Farrell Dobbs

Farrell Dobbs
Born	July 25, 1907 Queen City, Missouri
Died	October 31, 1983 (aged 76)
Occupation	Politician and trade unionist

Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist and trade unionist.

He was born in Queen City, Missouri where his father was a worker in a coal mine. They moved to Minneapolis, and he graduated from North High School in 1925. In 1926, he left for North Dakota to find work, but returned the following fall. At this point, young Farrell Dobbs was a conservative Republican and supported Herbert Hoover for President. However, his political viewpoint was changed during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Seeing the plight of workers in that situation (including himself), he became politically radicalized to the left.

In 1933, while working for the Pittsburgh Coal Company in Minneapolis, Dobbs joined the Teamsters and after getting to know the three Trotskyist Dunne brothers, (Miles, Vincent & Grant Dunne) and Swedish socialist Carl Skoglund, he joined the Communist League of America. Dobbs was one of the initiators of a general strike in Minneapolis, and for a while worked full-time as a union organiser, but quit in 1939 to work for the new Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Dobbs met the Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky when he visited Mexico shortly before Trotsky's death in 1940.

For opposing World War II, he and other leaders of the SWP and the Minneapolis Teamsters were convicted of violating the Smith Act which made it illegal to "conspire to advocate the violent overthrow of the US Government." He served over a year in Sandstone Prison during 1944-1945.

After his release, he became the editor of the SWP's newspaper, The Militant. From 1948 to 1960 he was the SWP's candidate for President of the United States and succeeded James P. Cannon as national secretary of the party in 1953.

In 1960, Farrell Dobbs and Joseph Hansen, Trotsky’s former secretary in Mexico, went to Cuba to experience the revolutionary movement there. The two American Trotskyists came to the conclusion to fully support the Cuban Revolution and the leadership of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

Farrell Dobbs retired in 1972 but remained in the party to his death in 1983.

Works

Dobbs was the author of a four-volume history/memoir of the Minneapolis struggles, Teamster Rebellion, Teamster Power, Teamster Politics & Teamster Bureaucracy, and had completed two volumes of a planned history of the Marxist movement in the United States at the time of his death, called Revolutionary Continuity: The Early Years, 1848-1917 & Birth of the Communist Movement, 1918-1922.

• Trade union problems New York: Pioneer Publishers, 1941
• The Voice of socialism: radio speeches by the Socialist Workers Party candidates in the 1948 election (with Grace Carlson and James Cannon) New York, Pioneer Publishers 1948
• Recent trends in the labor movement New York : National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party, 1967
• The structure and organizational principals of the party New York : National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party, 1971
• Teamster rebellion New York: Pathfinder Press 1972
• Teamster power New York: Pathfinder Press 1973
• Teamster politics New York: Pathfinder Press 1975
• Teamster bureaucracy New York: Pathfinder Press 1977
• Counter-mobilization: a strategy to fight racist and fascist attacks New York : National Education Dept., Socialist Workers Party, 1976
• Revolutionary continuity: Marxist leadership in the U.S. Vol. 1 The early years, 1848-1917 New York : Monad Press : Distributed by Pathfinder Press 1980
• Revolutionary continuity: Marxist leadership in the U.S. Vol. 2 Birth of the Communist movement, 1918-1922 New York : Monad Press : Distributed by Pathfinder Press 1983
• A political biography of Walter Reuther: the record of an opportunist by Beatrice Hansen New York: Pathfinder Press 1987 2nd ed. (contains Dobbs' essay Meany vs. Reuther)

See also

• Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934

External links

• The Militant, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party
• Pathfinder Books, the bookstore of the Socialist Workers Party
• Trotskyist Work in the Trade Unions, by Chris Knox

Party political offices
Preceded by none	Socialist Workers Party Presidential candidate 1948 (lost), 1952 (lost), 1956 (lost), 1960 (lost)	Succeeded by Clifton DeBerry
Preceded by James P. Cannon	National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party 1953 - 72	Succeeded by Jack Barnes

Template:United States presidential election, 1952