America]] shortly after leaving the SWP in 1939 and remained on its executive body until 1958, when he resigned after breaking with [[Max Shachtman]] and his proposal to merge Shachtman's [[Independent Socialist League]] with the Socialist Party, which Spector anticipated would move the SP to the right.<ref name=palmer>{{cite journal|last1=Palmer|first1=Bryan D.|title=Maurice Spector, James P. Cannon, and the Origins of Canadian Trotskyism|journal=Labour/Le Travail|date=Fall 2005|volume=56|pages=91–148}}</ref>

In his later, Spector became editor of a children's magazine published by the [[Labour Zionist]] movement.

==Deportation threat==
Canada had revoked Spector's citizenship, and in 1941, the [[Federal Bureau of Investigation]] learned that Spector was in the United States illegally and had him detained. As Canada refused to accept him, the United States began proceedings to deport him to the [[Soviet Union]]. The [[American Civil Liberties Union]] defended Spector on the grounds that as a Trotskyist, his life would be in danger if he was deported to the Soviet Union. Spector eventually regained his Canadian citizenship and was permitted to remain in New York.<ref name=gaz/>

==Later life==
Spector was employed for part of his post-Trotskyist career by the [[American Council for Judaism]] and was director of the New York trade union division of the [[National Committee for Labor Israel]] in his later years.<ref name=starobit/>

Spector died on August 1, 1968, at the age of 70.<ref name=starobit/>

==Footnotes==
{{reflist|2}}

==External links==
* [http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/spector/index.htm Maurice Spector Internet Archive], Marxists Internet Archive, www.marxists.org/

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[[Category:1898 births]]
[[Category:1968 deaths]]
[[Category:Canadian Trotskyists]]
[[Category:Leaders of the Communist Party of Canada]]
[[Category:Members of the Communist League of America]]
[[Category:Members of the Socialist Workers Party (United States)]]
[[Category:Members of the Socialist Party of America]]
[[Category:Ukrainian emigrants to Canada]]
[[Category:Jewish Canadian politicians]]
[[Category:Jewish socialists]]
[[Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Canada]]
[[Category:Queen's University at Kingston alumni]]
[[Category:Labour lawyers]]
[[Category:Lawyers in Ontario]]