Victor Jeremy Jerome (1896–1965) was an American communist writer and editor based in New York City. He is best remembered as a Marxist cultural essayist and as the long-time editor of The Communist, later known as Political Affairs, the theoretical journal of the Communist Party USA. He was known as the Chairman of the party's Cultural Commission, based in New York. Early years (Jerome) Isaac Roman, also known by the surname "Romain" and better known by the pseudonym "Victor Jeremy Jerome," was born into a Jewish family in Łódź or Stryków, Poland, then part of the Russian Empire, on October 12, 1896. After his parents emigrated to London, he lived with relatives in Poland until they were ready for him to join them at age nine. He lived for about ten years in England with his family. According to the 1911 Census of England, a 14-year-old resident Russian alien named Isaac Roman, the son of Harris and Dinah Roman, lived with his parents and brother Nathan at 52 Lucas Street, Commercial Road, Stepney, London; his father Harris Roman was a tailor (baster). As a young man, Isaac Roman emigrated at the age of 18 to the United States, and was recorded on the passenger list of the S/S St. Louis as a Hebrew (Jewish) tailor. The ship sailed from the Port of Liverpool, England, on July 24, 1915, and arrived at the Port of New York, August 1, 1915. He identified his next of kin as Mr. and Mrs. Roman, of 32 Oxford Street, Stepney, London. His destination was listed as a friend residing at 155 South Second Avenue, Brooklyn, New York. Roman attended City College of New York for higher education. He left college after marrying Frances Winwar; they had a child together before they divorced. He did not finish college then, but began work as a bookkeeper for the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union in the early 1920s. This experience with the working class helped to radicalize him. In 1928, he officially changed his name by court order from Roman Jerome Isaac to "Jerome Isaac Romain." Political career In 1924, Romain joined the Communist Party. In 1925, he married Rose Pastor Stokes, a writer and activist who was also of Polish Jewish ancestry and was seventeen years older than he. She had been married for 20 years to J.G. Phelps Stokes, a wealthy Episcopalian businessman in New York