Russian Civil War, Canadian Intervention

Russian Civil War, Canadian Intervention in With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Germany and Austria had been able to transfer many of their troops from the Eastern to the Western Front, increasing pressure on the hard-pressed Allied forces in Belgium and France.

The Allies accordingly undertook to support anticommunist White Russian forces if they would, once back in power, resume war on the Eastern Front against Germany and Austria, a strategy warmly supported by those in London and Paris, in any case, to see the eradication of Bolshevism from Russia.
Acceding to pressure from London, the Canadian government dispatched almost 6000 soldiers to join various Allied units in Russia in mid-1918. Russian Civil War, Canadian Intervention in With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Germany and Austria had been able to transfer many of their troops from the Eastern to the Western Front, increasing pressure on the hard-pressed Allied forces in Belgium and France.

The Allies accordingly undertook to support anticommunist White Russian forces if they would, once back in power, resume war on the Eastern Front against Germany and Austria, a strategy warmly supported by those in London and Paris, in any case, to see the eradication of Bolshevism from Russia.
Acceding to pressure from London, the Canadian government dispatched almost 6000 soldiers to join various Allied units in Russia in mid-1918.

Although some Canadians died in vicious fighting in northern Russia and in the skies over the Black Sea, most, especially those in Siberia, returned without seeing action.
PM Robert Borden recognized that Canada had committed both a political and a military blunder.
Canada was henceforth more wary of accepting without its own scrutiny the recommendations of other nations to enter into foreign commitments.
Russians are the largest single ethnic group among the Slavic nations and the dominant nationality in the Russian Federation (successor to the Russian Empire and the USSR).

They comprised about 81.5% of the population of 148 549 000 in 1994.
Another 25.3 million Russians live outside the Russian Federation.
The 1996 census indicated 272 335 Canadians of Russian descent (single and multiple response).
Except for the relatively concentrated and unified DOUKHOBORS (numbering up to about30 000), the members of this aging, rapidly assimilating ethnic group are scattered throughout the country.

However, their contribution to the arts, sciences and professions in Canada has been greater than their numbers would indicate.
Migration and Settlement The first Russians in Canada were fur hunters, based in present-day Alaska, who operated among the Queen Charlotte Islands and along the coast farther south in the 1790s, and several Russian officers on detached service with the British navy, who were based at Halifax from 1793-95.

Although some Russian officials had urged occupation of coastal lands as far as Spanish California, Russian aspirations were cut short by the 1824 and 1825 conventions with Great Britain and the US, which restricted Russian America to the present Canada-Alaska border.

Both Canadian and Russian official restrictions usually hindered emigration from Russia.
Therefore, most early immigrants to Canada from Russia arrived in groups, through special arrangement.

Between 1874 and 1880, nearly 8000 German MENNONITE colonists from southern Russia settle in Saskatchewan, and in 1899, 7500 Doukhobors settled in Canada, aided in Russia by the famous writer Leo Tolstoy and in Canada by Professor James MAVOR and Clifford SIFTON, then minister of the interior.

Beginning in the 1890s, several thousand Russian JEWS emigrated, seeking relief from ghetto life and the pogroms of western Russia.
Small Russian communities were established in Montreal, Toronto, Windsor, Timmins, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Victoria.

Most of the early immigrants were peasants who found work in various industries.
After WWI many of the one million Russians (the majority of them agricultural and industrial labourers) fleeing the effects of the Russian Revolution sought admission to Canada.
Men willing to work as farm labourers, loggers and miners were preferred immigrants in Canada, but those Russian intellectuals who gained admittance and managed to continue in their own professions did outstanding work in many fields.

Leonid I. Strakhovsky (1898-1963) pioneered Slavic studies at the University of Toronto.
Boris P. Babkin (1877-1950) resumed his career in gastroenterology at Dalhousie and McGill universities.
Nicholas, Vladimir, Alexis and George IGNATIEFF, the 4 sons of Count Paul Ignatieff, the last minister of education under Tsar Nicholas II, made important contributions to engineering and government.
Paraskeva Clark (nee Plistik) became a well-known painter.

Some Russians-Canadians joined the Canadian MACKENZIE-PAPINEAU BATTALION, which fought on the Republican side during the Spanish Civil War.

The Great Depression and WWII virtually halted immigration of all nationalities, but between I 1948 and 1953 a significant number of Russians “immigrated to Canada.
They included some who had originally left Russia and settled in Europe, but majority were among the millions of displaced person who found themselves in Germany after the war either because they opposed Stalin or because they had been sent there as forced labour.
Both groups were generally young, well educated, urban-oriented and aware of their Russian heritage.

After 1953 Russian immigration declined severely (in the early 1970s the average per year from all of the Soviet Union was only 230), although the Soviet government began at that time to allow the emigration of some Jews.
By the late 1980s, about 1500 Soviet Jewish immigrants had been admitted to Canada.

Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of 1991, Russian Jews have continued to be an important part of immigration from the Russian Federation.
ÂÑ has the largest population of Russian origin, largely because of Doukhobor settlement; next are Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Social and Cultural Life Although Russian Canadians claim affiliation with a diversity of churches (in order of numbers: the United Church of Canada, Russian Orthodox Church, Roman Catholic), the ORTHODOX CHURCH is still the traditional centre for the most vocal and active of those claiming Russian origin or descent.

There are some 40 Russian Orthodox parishes in Canada; half belong to the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and the remainder to the Orthodox Church in America, whic includes in its membership a number of non-Russian churches which also follow the Byzantine rite.

One of the oldest Russian Canadian parishes is that of the Church of Saints Peter and Paul (an Orthodox Church of America member) founded in Montreal in 1907.

Within the Russian community a broad spectrum of political organizations has been formed.
During the 1930s some Russian Canadian were drawn to the left-leaning Russian Farmer-Worker Clubs.
Closed by government order in 1939, they reappeared after the USSR joined the Grand Alliance against the Nazis as the Federation of Russian Canadians in 1942.

The FRK organized some 15 branches in various Canadian cities and published the newspaper Vestnik (Herald), long the only Russian newspaper in Canada.
In 1944 the FRK had about 4000 members; by 1949, after the spy trials resulting from the revelations of Igor GOUZENKO, membership dropped to 2709, and by the late 1980s to less than 800.

The paper ceased publication in 1994.
The most active Russian organization in Toronto is the Russian Cultural Society (established 1950).

Anticommunist in orientation, it published a journal Russkoe Slovo v Kanade (Russian Word in Canada), and operated a centre for social and cultural activities.
A small Literary Circle (1949), a Drama Circle, and the “Sovremennik” Publishing Association (1960) which publishes the literary journal Sovremennik (Contemporary) were also active.

However, many of these and similar activities in other cities, particularly Vancouver, declined or died out in the 1980s, as the older generation diminished in number and influence, and younger immigrants less interested in emigre politics and cultural activities have become absorbed in the mass of Canadian society.

Education Although Russian immigrants have eagerly entered their offspring in Canadian schools, some older immigrants have favoured the establishment of schools by church groups (the 2 largest are in Montreal and Toronto) and clubs for after-hours instruction in Russian language and culture.

National Minorities The immigration of Russians has been less than that of some of the minority peoples of the Soviet Union.
Soviet UKRAINIANS emigrating as displaced persons after 1945 joined earlier immigrants from Austria and Poland to make up Canada’s third most numerous ethnic element.
The BYELORUSSIANS in Canada, chiefly from pre-WWII eastern Poland and their descendants, and Russian Jews, retain many aspects of Russian Culture.

Richard A. Pierce