Kassandra Luciuk

Kassandra Luciuk. “‘They Will Crack Heads When the Communist Line Is Expounded’: Anti-Communist Violence in Cold War Canada.” Labour/Le Travail 90 (Fall 2022): 149-78.

Written in vibrant, engaging prose, this article is a fascinating study of political conflict, violence, and community formation in the Cold War Ukrainian Canadian community. Drawing on exhaustive research in declassified RCMP files, community sources, and newspapers, the article explores the use of violence by anti-communist Ukrainians against their leftist peers. Luciuk offers a provocative reading of this violence, characterizing it not as the breakdown of communication between two sides, but as “the continuation of political discourse by other means.” In detailing the uninspired police investigations into anti-communist violence – especially the 1950 bombing of the Ukrainian Labour Temple in Toronto – the article advances a novel depiction of how state, legal, and police protection are selectively applied according to broader political agendas.