Editing Farrell Dobbs

{{short description|American politician}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name   = Farrell Dobbs
| image     = File:Farrell Dobbs.png
| image_size     = 180px
| caption  = 
| office    = National Secretary of the <br />[[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]]
| term_start  = 1953
| term_end    = 1972
| predecessor = [[James P. Cannon]]
| successor   =  [[Jack Barnes (politician)|Jack Barnes]]
| birth_date  = {{Birth date|1907|7|25|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Queen City, Missouri]]
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1983|10|31|1907|7|25|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Pinole, California]]
| occupation  = Politician, [[labor union|trade union]]ist, historian
| spouse      = Marvel Scholl
| parents     = Isaac Turl Dobbs, Ora Lenore Smith
| children    = Carol E. DeBerry, Mary Lou Montauk, Sharon Lee Finer
}}
'''Farrell Dobbs''' (July 25, 1907 &ndash; October 31, 1983) was an American [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]], [[labor union|trade union]]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, Minnesota|Minneapolis]], and he graduated from [[North Community High School|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 [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]], and supported [[Herbert Hoover]] for president in 1928 and 1932.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Burnside |first=Gordon |title=Harold Gibbons: St. Louis Teamsters Leader and Warrior Against Jim Crow |date=2018 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9781476674933 |pages=42}}</ref>

==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.

==Presidential candidacy==
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]], running in four elections. He succeeded [[James P. Cannon]] as national secretary of the party in 1953, serving until 1972.

<!-- [[Image:Farrell.Dobbs.Trotsky.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Farrell Dobbs and Trotsky in Mexico 1940]]
 -->In 1960, Farrell Dobbs and [[Joseph Hansen (socialist)|Joseph Hansen]], Trotsky's former secretary in [[Mexico]], went to [[Cuba]] to experience the revolutionary movement there. The two American Trotskyists decided to fully support the [[Cuban Revolution]] and the leadership of [[Fidel Castro]] and [[Che Guevara]].

==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
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20161111012914/https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/dobbslectures.htm ''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's essay [https://web.archive.org/web/20161111012854/https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/document/swp-us/dobbsonreuth.htm ''Meany vs. Reuther''])

==See also==
* [[Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934]]
* [[1948 United States presidential election]]
* [[1952 United States presidential election]]
* [[1956 United States presidential election]]
* [[1960 United States presidential election]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://www.themilitant.com The Militant, the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party]
*[http://www.pathfinderpress.com Pathfinder Books, the bookstore of the Socialist Workers Party]
*[http://struggle.net/ALC/TWITTU.htm Trotskyist Work in the Trade Unions, by Chris Knox] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070516225629/http://struggle.net/ALC/TWITTU.htm |date=2007-05-16 }}

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{{succession box|
 before=none|
 title=[[Socialist Workers Party (United States)|Socialist Workers Party]] nominee for <br /> [[President of the United States]] |
 years=[[1948 U.S. presidential election|1948]], [[1952 U.S. presidential election|1952]], [[1956 U.S. presidential election|1956]], [[1960 U.S. presidential election|1960]]|
 after=[[Clifton DeBerry]]
}}
{{s-end}}
{{United States presidential election, 1948}}
{{United States presidential election, 1952}}
{{United States presidential election, 1956}}
{{United States presidential election, 1960}}
{{Socialist Workers Party}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobbs, Farrell}}
[[Category:1907 births]]
[[Category:1983 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Schuyler County, Missouri]]
[[Category:Members of the Communist League of America]]
[[Category:Socialist Workers Party (United States) politicians]]
[[Category:American anti–World War II activists]]
[[Category:American trade union leaders]]
[[Category:American male non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:American Marxists]]
[[Category:American Trotskyists]]
[[Category:People convicted under the Smith Act]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1948 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1956 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Candidates in the 1960 United States presidential election]]
[[Category:Historians from Missouri]]
[[Category:20th-century American historians]]
[[Category:Minnesota socialists]]
[[Category:Politicians from Minneapolis]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:North Community High School alumni]]
[[Category:Trade unionists from Minnesota]]