progressive labour legislation; instead, Bracken's government forced Farmer to seek "free votes" on his ministry's initiatives (these soon became party votes, with the CCF invariably losing). Farmer resigned from government in December 1942, and the CCF formally left the coalition in 1943. The CCF's time in government demoralized its membership, and hindered its electoral fortunes - voters elected only three CCF MLAs in 1941. For the next few years, the CCF's primary concern was preventing infiltration from Communists (then officially represented by the Labour Progressive Party). Some figures in the LPP favoured cooperation with the CCF; the CCF leadership was fully opposed to this, and suspended two prominent Manitoba MLAs when they advocated formal cooperation. Accusations of being "Communist sympathizers" would hinder the party's fortunes for years to come. In 1944, the national party was performing well in the polls and a CCF government was elected in neighbouring Saskatchewan. The Manitoba CCF hoped to repeat this success the following year, but won only 10 seats out of 55. This failure was due in part to the province's outdated electoral boundaries, which favoured rural ridings at the expense of the cities. Farmer resigned as party leader in 1947, and was replaced the following year by Edwin Hansford. The party won only seven seats in the election of 1949, amid a period of generally poor fortunes for left-wing parties in Canada. Hansford resigned as leader in 1952, replaced by Scottie Bryce. The selection of Bryce was somewhat unusual, in that he was a federal MP without experience in the provincial house. He was apparently chosen as party leader due to fears that his federal seat would be eliminated by redistribution. Bryce ultimately decided against joining provincial politics, and was replaced by Lloyd Stinson before the 1953 election. Stinson was probably the most adept of the Manitoba CCF's leaders, but he was unable to translate his personal popularity and charisma into victory at the polls. The party fell to five seats in 1953, during the first election to be held after the province's Liberal-Conservative coalition dissolved amid acrimony. The Liberal government of Douglas Campbell became increasingly unpopular in the mid-1950s, and the CCF was able to tap into some of the public's discontent. Stinson was relatively popular among the province's "centre-left" voters, and the CCF increased its seat total to eleven in 1958. The primary benefactors of Campbell's unpopularity, however, were the Progressive