Betty Gannett

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Gannett c. 1959 Betty Gannett 1959.jpg
Gannett c. 1959

Betty Gannett (1906-March 4, 1970) was an American Marxist theoretician and editor.

Biography

She was born as Rebecca (Rifke) Yaroshefsky, [1] in Radziwillow, Poland. [2] She immigrated to the United States with her family in August 1914. [3] When she was 18, she became a member of the Young Communist League. [4] By 1928, she was working as a district organizer for the Communist Party in Cleveland. [5] She was arrested for the first time in 1930 and sentenced under Ohio's criminal syndicalism law, for distributing Communist literature. [6] Her prison sentence was later overturned on appeal. [7] She was supportive of Jacques Duclos' criticisms of the American Communist Party, saying in 1945 that they "should be grateful to him". [8]

After the first arrests of Communist leaders under the Smith Act, Gannett and Pettis Perry were placed in charge of policy decisions for the Party. [9] Gannett and Perry launched a campaign within the Party in 1949 to eliminate white chauvinism, a decision described by Dorothy Healey as "one of the most catastrophically stupid things we ever did". [10]

At the Fifteenth National Convention of the Communist Party, in 1951, Gannett presented a report on "Ideological Tasks" for Party members, instructing the delegates to defend the "profound and pervasive democracy" in the Soviet Union against charges of dictatorship. [11] Gannett was arrested on the morning of June 20, 1951, along with seventeen other Communist leaders under the Smith Act. [12] She and Claudia Jones were handcuffed together and taken to the Women's House of Detention. [13] During her trial, Gannett told the court about her childhood in Harlem and her discovery of Marxist literature in the New York Public Library. [14] After eight months, the trial culminated with Gannett and the other defendants found guilty of advocating for the overthrow of the government. [15] She was fined $6000 and sentenced to three years in prison. [16] She left prison after two years, but the government unsuccessfully attempted to require her to stay within 50 miles of Times Square after her release. [17]

In April 1953, after Stalin's death, she published a tribute to him in Political Affairs , describing him as "the beloved leader of working humanity". [18] Despite her position in the Party, she was not elected to its National Committee at the 1957 Communist Party National Convention. [19] She became the editor of Political Affairs in 1966. [20]

References

  1. ↑ "Woman Leader: Betty Gannett Served in U.S." The Miami Herald. March 6, 1970. p. 62.
  2. ↑ "17 Communists Seized By FBI as Nationwide Roundup Starts". The Brooklyn Eagle. p. 13.
  3. ↑ "US Red Aide Faces Ouster as Commie". The Berkeley Gazette. p. 1.
  4. ↑ "Betty Gannett Dies at 63; Rites Sunday for CP Leader". Daily World. March 5, 1970. p. 3.
  5. ↑ "Cleveland Youth to Conduct Campaigns". The Daily Worker. March 31, 1928. p. 7.
  6. ↑ "Judge Who Jailed Girl Reds Justifies Drastic Sentence". The Yonkers Statesman. April 19, 1930. p. 9.
  7. ↑ "Set Aside Conviction of Three Alleged Syndicalists Today". The Daily Sentinel-Tribune. May 24, 1930. p. 1.
  8. ↑ "FBI Aide Bares New Spy Drama". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. May 2, 1949. p. 4.
  9. ↑ Haywood, Harry (1978). Black Bolshevik : Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist. Chicago: Liberator Press. p. 585. ISBN   0930720539.
  10. ↑ Healey, Dorothy (1990). Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party. Oxford University Press. p. 125. ISBN   0195038193.
  11. ↑ Cannon, James P. (1958). Notebook of an Agitator. New York: Pioneer Publishers. p. 228.
  12. ↑ Lannon, Albert Vetere (1999). Second string red : The life of Al Lannon, American communist. Lexington Books. p. 125.
  13. ↑ Abt, John J. (1993). Advocate and activist : Memoirs of an American Communist lawyer. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. p. 222. ISBN   0252020308.
  14. ↑ Caute, David (1978). The great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower. Simon and Schuster. p. 199.
  15. ↑ "13 U.S. Communist Leaders Convicted". Oakland Tribune. January 21, 1953. p. 1.
  16. ↑ "13 Reds Jailed 1 to 3 Years". Brooklyn Eagle. February 3, 1953. p. 1.
  17. ↑ "Betty Gannett, Communist Aide Jailed Under Smith Act. Dead". The New York Times. 1970-03-05. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2025-03-02.
  18. ↑ Kraditor, Aileen S. (1988). "Jimmy Higgins" : The mental world of the American rank-and-file communist, 1930-1958. Greenwood Press. p. 82. ISBN   0313262462.
  19. ↑ "Reds' Convention is Called a Fraud". The Tablet. March 2, 1957. p. 2.
  20. ↑ Zipser, Arthur. Workingclass Giant: The Life of William Z. Foster. New York: International Publishers. p. 185. ISBN   0717805905.
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