T뿔Al\톨S�’톨3뿔1. REBELL톰{톨N F A톰톰E l l 0톰흩$ New York london Montreal Sydney Copyright @ 1972， 2004 by Pathfinder Press All rights reserved ISBN 978-0-87348-973-7 Library of Congress Control Number 2004101521 Manufactured in the United States of America First edition， 1972 Second edition， 2004 Eighth printing， 2011 COVER DESIGN: Eva Braiman Pathfinder www.pathfìnderpress.com E-mail: pathfìnder@pathfìnderpress.com To the men and womeη who gαve me uη5hakαble coη껴dence in the working clα55， the rank and fileof Generαl Driver5 Local 574 ILLUSTRATIONS Fαrrell Dobbs 9 April15， 1934， meetíng leaflet 90 Local574 appealsfor workers solídaríty 111 Letterfrom Northwest Fruít 169 Juυ 23， 1934， Organizer 180 August 1， 1934， Minneapolis Tribune 206 Joke mαsthead， August 25， 1934， Organizer 218 Cartoons from The Organizer 219 August 22， 1934， Organizer 248 CONTENTS 8 About the author n Introduction to the Spanish edition， by Jack Bαrnes πμ Acknowledgments 1. The making of a revolutionary 27 2. Seeds of revolt 40 3. Plan of battle 52 4. The opening wedge 66 5. General mobilization 80 6. Organizing the strike 98 7. Warfare begins 106 8. Trickery in the negotiations 124 9. The strike resumes 143 10. Bloody Friday 165 11. Military strikebreaking 188 12. War of attrition 210 13. Local 574 wins 230 Appendix 249 Index 251 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Farrell Dobbs (1907-1983) joined the Communist League of America (predecessor of the Socialist Workers Party) in 1934 whi1e working in a Minneapolis coal yard. A rank­ and-file leader of the 1934 Teamsters strikes and organiz­ ing drive， he was subsequently elected secretary-treasurer of Local 574 (later 544). 1n the late 1930s he was a central leader of the eleven-state over-the-road campaign that organized tens of thousands of workers in the trucking industry. 1n 1939 he was appointed general organizer for the Teamsters international; he resigned the post in 1940 to become SWP nationallabor secretary. 1n 1941 Dobbs was indicted and convicted with sev­ enteen other leaders of Local 544 and of the SWP under the thought-control Smith Act fo r their opposition to the imperialist aims of the U.S. government in World War 11. He spent twelve months in federal prison in 1944-45. Dobbs served as editor of the Militant from 1943 to 1948. He was SWP national chairman from 1949 to 1953， and national secretary from 1953 to 1972. He was the party닝 candidate fo r president in 1948， 1952， 1956， and 1960， using these campaigns to actively oppose the Korean and Viet­ nam Wars， the anticommunist witch-hunt， and to support the civi1 rights movement and the Cuban Revolution. 1n addition to his four-volume series on the Teamster battles of the 1930s (Teαmster Rebellioη， Teαmster Power， Te amster Politics， Te amster Bureaucracy)， he is author of 8 About the author 9 the two-volume Revolutionαry Contiηuiη: Marxist Lead­ ership in the U.S. Other works include The Structure and Organizαtioηα1 Priηcψles of the Party， Couηter-Mobiliza­ tion: A Strategy to Fight Rαcist αηd Fascist Att，αcks， and Selected Articles 0η the Labor Movement. Farrell Dobbs speaking at New York banquet attended by 450 in June 1972 t。 celebrate the publication of Teomster Rebellion. Jack Barnes is national secretary of the Socialist Workers Party. From 1965 on， he worked closely with Farrell Dobbs organizing the party’s mass campaigns and international work. As organization secretary， and from 1972 as national secre­ tary， ßarnes collaborated with Dobbs in leading the SWP t。 respond to renewed political openings to build communist parties in the U.S. and worldwide， parties whose members are part of a broader vanguard of workers fìghting to trans­ form the unions into revolutionary instruments of struggle along a road such as that recounted by Dobbs in Teomster Rebellíon and its successor volumes. ßarnes also worked with Dobbs in editing Revo/utíonory Contínuíty: Morxíst Leodershíþ ín the Uníted Stotes. ßarnes is the author of numerous books， pamphlets， and articles including The Chongíng Foce of U.S. Po/ítícs: Workíng­ Closs Po/ítícs ond the Trode Uníons， Coþíto/ísm’'s Wor/d Dísorder; Cubo ond the Comíng Amerícon Revo/utíon， Theír Trotsky ond Ours， and The Workíng Closs ond the Tronsformotíon of Leorníng. He is a contributing editor to New /nternotíono/， a magazine of Marxist politics and theory. INTRODUCTBON TO τHE SPANDS뼈 EDITION by Jock Bornes It was graveyard shift on the picket line near the entrance to the Co-Op coal mine outside Huntington， Utah. In mid­ October， nights are already cold in the mountains. The icy blasts of wind through Bear Canyon cut to the bone. τhe locked-out workers had tied down their picket shack， made of plywood and blue tarp， to keep it from taking flight. Inside seven or eight miners-most in their twen­ ties， plus a couple of old-timers， including a woman and a veteran in his fìfties， almostall from the state of Sinaloa in Mexico-huddled around the wood stove， donated by a retired union miner from nearby East Carbon. A month earlier the company had fìred seventy-four miners for protesting the suspension of a fellow worker and union supporter who had refused to sign a disciplin­ ary warning. Acting to crush the miners' effort to orga­ nize to win recognition of the United Mine Workers of America， management then locked them out. One of the miners in the picket shack was a Nicaraguan immigrant who worked in the Deserado mine in west­ ern Colorado， several hours away. He had gotten union time offto come over and help out. Before leaving home， he had stuck in his pocket a well-worn copy of Te amster Rebellioη， the story of a bloody， hard-fought union orga­ nizing battle that took place almost seventy years ago in Minnesota， carried out by workers many of whom were Scandinavian in origin-Swedish， Norwegian， Finnish， or 11 12 JACK BARNES Danish-with a substantial mixture of Irish. 1he author， Farrell Dobbs， whose fo rebears came from Ireland， had become the youngest leader of that strike. Like so many others facing Depression conditions in the early 1930s， Farrell had been struggling to fìndste ady work， feed his 옮mily， and pay the rent. 1he Nicaraguanminer ， Francisco， began reading a few of the opening pages aloud， sight translating into Span­ ish as he went. τhe paragraphs described the working and living conditions and wages in the Midwest at the depth of the Depression. Amid expressions of surprise and sympathy， the strikers asked fo r more of the story， and soon were listening to other passages， page after page. 1he account was interrupted only to check the occasional late-night car going by， or to replenish fìrewood and sur­ vey the area outside. Above all， the men and women from Sinaloa， trying to make their lives in the mountains of Utah， identifìedwith the individual struggles of the men and women of Te amsfer Rebellioη. Dobbs’'s description in the book’s early pages of how his family lost their entire winter’s stock of canned vegetables and fruits one night when the weather suddenly dropped below freezing and they didn’t make it home in time to move the jars indoors eli디ted expressions of sympa­ thy and understanding of what that blow must have meant fo r Farrell， his wife Marvel， and their children. The photos of strikers battling the COpS and bosses' deputies， of the large， disciplined funeral cortege fo r one of the pickets gunned down in cold blood by the CopS， of strike leaders being hauled away to jail by the National Guard-all were looked at with interest. When the min­ ers learned that inside the Teamster strike headquarters they were seeing in the photos there was a round-the-clock commissary for meals and a hospital to treat the wounded， Introductioη 13 interest grew. And after discovering from Dobbs’s narra­ tive how the drivers organized in the Minneapo1is market square to beat back the cop and employer assaults-with courage， discipline， and above all a detailed battle plan­ and went on to win the strike fo r union recognition， the pictures were studied with even more attention. Few proletarian scenes underscore better the value of the publication of Rebelióη Te amsteη the first Spanish translation of Teamster Rebellioη， some thirty-two years afterit firstappeared in English. It is possible that among the striking Minneapolis Team­ sters who laid the fo undations for the transformation of the labor movement throughout the entire Midwest in the 1930s there was not a single worker who had been born in Mexico. (What a change a few decades have wrought!) But across the span of years， nationa1ities， languages， and lifetime experiences， the story told in 표αmster Rebellioη also belongs to the growing ranks of Spanish -speaking workers in the United States today as they enter into strug­ gle. They can see themselves in those ear1ier generations of workers-many of them likewise first- or second-genera­ tion immigrants-who finally said “enough，" and began to take their own future in hand. r:::능’ Teamster Rebellion is a book that stands on its own. It tells a hell of a story. It is at the same time an introduction to Farrell Dobbs， the worker in his twenties who emerged in the course of those battles as a leader of his class. He was twenty-five years old， with two children to sup­ port， when he turned his back on a secure and well-re­ munerated future as part of the supervisory personnel of Western Electric working out of Omaha， Nebraska.