How did you start campaigning?
I was born in 1915, in New York. My father died shortly after of the Spanish flu. I was raised by my mother alone, who didn’t have much money, I was almost a street child, I wandered, I read. When I was ten years old, I saw in the newspaper a photo of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti in the electric chair [deux anarchistes américains d’origine italienne injustement accusés de meutre et executés]. I said to myself: “a country capable of doing this to a man is worthless at all”. Vanzetti wrote good poetry, they were two simple men, two workers, that revolted me. I got closer to the American Communist Party. I formally joined the Young Workers League [organisation de jeunesse du PCA] in 1931. In 1934, during a demonstration by secondary school teachers against layoffs and budget cuts, I met Trotskyist activists, notably Eddy who would become my husband. I went to one of their meetings and I appreciated the position of the Trotskyists because I myself was already anti-Stalinist. I left the PC for the Communist League of America [CLA, organisation trotskyste expulsée du PC en 28]and I married Eddy. I was a medical secretary then, for a doctor who treated venereal diseases. Customers were hitting on me but it probably wasn’t the best place to do that! Next to the doctor’s office there was a cafeteria on strike, I supported them with all the money I could save from my salary, and I demonstrated with them on the picket line, but the doctor fired me saying that it felt bad. Then I was a stenographer by joining one of the programs for the unemployed set up by the New Deal, for 3 years, but I couldn’t type fast enough. Finally I was able to study by following evening classes, 6 years to have a License and 9 years to have a Master, but I was able to become a secondary school teacher in 1938. My son was also born in 38.
What was our political activity?
There was union activity in the oppositional tendency that we led in the teachers’ union which was quite important, I was secretary of my union section, then the party building activity. There were a lot of internal debates. In ’36, when Trotsky advised the Trotskyists to join the American Socialist Party to merge with the left wing which was becoming radicalized, to make what was called the “French turn”, I did not agree. Later, Cannon said to me, “All you have to do is go down and see the Old Man in Mexico.” I left with Bunny, a friend, by car. Trotsky followed a lot of what was happening in the United States, he really liked Schatman and the battles between Schatman and Cannon worried him a lot.
What was your impression of Trotsky?
He was a great man, but he was a human being with many flaws. He was already unfaithful to his wife. At the time, for men, society did not consider this as a major fault, whether in the United States or in the Russian Jewish environment where Trotsky was raised, but it shocked me. He was both sarcastic but also didn’t have a great sense of humor. Plus I didn’t agree with him so that didn’t help matters! This didn’t discourage me or disappoint me in the character, at the same time we couldn’t expect something different either. Here was a man who had been tried to disappear so many times, whose children and all those close to him had been put in camps or executed. I think that deep down Trotsky was a fairly sensitive person, so he redoubled his toughness to face all the political and human challenges he faced. He was a great intellectual, a great writer, he tried to embody something, but the pressure was gigantic and had a cost.
Did you also meet Ramon Mercader, Trotsky’s assassin?
Yes, and also Jan Van Heijenoort, Trotsky’s secretary. Jan was a pretty confused guy, a playboy, but he looked after Trotsky really well and really cared about him. Natalia Sedova [l’épouse de Trotsky] was a very sad and lonely woman, we felt it, everything had been taken from her. Mercader I met with my husband in New York, his name was Jacques Mornard so, we went to a Billie Holiday concert, he was a weird guy and I didn’t really like him. In Mexico, Sylvia Ageloff wanted us to spend the evening together with him and a friend of mine, I went to her house, and Mercader was sitting in a deck chair, but with such a black look… I had afraid, I didn’t want to stay, and my friend Roda asked me why, and I answered her by humming a tune from a Fred Astaire song: “What a strange romance” [« quelle étrange romance »]. It always stayed with me…
And the rest of your activist journey?
In 1940, I was not for supporting the USSR’s invasion of Finland, but I still remained in the SWP. I had a daughter who died at a young age, born in ’40, and another daughter born in 1950, and that’s when I stopped being an active party activist. My husband remained an SWP activist until 1983 and I remained a supporter until ’83 too. But I am an activist, I will remain so until I die, activism is my life. I am active in an anti-war group called Angry Grandmothers. [Raging Grannies]we participate in demonstrations, we do circles of silence every Friday in Union Square against Apartheid in Israel.
Do you have a message for the new activist generations?
Activism is blood, sweat and tears. This reminds me of a story: in the 1930s, during the Great Depression, I went door-to-door politically. A guy at home, driven crazy by unemployment, tried to kill me and ran after me and I barely managed to escape. I realized: it’s hard, but you have to do it. Thomas Jeffferson said: blood is the tear of the patriot. If you are a patriot for socialism, you must be willing to shed your blood. I’m not saying the problem is just a matter of sacrifice, but you have to be ready for anything.
