Bill Green, 1881-1960

Workers Vanguard, Mid-June 1960

Pioneer Socialist Dies in Toronto

At 79 years of age, apparently on the road to recovery from a massive stroke of last year, Bill Green died in Toronto on June 12. Bill was one of Canada's pioneer socialists and was for a long time an active unionist. He had been an organizer and prominent spokesman for the Socialist Party of Canada before World War I and had held public office as a workers' representative in East York during the depression.

For many years a member of the CCF, as the reformist policies of the Coldwell leadership prevailed he joined the Socialist Educational League to fight for a socialist policy. While his increasing age and his love for his fellow socialist and invalided wife prevented his being as active as he would have liked, from a political point of view his last years were his most satisfying. Each issue of the VANGUARD, the MILITANT and particularly the theoretical material in the INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW won his acclaim. Although well-grounded in the principles of scientific socialism, he would often say that many questions that had puzzled him for years were clarified by the generation of socialists trained by Leon Trotsky.

The achievements of the planned economy of the Soviet Union and particularly the great wave of heroic struggles launched by the youth of Cuba, Korea, Turkey and Japan were an Inspiration to him. His association with the youthful members of the Socialist Educational League was a gratifying experience for him—for his confidence in the future was firm.