Editing Winnipeg general strike (section)

==="State trials" and deportations===
Eight of the strike leaders were brought to trial for seditious conspiracy. The evidence against them focused less on their actions than on their socialist ideas, which were seen as the root cause of the unrest that led to the general strike. Under arrangements accepted (and paid for) by the federal government, Andrews and other "legal gentlemen" who were active in the Citizens' Committee during the strike conducted the prosecution.<ref name="LabourLeTravail1">{{citation|author1-last=Mitchell|author1-first=Tom|title='Legal Gentlemen Appointed by the Federal Government': the Canadian State, the Citizens' Committee of 1000, and Winnipeg's Seditious Conspiracy Trials of 1919–1920|journal=[[Labour/Le Travail]]|volume=53|date=Spring 2004|pages=9–46|url=http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/viewFile/5337/6206|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140517135239/http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/LLT/article/viewFile/5337/6206|archive-date=2014-05-17|url-status=unfit|quote=The prosecution was undertaken by leading members of the Citizens' Committee of 1000's legal committee, including A J. Andrews, Isaac Pitblado, Travers Sweatman, and J.B. Coyne, under provisions of the Criminal Code that allowed for prosecutions by private citizens or organizations, subject to the consent of the Attorney General of Manitoba. For their efforts, the federal government paid Andrews, Pitblado, Coyne, and Sweatman handsomely.}}</ref>{{rp|page=13}}

The largely rural juries selected for the trials found guilty seven of the accused (Armstrong, Bray, Ivens, Johns, Pritchard, Russell and Queen). Most were sentenced to one-year sentences. Russell was sentenced to two years. Bray was convicted on a lesser charge and was sentenced to six months. (As well, John Farnell, who had replaced Bray after his arrest as leader of pro-strike returned soldiers, was sentenced to nine months in prison. He was released three months early, due to his wife's illness.)<ref>Edmonton Bulletin, August 5, 1920</ref>

Heaps conducted his own defence. A jury acquitted him on all charges. Dixon, who was charged with seditious libel, delivered a strong defence of the right to free speech as an essential element of the British tradition. After forty hours of deliberation, the largely urban jury acquitted him. This result caused the prosecution to abandon the similar charges against Woodsworth.<ref name="Bumsted p. 66-69">{{harvnb|Bumsted|1994|pp=66–69}}</ref> 

In the case of the "foreigners" arrested on June 17, there were no criminal proceedings. The attempt to deport Almazoff failed, and Charitonoff appealed successfully against a deportation order. Blumenberg and Schoppelrei were deported on technical grounds related to their original entry into the country.<ref>Kramer and Mitchell, ''When the State Trembled'', pp. 283–287.</ref> Blumenberg found his feet in the U.S., organizing workers in the Duluth area and even running for municipal office there on the socialist platform.<ref>Masters, The Winnipeg General Strike, p. 150</ref>