Robert Chester, a leading member of the Socialist Workers Party in San Francisco and a noted party educator, was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1912. He enrolled at Cooper Union in 1930, intending to study chemical engineering, but left school during the Depression to work with his father, a well known scenic artist.
Politically Chester and his brother Morris Chertov were first inclined toward the political philosophy of the Workers Party. Bob Chester gravitated, however, toward the more radical socialist wing of the AWP, and in 1938 he attended the founding convention of the Socialist Workers Party. In subsequent years Chester was an organizer for the Brooklyn and Manhattan branches of the party. During this period he also met Anne Fisher (1905-1983), a mill worker in Paterson, New Jersey; they were married in 1943.
During World War II the Chesters relocated to San Francisco where he was active in party work among the longshoremen and the maritime unions. In 1950 Chester was elected to the SWP National Committee, after which he moved into organizing positions in Philadelphia and New York City. During the 1950s Chester was instrumental in establishing the party printshop. He also initiated the use of tape recorders and cameras to document party events. In 1967 the Chesters returned to San Francisco where Bob, who had previously been employed as a painter, became active in the San Francisco local. Chester also increasingly assumed the role of party educator, and he authored several study guides. Bob Chester died in San Francisco on June 22, 1975.
