Red Travellers: Jeanne Corbin and Her Comrades

John Stanley is a senior policy advisor in the Corporate Policy Branch
Management Board Secretariat, Government of Ontario. He is co-editor of
Nation and History: Polish Historians from the Enlightenment to the
Second World War.

Jeanne Corbin (1906–1944) never became a member of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC), but as a francophone
female party member, she attracted attention during her lifetime.
Andrée Lévesque, a retired McGill University professor, has spent many
years gathering material on Corbin, but despite these efforts the author
admits that there is little personal information available on this
committed Communist. Immigrating to Canada from France, her family
settled in Alberta where she became a teacher, only practising this
profession for a year before politics interfered. She joined the
Communist Party of Canada when she turned 18. In Toronto, Montreal, and
Timmins she served the party as agitator and editor.

The CPC was already in its Stalinist phase but Corbin served it loyally
for two decades, even spending three months in jail for her activities.
She never publicly doubted its direction and was personally close to its
leadership; she devoted her life to the party until tuberculosis cut her
down. There were few women in the party ranks; women did not play a
prominent role in any political party in these decades. There were even
fewer francophones, although the CPC tried hard to attract French
Canadians. As a result, Corbin has assumed a mythic role in party
history.

However, we do not know why she became a Communist or whether she ever
questioned the numerous changes in its politics and practices during
this tumultuous period. Given the scarcity of biographical material,
Lévesque resorts to exploring the French region where Corbin’s family
traditionally lived, Alberta settlement patterns, Communist party
politics, and tuberculosis treatment. While this biography does capture
the Communist counter-society, Corbin is seldom at the centre of this
volume. Despite the author’s best effort, the topic has defeated her.
This book will most interest readers investigating the history of
Canada’s Communist movement.