BOOK REVIEW -Tim Buck — A Conscience for Canada by Oscar Ryan. Pub- lished by Progress Books — Toronto 1975. Paperback $4.95 Clothbound $9.95. % x ak This is a well written exciting biography of a man who was flesh and blood of the Canadian working people, who was a ge- nuine patriot and international- ist and inseparable part of Cana- dian history for over 60 years. As the author informs us, Tim Buck became a communist and a very talented people’s leader on Canadian soil. It was Cana- dian experience coupled with the influence of outstanding world events which led Tim Buck to communism. It was Tim Buck’s outstanding ability to combine the creative science of Marxism-Leninism with every day practice that made it pos- sible for him to earn the leader- ship of the Communist Party of Canada of which he was-a founding member. ‘ The author in this reviewer’s opinion, describes skilfully the various. stages and phases of Canadian and international de- velopments and Tim’s role in them. He describes him objec- tively and with great warmth. -With Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh during a visit to Hanoi in Decembet 1965. TIM BUCK: A Conscience For-Canada To set the record s He sees Tim as a young man, a husband, father, leader, writer, lecturer, orator, organizer and above all a man of the working people. ates - The author begins the bio- graphy under the title, “This rare man” and follows with a most interesting story of Tim and his family in the English town of Beccles. Tim started to work at the age of 12. He came from Eng- land to Canada at the age of 19, Tim was self-educated. Through a wide reading and daily practice he matured into a worker intel- lectual, influenced by and in turn influencing the course of events. The author vividly describes how outstanding events and ex- perience influenced, molded and polished this working class lead- er. And he remained an out- standing leader because he championed the real aspirations f of the working people. The stormy events—the First | World War; the first successful socialist revolution in human history; the Winnipeg general ; strike; the “hungry thirties”; the use of Section 98 of the criminal code against the Communist | Party of Canada; the rise of fas- cism and the Second World War; the phony period of World War Two and the emergence of the anti-fascist grand alliance; the post-war period and the