1. Isserman, Maurice, “Three Generations: Historians View American Communism,” Labor History 26 (Fall 1985): 540.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Important examples of what is becoming an enormous body of literature include Richmond, Al, A Long View From the Left: Memoirs of an American Revolutionary (Boston, 1972)Google Scholar; Painter, Nell Irvin, The Narrative of Hosea Hudson: His Life as a Negro Communist in the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1979)Google Scholar; Isserman, Maurice, “The 1956 Generation: An Alternative Approach to the History of American Communism,” Radical America 14 (03–04 1980): 43–51Google Scholar; Nelson, Steve, Barrett, James R., and Ruck, Rob, Steve Nelson, American Radical (Pittsburgh, 1981)Google Scholar; Buhle, Paul, “Jews and American Communism: The Cultural Question,” Radical History Review, no. 23 (Spring 1980): 9–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Naison, Mark, Communists in Harlem during the Depression (Urbana, Ill., 1983)Google Scholar; Freeman, Joshua, “Catholics, Communists, and Republicans: Irish Workers and the Organization of the Transport Workers Union,” in Working-Class America: Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society, ed. Frisch, Michael H. and Walkowitz, Daniel J. (Urbana, Ill., 1983), 256–83Google Scholar; and Filippelli, Ronald L., “UE: An Uncertain Legacy,” Political Power and Social Theory 4 (1984): 217–52.Google Scholar Isserman, , “Three Generations,” contains an excellent bibliography.Google Scholar

2. Draper, Theodore, “The Popular Front Revisited,” New York Review of Books, 30 05 1985, 44Google Scholar; Howe, Irving, Socialism and America (New York, 1985), 87–104Google Scholar; Klehr, Harvey, The Heyday of American Communism: The Depression Decade (New York, 1984), 415.Google Scholar

3. The history of unionism among West Coast longshoremen is complex. Organization on the San Francisco waterfront dates back to 1853. During the 1930s the revival of unionism occurred under the auspices of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA). With the emergence of the CIO, however, every local union in the Pacific Coast district except Tacoma, Port Angeles, and Anacortes withdrew from the ILA and formed the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (ILWU). Other maritime unions that were similar to the Longshoremen in structure and practice included the Pacific Coast Marine Firemen and the Marine Cooks and Stewards. The Firemen maintained a precarious balance between Communist and anti-Communist factions; the leadership of the Cooks and Stewards was closely aligned with the Communist party. The venerable Sailors' Union of the Pacific was sui generis. After Harry Lundeberg consolidated his control of the union in 1936, it remained democratic in form but ruthlessly autocratic in practice for the rest of his life.

4. Cochran, Bert, Labor and Communism: The Conflict that Shaped American Unions (Princeton, N.J., 1977), 43Google Scholar; Nelson, et al. , Steve Nelson, American Radical, 175; Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 17.Google Scholar

5. The Point Gorda Strike (New York, n.d. [1932?]), 3Google Scholar; Marine Workers Voice, Nov 1932, 1; Western Worker, 31 July 1933, 2. For a sympathetic and thoroughly engaging portrait of the MWIU and its Communist leadership, see Richmond, A Long View from the Left, 159–218.

6. Daniel, Cletus E., Bitter Harvest: A History of California Farmworkers, 1870–1941 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1981), 130–34Google Scholar, contains a useful portrait of Healey, Darcy; Dorothy, Tradition's Chains Have Bound Us (Los Angeles, 1982), I, 89Google Scholar; Nelson et al., Steve Nelson, American Radical, 255.

7. Author's interview with Darcy, Sam, 19 12 1979Google Scholar; Darcy, Sam, “The Great West Coast Maritime Strike,” The Communist 13 (07 1934): 665.Google Scholar

8. Larrowe, Charles P., Harry Bridges: The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the United States (New York, 1972), 4–9Google Scholar; Minton, Bruce and Stuart, John, Men Who Lead Labor (New York, 1937), 179Google Scholar; author's interview with Schmidt, Henry, 14 10 1981.Google Scholar

9. Author's interview with Bridges, Harry, 6 10 1981Google Scholar; Dreiser, Theodore, “The Story of Harry Bridges,” Friday, 4 10 1940, 6–7.Google Scholar For a moving portrait of Harry Hynes, who died fighting with the Abraham Lincoln Battalion in Spain, see Richmond, A Long View from the Left, 206–18.

10. Waterfront Worker, Dec 1932, 1; Chiles, Frederic, “General Strike: San Francisco, 1934—An Historical Compilation Film Storyboard,” Labor History 22 (Summer 1981): 443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11. Bruce Nelson, “Pentecost” on the Pacific: Maritime Unionism in the 1930s (Urbana, Ill., forthcoming), deals at length with the MWIU, the origins of the Waterfront Worker, and the alliance between Communists and longshoremen in Francisco, San. Western Worker, 17 07 1933, 4Google Scholar; Darcy, “The Great West Coast Maritime Strike,” 666.

12. The standard accounts of the West Coast maritime and general strike of 1934 are Bernstein, Irving, Turbulent Years: A History of the American Worker, 1933–1941 (Boston, 1970), 252–98Google Scholar; Larrowe, Charles P., “The Great Maritime Strike of '34,” Labor History 11 (Fall 1970): 403–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Labor History 12 (Winter 1971): 1–37; and Quin, Mike, The Big Strike (Olema, Calif., 1949).Google Scholar

13. I have dealt with the “syndicalist renaissance” at length in Bruce Nelson, “‘Pentecost’ on the Pacific: Maritime Workers and Working-Class Consciousness in the 1930s,” Political Power and Social Theory 4 (1984): 141–82.

14. Liebes, Richard Alan, “Longshore Labor Relations on the Pacific Coast, 1934–1942” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1942), 304Google Scholar; Harrison, Gregory, Maritime Strikes on the Pacific Coast (San Francisco, 1936), 21.Google Scholar

15. Voice of the Federation, 3 June 1937, 10; 29 July 1937, 1; Los Angeles Times, 29 May 1937, 1.

16. Roth, Almon E., Men and Ships: A Clinical Study in Human Relationships on One of the World's Most Turbulent Waterfronts (n.p., n.d., [1938]), 4Google Scholar; Voice of the Federation, 6 August. 1936, 4.

17. Francisco, San Examinar, 14 10. 1935, 4AGoogle Scholar; Lampham, Roger D., “Pacific Maritime Labor Conditions as They Affect the Nation” (speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 30 04 1936)Google Scholar, in Lapham, Roger, “An Interview on Shipping, Labor, San Francisco City Government and American Foreign Aid” (University of California, Regional Cultural History Project, Berkeley, 1957), 420.Google Scholar On the role of arbitrators, Clark Kerr and Lloyd Fisher commented that “Arbitration … was almost continual … Each arbitration award was made part of the contract until the contract became a monstrosity containing little that reflected a meeting of minds and much that was judicially imposed.” Kerr, and Fisher, , “Conflict on the Waterfront,” Atlantic Monthly 184 (09 1949): 18.Google Scholar On the constraints which a wider union membership imposed upon radicals, see Friedlander, Peter, The Emergence of a UAW Local, 1936–1939 (Pittsburgh, 1975), 155–31Google Scholar; and Gordon, Max, “The Party and the Polling Place: A Response,” Radical History Review, no. 23 (Spring 1980): 131–32.Google Scholar

18. Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 178, 187; “Review of the Month,” The Communist 15 (01. 1936): 8; Browder, Earl, “The Party of Lenin and the People's Front,” The Communist 15 (02 1936): 129.Google Scholar In the New Masses, Communist spokesman Mike Gold was already sounding a more conciliatory note. Although advocating the formation of a farmer-labor party, he declared, “Such a new party … might not even nominate a presidential candidate to oppose Roosevelt. But … it could have a tremendous pressure value on President Roosevelt, after his reelection.” Gold, Michael, “No Blank Check for Roosevelt,” New Masses 18 (21 01 1936): 6.Google Scholar

19. Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 207, 210; Hathaway, Clarence A., “The 1938 Elections and Our Tasks,” The Communist 17 (03 1938): 215Google Scholar; Waltzer, Kenneth, “The Party and the Polling Place: American Communism and an American Labor Party in the 1930s,” Radical History Review no. 23 (Spring 1980): 115.Google Scholar

20. Voice of the Federation, 28 July 1938, 8.

21. Ibid.,23 March 1939, 1, 4; 20 July 1939, 1;21 July 1938, 8; 7 Sept. 1939, 4. On Bridges's first deportation hearing, and the cast of characters who promoted it, see Larrowe, Harry Bridges, 133–216.

22. Voice of the Federation, 10 Nov 1938, 3; 30 March 1939, 4; 9 March 1939, 1; 8 Sept. 1938, 5; 7 July 1939, 7; 7 Sept. 1939, 1; 13 July 1939, 3.

23. Ibid., 26 Aug. 1938, 1.

24. The unions claimed 85,000 marchers; the bitterly anti-union Industrial Association estimated “approximately 30,000.” The Chronicle characterized the marchers as “a mighty tide of moving humanity that flowed unceasingly for more than five hours.” Francisco, San Chronicle, 6 09 1938, 1, 4.Google Scholar Voice of the Federation, 8 Sept.1938, 6; 4 May 1939, 4.

25. Frost, Richard H., The Mooney Case (Stanford, Calif., 1968), 477–85Google Scholar; Voice of the Federation, 12 Jan. 1939, 5; 17 Nov. 1938, 3.

26. Ibid., 27 Oct. 1938, 3; 7 Sept. 1939, 2; 10 Nov. 1938, 1, 3.

27. “Review of the Month,” The Communist 16 (Sept,1937): 782–83; Foster, William Z., “New Methods of Political Mass Organization,” The Communist 18 (02 1939): 144.Google Scholar

28. “Review of the Month,” The Communist 16 (Aug.1937): 684; Dubofsky, Mevyn and Van Tine, Warren, John L. Lewis: A Biography (New York, 1977), 314–15Google Scholar; “Review of the Month,” The Communist 16 (Sept.1937): 781 (emphasis in original).

29. Waltzer, “The Party and the Polling Place,” 113, 115; Browder, Earl, “The American Communist Party in the Thirties,” in As We Saw the Thirties: Essays on Social and Political Movements of a Decade, ed. Simon, Rita James (Urbana, Ill., 1967), 237Google Scholar; Bakke, E.Wight, Citizens Without Work (New Haven, Conn., 1940), 53Google Scholar; Charney, George, A Long Journey (Chicago, 1968), 60, 77.Google Scholar In retrospect, the question is not whether the Communists should have supported Roosevelt and the New Deal, but how. Clearly, the Socialist party derived no benefit from its strident contention that the immediate choice was “Socialism or Fascism.” The party's membership declined dramatically in the late 1930s. Moreover, the failure of several local experiments with labor-based politics suggests that even unionized workers did not demonstrate overwhelming support for labor tickets. Howe, Socialism and America, 73–86; Gordon, “The Party and the Polling Place: A Response,” 133–34; Lovin, Hugh T., “CIO Innovators, Labor Party Ideologues, and Organized Labor's Muddles in the 1937 Detroit Elections,” Old Northwest 8 (Fall 1982): 223–43Google Scholar; Nelson, Daniel, “The CIO at Bay: Labor Militancy and Politics in Akron, 1936–1938,” Journal of American History 71 (12 1984): 565–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Charney, A Long Journey, 122–23; Klehr, The Heyday of American Communism, 395, 397, 400.

31. Richmond, A Long View from the Left, 201; author's interview with BillBailey, 24 Jan.1979; Voice of the Federation, 28 Sept.1939, 4.

32. Ibid., 5 Oct. 1939, 4, 7; 19 Oct. 1939, 1.

33. Filippelli, “UE: An Uncertain Legacy,” 229, 225.

34. Lapham, “An Interview on Shipping …,” 96; Galenson, Walter, The CIO Challenge to the AFL: A History of the Labor Movement, 1935–1941 (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 445Google Scholar; Larrowe, Harry Bridges, 255; Kerr and Fisher, “Conflict on the Waterfront,” 21.

35. Adamic, Louis, My America, 1928–1938 (New York, 1938), 378Google Scholar; Keeran, Roger, The Communist Party and the Auto Workers Unions (Bloomington, Ind., 1980), 190Google Scholar; Klehr, Harvey, “American Communism and the United Auto Workers Union: New Evidence on an Old Controversy,” Labor History 24 (Summer 1983): 409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36. Kerr and Fisher, “Conflict on the Waterfront,” 18; Gorter, Wytze and Hildebrand, George H., The Pacific Coast Maritime Shipping Industry, 1930–1948, vol. 2: An Analysis of Performance (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1954), 234, 258.Google Scholar

37. San Francisco Bay District Council #2, Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast, “Minutes,” 21 April 1936, in Maritime Federation of the Pacific Coast, File, 1935–41, International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Anne Rand Research Library, San Francisco; [Bridges, Harry R. et al. ], Town Meeting (n.p., n.d. [1938?]), 6Google Scholar; Brophy, John, A Miner's Life (Madison and Milwaukee, 1964), 275Google Scholar; De Caux, Len, Labor Radical—From the Wobblies to the CIO: A Personal History (Boston, 1970), 301.Google Scholar

38. Galenson, The CIO Challenge to the AFL, 391; Schmidt, Henry, Secondary Leadership in the ILWU, 1933–1966 (Berkeley, 1983), 136–37.Google Scholar

39. Francisco, San Examiner, 18 12 1938, 10; 20 Dec. 1938, 7; 21 Dec. 1938, 1.Google Scholar

40. Larrowe, Harry Bridges, 131–32; Liebes, “Longshore Labor Relations on the Pacific Coast,” 186a–90.

41. Voice of the Federation, 2 Nov. 1940, 1, 4; Burns, James McGregor, Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (New York, 1956), 442Google Scholar; Dubofsky and VanTine, John L. Lewis, 360; SamuelLubell, “Post Mortem: Who Elected Roosevelt?,” Saturday Evening Post, 25 Jan. 1941, 9. See also Bernstein, Irving, “John L. Lewis and the Voting Behavior of the C.I.O.,” Public Opinion Quarterly 5 (06 1941): 233–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42. Voice of the Federation, 9 Nov. 1940, 1, 2; 2 Nov.1940, 1, 2.

43. ByronDarnton, “The Riddle of Harry Bridges,” New York Times Magazine, 25 Feb.1940, 5; Larrowe, Harry Bridges, 126–27; Voice of the Federation, 9 Nov. 1940, 2.

44. Schmidt, Secondary Leadership in the ILWU, 139; Darnton, “The Riddle of Harry Bridges,” 5.