Editing Farrell Dobbs (section)

==Politics==
Dobbs's political viewpoints 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-wing politics|left]].

In 1933, while working for the [[Pittsburgh Coal Company]] in [[Minneapolis]], Dobbs joined the [[Teamsters]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Womack |first=John |title=Labor Power and Strategy |date=2023 |publisher=PM Press |isbn=9781629639895 |pages=155}}</ref> After getting to know the three Trotskyist Dunne brothers, (Miles, [[Vincent R. Dunne|Vincent]] and Grant) and Swedish socialist [[Carl Skoglund]], he joined the [[Communist League of America]]. Dobbs was one of the initiators of a [[Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934|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.<ref>''The Kennedys: An American Drama'', by [[Peter Collier (political author)]] and [[David Horowitz]], Summit Books, 1984, New York, {{ISBN|0-671-44793-9}}, p. 221</ref>

Dobbs quit in 1939 to work for the new [[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] (SWP). Dobbs met the Russian revolutionary leader [[Leon Trotsky]] when he visited [[Mexico]] shortly before Trotsky's death in 1940.

Dobbs served as mentor and advisor to a young [[Jimmy Hoffa]], 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]] struggle, where power, rather than morality, was the primary factor determining the eventual outcome.<ref>''The Kennedys: An American Drama'', by [[Peter Collier (political author)]] and [[David Horowitz]], Summit Books, 1984, New York, {{ISBN|0-671-44793-9}}, p. 221</ref>

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 United States Government". He served over a year of a 16-month sentence in [[Federal Correctional Institution, Sandstone]], from 1944 to 1945.