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Unequal Union: Confederation and the Roots of Conflict in the Canadas, 1815-1873
Binding Unknown, Date not stated
477 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Stanley Brehaut Ryerson
5 books1 followerStanley Bréhaut Egerton Ryerson (March 12, 1911 – 25 Apr 1998) was a Canadian historian, educator, political activist. His parents were Edward Stanley Ryerson and Tessie De Vigne, a well-off middle-class family in Toronto. Ryerson could trace his paternal lineage back to Egerton Ryerson, the "Pope of Methodism" in nineteenth century Toronto.
After attending Upper Canada College and University of Toronto he studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (1931-34), where he encountered European communist politics. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada 1935-69 and Québec provincial secretary 1936-40. He moved to Toronto in 1943 as the new Labour Progressive Party's education director and managing editor of its National Affairs Monthly.
After attending Upper Canada College and University of Toronto he studied at the Sorbonne, Paris (1931-34), where he encountered European communist politics. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada 1935-69 and Québec provincial secretary 1936-40. He moved to Toronto in 1943 as the new Labour Progressive Party's education director and managing editor of its National Affairs Monthly.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 5, 2020
Three stars because Ryerson is a Stalinist. Not that the book is terrible, its actually (along with The Founding Of Canada: Beginnings To 1815) a very good read. Ryerson endeavors to continue the work he began in the first book of analyzing the history of Canada from a Marxist perspective. As an attempt to provide an analysis that proceeds from a class perspective, the starting point of Marxist analysis summed up by the proposition of line 1, chapter 1 of The Communist Manifesto,"[German Original]. "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."
But aside from adhering to a material analysis of history a genuine Marxist analysis must also take its subject in context. Ryerson reflects his Stalinist bias by disregarding the Marxist perspective on revolution, that it is a condition of the class struggle in which the productive forces have developed to a point at which their further development comes into conflict with the relations of production arising from the mode of production in a given society. They are a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms within society. In simple terms, for example, in our times the productive forces have developed to the point where poverty, environmental degradation, etc are no longer a necessary consequence of how we produce our means of existence, rather such things are kept in force because capitalist production (itself having in an earlier age been held back by the feudalistic society in which they developed) has in its turn become a fetter on the further progress of humanity, because capitalist interests prevent it from further development.
Ryerson, showing his Stalinism, turns this idea into a fetish and revises Canadian history accordingly. Correctly identifying the Patriot rebellion as the revolutionary surge it was, he ignores its failure as a bourgeois revolution (which to have succeeded would have had to result in the independence of Canada from the British Empire), sidesteps the unresolved tasks of such a revolution (ie. the sweeping away of feudal restraints, usually in the form of feudal monopolies on the land, and the creation of an internal market for capitalist exploitation) and focuses on the advance of democratic forms, rather than the economic forms, whose revolutionary transformation, lead to a social revolution and the creation of a new society that has grown in the belly of the 0ld. Social revolution is the "midwife" that assists the birth of the new.
In the hands of a Stalinist the Marxist concept of stages loses its dialectical relevance and becomes a cookie cutter by which society must pass through a stage of bourgeois (ie. capitalist) development before the socialist revolution becomes a realistic proposition. But Marx's concept of stages referred to a historical process that occurred in the advanced capitalist countries of his day. He did not mean it to be taken as the "formula' by which the historical development of socialism is only put on the order of the day after the capitalists have had their 'time in the sun'. Marx, for example, was not writing about the revolutionary tasks facing the labouring and exploited masses in a backwards country whose social development occurs within the context of domination by a foreign finance capital. Leon Trotsky, Stalin's nemesis and the only surviving member of the Bolsheviks after Stalin's purges who had the ability to defend the method of Marxism against Stalinist distortion, developed ideas of Marx's on the basis of the experience of Russia's 1905 revolution to account for the socialist revolution in a backwards nation whose local bourgeoisie had developed to late to play an independent role in the development of local capitalism. Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution pointed out that the tasks of the bourgeois revolution in such a situation are the tasks of the working class, who, once they achieve power, will not stop at the bourgeois revolution, but would immediately move on to the socialist tasks that it is their historic role to achieve.
All of that aside, Ryerson's assertion that the patriot rebellion of 1837 led to a "revolution from above" when "Responsible Government" was granted by the British Empire ten years late is, by the standard of genuine Marxism, a contradiction in terms, and an absurdity. Revolution comes from below. If it changes the form of state (ie. from direct colonial administration to "Responsible Government") without involving a simultaneous economic revolution, then it is not a social revolution at all but a political revolution. The mere passing of political power from one hand to the other by the bourgeois that leaves socio-economic features of the society in place. But in the case of Canada neither occurred, the attempted bourgeois revolution of 1837 was a failure. Its tasks unfulfilled, Ryerson revises history to cast it as a success, only 10 years after the fact.
This book is problematic, as are Ryerson's other writings. But with an understanding of Marxism his deficiencies are defused, and the real value of the book comes out. The Canadian ruling class gets away with its despotism by attempting to appear progressive, and rational. This book is valuable for its elaboration of the material basis by which it actually achieved, and maintained, its position. But the book is also fundamentally wrong, and as always with the supporters of Stalinism, its main effect politically is as the tail end of the bourgeoisie.
But aside from adhering to a material analysis of history a genuine Marxist analysis must also take its subject in context. Ryerson reflects his Stalinist bias by disregarding the Marxist perspective on revolution, that it is a condition of the class struggle in which the productive forces have developed to a point at which their further development comes into conflict with the relations of production arising from the mode of production in a given society. They are a product of the irreconcilability of class antagonisms within society. In simple terms, for example, in our times the productive forces have developed to the point where poverty, environmental degradation, etc are no longer a necessary consequence of how we produce our means of existence, rather such things are kept in force because capitalist production (itself having in an earlier age been held back by the feudalistic society in which they developed) has in its turn become a fetter on the further progress of humanity, because capitalist interests prevent it from further development.
Ryerson, showing his Stalinism, turns this idea into a fetish and revises Canadian history accordingly. Correctly identifying the Patriot rebellion as the revolutionary surge it was, he ignores its failure as a bourgeois revolution (which to have succeeded would have had to result in the independence of Canada from the British Empire), sidesteps the unresolved tasks of such a revolution (ie. the sweeping away of feudal restraints, usually in the form of feudal monopolies on the land, and the creation of an internal market for capitalist exploitation) and focuses on the advance of democratic forms, rather than the economic forms, whose revolutionary transformation, lead to a social revolution and the creation of a new society that has grown in the belly of the 0ld. Social revolution is the "midwife" that assists the birth of the new.
In the hands of a Stalinist the Marxist concept of stages loses its dialectical relevance and becomes a cookie cutter by which society must pass through a stage of bourgeois (ie. capitalist) development before the socialist revolution becomes a realistic proposition. But Marx's concept of stages referred to a historical process that occurred in the advanced capitalist countries of his day. He did not mean it to be taken as the "formula' by which the historical development of socialism is only put on the order of the day after the capitalists have had their 'time in the sun'. Marx, for example, was not writing about the revolutionary tasks facing the labouring and exploited masses in a backwards country whose social development occurs within the context of domination by a foreign finance capital. Leon Trotsky, Stalin's nemesis and the only surviving member of the Bolsheviks after Stalin's purges who had the ability to defend the method of Marxism against Stalinist distortion, developed ideas of Marx's on the basis of the experience of Russia's 1905 revolution to account for the socialist revolution in a backwards nation whose local bourgeoisie had developed to late to play an independent role in the development of local capitalism. Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution pointed out that the tasks of the bourgeois revolution in such a situation are the tasks of the working class, who, once they achieve power, will not stop at the bourgeois revolution, but would immediately move on to the socialist tasks that it is their historic role to achieve.
All of that aside, Ryerson's assertion that the patriot rebellion of 1837 led to a "revolution from above" when "Responsible Government" was granted by the British Empire ten years late is, by the standard of genuine Marxism, a contradiction in terms, and an absurdity. Revolution comes from below. If it changes the form of state (ie. from direct colonial administration to "Responsible Government") without involving a simultaneous economic revolution, then it is not a social revolution at all but a political revolution. The mere passing of political power from one hand to the other by the bourgeois that leaves socio-economic features of the society in place. But in the case of Canada neither occurred, the attempted bourgeois revolution of 1837 was a failure. Its tasks unfulfilled, Ryerson revises history to cast it as a success, only 10 years after the fact.
This book is problematic, as are Ryerson's other writings. But with an understanding of Marxism his deficiencies are defused, and the real value of the book comes out. The Canadian ruling class gets away with its despotism by attempting to appear progressive, and rational. This book is valuable for its elaboration of the material basis by which it actually achieved, and maintained, its position. But the book is also fundamentally wrong, and as always with the supporters of Stalinism, its main effect politically is as the tail end of the bourgeoisie.
March 31, 2013
The second of Ryerson's two-volume study of Canadian history, and to some extent marred by a too "schematic" framework with which to understand the dynamics of Canadian history, this book remains a masterpiece. We are approaching the 200th anniversary of the birth of John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister. This book should be mandatory reading for any who want to romanticize that man. One of the gems in the book, for instance, is bringing to light Macdonald's open support for the pro-slavery Confederacy in the U.S. Civil War. While acting as Attorney-General for Canada West, Macdonald also served as counsel for the pro-slavery "Copperhead" bands who raided Northern cities from Canadian territory. Of the pro-slavery south, Ryerson quotes Macdonald as praising "the gallant defence that is being made by the Southern Republic". Class struggle is integrated into the narrative, along with the story of capital accumulation and the establishment of the foundations of Canadian capitalism. The book ends with a completely sympathetic account of the the first indigenous uprising in the Northwest, an uprising led by Louis Riel and the "Comité national des Métis".
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