“In politics the thing to do is build yourself an army.” The remark is attributed to the late Jimmy Hines, a successful Tammany Hall politician of the 1930's. In June, 1945, half way between the Regina Manifesto and the Winnipeg Declaration, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, at the head of the largest army in its history, prepared for the reward of virtue and patience—power in Ottawa and Ontario. The problems of building that army and then maintaining it under the adverse conditions following June, 1945, constitute the theme of this paper.

In its first decade the C.C.F. had successfully welded a united, national organization out of a federation of parties and groups along a social-democrat and agrarian-protest spectrum. The absence of a New Deal party gave the “movement,” as its members still call it, its opportunity. Its central bond was a common hatred of capitalism, allegedly responsible for the depression and its accompanying hardships. It was, however, less than unanimous about the remedy. The Regina Manifesto of 1933, the party’s initial declaration of faith and intentions, was framed in the social democratic tradition. “No CCF government,” it concluded, “will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism.” But no statement of policy could ever avert the inevitable debate on “how far” and “how fast” socialism should be implemented.

The topography of C.C.F. beliefs can be roughly charted by identifying its closest friends and mentors and its ideological boundaries on the “right” and “left.” Its chief, though not unanimous, favourites have always been the Labour and Social Democratic parties of the Commonwealth, Scandinavia, and especially Great Britain. Its supporters ranged all the way from people who were made uneasy by talk of socialism despite endless assurances, to those drawn enviously to the glamour of revolutionary intrigue and virile, uncompromising militancy which they associated with Communism and Trotskyism. While these ‘left wingers” pressed the leaders constantly to declare themselves on the questions of “how far” and “how fast,” the great majority entrusted these matters to the leaders and concentrated instead on building the organization.