Rose Cohen (feminist)

Early life

Rose Cohen was born in 1894 in London's East End to a family of Jewish immigrants from Lodz, Poland. Her father Maurice Cohen was a tailor, but later opened his own business and prospered.^[1] Through Workers' Educational Association Cohen became well versed in economics and politics, and fluent in three languages. It was a great achievement for the daughter of immigrants.^[2] Cohen joined a suffragette movement in Great Britain in the 1910s. By 1916, British intelligence had placed her under surveillance. Transcripts of intercepted letters and phone calls became publicly available in 2003.^[3]

Her education allowed Cohen to get a job in the London County Council, where she worked until 1917, and later in the Labour Research Department. She left the LRD in 1920. Towards the end of the First World War the department became the centre of the young leftist intellectuals.^[2] In his memoirs Maurice Reckitt wrote that Cohen "had great vivacity and charm... and was probably the most popular individual in our little movement... ."^[4] In 1920 she became a founding member of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Contemporaries described Cohen as lively, intelligent, educated and beautiful.^[5] All the men who knew her talked of her smile, but said that "she was unaware of its magical quality."^[5] Among Cohen's admirers, Harry Pollitt was the most persistent. A photograph of Cohen at the People's History Museum in Great Britain was inscribed by Pollitt: "Rose Cohen – who I am in love with, and who has rejected me 14 times."^[6]

Work in the Comintern

In early 1920s Cohen travelled the world as a Comintern agent. She was assigned secret missions, which included delivering messages and transferring money to Communist parties. In 1922–1923 she spent long periods in the Soviet Union, and also travelled to Finland, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Turkey, France, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. As Comintern's courier, Cohen transferred large sums of money to the Communist parties of these countries.^[3][7]

In 1925, Cohen worked in the Soviet embassy in London and also spent several months in Paris on a secret mission for the Comintern, and handled large sums of money to the Communist Party of France. That year, she met David Petrovsky, whom she later married.^[8]

Life in Moscow

In 1927 following instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain, Cohen arrived to work in Moscow, and in the same year she joined the Russian Communist Party.^[8]

In the beginning of 1929 Cohen married David Petrovsky, and in December 1929 she gave birth to their son Alexey (Alyosha). She spent six months that year overseas, travelling to China, Japan, Poland and Germany on Comintern business.^[3]

In 1930, Cohen enrolled at the International Lenin School of the Comintern, and from 1931 she was an employee and later chief of the Foreign Department and the editor of the Moscow Daily News.^[3] Cohen and Petrovsky were considered the "golden couple of the expatriate community in Moscow",^[9] and their apartment became a salon for the foreign community.

The victim of Stalin's terror

In the summer of 1936 Cohen went to London but was not permitted to make the trip with her son, so he stayed behind. Her sister Nellie thought that Rose was "distracted and a little unhappy, and had it not been for Alyosha might not have returned".^[10]

In March 1937 David Petrovsky was arrested, and Cohen was expelled from the Russian Communist Party. On 13 August, she was arrested in Moscow and accused of being a British spy.^[8]

She denied all charges until 29 October 1937.^[8] A closed court hearing started at 2:20 pm on 28 November. Cohen was not given access to defence attorneys or witnesses, "in accordance with the Law of December 1, 1934". She "pleaded not guilty, denied all charges, and refused to confirm her testimony given during the preliminary investigation, claiming it was false."^[11] In her final statement she again pleaded not guilty.^[11] However, the ruling handed down twenty minutes after the start of legal proceedings, declared Cohen guilty.^[11] That same day, Cohen was shot.

The reaction from Great Britain

Having learned of Cohen's arrest, the communist leaders of Great Britain Harry Pollitt and Willie Gallacher appealed to the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, Georgi Dimitrov and were advised "do not interfere".^[12] As a result, the Communist Party of Great Britain did not file a protest, and was not supportive of the protest launched by the Left Socialists, via a letter written by Maurice Reckitt.^[12]

The British government did not deny rumours that Cohen took Soviet citizenship, and had been a citizen of the Soviet Union at the time of her arrest.^[13][14] Records show that Cohen did not naturalise and remained a British citizen until her death.^[8] The protest of the British Embassy was late and was officially expressed only in April 1938.^[15]

Political rehabilitation and family

After the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Cohen's only son filed an appeal to review her case, and on 8 August 1956 the Military Collegium of the USSR Supreme Court invalidated the 28 November 1937 ruling against Cohen. All charges were dropped and the case was dismissed for lack of corpus delicti. Cohen was posthumously rehabilitated as a victim of political repressions.^[16]

Cohen and David Petrovsky had a son – Alexey D. Petrovsky (1929–2010)^[17] – who earned a Ph.D. in geological and mineralogical sciences, and was an academician of Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. Their grandson, Michael A. Petrovsky^[17] – holds a doctorate in physics and mathematics. Their great-grandchildren are Maria Petrovskaya (an artist, USA) and Alexey M. Petrovsky.^[18]