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RCMP banned many publications in 1920s - including poetry by Stephansson and Edmonton labour newspapers

Tom Monto

in the 1920s and (and likely before that and after that), the RCMP and other police forces banned certain publications and on occasion charged possessors, distributions and writers with criminal offences.


A list of such publication can be found online at


Most were left-wing -- socialist, anarchist, pro-Soviet.


included among the banned works was Lenin's Against the Plague of Nations


Canadian works include:

The Statesman newspaper (Edmonton)

The Searchlight newspaper (Calgary)

Stephen Stephansson Book of Poetry. (Even though living in Alberta, he was highly-regarded as Iceland's greatest poet.)

OBU Bulletin (the One Big Union had arose after the similar-minded Industrial Workers of the World had been outlawed.)


Canadian Ukrainian newspaper


British Columbia Labour News


and works by the Workers and Farmers Publishing Assn., Winnipeg

(I can't see anything they published in the Peel's PP bibliography online, so don't know what)


"S.T.J. Knight literature" is likely literature in possession of Sarah and Joe Knight - author unknown

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Can anyone spell censorship?

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it is sometimes said that left-wingers should oppose censorship, as eventually it gets turned against them, and right-wing expression is allowed.

That could be correct, unfortunately, but opposing censorship for that reason assumes that the Establishment and the business community worries about appearing to be hypocrits, which I do not see much evidence of.


Irrespective of the left's stand on censorship, the Right will do what it can to suppress free thought on the left, or any kind of critical thinking.


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History | Tom Monto Montopedia is a blog about the history, present, and future of Edmonton, Alberta. Run by Tom Monto, Edmonton historian. Fruits of my research, not complete enough to be included in a book, and other works.

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