Socialist Party of Canada

Socialist Party of Canada

Socialist Party of Canada (SPC) emerged in 1904 when the Socialist Party of British Columbia, a group of Marxists influential in BC mining camps and among BC trade unionists, merged with the Canadian Socialist League. By 1910 it had spread from coast to coast. Members of the SPC held the revolutionary view (known as "impossiblism") that attempts to reform the capitalist system were useless and that militant political action was necessary in order to destroy the wage system and usher in the co-operative commonwealth. The party's support waned after the collapse of the general strikes of 1919 when most workers adopted a reformist stance and their organizations a gradualist strategy. Many of the activists in the SPC who continued to reject reformism and labourism later joined the COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA.