Search

Based mainly on the newspaper articles and published speeches of Canadian politicians, this article deals with the anticommunist measures undertaken in Quebec during the time of Maurice Duplessis‟ second mandate as Prime Minis-ter, after the Second World War. Located far from the real communist threat, Quebec theoretically had no need to organ-ize the anti-comminist hunt. However, it was launched and lasted until Duplessis‟ death in 1959. It should be noted that prosecutions of communists, socialists and other potentially “dangerous” groups started in 1930s with police raids and persecution of radical or ethnic groups potentially threatening national security of Canada. In 1940s the relationship of Ca-nadian government with the socialist republic remained tense, even though the Soviet Union joined the Allied powers. Ra-pidly growing gap between the East and the West after the end of the Second World War demanded stern policy aimed at neutralization of the “Red Scare”. The article analyses the causes and political strategies at the root of such measures as well as the nature of the Quebec‟s society throughout this pe-riod. Quebec authorities, especially Maurice Duplessis, had a strong fear of communism even after Khrushchev had voiced his doctrine of peaceful co-existence. Never ending struggle with communists was held in order to preserve national iden-tity and traditional institutions. Anticommunism turned into a policy was also used as a process of social regulation and a means of bringing under control any political challenges po-tentially compromising for the established order.