Maurice Rush

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Maurice Rush
BornDecember 1915
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DiedAugust 18, 2016
Political partyCommunist Party of Canada


Maurice Rush (December 1915 – August 18, 2016) was a Canadian communist and longtime member of the CPC Central Committee. He traveled to the USSR, GDR, China, and Vietnam and met with Ho Chi Minh along with Tim Buck.[1]

Early life

Rush was born in Toronto to a Jewish family who fled from Russian-occupied Poland. He moved to Los Angeles in 1923 and to Vancouver in 1924. During the Great Depression, he moved to Kamloops and helped found the Kamloops club of the CPC in 1934.[1]

Political activism

As leader of the Young Communist League club in Kamloops, Rush led a strike at a cannery and organized against Prime Minister R. B. Bennett's slave labor camps. He participated in the sit-ins of unemployed workers at a Vancouver post office in 1938.

After returning from the Second World War, he became the British Columbia organizer of the CPC. In 1960, he became associate editor of the Communist newspaper Pacific Tribune and became the head editor in 1970. He served as leader of the British Columbia section of the party from 1977 until his retirement. He resisted a revisionist attempt to liquidate the party in the early 1990s.[1]

Military career

Rush served as an artillery instructor for the Canadian military during the Second World War. He fought Nazis in the Netherlands and Germany and was captured in February 1945, but was later freed by British forces.[1]

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 "Maurice Rush: A Lifetime Devoted to the Cause of Socialism" (2016-09-15). People's Voice. Archived from the original on 2022-09-24. Retrieved 2022-12-27.