He was jailed for his role in a rent riot at Clydebank in 1920, and joined the newly formed Communist Party of Great Britain the same year.

[4] Litterick moved to Canada in 1925[3] and initially worked as a miner in Alberta and British Columbia.

When Communist Party leader Tim Buck was arrested in 1931, Litterick moved to Toronto to take over some of his responsibilities.

Because of his loyalty to Moscow, Litterick expressed changing views on Canada's involvement in World War II in late 1939.

On 9 September, he urged both Premier John Bracken and Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to give full support to Poland against Nazi Germany's invasion.

[5] Litterick subsequently was required by the party to retract this position, and to oppose the war as an imperialist venture, in light of the Soviet Union's neutrality in the conflict at the time.

He appears in a photograph of Canada's wartime Communist Party leaders, apparently taken in Montreal in 1942.