Article

Tim Buck

Published Online January 24, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Timothy Buck, machinist, trade unionist, communist leader (b at Beccles, Eng 6 Jan 1891; d at Cuernavaca, Mexico 11 Mar 1973). Like many skilled British workers, Buck immigrated to Canada in 1910 in search of a better living. He was soon immersed in radical working-class politics in Toronto.
Portrait of Tim Buck, leader of the Communist Party of Canada


Timothy Buck, machinist, trade unionist, communist leader (b at Beccles, Eng 6 Jan 1891; d at Cuernavaca, Mexico 11 Mar 1973). Like many skilled British workers, Buck immigrated to Canada in 1910 in search of a better living. He was soon immersed in radical working-class politics in Toronto. Buck later claimed to have been a founding member of the COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA, organized in a secret 1921 meeting in a barn near Guelph, and soon became a leading architect of its trade-union policy.

Canadian Communist Party
Canadian communist leaders, pictured in 1942. Front row, left to right: Henri Gagnon, Fred Rose, Tim Buck, Émery Samuel and Sam Lipschitz. Back row, left to right: Gus Sundqvist, Bill Kashtan, Évariste Dubé, Jim Litterick, Sam Carr, Willie Fortin, Stewart Smith and Stanley B. Ryerson.
Communist Party of Canada
Canadian communists march in Vancouver in the 1930s.
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After struggles against a party leader who supported Trotsky's critique of developments in the international communist movement in 1928, and alleged supporters of Nikolai Bukharin in 1929, Buck emerged as the party's general secretary, a post he held for 32 years. He published many articles, pamphlets and books. He spent over 2 years in jail 1932-34 and 3 years underground during WWII when his party was banned. In 1971 he received the Order of the Great October Revolution from the USSR.