ILL = —— ———— whi a

At 95, he is still a revolutionar

BY MIKE GIDORA

Today, 16 days past his 95th
birthday, Julius Stelp can look
back upon a lifetime of service to
the revolutionary movement, the
beginnings of which predates the
twentieth century.

Sitting in his east end Vancouver
apartment, he is hesitant to talk of
his life, and makes it clear that he
would much prefer to discuss the
issues of today. It is. not that he
lacks asense of history, but rather
feels that his story pales beside the
events of today.

Finally he agrees to explain ‘‘his
‘beginning in the movement” and
as he talks, it is easy to visualize
Julius as a young man in Latvia.
The fighting spirit which had
brought him into contact with the
illegal literature of the Latvian

revolutionary movement is still ~

with him, undaunted’ and
strengthened by his more than 75
years of service.

As the eldest of the four sons of a
rural innkeeper, Julius was sent to
the old city of Metow, now
Yalgalva to complete his
education. He was aware of the
unrest and suffering caused by the
iron handed rule of Czar, and he
hadread some of the revolutionary
literature which was circulated
amongst the students, but it took a
direct action by the Czar. himself to
impel the young student to action.
The Czar issued a decree that all
liquor would be sold only by the
government. “‘Naturally, without
liquor an innkeeper couldn’t make
any money, so my father had to sell
his business. He was ruined,”
Julius relates.

His response was to turn to the
movement struggling to overthrow
the Czar’s rule. It was a momen-
tous beginning, as he joined the
underground student organization
of the Latvian Workers Social
Democratic Party.

Latvia at that time was in a state
of turmoil with small revolutionary
movements springing up
throughout the country. Julius’
first assignment was to go out and
organize other groups of students
into underground units, a_ task
which had to be carried out in the
strictest secrecy away from the
ever-watchful eyes of the Czar’s
police. The clandestine nature of
his activities did not bother him,
Julius says, it was simply a fact of
life for a revolutionary in Czarist
Latvia.

“We weren't joking around you
know, we were preparing for a
revolution. At first you were a bit
nervous, but you soon got used to
a

After leaving high school, Julius
became what he calls a
“professional revolutionary.’
Asked what he did, he replies quite
simply ‘I was organizing. I
couldn't do any official jobs
because I was a rebel, so I
organized.”

In 1901, he was accepted into the
Latvian Workers’ Social
Democratic Party, forerunner of
the Communist Party. “I was the
fifth member of the group,” he
says. “There was a doctor from
Poland and his wife and two of-
ficials end they had to accept me
because the Party had accepted
me.’ He adds that -the Latvian
Social Democratic Party at that
time was not a unified entity, but
rather consisted of a whole number
of independent groups around the
country, which had established
_ executive contact. ‘It wasn’t until

1904 when the Party was united.”

As an organizer for the Latvian
Social Democratic Party, Julius
remained in Metow until the winter
of 1903 when he says ‘they made
me illegal” and he was forced to
flee to Baku. It.was first of many
such flights, and at times he was

_ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 17, 1976—Page 10

Interview with Jolus Stelp

without 1905 we would not have had
the 1917. revolution.”
By the end of 1905 he had been

forced to head for Lithuania,
Russia, Finland, Switzerland, and
Sweden to avoid arrest by the
Czarist police.

He wasn’t always successful in
avoiding the police however and
arrest came in Lithuania. ‘‘Yes,
the Czar got me for a little while in
Lithuania. I was the man that went
to Latvia and smuggled back the
literature inside the lining of my
coat. :

“IT was pretending to be a student
when I was arrested but I just told
them that and they wished me well
and let me go after a couple of
weeks in jail.” He smiles and then
offers advice: ‘“‘Remember, the
main thing is not to lose your head
and to stick to your story.”’

After his brief detention in the
Lithuanian jails, he went to the
Latvian capital of Riga. ‘“‘As soon
as I got there they grabbed me and
put me in the navy. It was a silly
thing to do. I couldn’t do anything
so they put me in the office.”

By now it was 1905, and Julius
says quite simply that ‘‘the
uprisings came.”’ The Czarist navy
was full of people such as Julius, —
revolutionaries, peasants to whom
the Czar could offer nothing and
many others. After news of the
naval mutinies in the Black Sea
reached Riga, the entire naval
force in that city rose against the
Czar. ‘“There were only three ships
in the harbor but 5000 sailors joined
in the revolution.”

That was the last of Julius’ ac-
tivities in Latvia for some time,
because he was immediately
spirited out of the country and on to
Switzerland, where he remained
until September of 1905. “I came
back in September because the
revolution was spreading. To be a
revolutionary in Switzerland when
there is a revolution in Latvia is
pointless.

“T came back and worked in the
revolution. That was a_ serious
revolution and to describe what
you did in a revolution is pretty
hard.”

He is quiet when he talks of the
ill-fated uprising. ‘‘There was
terrible suffering for the people of
Latvia. There were 3000 killed and
they-were killing people just like
they were rats. They would arrest
youat night and make you walk out
to the jail outside of Riga. Often
they would shoot people on the way
out and that was that. The next day
the paper would mde that a
runaway was shot.”

His own assessment of the 1905
revolution is straightforward and
painful. “‘We were beaten. But

sent to St. Petersburg. ‘It was
safer in St. Petersburg because it
was so big, and the police were
stupid. I was pretending to be a
young lawyer with another name,

but all the municipalities around ©

St. Petersburg had their own in-
dividual passports, and I needed
one to get from one municipality to
another.”’

The solution to that problem was
simple and straightforward, ‘‘We
made our own passports.” ~

In St. Petersburg he was im-
mediately assigned to the job of
organizing support for the
revolutionary movement in one of
the city’s five ward regiments of
the Czarist militia. ‘‘I couldn’t do
anything else, so they told me to
organize.’’ He stresses the fact that
the revolutionaries valued the
organizing of support in the militia
more than anything else. “That
was the problem in 1905, the
soldiers were not conscious and
they were against us. The worst
thing was that we were ordered to
not fight them because they came
from the villages and if any were
killed we would lose support.”’

He notes, with some pride, that
inthree months he had organized a
group of 16. ‘I guess I did a pretty
good job there.”

After his stay in St. Petersburg,
Julius left Russia again, this time
to attend the 1906 Fourth Congress
of the  All-Russia_ Social
Democratic Party in Stockholm,
Sweden. It was at that congress
that the Bolsheviks, under Lenin’s
leadership carried the position that
the 1905 defeat was not the end of
the revolution.

“The congress decided that the
revolution was not over, so I went
back to Finland. If the revolution
wasn’t over I wanted to be near so
that I could go back.”

He describes Lenin at that
congress. ‘““There were many great
orators there although Lenin was
kind’of monotonous. His voice was
thin, between a baritone and a
tenor, but every word he said
meant something. Everyone
listened to him, and he spoke very
slowly and carefully. Everyone

understood what he was saying.”

Julius spent the winter in
Finland awaiting the second
outbreak of the revolution until he
decided to move on and join his
brother in the United States. He
emigrated to New York and moved
about through Pittsburg, Boston,
and Philadelphia. “T didn’t know
how to work in a factory and there

were no jobs anyways. I finally got_

oo

a job threading pipe in a Pittsburg
factory, and then my brother wrote
me from Oregon so I moved out
there.”’

In Oregon, he,went to work in the
woods, an industry he was to work
in for the majority of the next 25
years. And here he became a
member of the American Socialist
Party in Oregon.

Soon, he had found his way to

Vancouver, to a logging camp on -

Jervis Inlet. Again it was not long
before he was a member of the
Socialist Party of Canada. '

“About six months before I got to
Vancouver there was a local of the
Socialist Party organized here,
revolutionaries, and I joined the
Latvian branch.’’ By now, it was
1910, and as well as organizing for
the Socialist Party, he also worked
towards building a loggers union,
the beginnings of which had been
established in 1908.

Within six months, the Latvian
branch of the Socialist Party had
grown from 13 members to about
50.

His ‘next major organizing un-
dertaking came after the Socialist
Party of Canada voted by
referendum not to join the Third
International. ‘‘After that vote
there was nothing left for us in that
party.’

It was 1920 now, and together
with other revolutionary elements
within the Socialist Party he set
about organizing a new, Marxist
party for Canada. ‘‘Bill Bennett,
Jack Kavanagh, and myself, we
had to have some organized party,
but the organizing was for an
underground party. Every devil
was scared. After Winnipeg they
sentenced some people to jail. W.
A. Pritchard was in jail in B.C. and
they were all scared stiff,’ he
remembers.

On one occasion he returned to

Vancouver from a logging camp ~

and was told that there would be an
underground meeting to organize a
Communist Party. Even now he
bristles at the thought of being
underground. ‘‘I said ‘to hell with
that.’ [told them that if we start an
underground party, there would be
no Communist Party in Canada.”

Still, he went to the meeting. At
the same time, he received
literature from the Third In-
ternational through his brother in
Switzerland and passed it on to the
members of his underground
organization.

Finally, his impatience at
belonging to an underground
organization came to an end and

the Workers Party of British

Columbia was established at a
meeting in the Loggers Hall at 61

Czar and is building a new society

West Cordova. ‘‘Bill (Bennett)
gathered together 17 people and
met in the big hall.”

Even then, there was dispute at al
argument as to whether or
there should be a new party. Julit
remembers the meeting well.

“It was only about a half hot
meeting, and the hall was so dark
that we could hardly see 0:
another. The only one we could st
for sure was old Bill Bennett.
was at the front and he stood
read the aims and objectives of t
new party. Then he asked who w:
going to join. All 17 men rais
their hands.

He remembers as well the fa
that out of the people there, he
the only one who was not of Ang
Saxon origin. ‘I mention tl
because everywhere people we
saying that communism is foreig
They still say that today.”

The year of that meeting w
1922, andit marked the birth of t
British Columbia District of t
Workers’ Party of Canada. Wit
afew months, the first constitue
assembly of the Workers’ Party
Canada would be held in t
Toronto Labor Temple. Juli
was elected as a delegate to th
meeting but stepped aside.
thought that it would be better f
someone else to go in my pla
someone they could not c
foreign.”

Within a year there were fi
branches in Vancouver, thr
industrial, and two area-based.
the young party grew, Julius fou
himself with a new job, as coo!
dinator of the city’s 11 ethnic Pa
branches.

By 1922 Julius Stelp had alrea
contributed greatly to the strug;
for socialism, both in his nati
Latvia as arevolutionary soldier
the 1905 revolution and in
adopted Canada. Many would ha\
been content to leave it at that bl
for Julius there was still mu
more to be done.

While he continued with his wor!
for the new Communist Party
Julius was still working toward
building a strong wood workiné
union. In those days, the hiring
workers for the woods was carr:
out by a number of agents in
area of what is now known
Gastown. ‘‘You would go down a
visit the agents, and they had a b
board on which was listed all th
available jobs. You would pay tht
agents and they would send you ou
onthe job. A chokerman’s job c
$2.00 and a faller’s. job may?
about $4.00.”

Julius says that the operatio!
worked fine until one day ‘‘the)
blacklisted me. They blacklisted :
whole bunch of us, about 1
altogether and the loggers
association took over the hir
themselves.”

With his woodworking days a’
premature end, Julius turned
fishing. ‘““‘There was no union
Vancouver then, but I couldn
work without a union so I join
this West Coast Trollers Union 1
Campbell River. We used to troll 1 !
a row boat.

S53

Though his working days
long past, Julius continues to do hi
part in the battle for a new Canadé
Part of his dream as the youll
high school student who joined
Latvian Workers Socia
Democratic organization in 189
has been realized — Latvia hé
long ago cast aside the rule of

The rest, he says, is still to come

As he talks now, a slight man ‘
more than 95 years, the sam!
determination and belief in mé@
that led him to become
revolutionary then, Conus 0
with him today.

And, after 75 years service
socialism, he continues on

chosen path.