Stanley Brehaut Ryerson - Ideological Origins

Ideological Origins

To fully understand his commitment to communism one must look towards his period of study at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1931. While attending classes towards a Diplomes d’Etudes Superieures with a thesis on the writings of Sicilian peasant-realist novelist Giovanni Verga, Ryerson involved himself in communist activities. While travelling through Europe, he experienced the political turmoil within Spain and Italy during the early depression years, and while in Paris he took part in the funeral procession of the last survivor of the Paris Commune of 1871 a Z. Camelinat. On this day in 1932, while marching with 200,000 others to Pere Lachaise cemetery, Ryerson felt a fierce wave of connection with the French Left. His experiences in Europe affected his vision of the capitalist world and he would write:

"the realization that the cultural values of art and literature were being turned by capitalism into what I can only describe as spiritual onanism and the discovery that communism, by solving the material problems of society, was the only path to a future creative renaissance, was the first impulse."

Europe was the scene of his birth as a communist; Canada was the scene of his growth into a renowned historian and communist intellectual.