The Spectre of Bolshevism

William Thomas White is a little-remembered figure from Canadian history. A senior Cabinet minister in the government of Prime Minister Robert Borden, he found himself with a taste of real power in 1919 while Borden, in the pre-flight era, spent five months in Europe for the Versailles peace conference. Focused on finding a lasting peace for the post-war period, Borden expressed dismay in his diary after receiving an urgent cable from White. In it, the acting prime minister warned that Bolshevism was rife in Canada and pleaded with Borden to demand a British warship be sent to Vancouver to intimidate the revolutionaries there; his boss refused the request. But, as Daniel Francis documents in his fine new book, Seeing Reds: The Red Scare of 1918–1919, Canada’s First War on Terror, the panicked response of White was not unique among Canada’s ruling elite in the face of widespread domestic and international unrest at the end of World War One.

Daniel Francis is a...