Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a ...

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits (s ...

ist, politician, and historian.

Early years

Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri, where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. The family moved to

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with list of lakes in Minneapolis, thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. ...

, and he graduated from

North High School North High School may refer to: * North High School (Phoenix, Arizona) * North Pulaski High School, Jacksonville, Arkansas * North High School (Bakersfield, California) * John W. North High School, Riverside, California * North High School (Torranc ...

in 1925. In 1926, he left for

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, S ...

to find work, but returned the following fall. At this point, young Farrell Dobbs was a Republican, and supported

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, holding o ...

for president in 1928.

Moves leftward, connects with Teamsters

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 Left may refer to: Music * ''Left'' (Hope of the States album), 2006 * ''Left'' (Monkey House album), 2016 * "Left", a song by Nickelback from the album ''Curb'', 1996 Direction * Left (direction), the relative direction opposite of right * L ...

. In 1933, while working for the

Pittsburgh Coal Company The Pittsburgh Terminal Coal Company was a bituminous coal mining company based in Pittsburgh and controlled by the Mellon family. It operated mines in the Pittsburgh Coalfield, including mines in Becks Run and Horning, Pennsylvania. Unusually ...

, Dobbs joined the

Teamsters The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), also known as the Teamsters Union, is a labor union in the United States and Canada. Formed in 1903 by the merger of The Team Drivers International Union and The Teamsters National Union, the u ...

. After getting to know the three Trotskyist Dunne brothers, (Miles, Vincent and Grant) and Swedish socialist Carl Skoglund, he joined the

Communist League of America The Communist League of America (Opposition) was founded by James P. Cannon, Max Shachtman and Martin Abern late in 1928 after their expulsion from the Communist Party USA for Trotskyism. The CLA(O) was the United States section of Leon Trotsky's I ...

. Dobbs was one of the initiators of a general strike in Minneapolis, and for a while worked full-time as a union organizer. He was influential in the Teamsters' shift from emphasis on local delivery work to over-the-road traffic, which keyed their great expansion towards becoming the largest union in the United States. Dobbs quit in 1939 to work for the new Socialist Workers Party (SWP). Dobbs met the Russian revolutionary leader

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

when he visited

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

shortly before Trotsky's death in 1940.

Mentors Hoffa

Dobbs served as mentor and advisor to a young

Jimmy Hoffa James Riddle Hoffa (born February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975; declared dead July 30, 1982) was an American labor union leader who served as the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1957 until 1971. F ...

, while Hoffa was making his rise within the Teamsters, eventually becoming its president in 1957. Dobbs primarily inspired Hoffa with his view that the capitalist system was a

Darwinian Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...

struggle, where power, rather than morality, was the primary factor determining the eventual outcome.''The Kennedys: An American Drama'', by

Peter Collier (political author) Peter Anthony Dale Collier (; June 2, 1939 – November 1, 2019) was an American writer and publisher. He was the founding publisher of conservative Encounter Books in California and held that position from 1998 until he resigned in 2005. The co ...

and

David Horowitz David Joel Horowitz (born January 10, 1939) is an American conservative writer. He is a founder and president of the right-wing David Horowitz Freedom Center (DHFC); editor of the Center's website '' FrontPage Magazine''; and director of Dis ...

, Summit Books, 1984, New York, , p. 221

Jailed under Smith Act

For opposing

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, he and other leaders of the SWP and the Minneapolis Teamsters were convicted of violating the

Smith Act The Alien Registration Act, popularly known as the Smith Act, 76th United States Congress, 3d session, ch. 439, , is a United States federal statute that was enacted on June 28, 1940. It set criminal penalties for advocating the overthrow of t ...

, which made it illegal to "conspire to advocate the violent overthrow of the United States Government". He served over a year in Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone, from 1944 to 1945.

Presidential candidate, supports Fidel Castro

After his release, he became the editor of the SWP's newspaper, ''

The Militant ''The Militant'' is an international socialist newsweekly connected to the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Pathfinder Press. It is published in the United States and distributed in other countries such as Canada, the United Kingdom ...

''. From 1948 to 1960 he was the SWP's candidate for

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

, running in four elections. He succeeded

James P. Cannon James Patrick Cannon (February 11, 1890 – August 21, 1974) was an American Trotskyist and a leader of the Socialist Workers Party. Born on February 11, 1890, in Rosedale, Kansas, the son of Irish immigrants with strong socialist convictio ...

as national secretary of the party in 1953, serving until 1972. In 1960, Farrell Dobbs and Joseph Hansen, Trotsky's former secretary in

, went to

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

to experience the revolutionary movement there. The two American Trotskyists decided to fully support the

Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cour ...

and the leadership of

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2 ...

and

Che Guevara Ernesto Che Guevara (; 14 June 1928The date of birth recorded on /upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Ernesto_Guevara_Acta_de_Nacimiento.jpg his birth certificatewas 14 June 1928, although one tertiary source, (Julia Constenla, quot ...

Later life

Farrell Dobbs retired in 1972, but remained in the party until his death in 1983. He devoted the later part of his life to historical documentation of the American leftist movement and the Minnesota Teamsters. Dobbs was the author of a four-volume history / memoir of the Minneapolis struggles: ''Teamster Rebellion'', ''Teamster Power'', ''Teamster Politics'' and ''Teamster Bureaucracy''. He had completed two volumes of a planned history of the Marxist movement in the United States at the time of his death, titled: ''Revolutionary Continuity: The Early Years, 1848-1917'' and ''Birth of the Communist Movement, 1918-1922''.

Major works

* ''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 Pathfinder may refer to: Businesses * Pathfinder Energy Services, a division of Smith International * Pathfinder Press, a publisher of socialist literature Computing and information science * Path Finder, a Macintosh file browser * Pathfinde ...

, 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 Walter Philip Reuther (; September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Automobile Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He ...

: the record of an opportunist'', by Beatrice Hansen, New York, Pathfinder Press, 1987 2nd ed. (contains Dobbs's essa
''Meany vs. Reuther''

References

External links

The Militant, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers PartyPathfinder Books, the bookstore of the Socialist Workers Party
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobbs, Farrell 1907 births 1983 deaths People from Schuyler County, Missouri Members of the Communist League of America Socialist Workers Party (United States) politicians American trade union leaders American male non-fiction writers People convicted under the Smith Act Candidates in the 1948 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1956 United States presidential election Candidates in the 1960 United States presidential election 20th-century American politicians Historians from Missouri 20th-century American historians Minnesota socialists Politicians from Minneapolis 20th-century American male writers North Community High School alumni Trade unionists from Minnesota