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William Kashtan

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William Kashtan
General Secretary of the Communist Party of Canada
In office
1965–1988
Preceded byLeslie Morris
Succeeded byGeorge Hewison
Personal details
Born27 June 1909
Montreal, Québec
Died1993(1993-00-00) (aged 83–84)
Toronto, Ontario
Political partyCommunist Party of Canada
Other political
affiliations		Labor-Progressive Party (1943–1959)

William Kashtan (27 June 1909[1] – 1993) was the general secretary of the Communist Party of Canada for 23 years beginning in January 1965, several months following the death of Leslie Morris, until his retirement in 1988. The delay in his assuming of the position was due to the opposition of Tim Buck to his appointment.

Kashtan was born in Montreal, Quebec in 1909. In 1927, at the age of 18, he joined the Young Communist League. Two years later, he moved to southern Ontario to organize for the YCL there and then became the League's general secretary in 1930. In 1936, he helped found the Canadian Youth Congress which, at its peak, had over 400,000 members.[2]

He visited Spain early in the Spanish Civil War and on his return helped organize the Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion.[3]

After World War II he served as Toronto organizer of the Labor-Progressive Party, as the Communist Party was known from 1943 to 1959, and served subsequently as industrial director, labour secretary and central organizer.[2]

He was a perennial candidate for the Labor-Progressive Party and then the Communist Party of Canada and became general secretary of the party in 1965, despite the opposition of party chairman and longtime leader Tim Buck.

Kashtan never succeeded in winning election to the House of Commons of Canada, and retired in 1988. He was an orthodox, pro-Moscow Communist and consistently supported the Soviet Union through various shifts in policy at the Kremlin. Kashtan opposed Eurocommunism in the 1970s when many other Communist Parties in the west embraced it.

In 1970, Kashtan spoke out against the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) group in Quebec, describing it as a terrorist organization and claiming that its methods were not consistent with genuine revolutionary behaviour.

In 1971, on behalf of the CPC, he suggested James Gareth Endicott resign as president of the Canadian Peace Congress because he had drawn anti-Soviet and pro-China views, to which Endicott consented.

Kashtan retired as party leader in 1988 and was replaced by George Hewison. In the early 1990s, following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Hewison and his supporters attempted to move the Communist Party away from Marxism-Leninism and towards social democracy in light of the failure of Soviet-style Communism. Kashtan came out of retirement to fight the changes, along with future Party leader and then member of the Central Executive, Elizabeth Rowley.[3]

His views on the Soviet-Afghan war can be summarized in his 1980 speech at University of Alberta:

The Soviet Union's involvement Afghanistan was not an act of aggression or intervention ... Rather, the Soviet Union was honoring a 1978 treaty with Afghanistan, which stipulated that Afghanistan could ask the U.S.S.R. for military aid ... He cited resistance to the revolution by the land-owning and capitalist classes as an internal factor. And continuing interference in the affairs of Afghanistan by Cpina [recte China], Pakistan, as well as the CIA, is an external reason mentioned by Kashtan.[4]

Electoral record

[edit]
1984 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Aideen Nicholson 9,811 43.59 -13.93
New Democratic David English 6,712 29.82 +7.02
Progressive Conservative Peter Rekai 5,120 22.75 +5.92
Green Susan Berlin 341 1.52 –
Libertarian Peter W. Ring 255 1.13 -0.75
Communist William Kashtan 195 0.87 +0.15
Commonwealth of Canada Ted Ma 73 –
Total valid votes 22,507
1980 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Aideen Nicholson 12,628 57.52 +9.59
New Democratic Manuel Azevedo 5,005 22.80 -3.05
Progressive Conservative Richard Boraks 3,695 16.83 -5.92
Libertarian Vijay Basdeo 412 1.88 -0.38
Communist William Kashtan 159 0.72 -0.18
Marxist–Leninist Aili Waldman 57 0.26 -0.05
Total valid votes 21,956
1979 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Aideen Nicholson 10,206 47.93 -4.84
New Democratic Manuel Azevedo 5,504 25.85 +12.82
Progressive Conservative Frank Lacka 4,843 22.75 -9.54
Libertarian Maureen Cain 482 2.26 –
Communist William Kashtan 192 0.90 -0.26
Marxist–Leninist Aili Waldman 65 0.31 -0.13
Total valid votes 21,292
1974 Canadian federal election: Trinity
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Aideen Nicholson 10,683 52.77 +13.16
Progressive Conservative Paul Hellyer 6,537 32.29 -8.19
New Democratic Jonathan Cohen 2,637 13.03 -4.67
Communist William Kashtan 234 1.16 –
Marxist–Leninist Jim Turnbull 90 0.44 –
Independent Martin K. Weiche 64 0.32 –
Total valid votes 20,245


1972 Canadian federal election: Davenport, Toronto
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Charles Caccia 9,366 43.7 -6.7
Progressive Conservative John A. Gillespie 6,442 30.1 +8.0
New Democratic Angelo Principe 5,272 24.6 -2.9
Independent William Kashtan 190 0.9
Independent Richard Daly 160 0.7
Total valid votes 21,430 100.0
1968 Canadian federal election: York West
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Philip Givens 20,416 44.8 -2.9
New Democratic Val Scott 16,204 35.6 +12.7
Progressive Conservative Wes Boddington 8,344 18.3 -11.2
Independent Norman Gunn 442 1.0
Communist William Kashtan 155 0.3
Total valid votes 45,561 100.0
1965 Canadian federal election: Davenport, Toronto
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Walter L. Gordon 9,887 58.4 +3.6
Progressive Conservative Daniel Iannuzzi 3,907 23.1 +0.6
New Democratic Nelson W. Abraham 2,918 17.2 -4.4
Communist William Kashtan 224 1.3
Total valid votes 16,936 100.0
Canadian federal by-election, November 8, 1954: Trinity
Death of Lionel Conacher
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Liberal Donald Carrick 5,589 38.60 -2.34
Progressive Conservative Willson Woodside 4,237 29.26 -1.33
Co-operative Commonwealth Herman A. Voaden 3,700 25.55 +5.85
Labor–Progressive William Kashtan 953 6.58 -2.19
Total valid votes 14,479
1953 Canadian federal election: Broadview
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Progressive Conservative George Hees 10,403 49.58 +1.47
Liberal Joseph J. Carroll 6,316 30.10 +2.08
Co-operative Commonwealth Herbert Gargrave 3,910 18.63 -4.39
Labor–Progressive William Kashtan 224 1.07 –
Socialist Labour Alan Sanderson 130 0.62 -0.23
Total valid votes 20,983
1945 Canadian federal election: St. Paul's
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Progressive Conservative Douglas Ross 12,390 40.7 -10.6
Liberal James Rooney 12,211 40.1 -8.6
Co-operative Commonwealth Andrew F. Brewin 4,958 16.3
Labor–Progressive William Kashtan 895 2.9
Total valid votes 30,454 100.0

References

[edit]
  1. ^ The Canadian Who's who. University of Toronto Press. 1984. ISBN 9780802046208.
  2. ^ a b "Archives Canada biography".[permanent dead link‍]
  3. ^ a b "Unpublished Interview with Comrade William Kashtan, posted by MLToday, July 1st, 2006, Communist Forum". July 2006. Retrieved 2020-05-10.
  4. ^ "The Gateway, February 5, 1980, Page 3, Item Ar00301". peel.library.ualberta.ca. Retrieved 2019-04-16.
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