The Socialist Party of Manitoba (SPM) was a short-lived social democratic political party launched in 1902 in the Canadian province of Manitoba. The organisation advanced a moderate programme of social reform legislation. In 1904 the SPM became one of the constituent units founding the Socialist Party of Canada, an organisation which continued until 1925. Establishment The Socialist Party of Manitoba was established in 1902. Although professing a long-term objective of "socialisation of the means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange," in practice it followed the Fabian agenda of slow, incremental social legislation — a modest programme characterised by one historian as "pure reformist labourism." In one Winnipeg city election the SPM's candidate ran for office as a self-professed 'Labour Candidate' without so much as mentioning the word 'socialism' during the duration of the campaign. Included among the planks of the SPM's ameliorative reform programme were demands for universal suffrage, direct legislation, abolition of standing armies, implementation of the 8-hour day, establishment of old age pensions, and implementation of compulsory public education. Located in a largely rural province, the SPM had a small membership almost entirely contained in the city of Winnipeg. Socialist Party of Canada in Manitoba The Socialist Party of Canada was a revolutionary Marxist organization, founded in 1904 as a merger of the Socialist Party of British Columbia and related groups in Manitoba and Ontario, Canada. Although strongest in British Columbia, the SPC was also a credible force in Winnipeg. One member of the party was elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1920 provincial election. During its early years, the Winnipeg SPC was a rival to larger reformist groups such as Arthur Puttee's Winnipeg Labour Party, from which many Socialists members had split. It was active in the local trade unions, and participated in the city's elections. The party ran John Donald Houston in Winnipeg for the federal election of 1908. He finished third, behind the Liberal and Conservative candidates. In the 1910 provincial election, the SPC ran candidates in three of Winnipeg's four ridings. They finished a distant third in all three, but may have been responsible for the defeat of reformist Manitoba Labour Party candidate Fred Dixon in Winnipeg Centre. Dixon's loss provoked a backlash against the SPC from Winnipeg's labour unions, weakening the party. Many of its members joined the newly formed Social Democratic Party of Canada, which became stronger in Winnipeg than any other