A Very Red Life: The Story of Bill Walsh by Cy Gonick, St. John’s: Canadian Committee on Labour History, 2001, 300 pp., ISBN 1-894000-05-6.

Bill Walsh has had a very long and colourful career as a Communist labour organizer from the 1930s to the 1960s, and subsequent to his expulsion from the party in the late 1960s, as a successful labour arbitrator. Although not as well known as some, Walsh is an important figure in both Communist and labour history. Those who have been privileged to know him over the years cherish his insights, his dedication, and above all, his endless store of anecdotes that illuminate the story of the Canadian labour left in the 20^th century. Walsh is a fit subject for a biography, and the challenge has been taken up by Cy Gonick, retired academic economist, founder of Canadian Dimension, and left activist since the 1960s. Walsh was converted to Communism when he and his best friend, Dick Steele, traveling in Germany in the early 1930s, arrived almost accidentally in Russia, where they worked in Minsk and Moscow, before Walsh was recalled to Canada by his father, a prominent leader of the Montreal Jewish community (Walsh was born Moishe Wolofsky). He disappointed his father by plunging into Communist party organizing in the party’s “golden era” of the 1930s. When the war began, Walsh was picked up and interned during the period that the Communist party was banned in Canada. Released after the Soviet Union became an ally, Walsh served with Canadian forces in Europe. During the war, his young wife died, and then Steele was killed in action. He overcame these twin tragedies, marrying Steele’s widow, Esther, with whom he has remained ever since, and dedicating his abundant energies and skills to the Communist party and the class struggle in the postwar era. The Cold War years were not friendly ground for Communist labour organizers. Walsh was dedicated, energetic, and skilled in his work, gaining over the years accumulated practical experience in what worked for the rank and file, and what did not, how to mobilize effectively, when to strike and when to settle. He worked for years on behalf of the United Electrical Workers (UE), a “Communist-led” union that survived the Cold War by providing solid service to its members. Later, cut adrift by both the UE and by the Communists, his skills found good use as an independent consultant and arbitrator. Walsh was hardly self-effacing, but he never sought to take a leading or particularly prominent role in the party or the union. Although put forward as a Communist candidate for alderman in Hamilton, and elected in 1952 (at the height of the Red-baiting McCarthy era), he was not comfortable as a politician and soon returned to full-time labour work. Nor was he comfortable pursuing a career as a party apparatchik. Others were, and the party bosses often landed on him with orders that went against his instincts as an organizer, and with sudden changes in the party line that were the bane of the party’s ordinary foot soldiers, constantly having to adjust themselves to sometimes inexplicable twists and turns. It was not easy. Indeed, the subtext of this biography, as it was of Walsh’s career, was the constant tension between his dedication to the Communist ideal, and his chafing at party discipline. Personal animosity toward him by C. S. Jackson, the abrasive Communist head of UE, ultimately led to his ejection from the union he had served so long and faithfully. The story of this breach is told here, not surprisingly, from Walsh’s point of view. Readers might also consult Doug Smith’s fine biography of the difficult Jackson (Cold Warrior: C. S. Jackson and the …