Champagne and Meatballs Adventures of a Canadian Communist

Bert Whyte, edited and with an introduction by Larry Hannant

Active for over forty years with the Communist Party of Canada, Bert Whyte was a journalist, an underground party organizer and soldier during World War II, and a press correspondent in Beijing and Moscow. But any notion of him as a Communist party hack would be mistaken. Whyte never let leftist ideology get in the way of a great yarn. In Champagne and Meatballs — a memoir written not long before his death in Moscow in 1984 — we meet a cigar-smoking rogue who was at least as happy at a pool hall as at a political meeting. His stories of bumming across Canada in the 1930s, of combat and camaraderie at the front lines in World War II, and of surviving as a dissident in troubled times make for compelling reading.

The manuscript of Champagne and Meatballs was brought to light and edited by historian Larry Hannant, who has written a fascinating and thought-provoking introduction to the text. Brash, irreverent, informative, and entertaining, Whyte’s tale is history and biography accompanied by a wink of his eye.

About the Editor

Larry Hannant is a Canadian historian specializing in twentieth-century political dissent. He is the author of The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada’s Citizens and the editor of The Politics of Passion: Norman Bethune’s Writing and Art, which won the Robert S. Kenny Prize in Left/Labour Studies. He also researched and co-wrote a feature-length documentary film on the Doukhobors, The Spirit Wrestlers, which was broadcast on History Television in 2002. He currently teaches at Camosun College and the University of Victoria.

Reviews

Champagne and Meatballs will interest not only the general reader, but every Party member. There are far too few published biographies by Canadian Communists, and Whyte’s memoir provides an opportunity to revisit history through the lens of a unique individual and brilliant writer.

David Lethbridge, People’s Voice

Larry Hannant has once again provided historians of the left with some fresh material.

Bart Vautour, Canadian Literature

[Champagne and Meatballs] brings us a deeply personal look at what it meant to be a communist from the 1930s through the 1960s.

Stefan Epp, Labour/Le Travail

Table of Contents

  1. Acknowledgements
  2. Introduction by Larry Hannant
  3. Chapter 1. Early Years
  4. Chapter 2. The 1930s
  5. Chapter 3. The War
  6. Chapter 4. Postwar Years
  7. Chapter 5. Letters from China, with a foreword by Monica Whyte
  8. Appendix / Notes / Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.

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