Paul Schneider, 1947-2012

Paul Schneider, a founding member and long-time supporter of the Trotskyist League, died on June 9, three days before his 65th birthday.

Born in Winnipeg, Paul moved with his family to Tokyo for two years in 1952. As a child, he witnessed the massive destruction and homelessness—including families living in the streets in cardboard boxes—that marked Japan after the devastation of World War II.

Paul became a student radical at Brandon University in Manitoba in the 1960s. This was a period of significant leftward motion among youth, who were impelled into opposition to the capitalist system over such issues as U.S. imperialism’s war on the Vietnamese workers and peasants and the rising tide of social struggles in Quebec. The same period saw hightened labour combativity, including illegal postal strikes that forced the government to concede the right to strike in the public sector. Impacted by such developments, Paul became committed to a Marxist worldview.

Paul first encountered members of the Spartacist tendency in 1974. He was then part of an informal left opposition in the Winnipeg branch of the Revolutionary Marxist Group (RMG), an organization sympathetic to the United Secretariat (USec) of Ernest Mandel. The RMG was a centrist formation, oscillating between the reformism of most of the left and the program of proletarian revolution. Paul became a founder and key organizer of the Bolshevik-Leninist Tendency (B-LT), which fought to resolve these contradictions in the direction of authentic Marxism. Bureaucratically expelled from the RMG in March 1975, the B-LT united with other Spartacist supporters in Canada to found the Trotskyist League five months later.

Paul, who had by then moved to Toronto, was elected to the Central Committee at our founding conference, reflecting the respect he had earned among comrades. He took on numerous responsibilities over the following years, including as National Treasurer and secretary to the Political Bureau. But his main political work centred on the union movement. Paul headed or was part of industrial fractions in the postal and auto unions, including at the now-shuttered Scarborough General Motors assembly plant. He became known among fellow workers for firm adherence to class-struggle principles: at one point he was fired from the post office for refusing to cross a picket line. He was particularly effective at motivating a Marxist outlook to trade unionists.

The 1980s, which were dominated by a renewed imperialist anti-Communist frenzy against the Soviet Union, were a period of defeat and retreat for the labour movement and the left. Some groups, e.g., the Maoists, collapsed completely; others, like the USec, descended into abject reformism. Our organization also took some losses in this period, but we succeeded in maintaining our Marxist programmatic integrity. While Paul resigned from the TL in 1985, he remained a friend and active sympathizer to the end of his life, unlike others who abandoned their youthful ideals or made peace with the bourgeois order.

Paul worked closely with the Partisan Defense Committee, the legal and social defense organization associated with the TL. Four years ago, at his request, he addressed the PDC’s annual Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners, marking the 25th anniversary of a significant defense campaign. He and a fellow postal union militant were witchhunted for defending themselves and others against Ku Klux Klan and Nazi thugs at a 1983 Toronto abortion rights protest. Mobilizing broad support throughout the labour movement, the campaign succeeded in defeating this frame-up. We printed Paul’s presentation in Spartacist Canada, noting that it was a highlight of the event.

Paul was a respected and popular high-school math teacher in Toronto for more than 20 years. His friends, family, colleagues and students organized a memorial meeting at Rosedale Heights School of the Arts on June 23. Paul was known for his charm and warmth, and this was shown poignantly as over a dozen speakers, including many of Paul’s students, addressed facets of his life. These ranged from his formative years to his political activities, his capacities as an educator and his passions for pursuits as varied as canoeing, hiking, archery and photography. A PDC representative who was invited to speak outlined Paul’s role in the anti-fascist defense case and his principled stance on behalf of the working class.

The Toronto TL organized another gathering for Paul on July 7, featuring short speeches and a display of photographs highlighting his political work. (The photo reproduced above shows Paul addressing our founding conference.) Messages were received from current and former members of the International Communist League in other cities including Winnipeg and London, England. Comrades who worked closely with Paul in the 1970s and ’80s sought to impart to our younger cadres the importance of his contributions to founding the TL and helping to guide its work in its early years.

We express our condolences to Paul’s many friends and his relatives, including his father Roy, stepmother Barbara and daughter Tanya.