Stanley Brehaut Ryerson - in The Communist Party

In The Communist Party

The Communist Party of Canada, at least in the 1930s and 40s lacked a connection to the Canadian middle class as well as intellectuals; with his return to Canada, Ryerson would become a symbol of the party’s appeal to this segment of society. Ryerson “was not the only traditional intellectual to join the CPC, but he was one of the first and undoubtedly was to become the most important.” The Communist parties of Great Britain and the United States of America, as well as many other nations, could count numerous artists and intellectuals as members from the 1930s on; but in Canada, Ryerson was a lonely figure. His position within the CPC, including his rapid rise in the party hierarchy and his presence on the Central Committee (CC) until 1969, was assured by his unique position; a position that allowed him to play a role within the “political history of Canadian Communism unlike that of his American and British counterparts.” He was a middle class school boy from a privileged background in an overwhelmingly proletarian organisation, and as such his presence within the CPC did not always meet with approval. But, his education made him an asset for the party, one that would come in handy in the years to come.