Home > William Kashtan

Kashtan never succeeded in winning election to the Canadian House of Commons, and retired in 1988. He was an orthodox, pro- Moscow Communist and consistently supported the Soviet Union through various shifts in policy at the Kremlin. Kashtan opposed Eurocommunism in the 1970s when many other Communist Parties in the west embraced it.

In 1970, Kashtan spoke out against the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) group in Quebec, describing it as a terrorist organization and claiming that its methods were not consistent with genuine revolutionary behaviour.

In 1971 he asked James Gareth Endicott to resign as president of the Canadian Peace CongressThe Canadian Peace Congress was a pacifist group founded in 1949 by James Gareth Endicott. The CPC was the Canadian affiliate of the World Peace Council and a leading player in the peace movement in Canada, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s. The CPC was accusing him of having anti-Soviet and pro- ChinaThe People's Republic of China PRC comprises most of the cultural, historic, and geographic area known as China. Since its founding in 1949, it has been led by the Communist Party of China (CPC). It is the world's most populous country, with a population views.