Bolsheviks in Canada?

While the title of this post might seem like an attempted attack ad from Rodney MacDonald's Progressive Conservatives against Darrel Dexter's NDP, there's actually nothing political about it — at least, not related to current politics.

While procrastinating on some homework today, I remembered seeing a form at work that mentioned a street in my hometown of Halifax, Nova Scotia named Clovis Ave. Immediately linking it in my head to a character from Code Geass, my all-time favourite TV show, I decided to go on over to Google Maps to look up where it was.

After finding Clovis Ave. near the neighbourhood of Spryfield, I ended up randomly scanning the map for other interesting street names. Two in particular stood out. The first standout was White Glove Terrace. If someone has not yet driven down the street with a stereo blasting Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", it must be done soon.

The second street needs a little historical knowledge to understand its significance. Behind the West End Mall, off of Chebucto Road, is a street named Joseph St. Now, at first glance, this would be normal: after all, Joseph is a common name, as evidenced by other streets like Joseph Howe Drive. But here's the catch: Joseph St. intersects in a semi-symmetrical pattern with Churchill Dr. and Roosevelt Dr. (See this map.)

Now, who were the three main leaders (the "Big Three") of the Allies in World War II? Winston Churchill of the UK, Franklin Delano Roosevelt of the US, and...Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. The "St." in "Joseph St." could even be expanded to "Stalin", although this minute detail is almost certainly a coincidence.

Before you all accuse me of conspiracy theories, this would not be the first time that such an arrangement of streets or other landmarks has been named after the Big Three. Wikipedia lists several examples. For example, three streets converge in Amsterdam's Victory Square, which were named after Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin, respectively, after the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi control in 1945. In British Columbia, three mountains in the Rockies were named Mount Roosevelt, Churchill Peak, and Mount Stalin to honour their leadership of the Allies. In this context, the arrangement of streets in Halifax is relatively unspectacular. (Image source)

What makes the Halifax arrangement stand out is the fact that most of the other examples have since been renamed. Stalin Street in Amsterdam was renamed "Victory Street" after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, and Mount Stalin in British Columbia was finally renamed to Mount Peck in 1987 amid protests from the Ukrainian-Canadian community. Virtually every other example on the Wikipedia list, even those in the former Soviet Union, have since been renamed to remove all traces of the Soviet Man of Steel. Halifax, meanwhile, was apparently content to simply use Stalin's first name instead of his last name and plead ignorance.

In a day and age where political correctness dominates, it is ironic to see such an extreme example escape its reach. Recent news stories in Halifax and elsewhere have involved calls from the First Nations community to rename places named after Edward Cornwallis and Lord Jeffery Amherst, such as Cornwallis Park and various towns named after Amherst, due to their involvement with allegedly genocidal campaigns against Native peoples.

The names of Cornwallis and Amherst, for better or for worse, have become integral parts of Nova Scotia's history, and much of the opposition to the renamings comes from people who wish to err on the side of simplicity and tradition. They claim that when someone mentions one of those names, they don't automatically think of the historical figure associated with it. These are fairly strong arguments, because officially changing any place name creates a lot of confusion and hassle at various levels, which is likely why there is still a town named Swastika in Ontario. (Granted, it was given this name long before the Nazis existed, but historical context didn't stop the town of Berlin, Ontario from being renamed Kitchener in 1916.)

But when the need to rename a place is seen and action is taken, it should at least be something significant. The wronged First Nations groups calling for the renamings outlined above surely would not be satisfied with, say, changing "Cornwallis Park" to "Edward Park". You have to wonder why the City of Halifax did not do this in the first place. Perhaps it was never actually named "Stalin St.", and "Joseph St." was seen as a halfway point between paying homage to a prominent Allied leader and alleviating fears of the expansion of Communism in the postwar world. If the street were to be renamed, "Mackenzie King St.", honouring Canada's WWII leader, is an appropriate alternative. Either way, the current municipal government is not going to care.

And so our little, largely unrecognized monument to Stalin will continue to stand without any of the controversy created by Cornwallis and Amherst. Maybe it's because there aren't enough Ukrainians in Halifax. Or maybe it's simply because the residents of this unassuming street don't realize who they're honouring.