Smith, Betty

SMITH, BETTY (1926-2022). Born in 1926 and raised in northern Minnesota by adoptive parents, Betty Smith moved to Minneapolis, a hotbed of radical activities, in the 1940s. There she joined a series of campaigns, including Youth for Wallace and a widely-publicized local campaign by the United Electrical Workers and the Civil Rights Congress to organize a local car wash. Working full time and raising two children, she joined the Communist Party (CP) in 1947.

A decade later, Smith moved to New York City. A rising figure in the Political Bureau of the CP, she regarded herself as a Marxist educator. She also participated in electoral activities around the country, from Arkansas to Minnesota (once running for State Auditor there).

In 1982, she assumed the leadership of International Publishers, once the expansive domain of its founder Alexander Trachtenberg, increasingly hard hit in the Cold War years and especially after. Through her efforts, International kept afloat as distribution changed dramatically and managed to issue a range of newer volumes to reach younger, New Left and post-New Left college audiences. After 1991, International was greatly in danger of collapse. Smith held on firmly, however, keeping Marxist classics continuously in print while bringing in new titles and authors as publishing entered the era of the internet and Amazon domination of book sales. She retired in 2017, after thirty-six years at her post, and International survived even as many of its Marxist publishing peers of the past closed their doors.

David A. Lincove, "Radical Publishing to 'Reach the Million Masses': Alexander L. Trachtenberg and International Publishers, 1906-1966," Left History, Fall-Winter 2004, pp. 85–124.