Navizivsky, Ivan

Navizivsky, Ivan [Навізівський, Іван; Navizivs'kyj; aka Navis, John], b 29 September 1888 in Vorvulyntsi, Zalishchyky county, Galicia, d 25 April 1954 at sea. Communist political organizer, press editor, and community leader. In 1908, after completing study at the teachers' seminary in Galicia, Navizivsky emigrated as a laborer to the United States and joined the Socialist Party of America. In 1911 he moved to Winnipeg and worked for Robochyi narod, the weekly organ of the Ukrainian Social Democratic Party of Canada. He later espoused an openly communist position; he helped form the Communist Party of Canada (CPC) and served on its Central Committee for many years, attended the Sixth Congress of the Comintern in 1928 as a delegate, and served (from 1943) on the politburo of the Labor Progressive party. He was closely associated with the Ukrainian Labour-Farmer Temple Association (ULFTA) and the Workers’ Benevolent Association, both of which he helped to establish. Navizivsky was reprimanded by Party officials in 1930 for his defense of the autonomy of the ULFTA vis-à-vis the CPC. By 1931 he had submitted to Party discipline and remained loyal thereafter. In April 1931 he led a ‘labor-farmer delegation’ to the Ukrainian SSR that returned with glowing reports about conditions there. In 1940 he was arrested together with other prominent Communists and interned for two years. After the Second World War he oversaw the printing of Ukraïns’ke zhyttia (Winnipeg) and The Ukrainian Canadian. He died at sea while returning from the USSR.

Manoly Lupul

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]