She Never Was Afraid
The Biography of Annie Buller, by Louise Watson

Foreword

A meteor flashes across an evening sky, and in its traverse illuminates the shadows on the earth below.

In the dark days prior to and during the Great Depression of the thirties there appeared on the Canadian scene a young woman whose fiery spirit and love of humanity carried her to the forefront of the struggles of the men and women who were striving to find a way out of the darkness of poverty, unenlightenment, and despair.

That young woman was Annie Buller. Born to a working class family, she found it necessary at an early age to make her way in the workaday world of Montreal. She had a keen mind and acquired skills and knowledge rapidly.

All the talents she possessed for writing, speaking, educating, and organizing, she gave in the service of her class, joyfully, vigorously, and with great courage.

Tracing Annie's life there comes to mind the words of the Internationale, "Let each stand in his place". She found her place early in life and never departed from it, never faltered.

In the pages that follow it is hoped that the readers —young and not so young — may find inspiration from her life story, and a determination to hold aloft the torch she so valiantly carried through all of her adult years.

It is the story of a great Canadian woman — a great Communist woman — whose life was spent in a period of rapid changes in the world, who never lost sight of the goal — a socialist Canada.

THE AUTHOR

Acknowledgments

To the Staff of Progress Books, The Canadian Tribune, Eveready Printers, and the Executive of the Communist Party of Canada, for their help to me as an inexperienced writer.

Also to Jim Buller for furnishing much of his mother's personal files and reference material.

Thanks also to the various friends who related items of interest or furnished reference material.

LOUISE WATSON

Introduction

by William Kashtan

This book is about a remarkable woman, Annie Buller, who devoted her life and her enormous energy, vitality, and enthusiasm to the cause of the working class, the cause of socialism in Canada.

The title of the book She Never Was Afraid aptly describes the rich and varied activities of Annie and the principles she stood by and championed all her adult life.

How many men and women could encompass in their lifetime such varied tasks as spokeswoman and organizer for the Communist Party of Canada, union organizer, builder of the working class press, spreader of Marxist literature throughout the country, and in her spare time give attention to her family? Annie did all of these and more. What made her "tick", so to speak, was her supreme confidence in the truth of Marxism and in the inevitable triumph of socialism in Canada. This, to use her words, "fortified" her and made her strong. Annie had a strong class instinct that never left her through various stages of the struggle, its advances and retreats, its victories and setbacks.

In the course of her lifetime Annie was called a "flaming heart," a rebel girl, a comrade, a friend. The capitalist called her an agitator, using the term in a derogatory sense. Yes, she was an agitator and did honour to that title. To agitate was to stir up, to arouse, and this is what Annie did. She travelled up and down the country speaking to miners in Nova Scotia and Alberta, to the loggers of British Columbia, to the needle trades workers in Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg. Annie was a fearless woman who dared to speak up, to arouse men and women to an awareness of the injustice of capitalism and the need to change it. She was not an armchair philosopher but a doer, a person who matched her words with her deeds.

When she was asked to go to Estevan to help the miners in their strike she gladly went, even though it entailed hardship for her and her family. She was not afraid to enter the lion's den of Estevan, surrounded as it was by the police, and address the striking miners and their families. She was not afraid when she was arrested and then defended her actions in court. She was not afraid when she had to serve time in jail. To her it was but a part of an apprenticeship in the service of the working class. In this case as throughout her life, she always placed the movement ahead of her personal life. Indeed, in a certain sense, one could say the movement was her personal life.

Of Annie it could be truly said, "There once was a Union maid, she never was afraid." Of course Annie was more than a union organizer. She was a Communist, and whatever task she undertook she undertook as a Communist. She well understood that reforms, no matter how important in themselves, could not alter class relationships, and a system based on exploitation of man by man. Annie understood that reforms could be won and then lost as long as capitalism exists, that only socialism could ensure that reforms would be permanently won. This is why throughout a lifetime of activity she fought tenaciously and well to spread the ideas of Marxism, of scientific socialism, to as wide an audience as she could reach.

Annie was always identified with the working class press and the spread of Marxist literature. She had an enormous respect for the written word, not any words, but those which brought understanding, consciousness and the necessity of action. She understood that words can move mountains, and that ideas, once seized hold of by the people, could transform the world. Thus, wherever she went in the course of her travels, wherever she spoke, one could be sure that the working class press and Marxist literature were there. To Annie, every new reader for the working class press, every sale of Marxist literature, was a victory over capitalist ideas and a gain for socialism. It is useful to recall these features of her activities now, and learn from them, when the monopolized mass media work day and night to brainwash the people and keep them chained to capitalism.

Annie's interests went beyond the press. Throughout her life she devoted considerable time and effort to win working women to the cause of socialism. She fought those tendencies in the working class movement, and even in the revolutionary movement, which tended to relegate women's participation in the working class struggle to one of merely "helping out", rather than being an equal partner in a great undertaking. She fought as well against feminist views which made man the enemy rather than capitalism, the enemy of both working men and women. For Annie, the woman question was a social one that only socialism can solve. She saw that to win socialism requires the unity of working men and women. It was this message she brought to men and women throughout a lifetime of activity. As part of that she took great pride in helping to promote spokeswomen for the Communist Party. But she gave equal attention to the promotion of young spokesmen, never taking a narrow approach to the varied problems of the working class movement.

Thanks are due to Louise Watson, the author, for capturing the spirit of Annie and placing it on record. It is an invaluable contribution to the working class, progressive and revolutionary movement. Those of the older generation, as they read the book, will remind themselves of important episodes they either participated in or read about. The young people who read it, particularly the young women, will be inspired by the "flaming heart", the "rebel girl" that Annie was. She, of course, was not a mindless rebel, hitting aimlessly here and there. She was conscious of the goal to be reached and worked for it day and night. She was well aware that people make history providing they are guided by the science of socialism and by a Party which bases itself on that science. This was her compass and her source of strength throughout an active life as a spokeswoman and leader of the Communist Party.

Annie was one of the heroines of the working class. Who are the heroes and heroines of monopoly other than the dollar bill? What heroes and heroines can monopoly draw upon to bring to the attention of the young generation in Canada? MacKenzie King and his seances? Diefenbaker, the reactionary "radical"? The Happy Hooker? Some millionaire?

Monopoly has not much to draw upon because the days when capitalism could pretend to be progressive have passed. The real heroes and heroines are those striving to win a better world, a just world, a humane world, the world of socialism and lasting peace. This was what Annie Buller stood for all her life. She never flinched from the battle to achieve it. She never was afraid.

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