Description
Book SynopsisNot for King or Country tells the story of Edward Cecil-Smith, a dynamic propagandist for the Communist Party of Canada during the Great Depression. Born to missionary parents in China in 1903, Cecil-Smith came to Toronto in 1919 where he joined the Canadian militia and lived a happy life ensconced in the Protestant missionary community of Toronto. He became increasingly interested in radical politics during the 1920s, eventually joining the Communist Party in 1931. Worried by the growing strength of fascism around the world, particularly in China, Germany, Italy, and Spain during the summer of 1936, Cecil-Smith quietly departed Canada and became among the first volunteers to fight for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. Cecil-Smith was motivated to fight not out of any sense of traditional patriotism (for king or country) but out of a sense that the onward march of fascism had to be stopped, and Spain was where the line had to be drawn.
Not for
Trade Review
"Not for King or Country is a welcome addition to the scholarship on both the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion and the Communist Party of Canada. Today’s generation of anti-fascists would do well to read it." -- Scott Costen * Redaction Politics *
Table of Contents
1. An Idyllic Youth 2. Radicalization 3. Joining the Party 4. Theatre: Our Weapon 5. Art, Propaganda and the Popular Front 6. Defend the Soviet Union! 7. No Pasaran! 8. The George Washington Battalion 9. The Fighting Canucks 10. The Defense of Teruel 11. The Retreats 12. Crossing the Ebro 13. Coming Home 14. A Second Anti-Fascist War
