John Riddell (Marxist)

John Riddell (born 1942) is a Canadian Marxist essayist, historian, editor, translator and activist. He is best known as editor of The Communist International in Lenin’s Time, an eight-volume series of books of Communist International documents, many of which have been translated into English for the first time.[1][2]

Biography

Riddell helped plan and carry out a protest at the Liberal Party Maple Leaf Gardens rally on June 8, 1957,[3] which Progressive Conservative Party organizer Allister Grosart termed “the turning point” in the 1957 Canadian federal election campaign.[4]

Riddell joined the League for Socialist Action in 1961. In 1960 he joined the Young Socialists, the youth movement associated with the LSA, and became its central leader 1965. He was the LSA's Toronto organizer from 1967 and its candidate for Mayor of Toronto in the 1969 municipal election. Riddell served as executive secretary of the LSA from 1972 until 1977 when it merged with other Trotskyist groups to form the Revolutionary Workers League/Ligue Ouvrière Révolutionnaire.

In 1972, Riddell “was the target of an extensive campaign of [anonymous] letters containing various attempts to discredit him.”[5] In 1979, Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers testified to an Ontario Public Inquiry that they had written and distributed these attacks, based on false information.[6] Riddell then took part in legal initiatives by Harry Kopyto and Ross Dowson to secure redress[7] in “a series of high-profile, but unsuccessful, lawsuits against the Royal Canadian Mounted Police” with reverberations lasting until 2016.[8]

In 1983, Riddell began work with the Socialist Workers Party and Pathfinder Press on the Communist International publishing project,[9] relocating to New York City in the mid-1980s.[10]

He returned to Toronto in 1994, and was active with the RWL's successor, the Communist League until 2004 when he broke with the CL and the SWP over their lack of support for demonstrations against the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[11] Subsequently, Riddell has been active in solidarity campaigns for Venezuela, Bolivia, and Palestine and for climate justice.

Riddell's father, Robert Gerald Riddell, was a Canadian diplomat and Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations from 1950 until his death from a heart attack the next year.[12] His mother, Kay Riddell Rouillard, founded the International Student Centre at the University of Toronto.[13]

Footnotes

1. "About". 5 May 2011. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
2. "John Riddell - International Socialist Review". isreview.org. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
3. Bradburn, Jamie (April 30, 2011). "Historicist: How Not to Run a Liberal Election Rally". Torontoist.
4. Stursberg, Peter (1975). Diefenbaker - Leadership Gained 1956-62. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. 48. ISBN 978-0-8020-2130-4.
5. Fidler, Richard (1978). RCMP The Real Subversives. Toronto: Vanguard Publications. pp. 60–61. ISBN 0-88758-037-8.
6. Krever (Comissioner), Horace (1980). Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Confidentialiaty of Health Information, vol. 2. Toronto: The Queen's Printer. pp. 38–48. ISBN 0-7743-5569-7.
7. Steele, John (December 16, 1983). "Canadian Socialists Win Right to Sue Police for Spying" (PDF). The Militant. 47: 8.
8. Dowson, Ross (1980). In the Federal Appeal Court Between Ross Dowson v RCMP. Toronto: Forward Publications. ISBN 0-969-0593-0-2.
9. Jenness, Doug (September 16, 1983). "Reconquering the Heritage of the Communist International" (PDF). The Militant. 47: 9–11.
10. "John Riddell's achievement is a team effort". 4 March 2013. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
11. Annis, Roger (April 2, 2004). "The Iraq War and the Antiwar Movement" (PDF). Socialist Voice (Canada). 1.
12. "Memorable Manitobans". Manitoba Historical Society.
13. "Socialist History Project". www.socialisthistory.ca. Retrieved 2 April 2018.

Further reading

• John Riddell, "Thirty-Five Years of Comintern Publishing: A Balance Sheet," The Bullett, April 14, 2018. —Memoir of the Comintern in Lenin's Time publishing project.