This article is part of a series on Communist educators brought to you by the CPUSA Labor Commission Educators Subcommittee. Click here for more.

Anna Rochester hailed from a historically wealthy family. She developed her political and class consciousness through the Social Gospel of Christianity, and became a brilliant Communist theoretician. She taught the people through her fastidious application of Marxist theory and her methodical collection of data. Her writing spoke directly to workers and served as fuel for revolutionary struggle.

Born in 1880 in New York City, Rochester was the great granddaughter of the founder of Rochester, New York. She was curious and intelligent from a young age as noted in the journals her mother kept of her. Rochester lived a life of privilege, growing up in the wealthy suburb of Englewood, New Jersey, outside of New York City with attendants and servants in the household. She attended private school at the Dwight School for Girls. Rochester even had the chance to travel to Germany to study music at a young age.

Her travels and biblical study engendered a moral responsibility to help those less fortunate than her through philanthropy. Growing up, she noticed class distinctions that shaped society. In her twenties she began reading the works of Karl Marx as well as Christian socialists. She was compelled by the working class platform of Eugene V Debs’ campaign and volunteered.

From 1912 to 1915, she worked as a researcher for the National Child Labor Committee, followed by a position in the U.S. Children’s Bureau. These work experiences further sharpened her awareness of the stark class divides shaping American society.

Rochester began taking her political life more seriously. She became involved with the Church League for Industrial Democracy, remained active with the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross, and taught at the Rand School of Social Science in New York City, a workers’ school founded in 1906.

In 1919, Anna Rochester met her long time partner, Grace Hutchins, at a retreat for the Episcopal lay women’s organization, the Society of Companions of the Holy Cross. In the early 1920s they developed their socialism in tandem with a strong emphasis on the moralistic elements of Christianity. At the time, they were living together in an all women’s commune in New York City.

The two co-authored the book Jesus Christ and the World Today where they wrote,

Judged then by the principle of Jesus that the life and personality of every individual is of supreme value, any mechanical system that means the subordination of human beings to provide more properly for other human beings is unchristian. Any condition of work that leaves the body abnormally tired, the mind dulled and stupefied, or the spirit broken, is contrary to the will of God as Jesus understood that will.

Clearly, Rochester was already keenly aware of the human suffering caused by capitalism and saw the inherent incompatibility between Christianity and capitalism.

Christian Socialism to Communism

Through the early 1920’s Anna Rochester worked at The World Tomorrow, a Christian Socialist magazine. Despite her radical critiques of capitalism, she remained a Christian pacifist. Rochester never openly condemned the methods of the Russian Revolution as she believed the oppressed had a God given right to resist, but she still believed Christian principles could prevent violence in class conflict.

In 1926, Rochester and Hutchins embarked on travels to Europe and Asia where they witnessed anti-colonial and Socialist forces in action. Their visit to Soviet Russia was especially significant. Both were completely taken by the principled devotion of the Bolsheviks to communist theory and practice as well as their steadfastness.

Energized by the promises of a better world and disillusioned by the politics of Christian Socialism, Rochester and Hutchins resigned from their Christian Socialist organizations and joined the Communist Party, USA. Soon after, Rochester co-founded the Labor Research Association (LRA) which was used to support the labor movement with data and deep analysis.

Scholar of the working class

Working at the LRA, she blossomed as a scholar. Through her comprehensive accounts, she used her writing and research as weapons for working class people. Her most well-known books include Labor and Coal, Lenin and the Agrarian Question, The Populist Movement in the United States, Why Farmers Are Poor, Capitalism and Progress, and her most influential work, Rulers of America.

In Rulers of America, she incisively critiqued the bourgeois elements of the United States government and the limitations it places on the popular will of the people,

The structure of government in the United States has always been shaped to prevent control by the masses….. When workers press their demands and win some slight legislative advance, the capitalist interests fall back on the other basic division of the government, the “checks and balances,”·so-called, which were deliberately set up by the federal and state constitutions to prevent expression of the popular will….. Laws may be passed under pressure from the rank and file of voters, but then they must be administered by executives who not uncommonly sabotage the intent of the law. And if the law, even so, becomes too troublesome to the capitalists, they can carry it into court and have it declared unconstitutional.

She spent nearly two decades elucidating important questions for working class Americans. By compiling meticulous data and historical analysis, Rochester helped popularize complex issues and armed workers’ struggles with both ideological and factual ammunition.

She and her fellow Communist partner, Grace Hutchins devoted the rest of their lives and a considerable portion of their personal wealth to the Party. They notably used their inherited wealth to post bail and provide legal support for fellow Communist party members targeted during the Red Scare of the 1950s.

Rochester ultimately passed away in 1966. Though quiet and modest in person, her intellectual legacy remains deeply impactful and enduring. Following in the footsteps of Friedrich Engels, she put her wealth towards revolutionary theory, organizing and agitating among the working class.

Rochester used her writing to expose the contradictions of capitalism and to educate the American working class in its struggle for a better society. Her educational imprint as a theorist for the people is essential in the ideological battles against the capitalist system.

The opinions of the author do not necessarily reflect the positions of the CPUSA.

Image: CPUSA / Fred Barr