"I am going to remain loyal to my class, the working class, the builders of the future." - Annie Buller, Union Organizer and Communist leader, b. December 9, 1895

Buller addresses the miners in Estevan

"I am not guilty of this charge. I have said before and I say again that it is not Annie Buller who is on trial here. It is the capitalist class which stands in the prisoner's dock. No one realizes more than I do the forces against us are very great. But gentlemen of the jury, regardless of the outcome of the trial. I am going to remain loyal to my class, the working class, the builders of the future." - Annie Buller, Union Organizer and Communist leader, b. December 9, 1895

Union and communist militant Annie Buller was born December 9, 1895 in Ukraine. Her family moved to Montreal when she was a child and there she became active in the anti-war movement during WWI. In 1922 she joined the Worker's Party of Canada which was later renamed the Communist Party of Canada.

Buller was an organizer with several unions including the Toronto Dressmaker's Union as well as with miners in Nova Scotia and in western Canada. 

In September, 1931 Buller was in Estevan, Saskatchewan to help organize a coal miner strike. On September 29 the RCMP opened fire on a crowd of miners who were marching in the town. They murdered three of them and wounded many more. 

Despite the fact that they were victims of police violence it was organizers like Buller who faced charges for "incitement". Buller ended up being jailed for a year. 

Buller continued her organizing and Communist political work after her release and until her death in Toronto in 1973.

To read one of her accounts of the Estevan strike and massacre see: In Memory of the Estevan Massacre, September 29, 1931 w. Song of the Estevan Miners