August 31, 2021 marks 100 years since the birth of Jean Brust, a leading figure in the Trotskyist movement. Comrade Jean, who died November 24, 1997 at the age of 76, joined the Trotskyist-led Young Peoples Socialist League as a teenager in 1937. She fought, alongside her lifelong partner Bill Brust, for the cause of international socialism for the next 60 years.

In 1963, Jean Brust refused to accept the betrayal of principles by the Socialist Workers Party, when it broke with the International Committee. She went on to become a founding member of the Workers League, the predecessor of the Socialist Equality Party, and was part of the leadership of the American and world Trotskyist movement for the rest of her life.

To mark the 100th anniversary of her birth, the World Socialist Web Site is bringing together a number of essays on her life and political work, including a new essay by her son, novelist Steven Brust.

This interview with Comrade Jean, initially recorded in August 1995, was conducted by Fred Mazelis, a leading member of the Socialist Equality Party and a founding member of the Workers League. Jean died two years after the interview was conducted, on November 24, 1997.

In the interview, Jean reviews critical early experiences in the fight for Trotskyism in the United States, including the role of the Trotskyist movement in the bitter class battles of the 1930s, the faction fight within the Socialist Workers Party in 1939-40, the impact of the Stalinist assassination of Leon Trotsky in August 1940, and the persecution of leading Trotskyists during World War II.