Betty Gannett
{{Short description|American Marxist theoretician and editor}}
Betty Gannett (1906-March 4, 1970) was an American Marxist theoretician and editor.
Biography
She was born as Rebecca (Rifke) Yaroshefsky,{{Cite news |date=March 6, 1970 |title=Woman Leader: Betty Gannett Served in U.S. |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/623160943 |work=The Miami Herald |pages=62}} in Radziwillow, Poland.{{Cite news |title=17 Communists Seized By FBI as Nationwide Roundup Starts |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/53703479 |work=The Brooklyn Eagle |pages=13}} She immigrated to the United States with her family in August 1914.{{Cite news |title=US Red Aide Faces Ouster as Commie |url=https://newspapers.com/image/994238046 |work=The Berkeley Gazette |pages=1}} When she was 18, she became a member of the Young Communist League.{{Cite news |date=March 5, 1970 |title=Betty Gannett Dies at 63; Rites Sunday for CP Leader |url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/1140445844 |work=Daily World |pages=3}} By 1928, she was working as a district organizer for the Communist Party in Cleveland.{{Cite news |date=March 31, 1928 |title=Cleveland Youth to Conduct Campaigns |url=https://newspapers.com/image/1146873883 |work=The Daily Worker |pages=7}} She was arrested for the first time in 1930 and sentenced under Ohio's criminal syndicalism law, for distributing Communist literature.{{Cite news |date=April 19, 1930 |title=Judge Who Jailed Girl Reds Justifies Drastic Sentence |url=https://newspapers.com/image/676150230/ |work=The Yonkers Statesman |pages=9}} Her prison sentence was later overturned on appeal.{{Cite news |date=May 24, 1930 |title=Set Aside Conviction of Three Alleged Syndicalists Today |url=https://newspapers.com/image/883644439 |work=The Daily Sentinel-Tribune |pages=1}} She was supportive of Jacques Duclos' criticisms of the American Communist Party, saying in 1945 that they "should be grateful to him".{{Cite news |date=May 2, 1949 |title=FBI Aide Bares New Spy Drama |url=https://newspapers.com/image/683958932 |work=Los Angeles Evening Citizen News |pages=4}}
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.{{Cite book |last=Haywood |first=Harry |title=Black Bolshevik : Autobiography of an Afro-American Communist |date=1978 |publisher=Liberator Press |isbn=0930720539 |location=Chicago |pages=585}} 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".{{Cite book |last=Healey |first=Dorothy |title=Dorothy Healey Remembers: A Life in the American Communist Party |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1990 |isbn=0195038193 |pages=125}}
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.{{Cite book |last=Cannon |first=James P. |title=Notebook of an Agitator |publisher=Pioneer Publishers |year=1958 |location=New York |pages=228}} Gannett was arrested on the morning of June 20, 1951, along with seventeen other Communist leaders under the Smith Act.{{Cite book |last=Lannon |first=Albert Vetere |title=Second string red : The life of Al Lannon, American communist |date=1999 |publisher=Lexington Books |pages=125}} She and Claudia Jones were handcuffed together and taken to the Women's House of Detention.{{Cite book |last=Abt |first=John J. |title=Advocate and activist : Memoirs of an American Communist lawyer |publisher=University of Illinois Press |year=1993 |isbn=0252020308 |location=Urbana |pages=222}} During her trial, Gannett told the court about her childhood in Harlem and her discovery of Marxist literature in the New York Public Library.{{Cite book |last=Caute |first=David |title=The great Fear: The Anti-Communist Purge Under Truman and Eisenhower |date=1978 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |pages=199}} After eight months, the trial culminated with Gannett and the other defendants found guilty of advocating for the overthrow of the government.{{Cite news |date=January 21, 1953 |title=13 U.S. Communist Leaders Convicted |url=https://newspapers.com/image/277424977/ |work=Oakland Tribune |pages=1}} She was fined $6000 and sentenced to three years in prison.{{Cite news |date=February 3, 1953 |title=13 Reds Jailed 1 to 3 Years |url=https://newspapers.com/image/52884374 |work=Brooklyn Eagle |pages=1}} 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.{{Cite news |date=1970-03-05 |title=Betty Gannett, Communist Aide Jailed Under Smith Act. Dead |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1970/03/05/archives/betty-gannett-communist-aide-jailed-under-smith-act-dead.html |access-date=2025-03-02 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}
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".{{Cite book |last=Kraditor |first=Aileen S. |title="Jimmy Higgins" : The mental world of the American rank-and-file communist, 1930-1958 |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=1988 |isbn=0313262462 |pages=82}} Despite her position in the Party, she was not elected to its National Committee at the 1957 Communist Party National Convention.{{Cite news |date=March 2, 1957 |title=Reds' Convention is Called a Fraud |url=https://newspapers.com/image/576281812 |work=The Tablet |pages=2}} She became the editor of Political Affairs in 1966.{{Cite book |last=Zipser |first=Arthur |title=Workingclass Giant: The Life of William Z. Foster |publisher=International Publishers |isbn=0717805905 |location=New York |pages=185}}