William Krehm

William Krehm (born November 23, 1913) is a Canadian author, journalist, political activist and real estate developer. He was a prominent Trotskyist activist in the 1930s and went to Spain where he participated in the Spanish Civil War. In the 1980s he co-founded the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) in the 1980s and has continued as the group's principal leader to the present day.

Early life

Krehm was born in Toronto to Jewish[1] Russian and Urkainian immigrant parents.[2] He graduated from the University of Toronto.[3] A talented violinist, he was sent to Chicago by his parents to study music in the 1920s. He then moved to New York City where he worked selling hats. After the 1929 Stock Market Crash, he became interested in Marxism.[2]

Returning to Toronto, he studied mathematics at the University of Toronto for two years before dropping out.[2]

Trotskyism

By 1932, Krehm had become a Trotskyist, recruited to the movement by Albert Glotzer[4] and joined the nascent Canadian Trostksyist movement in Toronto, which was a branch of the US-based Communist League of America. Krehm led a faction in opposition to Canadian Trotskyist leader Maurice Spector and dropped in and out of the organization, eventually moving to Montreal and becoming leader of the party branch there.[4][5] In 1934, Krehm and his followers, along with B. J. Field and his followers in the United States, left the CLA to form the Organizing Committee for a Revolutionary Workers Party (later known as the League for a Revolutionary Party, and colloquially as the "Fieldites"), and affiliated with the international organization known as the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Parties or London Bureau. Krehm became leader of the Canadian group and editor of the its newspaper Workers' Voice[5]

Spanish Civil War

In 1936, after visiting Brussels, Krehm became one of 1,600 Canadians who volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War. He joined the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM) as a propagandist, and is one of the last surviving veterans of that conflict.[3] Krehm returned to Toronto and his group, for a time, was more active than the Trotskyists.[5]

He was in the same unit as Eric Arthur Blair, (better known by his pen name, George Orwell), and used to chat with him in the cafes of Barcelona.[3] After the POUM was outlawed by the Spanish Republic, at the instigation of the Communists, he was arrested and spent three months in jail,[3] and was released after a hunger strike.[2] Krehm then returned to Toronto where he gave speeches about his experiences in Spain.[2] In July 1938, he was charged with obstructing police who were trying to disperse an anti-fascist rally organized by the League for a Revolutionary Party and held across from a fascist rally held by the National Union Party at Massey Hall.[6] Krehm was arrested after he refused a police request to call off the rally of 500 protesters, saying "Down with fascists, down with the police, and down with the police commission."[7] Krehm and his colleague were found guilty and fined $25 each.[8]

Finding that the Trotskyist movement had dwindling support, he moved to Mexico. When World War II broke out he wanted to return to Canada to enlist in the military but couldn't when he found he was not allowed to cross the border into the United States.[2]

Consequently, Krehm was in Mexico City when Leon Trotsky was assassinated on August 21, 1940 and stood guard over his body at his funeral.[2]

Career

Krehm then joined Time Magazine and worked for eight years as a foreign correspondent based in Latin America.[3][2] With the emergence of the Cold War, Time Magazine found his views unpalatable and Krehm returned to Toronto in 1947 with his wife, Gladys Cowan, and Peruvian-born son, Adam, and wrote music reviews for Toronto newspapers and was a music critic for The Globe and Mail and CBC Radio into the late 1950s.[2][9]

In the 1950s, Krehm founded a property development and management company, O'Shanter Development Co.,[10] which he ran until the 1980s and which benefitted from the post-war property development boom in the Toronto suburbs. In the 1970s and 80s, he campaigned against rent control after it was introduced by the provincial government.[10][2]

COMER

Krehm retired in the 1980s and devoted his time to writing on economics, co-founding the Committee on Monetary and Economic Reform later in the 1980s.[2]

In 2011, Krehm was the co-plaintiff in a suit by COMER against the Bank of Canada in an attempt to compel it to provide debt-free support for public projects undertaken by federal, provincial and city governments. The plaintiffs argued that by not doing so, the Bank was violating the Bank of Canada Act. The lawsuit also alleged that the federal government had ceded its sovereign ability to conduct independent monetary policy to "secret" deliberations and private foreign bankers.[11] The case was dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal of Canada in 2016.[12] In May 2017, the Supreme Court of Canada denied the plaintiffs' request for leave to appeal.[13]

His sister was pianist and conductor Ida Krehm (1912-1998).[1]

Works by William Krehm

  • SPAIN: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (1937?)
  • Democracia y tiranias en el Caribe (1947)
  • Growing Pains for Latin America (1948)
  • Price in a mixed economy: Our record of disaster (1975)
  • Babel's tower: The dynamics of economic breakdown (1977)
  • How to Make Money in a Mismanaged Economy and Other Essays (1980)
  • Democracies and tyrannies of the Caribbean (1984, originally published in Spanish in 1947)
  • A power unto itself : the Bank of Canada : the threat to our nation's economy (1993)

References

  1. 1 2 IDA KREHM by William Krehm The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Sep 29, 1998; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail pg. A22
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Popplewell, Brett (May 18, 2008). "Toronto revolutionary, 93, girds for one more battle". Toronto Star. Retrieved January 21, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Petrou, Michael (December 1, 2016). "Last Man Standing". The Walrus. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Palmer, Bryan D. (Fall 2005). "Maurice Spector, James P. Cannon, and the Origins of Canadian Trotskyism". Labour/Le Travail. 56: 91–148.
  5. 1 2 3 "The Trotskyist Movement in Canada, 1929-1939 (1976)". Socialist History Project. Retrieved January 21, 2018.
  6. ↑ Lacks Proof Of Charges, The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Jul 15, 1938; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail pg. 4
  7. ↑ Remand anti-fascists, Toronto Daily Star (1900-1971); Toronto, Ontario [Toronto, Ontario]13 July 1938: 30.
  8. ↑ Two Freed, Two Fined, After Obstruction Charge, The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Toronto, Ont. [Toronto, Ont]16 July 1938: 5.
  9. ↑ York Concert Group Told of Mahler Work The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Feb 14, 1958; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail pg. 12
  10. 1 2 Rent controls need changing, landlord says: INDUSTRY SPEAKS OUT, Krehm, William, The Globe and Mail (1936-Current); Nov 5, 1983; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Globe and Mail pg. H21
  11. ↑ "Rocco Galati in court to challenge how Bank of Canada does business". Toronto Star. March 23, 2015. Retrieved January 21, 2017.
  12. ↑ "Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) v. The Queen, 2016 FCA 312". Federal Court. Retrieved 2016-12-19.
  13. ↑ "Committee for Monetary and Economic Reform (COMER) v. The Queen,". Supreme Court. Retrieved 2017-05-04.
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