Nineteen-thirty-four marked a turning point for labor during the Great Depression. The number of strikes more than doubled to 1,856 while the number of workers on strike increased five-fold, to 1,470,000, compared to the period 1929-32. [1] More importantly, as Art Preis observes in Labor's Giant Step, victorious strikes for union recognition in "Minneapolis, Toledo and San Francisco . . . showed how the workers could fight and win. They gave heart and hope to labor everywhere for the climactic struggle that was to build the CIO [Congress of Industrial Organizations]." [2] Communists and socialists rose to national prominence as radical political strategies for rank-and-file control of unions, confrontation with the employers and the state, and industrial solidarity gained widespread influence. The San Francisco General Strike developed as part of a West Coast maritime strike which, at its height, involved more than 130,000 workers in the Bay Area and about 200,000 coastwide, bringing key sectors of the coast's economy to a virtual standstill. [3] According to California Communist Party leader Sam Darcy,

Due both to the physically advantageous position of leadership which San Francisco holds on the West Coast, as well as the activities of the militants, action in San Francisco became of deci-sive importance for the entire Coast. [4]

Employers, New Deal mediators, and workers alike concurred with Darcy's estimation. The Communist Party (CP) played a crucial role organizing and directing the strike. In Reds or Rackets, Howard Kimmeldorf argues that the CP was the "strategic pivot" which galvanized and directed maritime militancy into organizational rank-and-file control over the strike. [5] The Communists [6] argued that workers must rely on militant class struggle on the picket line to win strikes; waiting for New Deal legislation to bring union recognition was hopeless. At the same time, rank-and-file workers should take control over their own unions and wrest power from corrupt and conservative officials who would always sell out a strike at the first opportu-nity. Communists put these two principles to work inside International Longshoremen's Asso-ciation (ILA) local 38-79, transforming the San Francisco stevedores into the vanguard of the strike movement.

However, the CP's strategy in the ILA was an exception to the rule. The Communists pur-sued a very different strategy on ships, trying to organize a dual union, the Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU), instead of fighting for rank-and-file control over existing seafaring American Federation of Labor unions, especially the International Seamen's Union (ISU). While they still argued for class struggle and union democracy, their decision to organize the rival MWIU weakened maritime workers' unity and proved an Achilles heel in the strike.

The Communist Party on the Eve of the Big Strike On 24 April 1934, the Western Worker, the official west coast CP weekly paper, reported that membership had increased to 24,500 in the first three months of 1934, up from just 8,339 in the first half of 1931. The Western Worker also recorded that "[t]he number of shop units in 1930 . . . was 64. At present it is 338 with 154 in basic industries. Even six months ago the number of shop units was only 140." [7] Thus, the Party grew threefold in the course of three years and, crucially, increased its organic connections to workplaces at an even greater pace. The Party had survived the Roaring Twenties qualitatively stronger than its two rivals on the left, the In-dustrial Workers of the World and the Socialist Party. According to Trotskyist James Cannon, who was no friend of the Communist Party after his expulsion in 1928 for opposing Stalin in the early 1930s, the CP had "the best disciplined, the most experienced and the largest political cadre in the labor movement." [8] The Party held that position partly by virtue of its willing-ness to lead the desperate, and usually defeated, strikes of the early Depression years. The ex-perience and reputation the Communists gained in mills, mines, fields, factories, and offices grounded them in many of the crucial centers of class struggle that broke out starting in 1933 during the fight for union recognition. [9] The CP gained this position despite a disastrous set of Soviet-mandated policies that Stalin called the "Third Period." Beginning in 1928, Stalin argued that the final collapse of capitalism was imminent and ordered Communists to denounce any noncommunist political tendency as "fascist," "social-fascist," or even "left-social-fascist." Earl Browder, Chairman of the CPUSA, declared that President Roosevelt's New Deal was "comparable to the pre-fascist [stage] . . . in Germany in the period of Bruening." [10] In 1930 Browder had declared that AFL unions themselves were "plainly fascist" [11] and leading Communist organizer Dorothy Ray Healey remembered attacking Upton Sinclair's EPIC campaign as "social fascist." [12] Effectively, this policy cut the CP off from potential political allies and imposed unnecessary isolation on what was by far the largest socialist organization in the United States.

Browder mechanically grafted several corollaries onto his pre-fascist stage theory, including the idea that "[e]very political party and grouping in America finds it necessary today to define its attitude towards . . . the Communist Party as a major question of its whole orientation." [13] Needless to say, this was a bold overstatement. Another, more vital, error grew from the Third Period line of impending revolution. The Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a resolution on 6 September 1934 claiming the recent strikes "are in one form or another directed not only against the capitalists, but they also are more and more directed against the new deal policies and the N.R.A. codes and arbitration features in particular." [14] This perspective led Browder to declare that the 1934 maritime strike "was truly the greatest revolutionary event in American labor history." [15]

Yet the 1934 strike wave was not the beginning of a socialist revolution. Rather, as James Cannon pointed out after the Minneapolis walkout, the strikers' main objective was winning union recognition. He argued that 1934 marked the very beginning of working class radicaliza-tion, not a prerevolutionary situation as the CP maintained. [16] The huge vote for New Deal Democrats in the fall elections of 1934 demonstrate that Cannon was much closer to the mark than the CP's assertion that workers walked out in opposition to the New Deal. The Communist Party's Third Period perspective crippled its ability to analyze the ebb and flow of the class struggle; each defeat and victory portended impending workers' revolution, while each New Deal program and anti-Red campaign in the newspapers increased the "fascisization" of America.

Communist trade union policy during the Third Period consisted of initiating "revolutionary unions." Toward that end, the Communists transformed their Trade Union Education League (TUEL) into the Trade Union Unity League (TUUL) at a convention in Cleveland between 31 August and 2 September 1929. [17] Before Stalin's Third Period declaration, the Communist Party based its trade union work on the idea of "boring from within" the conservative AFL unions. The Communist-led TUEL organized dissident movements within the AFL, arguing for greater militancy against bosses and rank-and-file democracy against union officialdom. This approach broke with the twin traditional mistakes of American socialists concerning trade un-ion policy: abstaining from the AFL unions, as the Socialist Labor Party and the Socialist Party had done, or organizing dual unions, as the Industrial Workers of the World had done.

In 1920, Lenin personally intervened in American Communist trade union policy with his book, Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder. Lenin argued that the young party had to work within the AFL "in order to win the working class over to our side." He attacked the strategy of forming dual or revolutionary unions to compete alongside traditional unions as "so unpardonable a blunder that it [was] tantamount to the greatest service Communists could render the bourgeoisie." He further emphasized that to "refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders." [18] The Communists eventually adopted Lenin's argu-ment, building the TUEL into an important center of radical opposition based on militant struggle and union democracy within the AFL unions. Yet in 1929 Stalin ordered the American Communists to commit the "unpardonable blunder," deserting the AFL-based TUEL for the revolutionary TUUL.

While the CP and the TUUL criticized the AFL bureaucracy led by William Green as conser-vative, demoralized, and in league with the bosses, the effect of forming dual unions was to simply voluntarily withdraw the overwhelming majority of Communist unionists from the or-ganizations the majority of American workers considered their best hope for collective repre-sentation. The TUUL never came close to succeeding as a rival union federation to the AFL and did a great deal of damage to the CP's ties to organized workers. However, the Communist's Third Period politics blinded them to this reality. Although the AFL unions added 500,000 members to their rolls in the 1933 strike wave, four times the total the TUUL claimed to organize, the Western Worker declared that the TUUL unions "made greater gains relatively than any other unions." [19] While this was true in algebraic terms, the Communists missed the forest for the trees as the trickle of workers leaking into the TUUL un-ions faded beneath the general rush into the AFL. The CP was not entirely oblivious to the AFL's growth. The 1934 TUUL convention did report the danger of working in "skeleton revo-lutionary unions" where the AFL unions mushroomed, noting that more than two thousand AFL locals endorsed the Communist-favored Workers Unemployment Insurance Bill. How-ever, the convention also endorsed launching a "Unified Federation of Labor" to compete with the American Federation of Labor, [20] a reaffirmation of the CP's commitment to dual union-ism on the eve of the big strike.

The California Communist Party While the national CP's membership tripled from 1931 to 1934, Communist leader George Morris reported the following growth in California,

in comparison with its condition in 1930 . . . the dues paying membership has increased eight-fold . . . there are 3,000 members at present . . . there are 234 party units. . . . the Party led more than 70,000 workers in California strikes during 1933: [whereas] in 1929 on the eve of the De-pression . . . [o]nly 30 units were scattered in the larger cities. There was not a unit between San Jose and Los Angeles. . . . In San Francisco there were only four units, each of which were not even meeting in their own neighborhood. The Party membership at that time was over-whelmingly made up of foreign-born, but there was not a single Mexican or Filipino worker in its ranks. A large number of its members were from the east, many being "hikers" (staying only during the summer, or if stuck and unable to get back east). . . . The number of Negro workers could be counted on one hand. [21]

The dramatic increase in California CP membership coincided with increased participation in strike struggles, especially in the fields and canneries. There, the TUUL-affiliated Agricultural and Cannery Workers Industrial Union (A&CWIU) led a series of strikes that gained notoriety for the Party and, sometimes, improvements in wages and work conditions for migrant laborers. However, the A&CWIU never succeeded in establishing itself as a stable union. As Dorothy Ray Healey recounted:

In San Jose when the [1931 TUUL-led cannery] strike was broken we left with nothing, no organized supporters or experienced leaders to provide the basis for future organizing attempts. The CIO later did organize that cannery, but as far as I know it had no connection with our earlier effort. [22]

Despite these difficulties, CP leader Sam Darcy continued to dedicate large amounts of resources and many of the best Communist organizers to the fields. The California CP mirrored the experience of the national organization. While it grew nu-merically and became heavily involved in strikes, gaining invaluable experience, the party did not succeed in establishing stable TUUL affiliates. Through 1933, Darcy reported "our Marine Workers [Industrial] Union, although having as many as four and sometimes six full-time functionaries in San Francisco alone, had not a single worker on the docks." [23] A similar situation existed at sea. Party journalist Mike Quin claimed that "to all practical purposes [the sailors] were unorganized." [24] The CP had not yet made its presence felt on the waterfront in any significant way.

Communist Party Waterfront Strategy Harry Hynes arrived in San Francisco in mid-1932 and launched the Waterfront Worker news-paper in December 1932. According to Bruce Nelson, "Hynes was the MWIU's first national secretary, until the Communist party decided that his temperament was ill suited for the re-sponsibilities associated with such a position." [25] Nonetheless, Hynes' decision to launch the Waterfront Worker played a crucial role in Communist organizing on the docks. The monthly mimeographed paper found a ready audience and circulation quickly increased to between one thousand and two thousand copies. [26]

At this point, Darcy became more closely involved in waterfront work. He contacted radical rank-and-file longshoremen, such as Henry Schmidt and Harry Bridges, and organized what became known as the Albion Hall group, numbering about fifteen longshoremen by the sum-mer of 1933. [27] The Albion Hall group contained both working longshoremen and three or four Communist Party members who had only tenuous ties to the industry; its members collec-tively took over editorial direction of the Waterfront Worker, using it as a organ for the ILA membership drive by the summer of 1933. The Albion Hall militants became the acknowledged leadership of the Big Strike and served as the vehicle through which the CP gained influence on the docks. [28]

Darcy's decision to abandon MWIU organizing on the docks and follow the rush of steve-dores into the ILA constituted another important development on the waterfront. By endorsing establishment of local 38-79 in San Francisco, the CP helped build the union with which the overwhelming majority of longshoremen sought to affiliate. As Darcy put it, The sentiment for the I.L.A. rapidly developed. Yet there was some tendency among the Com-munists at that time to organize competitive M.W.I.U. recruiting. The I.L.A. movement was so overwhelming among the men, however, that it would have been suicide to take the handful of militants away form the general stream of the movement. The Party, therefore, took a deter-mined stand against it. [29] In addition, by fighting for rank-and-file control and confrontation with the bureaucracy inside the ILA, the CP helped transform the radical traditions and in-creasing militancy of waterfront workers into organizational control over their own local.

The February 1934 rank-and-file ILA convention in San Francisco provided the clearest ex-ample of both the CP's influence in the ILA and its crucial role in helping rank-and-file longshoremen win control of their union away from the conservative AFL leadership. The San Francisco ILA led a movement to elect only rank-and-file delegates to the convention, barring any paid official from acting as a delegate. The convention passed Communist resolutions boycotting all ships flying the Nazi flag and called for the immediate release of Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro Boys. Of even greater importance, the convention endorsed resolutions in sup-port of a coastwide Waterfront Federation to bring together all craft locals in each port and ap-pointing a rank-and-file committee, including Harry Bridges, to begin negotiations with shipowners independently of ILA officials. [30]

While the CP worked to build up rank-and-file militancy within the ILA, they continued to pursue their dual union strategy of counterpoising the MWIU to the ISU on ships. The roots of the MWIU go back to 1926 when the CP formed the International Seamen's Club (ISC). The ISC was based on the Trade Union Education League's strategy of "boring from within" the AFL affiliated ISU and the IWW maritime unions. However, Stalin's declaration of the Third Period led the CP to commit Lenin's "unpardonable blunder," transforming the ISC, after several intermediary steps, into the Marine Workers Industrial Union at a convention in New York on 26 April 1930. [31] The MWIU's charter typified the TUUL dual union ultra-leftism, calling for its members to direct their struggles "toward the goal of the establishment of a revolutionary workers' government." [32]

Bruce Nelson argues that the MWIU struck a real chord with seamen radicalized by the Depspression, broadening the new union's appeal beyond Communist Party members for two primary reasons. First, as Communist Roy Hudson observed, "the largest single section of the delegates was overwhelmingly the IWW, and I include myself in this tendency." These IWW-influenced seamen recognized TUUL dual unionism as their own organization's historic policy. Second, Nelson argues that "the absolute determination of [the ISU] officials to exclude dissidents from their ranks, [may have made it seem] impossible for Communists to bore from within the ISU." [33] While these considerations made the TUUL line in the maritime industry easier to rationalize, they did not make it right or effective. Lenin had argued that Communists must make any and all sacrifices to remain inside the conservative unions, "and -- even if need be --to resort to various stratagems, artifices and illegal methods, to evasions and subterfuges, as long as we get into the trade unions, remain in them, and carry on communist work within them at all costs." [34] The massive rush of workers into the ILA in the summer of 1933, and then into the ISU the following year, validated Lenin's analysis.

As long as the number of strikes and the level of struggle remained low -- before the summer of 1933 -- the MWIU seemed to enjoy greater success than the moribund ISU on the west coast. The CP had many more members on ships than on the docks and membership in the seafaring MWIU reached into the thousands. According to Roy Hudson, the MWIU national organizer at the time of the 1934 strike, "the membership of the MWIU had become equal to if it did not exceed that of the . . . ISU," [35] probably about 5,000 nationally out of roughly 130,000 unli-censed seamen. [36] Hudson and the national Party leadership maintained that the MWIU's growth and the ISU's stagnation presaged the rise of their dual union to hegemony at sea.

In San Francisco, the MWIU put out a monthly mimeographed newspaper aimed at seamen called The Foc'sle Head. Very similar in tone and appearance to the longshoremen's Waterfront Worker, it fought unambiguously against affiliation with the ISU, calling for AFL members to quit their unions and join the MWIU. [37] Hudson went so far as to attack Darcy's "boring from within" strategy in the Party Organizer, an internal CP publication. He bemoaned the influx of 1,200 San Francisco longshoremen into the ILA and argued that "[i]f there had been a real organization [of the MWIU on the docks], if the Party had mobilized its forces and given more guidance to marine, we would be more in the leadership, we would have organizational control of the longshoremen." [38] The CP followed very different policies on the docks and on the ships. While Darcy attacked the MWIU's organizing on the docks as "serious sectarian errors," [39] Hudson and the Communist national leadership not only pushed ahead with the MWIU dual union at sea, but also continually criticized Darcy's "boring from within" strategy on the docks. [40]

Comparing the impact of these differences is revealing. On the surface, it appeared that Communist influence grew steadily among both groups of workers. Yet a debate at the rank-and-file ILA convention, where CP resolutions gathered so much support, demonstrated the danger the dual union strategy presented. Conservatives at the February convention argued that the MWIU itself was "a Communist Party and dual organization," which received consid-erable support from the rank-and-file longshoremen. Even the Western Worker admitted that "[d]espite the sentiment for militancy at the convention, considerable confusion still exists, as was clear when a delegation of the MWIU asked for the floor." [41]

This confusion over the relationship between the MWIU and the CP, and the MWIU and the AFL maritime unions, continued to be a major problem throughout the course of spring and into the strike itself. The CP's entry into the ILA in San Francisco helped strengthen rank-and-file militancy, leading longshoremen to win greater control over their union. However, the Party's decision to continue organizing the MWIU on ships coastwide and on the docks outside of San Francisco [42] allowed the ILA officials to argue convincingly that the MWIU was, in fact, a dual union which stood in the way of unity among sailors and longshoremen.

The MWIU and national Communist Party leaders contended that the ISU had effectively died and that the MWIU should be regarded as the real sailors' union. However, as the regeneration of the ILA demonstrated, even largely defunct AFL locals retained the aura of legitimacy, becoming the unions into which workers flocked when an increasing level of class struggle posed the possibility of lasting union recognition. Furthermore, to paraphrase Mark Twain, news of the ISU's demise was greatly exaggerated. As MWIU leader Henry Hudson noted, the ISU's membership at least equaled that of the MWIU in the spring of 1934. [43] ISU member-ship definitely had hit a low point from the high of 115,000 at the height of the post-World War I boom, but tens of thousands of seamen still working in 1934 could remember the union in better days. [44] The ISU also maintained a national bureaucratic apparatus which could count on the support of the AFL President William Green and the other leaders of AFL unions. Lastly, black sailors maintained a considerable degree of loyalty to the ISU's "most functional affiliate," the Marine Cooks and Stewards Union (MCS), itself headed by a black West Indian seaman named "Emperor" David Grange. [45] Therefore, the MWIU faced a serious, if severely weakened, competitor in the ISU. As Nelson concludes, "while many seamen respected the MWIU's fighting stance, they looked upon the ISU as a more permanent and realistic trade union organization." [46] Thus, on the eve of the strike, the CP had established organic links to ILA local 38-79, which would become the moving force behind the strike. On the other hand, the seemingly strong position of the MWIU proved fleeting as sailors followed the longshoremen's lead and began flooding past the CP dual union into the ISU.

Getting to 9 May: The First Test At the February ILA convention, the rank-and-file voted to strike on 23 March for a pay raise, shorter hours, and, most importantly, union control of the hiring hall. Crucially, the Longshoremen adopted a resolution requiring any proposed settlement negotiated with the ship owners by union officials to come before the entire ILA membership for a ratification vote. Nonetheless, ILA national President Joseph Ryan and west coast President William Lewis at-tempted several times to push through back room deals which did not meet the memberships' primary demand; namely, union control of the hiring hall. When President Franklin Roosevelt sent a telegraph to Ryan and Lewis on the eve of the strike deadline urging them to cancel the strike, they complied without calling for a membership vote.

The President then appointed a mediation board, and hearings began on 28 March. After a few days of hearings, packed with hundreds of longshoremen, the board went behind closed doors and reached an agreement on 3 April. Lewis and Ryan immediately accepted the decision even though it permitted the Waterfront Employer's Union to recognize "any other bona fide group" alongside the ILAÑleaving the door open for company unions -- and failed to guarantee a union-controlled hiring hall. [47] Lewis and Ryan delayed presenting the agree-ment to the membership for several days while they attempted to line up support. Realizing the longshoremen strongly opposed the agreement at a stormy 9 April meeting, Lewis attempted to pass it off as a joke by waving it in the air saying, " Well, here's the damn thing I sold you out for." [48] Lewis' humor provoked angry jeers. Then, according to the Western Worker, Harry Bridges took the floor and after exposing how the mediation board had evolved into a compulsory arbitration board, moved that the agreement be refused until the union heard from the other locals. The members cheered this suggestion and a motion was made to print thou-sands of copies of the agreement and circulate them along the front. [49]

Each time the union members tried to push through a definite strike plan at the meeting, Lewis and the other bureaucrats tried to break up the meeting by introducing contradictory and confusing motions. When these tactics failed they tried filibustering. [50]

While Ryan, Lewis and the other officials attempted to ram through a sell-out agreement, the Albion Hall Group and the CP busily fought to involve and inform the longshoremen about the negotiations. Both the Western Worker and the Waterfront Worker printed full analyses of the me-diation agreement and proposed strategies to build towards greater rank-and-file control and a strike. Concretely, the newspapers proposed:

1. Support for the militants who fight for rank-and-file control against the Lewis district and local machine. 2. All members should take the floor in the union meeting and help in the fight. 3. Build gang committees on the docks, and make a fight on all grievances that arise on the docks. [51]

While mediation talks continued throughout April, longshoremen put the Albion Hall group's program into action. Waterfront employers tried to buttress their position at the bar-gaining table by victimizing union militants on the docks, including firing seven union members in Oakland. [52] The Communists' and Albion Hall group's strategy pushed for rank-and-file activity to build up union strength on the ground instead of waiting to hear from officials and mediators. This strategy strengthened the longshoremen's organization and confidence. Finally, at a 29 April meeting, 1,500 local 38-79 members passed a resolution declaring an 8 May strike deadline. Despite their best efforts to maneuver out of it, Ryan and Lewis were unable to table the motion. Lewis became so angry at one point that he interrupted Bridges and shouted "God damn you," but he was drowned out by the membership's support for Bridges, whom the Western Worker called, the "militant representative of the rank-and-file." [53]

Discussions dragged on for another week but accomplished nothing. On 8 May, six weeks after the original 23 March deadline, ILA national President Ryan and Senator Robert F. Wagner, chairman of the National Labor Board, telegraphed other west coast ports urging ILA members not to strike. Their efforts failed, and by 8 p.m. on 9 May 14,000 longshoremen in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, San Pedro, San Diego, Stockton, Bellingham, Aberdeen, Gray's Harbor, Astoria, and other Pacific Coast ports struck. [54]

The ILA membership spent the months before the strike overcoming the conservatism of their own leadership in order to get at the shipowners. The CP, and the Albion group it influenced, were the most consistent critics of Lewis and Ryan; without their intervention it is difficult to imagine how the rank-and-file could ever have organized the strike. Crucially, the CP did not try to counter the militancy and initiative of the longshoremen but rather devised a strategy to transform that militancy into organizational control of their local. Criticism of Lewis and Ryan in both the Western Worker and the Waterfront Worker led longshoremen to believe that they could not trust official leadership to fight the Waterfront Employer's Union for them; only union democracy and rank-and-file control could discipline conservative union officials and prevent a sell-out. The CP emphasized mass membership meetings and made concrete suggestions about organizing into gang committees on the docks, transforming ordinary longshoremen into the real actors in the strike.

Although the number of CP members in the ILA remained a tiny minority, the ILA strike committee authorized the Western Worker to be its official paper, and six or eight members of the seventy-five-person ILA strike committee were Party members. [55] Moreover, non-longshoremen Communists frequently addressed the ILA strike committee in connection with activities in support of the strike, such as legal defense, student support, and fundraising. The ILA strike committee also passed several resolutions defending the MWIU from red-baiting by ISU and ILA officials, as well as the mayor and police chief, assigning a courier between itself and the MWIU to ensure rapid communications. [56] Lastly, the Party worked closely with sympathetic leaders in the Albion Hall Group, especially Harry Bridges who, after his election as strike committee president, continued consulting with Darcy regularly throughout the strike. The Communists' aggressive orientation towards strike preparations successfully broke through their isolation from the longshoremen, while Darcy's "boring from within" strategy played a crucial role building the union's strength.

CP members' work with longshoremen coincided with their organizing on the ships as long-shoremen initiated the seamen's strike. MWIU seamen on the west coast led strikes on every ship in which they had members, immediately after the longshoremen walked out on 9 May. According to Darcy, on "May 12, a large conference of ship's delegates organized by the MWIU voted to go into a sympathetic strike," by which time dozens of ships' crews had already struck. [57] As the seamen's strike gathered steam, the CP and MWIU scathingly attacked the ISU official leadership as "notorious labor fakers" [58] and declared the ISU's "bankruptcy." [59]

The ISU's leadership deserved the criticism heaped upon it by the Communists. The massive longshoremen's strike presented an important opportunity to rebuild the seamen's unions, but George Larsen, Secretary of the Sailor's Union of the Pacific (SUP) -- the ISU's West Coast affiliate -- avoided calling for strike action. Instead he advised the few SUP locals "with recognition or an understanding with the owners" not to strike. In his words, "the [SUP] unions are not demanding [strike action], that is to say it is not mandatory." [60] Yet, the growing response to the strike call by the MWIU forced the ISU leadership to call their members out on strike on 16 May, followed closely by the Marine Cooks and Stewards and the Masters, Mates and Pilots on 17 and 23 May, respectively. [61]

ISU officials came to the fight reluctantly, but once in it they employed newly found radical rhetoric. For example, after Larsen finally endorsed the strike, he declared, "Most of the men going to sea have faith in the union, let's show them their faith is not misplaced. We must stick and win." [62] The Communist Party's dual union strategy now faced trouble. So long as ISU officials refused to call for strike action, the MWIU presented the only option for seamen who joined the walkout. As Browder stated,

The only organizing center they could find was the Marine Workers Industrial Union . . . call-ing the seamen to strike . . . recruit[ing] over 800 seamen in a brief time, tying up every ship which came into port. This intervention of the MWIU was decisive in breaking the official A.F. of L. embargo on general action in the industry. [63]

However, once the ISU leaders did call a strike, ISU membership quickly surpassed that of the MWIU, leaving the CP marine leadership bewildered and increasingly isolated from the majority of striking seamen. They had not expected this problem, believing that the ISU had disintegrated beyond repair; yet the ISU's resurgence exposed the consequences of the CP's "unpardonable blunder." Undoubtedly both the MWIU and the ISU grew rapidly during the first weeks of the strike. The Western Worker claimed "the headquarters of the MWIU is a busy bee-hive with more than 1,000 seamen signed up." [64] Membership figures for the early days of the strike are difficult to state with certainty, but one indication of the ISU's rapidly expanding membership can be gleaned by comparing the number of meals served by the ILA strike committee to sailors represented by MWIU- and ISU-affiliated sailors. At the 13 June meeting of the ILA strike committee, the relief committee reported that they had served 16,000 meals to ISU sailors and 6,295 meals to MWIU sailors since the beginning of the strike. [65] Thus, although the MWIU led the initial walkout, the TUUL dual union was unable to become the legitimate trade union in the eyes of the majority of seamen. This split the seamen into competing unions, isolating the more politically radical sailors in the MWIU from the majority in the ISU. The costs of these political strategies were clear when compared to the CP's strategy on the docks, both in terms of CP influence in the main union and the ability of the rank-and-file to control their union.

ISU officials engaged in red-baiting the union in order to control the strike, aided by the MWIU's actions. Throughout the strike, the MWIU issued a daily paper called The Foc'sle Head which not only criticized the ISU leadership but also openly cried, "Workers of the World Unite! . . . join the MWIU, A Union Controlled by the Rank-and-file!" [66] This strategy created two problems. First, unlike the ILA, criticism of union officials came from outside the ranks of the union, enabling the ISU officials to denounce the CP and MWIU's "meddling." Second, while the MWIU called for a "United Front Strike Committee," it simultaneously appealed to ISU members to quit their union and join the MWIU. The Trotskyist newspaper The Militant contended:

If the maritime strike fails, the Stalinists [CP] will bear a heavy responsibility for it. By going right on with the splitting tactic of building the MWIU, they have done a perfect job for Ryan, [SUP president Andrew] Furuseth and the bosses. The existence of the MWIU has meant the isolating of splendid, fighting militants who should have been in the midst of the marine workers with the [AFL] unions. [67]

The CP successfully pressured the ISU leadership from the outside by initiating the seamen's strike through the MWIU, but once the ISU joined in the strike most seamen saw the ISU as the more "permanent and realistic trade union organization." [68] Thus, the CP's strategy, intentionally abstaining from organizing any internal opposition as they did in local 38-79, handed the newly energized ISU over to union officials. Nelson states that given "the absolute determination of [ISU] officials to exclude dissidents . . . it may have seemed impossible for Communists to bore from within the ISU." [69] Contrary to Nelson's view, the situation changed drastically as the walkout spread up and down the coast.

The ISU leadership typified the conservative breed of officials who had utterly lost touch with the workers they claimed to represent. Andrew Furuseth, President of the SUP, claimed a militant past and could potentially pose as a genuine militant, but by 1934 Furuseth was showing his eighty-plus years and had lived in Washington D.C. for more than fifteen years. His power in the ISU lay primarily in the seamen's new found "faith in the union." The second most important ISU official was Paul Scharrenberg. His personal role in arranging the affilia-tion of the Blue Book, the widely hated pre-strike company union, with the San Francisco Labor Council, seriously damaged any prestige he had gained as editor of the Seamen's Journal, the West Coast ISU paper. [70] In other words, the old guard ISU leadership was just as vulner-able to the Communists' demands for rank-and-file control and strike action as the ILA officials. They did not command unwavering support from the membership: most of the seamen had probably never even heard their names before the strike.

Further evidence that the CP could have worked inside the ISU came from the radical shakeup in the leadership of the union itself during the strike. Harry Lundeberg emerged from Seattle as the seaman's equivalent of Harry Bridges during the 1934 strike. Lundeberg, an IWW influenced radical, not Furuseth or Sharrenberg, symbolized the seamen's new militancy. By 1935 the SUP had expelled Scharrenberg and one year later, Furuseth died, leaving the union in the hands of the radicals who led the 1934 strike. [71] Thus, the CP's dual union policy, rather than the impenetrability of the ISU, put the Communists outside of the AFL seamen's union.

The Big Strike brought the internal CP conflict over trade union policy into sharp relief. Browder severely criticized Darcy as being conservative in abandoning the MWIU and throw-ing the CP's weight behind the ILA in San Francisco. He wrote,

Comrade Darcy wrongly concludes that our stronger position in the San Francisco strike was a result of our more timid (or as he would say, more skillful) criticism [of Ryan]--that our weak-ness in Seattle was because of our more bold criticism. But we must reject such a theory. [72]

Browder contended that the MWIU had lost all public presence on the docks in San Francisco because of Darcy's "boring from within" tactics, while in Seattle, despite "weakness," the Party continued to push the MWIU as a dual union. [73] Yet, it was precisely Darcy's policy which established the connections and the growing Communist influence in local 38-79, the strongest union on the Coast. On the other hand, as the strike grew, the ISU surpassed the MWIU, leaving the Communists isolated and unable to influence the second most important maritime un-ion -- the ISU -- in what would eventually develop into a general strike.

The Joint Strike Committee In mid-June, local 38-79 initiated the Joint Strike Committee (JSC) which included 5 representatives from all the striking San Francisco unions. The JSC quickly became the nerve center for the maritime strike and the movement for a general strike. Communist participation in this vital organizing body demonstrated the divergent effects of the CP's organizing strategies. The ILA rank-and-file led the JSC and the CP gained considerable influence when Harry Bridges defeated an ISU official named O'Grady by a vote of 25-20 to preside as permanent chair. [74]

In contrast, the majority of the JSC delegates excluded the MWIU on the grounds that it was a dual union. This conflict provoked a showdown at the first JSC meeting between the AFL affili-ated marine unions and the MWIU, which the MWIU lost when the ISU and the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association #97 threatened to break up the JSC unless the MWIU withdrew its delegates. Out-voted because of the number of seafaring craft unions, the MWIU voluntarily pulled out its delegates, allowing the ISU leadership to consolidate their role as the "legitimate" leadership of the seamen's strike by virtue of their place in the JSC and their greater number of members. [75] By 20 June the ISU and the ILA commanded an equal number of representatives on the JSC executive committee [76] and a motion to seat the MWIU delegates as non-voting observers lost by a vote of 16 to 13. [77]

Thus, the radical rank-and-file ILA representatives found themselves in a minority within the Joint Strike Committee which they themselves had organized. The MWIU's exclusion from the JSC clearly illustrates the pitfalls of the dual union strategy. However, the rejection of the MWIU delegates did not represent a shift to the right on the part of the majority of seamen. The ISU official delegates grew so confident from their victory in the JSC that they issued a public attack on the MWIU and the Communist Party. Yet, the longshoremen's 16 June repudiation at a mass meeting of Ryan's so-called "Saturday Agreement," which was very similar to the 3 April sellout, generated a wave of rank-and-file solidarity and distrust of paid officials amongst ISU seamen. At a 17 June meeting, one thousand ISU seamen attacked their own leadership for red-baiting the MWIU and demanded unity on the picket lines between workers in both sea-faring unions. [78]

The seamen's actions demonstrated their rapid radicalization and growing sympathy with the MWIU's messages of industrial militancy and solidarity across trade boundaries. At the same time, the overwhelming majority still believed that the ISU remained the most realistic union with which to affiliate. Its representation on both the Joint Strike Committee and the Labor Council provided the organizational ties to the larger labor movement that seamen sensed were necessary to win their demands. Under these conditions, the relatively large and very ex-perienced cadre of Communist seamen could have made a dramatic impact on building the kind of rank-and-file opposition to the ISU officials that marked local 38-79. The Communist Party's failure to do just that allowed the ISU officials to ride out the anger in the ranks without an organized challenge. ISU officials used their secure positions to retard the general strike movement and resisted using the Joint Strike Committee to lead the strike.

From Bloody Thursday to the General Strike The 5 July police murders of Howard Sperry and Nick Bordoise on "Bloody Thursday" sparked a massive wave of working class anger, pushing forward the already growing movement for a general strike. Paul Eliel, reporting for the Industrial Association's, concluded that after the 40,000 strong 9 July mass funeral "the certainty of a general strike, which up to this time had appeared to many to be a visionary dream of a small group of the most radical workers, became for the first time a practical and realizable objective." [79] The only questions that remained were who would lead the general strike and who would win it?

The morning after Bloody Thursday, the San Francisco Labor Council's conservative leadership appointed a "Strategy Committee of Seven" to investigate the possibility of organizing a general strike. The Strategy Committee had no intention of calling a general strike if there was any way to avoid it. As Darcy put it, "the Strategy Committee had been appointed to kill the strike, and not to organize it." [80] None of the Seven representedany of the dozens of unions that had already declared or voted for strike action and the Communist's designation of it as the "Tragedy Committee" soon became popular among the radical maritime workers. [81]

Although Bloody Thursday provided impetus for the movement for a general strike, the Communist Party and the radical ILA leadership had been actively preparing for it since the mid-June repudiation of Ryan's "Saturday Agreement." Darcy recounted:

Our strategy . . . was to use the Joint Maritime Strike Committee as a base. This committee had 50 members, and as fast as any other AFL local voted for the general strike they were also asked to elect two members to be added . . . we hoped to transform [it] into a general strike committee. [82]

On 7 July, the Joint Strike Committee convened a meeting of delegates representing most un-ions in the city. Sentiment to call for an immediate general strike ran high and Party members had instructions to push for a formal strike resolution. Yet, the JSC deferred to representatives from the Strategy Committee of 7 under the (mistaken) impression that the Labor Council would finally now move decisively towards a general strike. Darcy claimed that confusion surrounding the Strategy Committee's role was so great that even the Communists at the meeting failed to argue against handing strike authority over to the Seven. [83]

The following day, 8 July, a mass meeting of Teamsters voted 1,220 to 271 to strike on 12 July regardless of the Strategy Committee's recommendations. [84] After failing to prevent the vote, Teamster president Mike Casey remarked that "nothing on earth could have prevented that vote. In my thirty years of leading these men, I have never seen them so worked up, so determined to walk out." [85] The Teamsters' actions spurred sixty other locals to vote for the general strike, and by 12 July ten unions had already walked out in sympathy with the mari-time strikers. At this point, the Labor Council realized that the Strategy Committee did not have the power to prevent the general strike from taking place. Therefore, late in the evening of 13 July, they announced the formation of a General Strike Committee, consisting of five delegates from every union in San Francisco. The Labor Council set the first meeting for 10 a.m. the next morning, intentionally making democratic elections of delegates impossible. The Labor Council officials stacked the General Strike Committee with paid officials and conservative workers and, in this way, succeeded in capturing control over the general strike move-ment. [86] The massive anger after Bloody Thursday compelled the Labor Council to call the general strike for 16 July, but they used their authority to almost immediately begin undermining it, calling it off after only four days on 19 July before a decisive victory had been achieved. [87]

The Communist Party's dual union strategy hurt their ability to influence the organization of the general strike because it allowed the ISU officials' to keep the radical and Communist seaman in the MWIU out of the Joint Strike Committee, weakening the Party's ability to transform the JSC into a strike-directing body. While the local 38-79 rank-and-file members sent delegations of between fifty and four hundred members to other AFL local union meetings to lobby them for general strike votes, [88] Darcy reported that the MWIU became so isolated that it did not organize "a single delegation . . . during the entire period of the preparation for the general strike." [89]Thus, the MWIU had almost no impact on the calling of the general strike. The dual union policy crippled Communist and other radical seamen's ability to lead the strike, leaving the majority of the seamen under the leadership of Scharrenberg and Furuseth. These officials strongly opposed the general strike and pushed the General Strike Committee to call it off at the first possible moment.

After the first meeting of the General Strike Committee the CP realized that they had lost the initiative. Darcy estimated that out of roughly 800 delegates appointed to the Committee, "we could really count on only 60 reliable militants." [90] Western Worker immediately put out a call for rank-and-file members in all the striking AFL unions to "Insist on electing the five [General Strike Committee delegates] in your own local. Elect live-wires -- especially militant fighters." [91] The Party also distributed a statement by Harry Bridges and a resolution by local 38-79 calling for delegate elections to the General Strike Committee. This agitation may have had some effect, but the general strike remained firmly in the hands of union leaders who had done everything in their power up until 13 July to prevent it from ever taking place. Darcy argued that "we were not outnumbered amongst the rank-and-file insofar as sympathetic sentiment went, but . . . we were hopelessly weak in organizational contact to put the strike into militant hands." [92] He laid the responsibility for the Party's weakness squarely on the shoulders of the TUUL dual union policy, blaming the "years of neglect of our work in the American Federation of Labor." [93]

Conclusion Sam Darcy perceptively claimed that "there would have been no maritime or general strike except for the work of our Party." [94] Despite repeated attempts by Ryan and to first prevent the walkout, and later bring it to a speedy and unsatisfactory conclusion, the ILA membership in San Francisco systematically wrested control of the strike apparatus from officials' hands. The Communist Party played a crucial role in building this rank-and-file control which became the bedrock of the 1934 strike. Yet the MWIU dual union policy critically weakened the seamen by splitting them into to two unions, allowing the conservative officials to run the ISU unopposed. The MWIU's marginalization, in turn, weakened the radical forces pushing for a more militant and longer general strike.

The Communist Party's membership grew dramatically during the course of the strike, from 2,100 in May to 3,000 in August. Radicalized workers recognized the contribution the Party made to the strike, transforming the Party into a major force in the San Francisco labor movement. Yet, the Communists' strengths and weaknesses were not the only factors which determined the character of the general strike. Nineteen-thirty-four began the transition from the terrible beating labor took in the early years of the Depression to the CIO victories in 1937. San Francisco workers overcame years of defeat in a tremendous display of solidarity, forcing the Industrial Association to eventually concede the maritime workers key demands. Yet they still placed a great deal of faith in the AFL officials and continued to trust, if warily, Roosevelt's arbitration process.

The Labor Council leaders used that faith to sabotage the movement for a general strike. Later, when workers began striking without official sanction, the Labor Council attempted to destroy strike momentum. The mass Bay Area working class solidarity with the maritime workers and anger unleashed by the police murders on Bloody Thursday indicate that the gen-eral strike did not reach its full potential. Responsibility for the betrayal of the strike and the ambiguity of its outcome rests squarely on the shoulders of Ryan, Scharrenberg, Furuseth, and Carey. However, the Communist's dual union strategy among the seamen made the betrayal easier for the Labor Council to carry out by dividing the seamen and weakening the Party's influence in general.

Darcy's "boring from within" approach to the ILA succeeded both for maritime workers and for the Communist Party. The general strike forced the Waterfront Employers Union to grant effective union control of the hiring hall as well as significant wage and work condition improvements. The Communists gained nearly one thousand members in a few short months, received national attention as a militant and effective political alternative for workers, and learned skills that equipped them to lead many CIO battles in later years.

The division between the ISU and MWIU ended almost immediately after the strike; when Stalin declared the Popular Front in 1935, the TUUL unions were dissolved in the interest of "anti-fascist unity." Although this decision merged Communist and radical San Francisco sea-men into the ISU, they were perceived newcomers who had missed the defining experience of the newly resurgent union, the big strike. Thus Furuseth successfully controlled the union in the post-strike months, adopting a passive, wait-and-see policy during arbitration hearings, which dragged on for more than six months. This delay contrasted sharply with the ILA strategy of frequent workplace actions to enforce contract rights and establish union power on the docks. As a result, the ILA obtained better contract terms in the arbitration decision much sooner than the ISU.

The San Francisco general strike inspired union militants across the nation and played a pivotal role in the movement to form the CIO. The Communist Party performed a vital role in leading the strike, becoming the dominant force on the left-wing of the labor movement. As the Popular Front unfolded, Darcy's decision to work within the ILA became accepted Communist union policy. However, as Stalin pushed the CP further to the right in order to gain favor with Roosevelt, the Communists progressively deemphasized the independence and militancy that characterized local 38-79. Instead, after their leading role in the 1937 General Motors sit-down strikes, the Communists became narrowly focused on capturing official positions in the new CIO unions. Ultimately, the Communist Party during the Depression left a tangled legacy. On the one hand, members' submission to Stalin's "Third Period" policies crippled their judgment and hampered their union work. In San Francisco, the dual union policy did real damage both to the CP and to the seamen. On other hand, the party's work in organizing the ILA and leading of one of the most widespread strikes in American history demands respect and study. Darcy's "boring from within" strategy allowed them to demonstrate that workers could organize better than officials in the fight for union rights, while firmly rooting the CP in the San Francisco working class and making communist politics a real force in the Depression-era class struggle.

· · · · ·

1. Walter Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the American Labor Movement 1935-1941 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 602.

2. Art Preis, Twenty Years of the CIO: Labor's Giant Step (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972), 33.

3. Figures compiled from Irving Berstein, Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933-1941 (Boston: Houg-ton Mifflin Company, 1971), 291; and Galenson, 432.

4. Sam Darcy, "The Great West Coast Maritime Strike," Communist 7 (July 1934): 667-68.

5. Howard Kimmeldorf, Reds Or Rackets? The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 80-98.

6. Throughout this paper I will refer to members of the Communist Party as "Communists" (capitalized), including such usages as "Communist longshoremen" and "Communist seamen." The words "communist" or "socialist" (lowercase), will refer to radicals who, like Harry Bridges, were definitely radicals of a Marxist persuasion, but were not necessarily, or publicly, official members of the Communist Party.

7. Western Worker, 24 April 1934. Western Worker gave detailed figures on Party growth as follows: 1931 (first half) 8,339; 1931 (second half) 9,219; 1932 (first half) 12,936; 1932 (second half) 14,474; 1933 ( first half) 16,814; 1933 (second half) 19,165; 1934 (first 3 months) 24,500.

8. James Cannon, Speeches to the Party (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973), quoted in Michael Goldfield, "Recent His-toriography of the Communist Party U.S.A.," in The Year Left: An American Socialist Yearbook (London: Verso, 1985), eds. Mike Davis, Fred Pfeil, and Michael Sprinker, 324.

9. Fraser M. Ottanelli, The Communist Party of the United States: From the Depression to World War II (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991), 22-28.

10. Earl Browder, "The Struggle for the United Front," Communist 10 (October 1934): 936.

11. Harvey Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers), 16.

12. Dorothy Ray Healey and Maurice Isserman, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party (Chicago: Uni-versity of Illinois Press, 1993), 56-57.

13. Browder, 935.

14. Communist 10 (October 1934): 968.

15. Browder, 942.

16. James Cannon, The Militant, 16 June 1934, quoted in Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (New York: Monad Press, 1973), 98-100.

17. Klehr, 38.

18. V. I. Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, An infantile Disorder, in Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Pub-lishers, 1974), 52-53.

19. Western Worker, 6 April 1934.

20. Ibid.

21. Western Worker, 2 April 1934. [22]Healey and Isserman, 37-38.

23. Darcy, 665.

24. Mike Quin, The Big Strike (Olema, Calif.: Olema Publishing Co., 1949), 38.

25. Nelson, 90.

26. Quin, 39.

27. Kimmeldorf, 86-87; and Darcy, 666.

28. Kimmeldorf, 85. [29]Darcy, 666.

30. Western Worker, 12 March 1934.

31. Nelson, 78-79.

32. Ibid., 80.

33. Ibid., 79

34. Lenin, 55.

35. Roy Hudson quoted in Nelson, 88.

36. Galenson, 427.

37. The Focsle Head, 25 June 1934.

38. Hudson, "The Work of the Marine Union," Party Organizer 7 (May-June 1934): 29, quoted in Nelson, 298n.

39. Darcy, 665.

40. Browder, 954.

41. Western Worker, Mar. 12, 1934.

42. Kimmeldorf, 90.

43. Roy Hudson quoted in Nelson, 88.

44. Figure from Joseph Goldberg, The Maritime Story, (Cambridge, 1957), quoted in Galenson, 428.

45. Nelson, 85.

46. Ibid., 101.

47. Proposed Settlement of PresidentÕs Mediation Board, 3 April, quoted in Quin, 239.

48. Western Worker, 14 April 1934.

49. Ibid., 5.

50. Ibid.

51. Ibid., 2.

52. Western Worker, 14 April 1934.

53. Western Worker, 7 May 1934.

54. Quin, 41-46.

55. Darcy, quoted in Nelson, 144.

56. International Longshoremen's Association Strike Committee local 38-79 minutes, 9 May­20 June 1934.

57. Darcy, 670.

58. Ibid.

59. Western Worker, 14 May 1934.

60. Larsen, quoted in Nelson, 135.

61. Darcy, 671.

62. SUP, minutes of headquarters meeting, San Francisco, 15 May 1934, quoted in Nelson, 136.

63. Browder, "The Struggle for the United Front," 947-48.

64. Western Worker, 28 May 1934.

65. International Longshoremen's Association Strike Committee minutes, 13 June 1934.

66. The Foc'sle Head, 30 May 1934.

67. The Militant, 21 July 1934.

68. Nelson, 101.

69. Ibid., 79.

70. Nelson, 105.

71. Galenson, 430-31.

72. Browder, 954.

73. Ronald E. Magden, A History of Seattle Waterfront Workers ( Seattle: ILWU, Local 19, 1991), 193.

74. Joint Strike Committee minutes, 18 June 1934.

75. Ibid., 14 June 1934.

76. Ibid., 20 June 1934.

77. Ibid., 18 June 1934.

78. Neslon, Workers on the Waterfront, 146.

79. Paul Eliel quoted in David Milton, The Politics of U.S. Labor: From the Great Depression to the New Deal, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1982), 48.

80. Darcy, 991

81. Ibid., 993; and Quin, 121-22.

82. Darcy, 990-91.

83. Ibid., 991.

84. Quin, 123.

85. Quoted in Nelson, 149.

86. Waterfront Worker, 14 September 1934.

87. Darcy, 993-94.

88. Ibid., 989.

89. Ibid., 990.

90. Darcy, 993.

91. Western Worker, 23 July 1934.

92. Darcy, 994.

93. Ibid.

94. Ibid., 986.

. . . . .

Todd Chretien will graduate from SFSU with a bachelor of arts in history in Fall 1997. He plans to enter the secondary credential program in the education department.

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