ROSE, FRED

ROSE, FRED (Rosenberg; 1907–1983), Canadian communist activist, member of Parliament, spy. Rose was born in Lublin, Poland, and moved with his parents to Montreal in 1916. As a young man he found work in a factory and joined the Young Communist League and helped organize unions for the unemployed. Trained as an electrician, in 1929 Rose became national secretary of the Young Communist League and visited Moscow the following year. Back in Montreal, he was closely watched by the RCMP and in 1931 was arrested, charged with sedition, and sentenced to a year in prison. After his release, he became a member of the Communist Party of Canada's covert leadership group and was an active political pamphleteer. He unsuccessfully stood for public office several times, but in 1943, with the Soviet Union a World War II ally of Canada, Rose stood for election to the House of Commons for the Communist Labor Progressive Party from the heavily Jewish Montreal Cartier riding. He won, defeating both david lewis and lazarus phillips . Canada's first and only communist Member of Parliament, Rose was reelected in the 1945 federal election. During this campaign, American singer Paul Robeson personally endorsed Rose and sang at his campaign headquarters. However, Rose's parliamentary career   was cut short when he was accused by Soviet Embassy defector Igor Gouzenko of spying for the Soviet Union. Following a sensational trial, Rose was found guilty of espionage and served four and a half years of a six-year sentence. Released from prison in 1951, Rose when into exile in Poland. In 1957 the Canadian government revoked his Canadian citizenship. Rose died in Warsaw. (Gerald Tulchinsky (2nd ed.)