Albert Edward Smith - Stalinism

Stalinism

Smith visited the Soviet Union for the first time in 1932, and wrote favourably of the experience upon his return. In July 1936, he traveled to Spain during the Spanish Civil War as an emissary of the "Friends of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion".

Smith was one of Tim Buck's most vocal defenders in the early 1930s, when Buck was detained and nearly killed in the Kingston Penitentiary. In the 1934 provincial election, Smith ran as a candidate of the Ontario Communist Party against Conservative Premier George Henry in the constituency of York East. He finished fourth, though still polling a respectable 664 votes. Later in 1934, Smith polled a surprisingly high 8,500 votes for Mayor of Toronto.

Returning again to northern Ontario, Smith ran for the House of Commons as a candidate of the Communist Party candidate in the 1935 federal election, receiving 1,161 votes for a fourth-place finish in Port Arthur. The winner was Clarence Decatur Howe of the Liberal Party.