She had been interested in Russia since the revolution of 1917 and had been in contact with many exiles, including former president Alexander Kerensky. In the 1930s, La Follette served on the Committee for the Defense of Leon Trotsky, also known as the "Dewey Commission" as secretary to its chairman, philosopher John Dewey. La Follette wrote the summary of the Committee's findings after holding an investigative meeting in Mexico where Trotsky was in exile (and later murdered by an agent of Joseph Stalin). Many of the committee's members, like La Follette, Carlo Tresca and Dewey, were not Trotskyists, but consisted of anti-Stalinist socialists, progressives and liberals.