ANNIE BULLER 

Annie Buller Guralnick (1895-1973) was one of the pioneer women in the socialist movement in Canada. Before the First World War, Annie was a live-wire worker at a Montreal department store, where she quickly rose to head buyer for a major division. With Beckie Buhay she became active in the socialist youth movement, both connecting their interest in unions and socialism with opposition to the war and conscription. Later she enrolled in New York's Rand School of Social Science, a centre for the study of Marxism. She became a leading organizer in the needle trades and the Communist Party, with a keen interest in education and the printed word.

In September 1931 she was invited to speak to coal miners who were involved in a bitter struggle for wages and conditions in the mines at Bienfait, near Estevan, Saskatchewan. A parade planned for 29 September was met with murderous gunfire from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and three miners died with many others wounded. Following these events Annie was arrested along with others including the legendary Sam Scarlett, and found guilty of “incitement to riot”. After two trials and appeals she was sentenced to one year of solitary confinement at North Battleford prison. A full account appears in Steve Endicott’s Bienfait. After release she resumed her activity with renewed conviction.