Passionate Commitments: The Lives of Anna Rochester and Grace Hutchins

Chapter Nine: Revolutionary Change

167 Chapter Nine Revolutionary Change Photographer from the New York Daily News to Grace Hutchins: “Why are you a Communist?” Grace Hutchins: “It is because the Communist Party alone is entirely devoted to the interests of the working class. The party leads day-by-day struggles for immediate needs and at the same time prepares for a revolutionary change from a profit system to a workers’ and farmers’ government.” —May 1934, CPUSA Headquarters, New York City Hutchins and Rochester had, by now, established a rhythm of research, writing, and reviewing , with syncopation provided by demonstrations, meetings, and elections, all working against the swastika-draped silence. The LRA attracted volunteers, many from the Pen and Hammer Clubs, young men and women who brought their college-honed research and writing skills to bear on the deteriorating social and economic conditions.1 Herbert Aptheker, for instance, began his long career of scholarship and activism at the LRA. Women of all ages felt especially welcomed to the LRA by Hutchins and often became part of Rochester and Hutchins’s social network. One new friend who meant a great deal to them was Betty Millard, a Barnard graduate and volunteer at the LRA. Hutchins and Rochester were especially fond of Millard, adopting her in a sense, and frequently inviting her to dinner or to Croton-on-Hudson for outings. She was a promising young person who represented the younger generation of independent women to them, a generation that they hoped to nurture. They “saw something of themselves” in her, she felt. Yet only once, Millard said, did she hear a reference to their private life, when she had dinner at Hutchins and Rochester’s along with a man associated with the LRA. After dinner, Rochester and the man went into the living room, while Hutchins and Millard remained at the table. Finally, Hutchins said, “Well, shall we join the gentlemen in the living room?” a clear message to Millard of Rochester’s lesbian identity—and, by extension, Hutchins’s.2 Otherwise, conversations always focused on shared political work. Perhaps, after their experience with Esther Shemitz, Hutchins and Rochester felt less inclined to be open with younger women. Between Rochester and Hutchins nothing had changed, however, as they continued to assure each other of their love. Preparing to leave on a train trip, Hutchins wrote to Rochester: “Dearest of all, I am sitting opposite you here but will mail this in the station, 168 PASSIONATE COMMITMENTS as I go through to the train, so you will have word from me in the morning to tell you that I love you.”3 Although she concluded the note with a message about when she would be back at work at the LRA, she closed, saying “Yours f’r ever ’n ever, Deepest love, Grace.” This love fueled the research and writing that defined them to those outside what was becoming a private world for them. Despite the increasingly straitened space for them, they understood the importance of being part of a movement larger than themselves. Thus, when the party, in an effort to reach wider audiences, refined its rhetorical approach, Hutchins and Rochester both reorganized their work as well. In doing so, they moved into venues where they could use their skills more effectively. The Party Organizer of November–December 1932 featured a translation and abridgment of a Soviet pamphlet, “Bolshevik Agitation Among the Masses,” by Lev Perchik, that advised organizers to focus on local issues but not to dwell only on local issues; rather, organizers should work to “raise the masses to general political and class conclusions”4 (italics in the original). Most important, according to Perchik, organizers must heed Lenin’s statement in “On Slogans” that “ ‘the art of every propagandist Figure 9.1. Anna Rochester, ca. early 1930s 169 REVOLUTIONARY CHANGE and every agitator consists in influencing the audience, in making for it a certain truth as convincing, intelligible and as easy of assimilation as possible.’ ”5 In practice, this often meant continuing to focus on debunking, drawing attention to the inconsistencies and deceptions ladled out by the capitalist media, but at the same time, offering hope in the form of possible action. Thus a writer must negate the thesis but then move the reader or audience beyond that negation to a new synthesis. The agitator must, above all, be familiar with the audience, Perchik enjoined. Perchik’s advice seems so obvious as...