What do you think?
Rate this book
Teamster Rebellion
Four books on the 1930s strikes and organizing drive that transformed the Teamsters union in Minnesota and much of the Midwest into a fighting industrial union movement. Written by a leader of the communist movement in the U.S. and organizer of the Teamsters union during the rise of the CIO. Indispensable tools for advancing revolutionary politics, organization, and trade union strategy.Tells the story of the 1934 strikes that built an industrial union and a fighting social movement in Minneapolis.
228 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
21 people are currently reading
661 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 13, 2023
Reads like an epic novel. I seriously cannot believe that I knew nothing about the Minneapolis General Strike like two weeks ago. Such an incredible story, and packed with so many lessons!
June 30, 2017
Labor history isn't something we're supposed to think too much about. The fact that the Teamsters in Minneapolis were able to shut down the entire city isn't really news that most people want getting around. But it's an inspiring story, one that we should take some lessons from in terms of organizing in the future. This was a strike by a union that understood it needed to reach out to the entire city, not just its own workers, and in doing so changed the way the city was run forever.
October 9, 2018
This book remains the only book, as far as I can tell, about the famed 1934 Teamster Strike in Minneapolis, led by Communist League of America Trotskyists. The rising was one of three mass labor uprisings led by radicals in 1934, the other being the Auto-lite strike in Toledo led by pacifist Workers Party Musteites and the Longshoremen in San Francisco led by Communist Party Stalinists, in which each case saw conservative labor leaders who had been ineffective in the face of hard antiunionism pushed aside by radicals to gain control of their unions. These radical labor upsurges predated the rise of the mass CIO unions and indeed, many of the organizers involved in these unions would go on to be quite effective as CIO organizers during its heyday.
Dobbs' account is as a strike leader and longtime Trotskyist for decades after. He notes at the beginning that the Trots gained leadership in the Teamsters because the Communists were largely committed to building "red unions" during the Third Period, which ignored the already organized unions capacity. The drivers strike was well disciplined and democratically run, with patrol cars, commissaries, strike newspapers, and more, in the fight for larger union recognition in a hard anti-union city, which upon victory also saw pay raises in the midst of the Depression. Later, conservative unionists like Hoffa studied the tactics of the radical Dobbs and adopted them. Dobbs writes of a near revolution moment in the fight for worker liberation, where militant tactics won the day when dealing with near total struggle for existence by the drivers of the Teamsters. As was typical of pre-NLRB union fights, the battles between police and workers were absolutely brutal and often resulted in deaths, because for workers it was literally a life and death struggle. While it is definitely not an impartial narrative since he lived through it and was a committed "red", Dobbs' account should be a go-to primary source in examining the labor struggles of the Great Depression.
This book remains the only book, as far as I can tell, about the famed 1934 Teamster Strike in Minneapolis, led by Communist League of America Trotskyists. The rising was one of three mass labor uprisings led by radicals in 1934, the other being the Auto-lite strike in Toledo led by pacifist Workers Party Musteites and the Longshoremen in San Francisco led by Communist Party Stalinists, in which each case saw conservative labor leaders who had been ineffective in the face of hard antiunionism pushed aside by radicals to gain control of their unions. These radical labor upsurges predated the rise of the mass CIO unions and indeed, many of the organizers involved in these unions would go on to be quite effective as CIO organizers during its heyday.
Dobbs' account is as a strike leader and longtime Trotskyist for decades after. He notes at the beginning that the Trots gained leadership in the Teamsters because the Communists were largely committed to building "red unions" during the Third Period, which ignored the already organized unions capacity. The drivers strike was well disciplined and democratically run, with patrol cars, commissaries, strike newspapers, and more, in the fight for larger union recognition in a hard anti-union city, which upon victory also saw pay raises in the midst of the Depression. Later, conservative unionists like Hoffa studied the tactics of the radical Dobbs and adopted them. Dobbs writes of a near revolution moment in the fight for worker liberation, where militant tactics won the day when dealing with near total struggle for existence by the drivers of the Teamsters. As was typical of pre-NLRB union fights, the battles between police and workers were absolutely brutal and often resulted in deaths, because for workers it was literally a life and death struggle. While it is definitely not an impartial narrative since he lived through it and was a committed "red", Dobbs' account should be a go-to primary source in examining the labor struggles of the Great Depression.
Dobbs' account is as a strike leader and longtime Trotskyist for decades after. He notes at the beginning that the Trots gained leadership in the Teamsters because the Communists were largely committed to building "red unions" during the Third Period, which ignored the already organized unions capacity. The drivers strike was well disciplined and democratically run, with patrol cars, commissaries, strike newspapers, and more, in the fight for larger union recognition in a hard anti-union city, which upon victory also saw pay raises in the midst of the Depression. Later, conservative unionists like Hoffa studied the tactics of the radical Dobbs and adopted them. Dobbs writes of a near revolution moment in the fight for worker liberation, where militant tactics won the day when dealing with near total struggle for existence by the drivers of the Teamsters. As was typical of pre-NLRB union fights, the battles between police and workers were absolutely brutal and often resulted in deaths, because for workers it was literally a life and death struggle. While it is definitely not an impartial narrative since he lived through it and was a committed "red", Dobbs' account should be a go-to primary source in examining the labor struggles of the Great Depression.
This book remains the only book, as far as I can tell, about the famed 1934 Teamster Strike in Minneapolis, led by Communist League of America Trotskyists. The rising was one of three mass labor uprisings led by radicals in 1934, the other being the Auto-lite strike in Toledo led by pacifist Workers Party Musteites and the Longshoremen in San Francisco led by Communist Party Stalinists, in which each case saw conservative labor leaders who had been ineffective in the face of hard antiunionism pushed aside by radicals to gain control of their unions. These radical labor upsurges predated the rise of the mass CIO unions and indeed, many of the organizers involved in these unions would go on to be quite effective as CIO organizers during its heyday.
Dobbs' account is as a strike leader and longtime Trotskyist for decades after. He notes at the beginning that the Trots gained leadership in the Teamsters because the Communists were largely committed to building "red unions" during the Third Period, which ignored the already organized unions capacity. The drivers strike was well disciplined and democratically run, with patrol cars, commissaries, strike newspapers, and more, in the fight for larger union recognition in a hard anti-union city, which upon victory also saw pay raises in the midst of the Depression. Later, conservative unionists like Hoffa studied the tactics of the radical Dobbs and adopted them. Dobbs writes of a near revolution moment in the fight for worker liberation, where militant tactics won the day when dealing with near total struggle for existence by the drivers of the Teamsters. As was typical of pre-NLRB union fights, the battles between police and workers were absolutely brutal and often resulted in deaths, because for workers it was literally a life and death struggle. While it is definitely not an impartial narrative since he lived through it and was a committed "red", Dobbs' account should be a go-to primary source in examining the labor struggles of the Great Depression.
February 2, 2018
This is above all an inspiring example of what is possible through the right combination of socialist politics, socialist organisation and intervention into the working class, the unemployed and the students, and concrete openings and opportunities in society to organise workers into their unions.
Farrell Dobbs as an author is clear and concise, but also deep and detailed, to give you a full account of the situation without getting bogged down. He consistently deals with a number of themes throughout the book, following the development of the Teamsters' strikes of 1934, balancing between the Communist League of America, organising workers and taking a lead from the organised rank and file, dealing with the employers and the government, and finally dealing with the unfriendly American Federation of Labor officialdom, both within and without Teamsters Local 574.
What the union achieved in a vehemently anti-union town, under tight control of the bosses' association, the so-called 'Citizens Alliance', should give hope to socialists and trade union activists today that another world — at least a better standard of living and conditions of work under capitalism — is possible. I highly recommend this book to Marxists and trade union activists who want to learn from past struggles of organising the unorganised, from the power of industry-wide unionisation of even unskilled labour, which can grind the profits of the rich to a halt very quickly and ably.
Farrell Dobbs as an author is clear and concise, but also deep and detailed, to give you a full account of the situation without getting bogged down. He consistently deals with a number of themes throughout the book, following the development of the Teamsters' strikes of 1934, balancing between the Communist League of America, organising workers and taking a lead from the organised rank and file, dealing with the employers and the government, and finally dealing with the unfriendly American Federation of Labor officialdom, both within and without Teamsters Local 574.
What the union achieved in a vehemently anti-union town, under tight control of the bosses' association, the so-called 'Citizens Alliance', should give hope to socialists and trade union activists today that another world — at least a better standard of living and conditions of work under capitalism — is possible. I highly recommend this book to Marxists and trade union activists who want to learn from past struggles of organising the unorganised, from the power of industry-wide unionisation of even unskilled labour, which can grind the profits of the rich to a halt very quickly and ably.
May 16, 2022
a classic of the genre
December 4, 2008
This book describes in some detail the struggle of coal truck drivers to organize their teamsters union local in 1933-1935. They begin with a small strike and end up shutting down the whole city, just to win the right to represent and organize all the workers! They also win pay raises, some workplace improvements and other things. This strike was one of the three main labor actions which paved the way for the massive unionization wave of the 1930s.
Read
June 15, 2021Just as exciting as it was when I read it 50 years ago. All the more fun because I'm reading it with a friend. All the books we will be reading together constitute the collective consciousness of the American and international working class. We are so happy to be doing this. Next up is V.I. Lenin: What Is To Be Done? How to build a revolutionary party that can take us from massive street actions and strikes to workers taking state power.
November 24, 2012
“… observaciones de un participante sobre las luchas del Local 574 de los Teamsters y como el local se convirtió en una vigorosa fuerza social en la ciudad. … Recomendado para colecciones para adultos en bibliotecas públicas y académicas” —REFORMA, agosto 2012
June 13, 2019
Summary: strategy and tactics matter.
February 25, 2012
This book is badass. I mean that in the way that people used to be so much more badass than they are now. People now are such wimps. But back in the day, man, they were badass; right?
So okay, take this to heart: back in the day, when America's work was still mostly grunt, blue-collar work; when there wasn't a social welfare net; when immigrants were still pouring over from europe and things were hard, winter was cold and it wasn't illegal for CPS not to turn on the gas...You have to think of another time, when people were harder, colder, (i think shorter) & a little more badass.
Stage set? Good.
Now add in this storyline. Here we have the lineup of teamsters getting paid shit-fifty an hour to do grueling back-breaking work and their pennies actually lead up only to a starvation diet with debt for dessert. On top of that, The NRA (National Industrial Recovery Act): Changed the gold content of the dollar to sixty-cents (a move to battle inflation~raise prices); the enactment of "fair competition" or employers who would voluntarily set minimum wage rates and maximum hours; as well as anti-trust laws suspended, which means NRA labor codes for each industry were thereby decided by the employers alone...
You have the makings of a shitstorm for disgruntled employees:
If the workers are more or less holding their own in daily life and expecting that they can get ahead slowly, they won't tend to radicalize. Things are different when they are losing ground and the future looks precarious to them. Then a change begins to occur in their attitude, which is not always immediately apparent. The tinder of discontent begins to pile up. Any spark can light it, and once lit, the fire can spread rapidly.
This is a history of the organization of the Teamsters by Dobbs and a few others, to rally, strike, picket and martyr for the sake of stake in an industry which they had invested their blood, sweat, tears, time, energy and livelihood.
What's striking about it is how crazy it all was. The cops coming at them with beefed-up, state-of-the-art rifles when they were intentionally unarmed for the sake of disarming the cops (Didn't work. Cops fired on and killed defenseless people); or the organization of these teamsters: setting up an entire headquarters for the picket, forming an alliance with the Farmer's Holiday Association, all the people who were involved, all of their resolve!:
The aim would be to draw in wives, girl friends, sisters, and mothers of union members. Instead of having their morale corroded by financial difficulties they would face during the strike, he pointed out, they should be drawn into the thick of battle where they could learn unionism through firsthand participation
It's just fucking amazing how coordinated, how pointed these workers were. This kind of strike, i mean, not rooted in nonviolent resistance, but rooted, rather, in a badass need for change (not advocating that it's better, just different):
Contrary to the bosses' hopes and expectations, the strikers were not paralyzed with fear at the prospect of facing an army of cops and deputies. Instead they began to show the positive side of the workers' illusions about capitalist democracy.
The negative side of their beliefs lies in the assumption that they have inviolable democratic rights under capitalist rule. It is a mistake assumption that can remain intact, in the long run, only until they try to exercise such rights in the class struggle. When that happens the workers learn that they have been the victims of an illusion. Yet they still feel entitled to the rights involved and they will fight all the harder to make them a reality. A negative misconception then becomes transformed into a positive aspiration, as was about to happen in Minneapolis
And also, the failings of the International. Union wasn't unknown, in fact it was a household term. But even then, the International was marred by corruption. Tobin, the International president for the duration of this strike, is derided by Dobbs. They have to strategize around his management-supporting bias:
In Minneapolis, the AFL was the dominant labor organization and Local 574 was affiliated with it. Any attempt to bypass the AFL and set up an independent union would have been self-defeating. The AFL officialdom would automatically oppose such a step by taking counter measures to draw workers into the existing union structure. Confusion and division would result from which only the bosses could benefit.
By putting a reverse twist on the "general" jurisdiction, it would be possible to derive some advantage from the nature of Local 574's charter. A successful organizing drive could flood the local with new members from all parts of the industry. Before Tobin could get around to cutting them up into subcrafts, a situation could develop that was beyond his power to control. Such potential was inherent in the trucking industry because it was strategic to the whole ecomonic complex in a commerical city like Minneapolis. This factor made the truck drivers the most powerful body of workers in the town. Their power was further enhanced by the fact that it was difficult to use strikebreakers, since the trucks had to operate on the streets.
...
The key to such a tactic lay in a contradiction faced by the union bureaucrats. In their fundamental outlook they were oriented toward collaboration with the capitalists, but they were of no value to the ruling class unless they had a base from which to operate in the unions. To maintain such a base they had to deliver something for the workers. In the campaign about to begin, however, they would be put up against leadership responsiblities that they couldn't meet. Thus the indicated tactic was to aim the workers' fire straight at the employers and catch the union bureaucrats in the middle. If they didn't react positively, they would stand discredited.
If nothing else, this book stands to a testament that less than a hundred years ago; men brawled on the streets with purpose. You may see drunks do it today, or men shouting at each other--but who brawls?
What a stereotypically masculine history, right? If Fight Club wasn't so nihilistic, if it was straining towards some constitutional ethos--maybe it would look like this. You have the male thumb and it pressing hard, gritty, mad into this city: Minneapolis. And the result is just mesmerizing. Fuck MMA and the Superbowl. Read some history, dog:
Shortly after the Newspaper Alley victims had been brought in, two city police barged into the strike headquarters claiming that the pickets had kidnapped a scab driver. If he wasn't handed over, they threatened, the strike leaders would be arrested and, clubs at the ready, they started for the picket dispatcher's office. All the pentup wrath against police brutality was vented on them. Within mintues they lay unconscious in front of the headquarters where they stayed until an ambulance came for them in response to a call put in by the union. So many pickets had gone for the two police that they got in one another's way. Sherman Oakes, a coal and ice driver, swung a club at one cop and accidentally hit another striker, Bill Abar, breaking his arm. Sherman burst into tears. We couldn't figure out whether it was because he hit Bill or because he missed the cop.
So okay, take this to heart: back in the day, when America's work was still mostly grunt, blue-collar work; when there wasn't a social welfare net; when immigrants were still pouring over from europe and things were hard, winter was cold and it wasn't illegal for CPS not to turn on the gas...You have to think of another time, when people were harder, colder, (i think shorter) & a little more badass.
Stage set? Good.
Now add in this storyline. Here we have the lineup of teamsters getting paid shit-fifty an hour to do grueling back-breaking work and their pennies actually lead up only to a starvation diet with debt for dessert. On top of that, The NRA (National Industrial Recovery Act): Changed the gold content of the dollar to sixty-cents (a move to battle inflation~raise prices); the enactment of "fair competition" or employers who would voluntarily set minimum wage rates and maximum hours; as well as anti-trust laws suspended, which means NRA labor codes for each industry were thereby decided by the employers alone...
You have the makings of a shitstorm for disgruntled employees:
If the workers are more or less holding their own in daily life and expecting that they can get ahead slowly, they won't tend to radicalize. Things are different when they are losing ground and the future looks precarious to them. Then a change begins to occur in their attitude, which is not always immediately apparent. The tinder of discontent begins to pile up. Any spark can light it, and once lit, the fire can spread rapidly.
This is a history of the organization of the Teamsters by Dobbs and a few others, to rally, strike, picket and martyr for the sake of stake in an industry which they had invested their blood, sweat, tears, time, energy and livelihood.
What's striking about it is how crazy it all was. The cops coming at them with beefed-up, state-of-the-art rifles when they were intentionally unarmed for the sake of disarming the cops (Didn't work. Cops fired on and killed defenseless people); or the organization of these teamsters: setting up an entire headquarters for the picket, forming an alliance with the Farmer's Holiday Association, all the people who were involved, all of their resolve!:
The aim would be to draw in wives, girl friends, sisters, and mothers of union members. Instead of having their morale corroded by financial difficulties they would face during the strike, he pointed out, they should be drawn into the thick of battle where they could learn unionism through firsthand participation
It's just fucking amazing how coordinated, how pointed these workers were. This kind of strike, i mean, not rooted in nonviolent resistance, but rooted, rather, in a badass need for change (not advocating that it's better, just different):
Contrary to the bosses' hopes and expectations, the strikers were not paralyzed with fear at the prospect of facing an army of cops and deputies. Instead they began to show the positive side of the workers' illusions about capitalist democracy.
The negative side of their beliefs lies in the assumption that they have inviolable democratic rights under capitalist rule. It is a mistake assumption that can remain intact, in the long run, only until they try to exercise such rights in the class struggle. When that happens the workers learn that they have been the victims of an illusion. Yet they still feel entitled to the rights involved and they will fight all the harder to make them a reality. A negative misconception then becomes transformed into a positive aspiration, as was about to happen in Minneapolis
And also, the failings of the International. Union wasn't unknown, in fact it was a household term. But even then, the International was marred by corruption. Tobin, the International president for the duration of this strike, is derided by Dobbs. They have to strategize around his management-supporting bias:
In Minneapolis, the AFL was the dominant labor organization and Local 574 was affiliated with it. Any attempt to bypass the AFL and set up an independent union would have been self-defeating. The AFL officialdom would automatically oppose such a step by taking counter measures to draw workers into the existing union structure. Confusion and division would result from which only the bosses could benefit.
By putting a reverse twist on the "general" jurisdiction, it would be possible to derive some advantage from the nature of Local 574's charter. A successful organizing drive could flood the local with new members from all parts of the industry. Before Tobin could get around to cutting them up into subcrafts, a situation could develop that was beyond his power to control. Such potential was inherent in the trucking industry because it was strategic to the whole ecomonic complex in a commerical city like Minneapolis. This factor made the truck drivers the most powerful body of workers in the town. Their power was further enhanced by the fact that it was difficult to use strikebreakers, since the trucks had to operate on the streets.
...
The key to such a tactic lay in a contradiction faced by the union bureaucrats. In their fundamental outlook they were oriented toward collaboration with the capitalists, but they were of no value to the ruling class unless they had a base from which to operate in the unions. To maintain such a base they had to deliver something for the workers. In the campaign about to begin, however, they would be put up against leadership responsiblities that they couldn't meet. Thus the indicated tactic was to aim the workers' fire straight at the employers and catch the union bureaucrats in the middle. If they didn't react positively, they would stand discredited.
If nothing else, this book stands to a testament that less than a hundred years ago; men brawled on the streets with purpose. You may see drunks do it today, or men shouting at each other--but who brawls?
What a stereotypically masculine history, right? If Fight Club wasn't so nihilistic, if it was straining towards some constitutional ethos--maybe it would look like this. You have the male thumb and it pressing hard, gritty, mad into this city: Minneapolis. And the result is just mesmerizing. Fuck MMA and the Superbowl. Read some history, dog:
Shortly after the Newspaper Alley victims had been brought in, two city police barged into the strike headquarters claiming that the pickets had kidnapped a scab driver. If he wasn't handed over, they threatened, the strike leaders would be arrested and, clubs at the ready, they started for the picket dispatcher's office. All the pentup wrath against police brutality was vented on them. Within mintues they lay unconscious in front of the headquarters where they stayed until an ambulance came for them in response to a call put in by the union. So many pickets had gone for the two police that they got in one another's way. Sherman Oakes, a coal and ice driver, swung a club at one cop and accidentally hit another striker, Bill Abar, breaking his arm. Sherman burst into tears. We couldn't figure out whether it was because he hit Bill or because he missed the cop.
March 1, 2021
An account of the 1934 Minneapolis Teamster's strike by one of its leaders, Farrell Dobbs. Dobbs downplays his personal experience of the strike, preferring instead to tell a collective story. As a rising star in the nascent American Trotskyist movement, he blurs his political perspective with that of the rank and file union membership, essentially portraying these groups as one and and the same. This approach isn't unreasonable. Based on Dobbs' telling, the strike leadership, dominated by the Trots, was very much in tune with the rank and file, and they submitted all the key questions to democratic deliberation. Still, it would be interesting to see the perspective of an "average" participant in the strike; give that Dobbs went on to found the Socialist Workers Party, he's not your typical worker.
Dobbs frequently denounces the emerging New Deal labor mediation structures as ploys to diffuse working class militancy on behalf of the capitalist class. It's hard to disagree with that analysis in the long run.
Overall, an incredible story. In the period of February to August 1934, a group of disciplined organizers took Local 574 from a shambolic union of less than 100 members to the vanguard of a city wide class war. If there'd been coordination with the other major strikes happening that year -- one in San Francisco, led by Stalinists, and another in Toledo, led by the American Workers Party - one could imagine the development of a revolutionary situation in the United States that year. Alas, leftist sectarianism made this impossible.
The organizing chops of the Trots didn't go unnoticed by the FDR and the Feds. Dobbs, along with other strike leaders, was jailed under the Smith Act in 1940, and the national union bureaucracy took over the local from New York to ferret out the radicals. Worker demands for a better material standard of living were largely met by the New Deal order which emerged from the struggles of the 1930s (with many, many caveats). The worker's radicalism was tampered. Then came suburbanization, Reagan, deindustrialization, and all the rest; the chance for a traditional proletarian revolution, the kind imagined by the Trots, passed.
Dobbs frequently denounces the emerging New Deal labor mediation structures as ploys to diffuse working class militancy on behalf of the capitalist class. It's hard to disagree with that analysis in the long run.
Overall, an incredible story. In the period of February to August 1934, a group of disciplined organizers took Local 574 from a shambolic union of less than 100 members to the vanguard of a city wide class war. If there'd been coordination with the other major strikes happening that year -- one in San Francisco, led by Stalinists, and another in Toledo, led by the American Workers Party - one could imagine the development of a revolutionary situation in the United States that year. Alas, leftist sectarianism made this impossible.
The organizing chops of the Trots didn't go unnoticed by the FDR and the Feds. Dobbs, along with other strike leaders, was jailed under the Smith Act in 1940, and the national union bureaucracy took over the local from New York to ferret out the radicals. Worker demands for a better material standard of living were largely met by the New Deal order which emerged from the struggles of the 1930s (with many, many caveats). The worker's radicalism was tampered. Then came suburbanization, Reagan, deindustrialization, and all the rest; the chance for a traditional proletarian revolution, the kind imagined by the Trots, passed.
April 13, 2025
A decent number of diatribes about 'Stalinists' but apart from that an excellent and useful story about the teamsters in Minneapolis and how some talented organizers transformed the local into a democratic fighting union. Definitely some lessons anyone can apply in the labor movement (and probably elsewhere in organizing). They created dual power within the union and then to some degree dual power in Minneapolis during the strike. As communists we must remember that the power we want to build flows out of the masses- winning their trust and being able to lead by proving our worth and correctness.
March 3, 2023
I love the historical content of this book! I learned a lot and was inspired by bold working-class people in Minneapolis to do a mobile strike where the picket line was anywhere a truck was moving. Truly incredible. Maybe I am spoiled by modern social history writers who bring things to life in a really entertaining way, but it felt slightly dry in some parts. I wish events were sign-posted, introduced, and wrapped up more definitively.
This helped broaden my horizons and I like using the word "wiseacre" now.
This helped broaden my horizons and I like using the word "wiseacre" now.
June 8, 2017
The definitive account of one of the landmark strikes of the 20th century.
August 15, 2020
Fantastic book
October 25, 2023
Very rare something I read for political education ends up being such a joy to read. An amazing story, told brilliantly.
April 13, 2024
So hard to imagine people once fought like this here, or that they still could. There's no way but the hard way.
June 17, 2024
A grandstand show off between labour and capital, unions when yielded correctly transformed a city run by bosses for scabs into a union stronghold for workers.
July 5, 2019
The Minneapolis general strike of 1934 has gone down into radical lore, especially among Trotskyites whose ideological forebears provided much of the leadership for it. Farrell Dobbs was one of them, a true product of the radicalization wave of the 1930s, who went from a Hoover voter to a Communist League (not to be confused with the Stalinist Communist Party!) member within a couple of years of coping with the Depression and the bosses of Minneapolis. He was a key organizer of the Minneapolis strikes, which began with the Teamsters but spread widely among employed and unemployed workers in the city.
What this reminds me of are classic command memoirs like Ulysses Grant’s and Tom Barry’s, though I did notice Dobbs uses passive voice much more often than either. At first, I wondered if this was a matter of how often the three authors were talking about collectives versus individuals- Grant seemingly never uses passive voice when referring to the actions of individual generals, but will use it for armies. But no, Dobbs uses it for individuals including himself. I figure he probably learned to write in large part by writing reports to a party that used a lot of passive voice.
Anyway, enough about the writing, which is straightforward throughout with only occasional lapses into (relatively simple) jargon. The story is incredible. Minneapolis was an open shop town, in Dobbs’ telling, with most of the few union leaders in the pockets of a well-organized capitalist class. Work in the trucking industry was hard, unremunerative, and divided into numerous squabbling trade-based cliques — ice drivers vs coal drivers vs loaders etc — each jealously guarding their own scraps of privilege. Dobbs illustrates piece by piece how the drivers were transformed into an engine of class struggle.
More than anything, Dobbs and the other radicals — some party cadre, some not — worked by expanding the site of struggle. Where the American Federation of Labor bosses encouraged a defensive crouch for each subsection of workers, the radicals in the Teamsters worked to reach out, first across the boundaries within the trade, and then to other trades, and to people outside of conventional employment: women, the great masses of unemployed created by the Depression, etc. Not unlike Grant, the teamster radicals were masters of the strategic offensive melded with the tactical defensive. They could move to organize a given sector and let the bosses break their heads reacting to each, which strengthened the connections between Local 574 (the Teamster locus) and its allies.
It’s also worth noting that these were desperate times when the state was much weaker than it is today. Imagine roving pickets of men stopping trucking in a major city today without armed police stopping them at once! That’s eventually what the city fathers did, leading to the Minneapolis police firing on a peaceful, unarmed crowd (Dobbs and the others were capable of cold calculating- they specifically left their clubs at home when the cops came with guns), wounding dozens and killing two. It wasn’t enough. It also helped that Minnesota’s governor, Floyd Olson, was a Farmer-Labor party guy, by no means a radical (Dobbs doesn’t trust him at all) but unable politically to call out the National Guard until the Teamsters had organized nearly the whole city. This was also before WWII, when FDR started seriously repressing threatening industrial strikes much harder. In the end, bosses came to the table and recognized 574.
This is a short, action-packed book- adjusting the plan on the fly, getting the whole community involved (one way in which Hollywood actually deploys a collective orientation instead of an individualist one is the way they use this trope), attempted Stalinist cooptation/sabotage, pitched hand to hand battles, the rough humor of people used to hard knocks… more than anything, the excitement a people marshaling itself for struggle. Dobbs credits his organization and its ideas but seldom in a way that obscures the role of the people themselves in the victory. All in all, a very impressive book, and I look forward to reading the sequels even if I know the story of the Teamsters isn’t always a happy one. *****
What this reminds me of are classic command memoirs like Ulysses Grant’s and Tom Barry’s, though I did notice Dobbs uses passive voice much more often than either. At first, I wondered if this was a matter of how often the three authors were talking about collectives versus individuals- Grant seemingly never uses passive voice when referring to the actions of individual generals, but will use it for armies. But no, Dobbs uses it for individuals including himself. I figure he probably learned to write in large part by writing reports to a party that used a lot of passive voice.
Anyway, enough about the writing, which is straightforward throughout with only occasional lapses into (relatively simple) jargon. The story is incredible. Minneapolis was an open shop town, in Dobbs’ telling, with most of the few union leaders in the pockets of a well-organized capitalist class. Work in the trucking industry was hard, unremunerative, and divided into numerous squabbling trade-based cliques — ice drivers vs coal drivers vs loaders etc — each jealously guarding their own scraps of privilege. Dobbs illustrates piece by piece how the drivers were transformed into an engine of class struggle.
More than anything, Dobbs and the other radicals — some party cadre, some not — worked by expanding the site of struggle. Where the American Federation of Labor bosses encouraged a defensive crouch for each subsection of workers, the radicals in the Teamsters worked to reach out, first across the boundaries within the trade, and then to other trades, and to people outside of conventional employment: women, the great masses of unemployed created by the Depression, etc. Not unlike Grant, the teamster radicals were masters of the strategic offensive melded with the tactical defensive. They could move to organize a given sector and let the bosses break their heads reacting to each, which strengthened the connections between Local 574 (the Teamster locus) and its allies.
It’s also worth noting that these were desperate times when the state was much weaker than it is today. Imagine roving pickets of men stopping trucking in a major city today without armed police stopping them at once! That’s eventually what the city fathers did, leading to the Minneapolis police firing on a peaceful, unarmed crowd (Dobbs and the others were capable of cold calculating- they specifically left their clubs at home when the cops came with guns), wounding dozens and killing two. It wasn’t enough. It also helped that Minnesota’s governor, Floyd Olson, was a Farmer-Labor party guy, by no means a radical (Dobbs doesn’t trust him at all) but unable politically to call out the National Guard until the Teamsters had organized nearly the whole city. This was also before WWII, when FDR started seriously repressing threatening industrial strikes much harder. In the end, bosses came to the table and recognized 574.
This is a short, action-packed book- adjusting the plan on the fly, getting the whole community involved (one way in which Hollywood actually deploys a collective orientation instead of an individualist one is the way they use this trope), attempted Stalinist cooptation/sabotage, pitched hand to hand battles, the rough humor of people used to hard knocks… more than anything, the excitement a people marshaling itself for struggle. Dobbs credits his organization and its ideas but seldom in a way that obscures the role of the people themselves in the victory. All in all, a very impressive book, and I look forward to reading the sequels even if I know the story of the Teamsters isn’t always a happy one. *****
November 5, 2025
This is one of the best books on the labor movement you will ever read, and it's written by someone who was an active participant. It's an exciting book on its own, but it's also the first volume of a series of four books. The next two, Teamster Power, and Teamster Politics (Teamster Series) by Farrell Dobbs take up all kinds of questions of strategy and tactics that came up as Dobbs was assigned an organizing position in the Teamsters Union over an eleven-state Midwest area, as well as still being involved in the Twin Cities.
The fourth volume, Teamster Bureaucracy tells the story of how the Minneapolis and leading New York Trotskyists, as well as other members of the Minneapolis Teamsters were indicted just on the eve of the US, under Roosevelt, entering the Second World inter-imperialist slaughter. Roosevelt, who the Democratic [Party] Socialists of America call a fellow-democratic socialist, was personally involved, and the Communist Party, who would later be jailed under the same Smith Act, gave thumbs up.
The Socialist Workers Party defended the Soviet Union and all the colonial and semi-colonial countries against imperialism. But they did not support US, British, or any other imperialist country. Imperialism was, as Lenin explained, not a policy, but a stage of capitalist development (Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism). If you follow the war in 'Socialist Appeal' and then in the 'Militant,' which you can do online, you will see week-by-week, and in some years more often, how things actually unfolded.
Eighteen leaders of the SWP, including Dobbs and Cannon, were convicted and spent a year-and-a-half in prison. Read Cannon's testimony in the trial, Socialism on Trial: Testimony at Minneapolis Sedition Trial as well as The Socialist Workers Party in World War II: Writings and Speeches, 1940-43. a collection of Cannon's writings and speeches.
Dobbs later became National Secretary of the SWP as Cannon went into semi-retirement.
The fourth volume, Teamster Bureaucracy tells the story of how the Minneapolis and leading New York Trotskyists, as well as other members of the Minneapolis Teamsters were indicted just on the eve of the US, under Roosevelt, entering the Second World inter-imperialist slaughter. Roosevelt, who the Democratic [Party] Socialists of America call a fellow-democratic socialist, was personally involved, and the Communist Party, who would later be jailed under the same Smith Act, gave thumbs up.
The Socialist Workers Party defended the Soviet Union and all the colonial and semi-colonial countries against imperialism. But they did not support US, British, or any other imperialist country. Imperialism was, as Lenin explained, not a policy, but a stage of capitalist development (Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism). If you follow the war in 'Socialist Appeal' and then in the 'Militant,' which you can do online, you will see week-by-week, and in some years more often, how things actually unfolded.
Eighteen leaders of the SWP, including Dobbs and Cannon, were convicted and spent a year-and-a-half in prison. Read Cannon's testimony in the trial, Socialism on Trial: Testimony at Minneapolis Sedition Trial as well as The Socialist Workers Party in World War II: Writings and Speeches, 1940-43. a collection of Cannon's writings and speeches.
Dobbs later became National Secretary of the SWP as Cannon went into semi-retirement.
January 10, 2010
While it's an interesting story which probably gets passed over in most history books, I don't think Dobbs is a very good writer and the book moves at such a predictable pace. Some little poetic interludes-really a vivid description of ANY sort, the one time he talks about "bayonets glistening in the sun" sticks out like a sore, cliched thumb in a book lacking detail-or more political diatribes would've helped make this more engaging. It's also questionable how much of this can be applied to today's class struggles; I hardly think militia and citizen deputies are used to combat strikes nowadays, the war is fought almost exclusively with information and I'd rather read some Marxist theory or a more modern book of tactics than something historical, interesting, but ultimately weak.
February 1, 2025
I first read this about 8 years ago. Its a classic that discusses the process of a general strike, and the lessons to be learned from it. I'm currently rereading this alongside "Changemakers," by Jane Holgate and John Page.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews