Maritime Radical: The Life and Times of Roscoe Fillmore

George A. Rawlyk is a history professor at Queen’s University and the
author of Champions of the Truth: Fundamentalism, Modernism, and the
Maritime Baptists.

This is a very sympathetic biography of Roscoe Fillmore (1887–1968),
Maritime Marxist and noted horticulturist, written by his journalist
grandson Nicholas. Roscoe Fillmore was born in Albert County, N.B., a
region of the province noted for its conservatism and its strong Baptist
presence and influence. Instead of being converted to Baptist
Evangelicalism, Roscoe as a teenager was converted to Marxism—not in
Canada but in Portland, Maine. Throughout his adult life, he remained a
committed Marxist in a political environment of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia that was the antithesis of everything he believed in.

Fillmore was certainly a Maritime Marxist radical; his commitment to
his own version of communism energized him and gave him a sense of
purpose and a sense of direction. In the early 1920s he even went to
Siberia to help organize a collective farm; this visit inspired him and
pumped life into his Marxism.

After his return to Canada, Fillmore was active in Communist politics
in the Maritimes, the trade union movement, and radical journalism.
Maritime Radical provides fascinating material about the inner workings
of radical politics in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, especially during
the interwar years. Fillmore was at the core of the movement; he was
closely tied to Tim Buck, the Canadian Communist leader, and he was also
a friend of William “Big Bill” Haywood, the remarkable I.W.W.
leader. Even in the 1960s, despite many ideological and personal
setbacks, Fillmore had not lost faith in his Marxism.

Maritime Radical is more than a biography of Fillmore. It also strongly
supports the contention that Maritime political culture in the century
after Confederation was indeed conservative. The radical voice was both
muted and seldom listened to; and when it was heard it touched a
responsive chord only briefly and in very few communities.

The book is well written and effectively captures the interest of the
reader. Fillmore, I am sure, would have been pleased with this labor of
love by his grandson.