Farrell Dobbs
| Farrell Dobbs | |
|---|---|
| Born |
July 25, 1907 Queen City, Missouri |
| Died | October 31, 1983 (aged 76) Pinole, CA |
| Occupation | Politician, trade unionist, historian |
| Spouse(s) | Marvel Scholl |
| Children | Carol E. DeBerry, Mary Lou Montauk, Sharon Lee Finer |
| Parent(s) | Isaac Turl Dobbs, Ora Lenore Smith |
Farrell Dobbs (July 25, 1907 – October 31, 1983) was an American Trotskyist, trade unionist, politician, and historian.
Dobbs was born in Queen City, Missouri, where his father was a worker in a coal company garage. The family moved to Minneapolis, and he graduated from North High School (Minneapolis, Minnesota) 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 in 1928.
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. After getting to know the three Trotskyist Dunne brothers, (Miles, Vincent and 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 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 when he visited Mexico shortly before Trotsky's death in 1940.
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