A Communist for the RCMP
eBook - ePub

A Communist for the RCMP

The Uncovered Story of a Social Movement Informant

  1. 256 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

A Communist for the RCMP

The Uncovered Story of a Social Movement Informant

About this book

In 1941, the RCMP recruited Frank Hadesbeck, a Spanish Civil War veteran, as a paid informant to infiltrate the Communist Party. For decades, he informed not only upon communists, but also upon hundreds of other people who held progressive views. Hadesbeck's "Watch Out" lists on behalf of the Security Service included labour activists, medical doctors, lawyers, university professors and students, journalists, Indigenous and progressive farm leaders, members of the clergy, and anyone involved in the peace and human rights movements.

Defying every warning given to him by his handlers, Hadesbeck kept secret notes. Using these notes, author Dennis Gruending recounts how the RCMP spied upon thousands of Canadians. Hadesbeck's life and career are in the past, but RCMP surveillance continues in new guises. As Canada's petroleum industry doubles down on its extraction plans in the oil sands and elsewhere, the RCMP and other state agencies provide support, routinely branding Indigenous land defenders and their allies in the environmental movement as potential terrorists. They share information and tactics with petroleum industry "stakeholders" in what has been described as a "surveillance web" intended to suppress dissent. A Communist for the RCMP provides an inside account of Hadesbeck's career and illustrates how the RCMP uses surveillance of activists to enforce the status quo.

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Yes, you can access A Communist for the RCMP by Dennis Gruending in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Politics & International Relations & Intelligence & Espionage. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Foreword
  7. Preface
  8. 1. Hardscrabble Youth
  9. 2. The Spanish Coup
  10. 3. Fighting Fascism
  11. 4. Stranded in Spain
  12. 5. Homecoming
  13. 6. Recruited by the RCMP
  14. 7. Building a Surveillance State
  15. 8. Undercover in Calgary
  16. 9. Internment and Human Rights
  17. 10. A Married Man
  18. 11. Communists versus Social Democrats
  19. 12. Cold War in Saskatchewan
  20. 13. Medicare as Communist Plot
  21. 14. Betraying a Comrade
  22. 15. Casting a Wide Net
  23. 16. Spying on the NDP
  24. 17. Hadesbeck’s Handlers
  25. 18. Winding Down
  26. 19. Memoirs
  27. 20. A Double Life
  28. 21. Suppressing Dissent
  29. Acknowledgements
  30. A note on the publisher and the RCMP
  31. Notes
  32. Index