the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Aug 5, 2024
In the 1930s, workers reacted to constant wage cuts and horrible living conditions following the 1929 stock market crash. Strikes ensued, some of these strikes were carried out by the most exploited segments of the working class, such as farm workers. These workers were treated with the same class hatred that is being directed against migrants today, by large landowners and the authorities in California.
The workers’ struggle was impressive, as evidenced by the 1933 cotton strike in California’s San Joaquin Valley. It remains the largest agricultural workers’ strike in U.S. history. Approximately 18,000 workers participated. Three-quarters of the workforce is Mexican; the rest included Black workers from the South, Filipinos, and white migrants from other states. They were paid by the amount of cotton harvested. Three years of depression had pushed these rates even lower than they were before.
At an important meeting in the town of Tulare on October 1, 1933, workers voted to strike to increase the rates. The union set a strike date for October 4. But many did not wait. Almost immediately after the meeting, hundreds of cotton pickers began leaving the ranches where the harvest season was supposed to begin. Then, on October 4, 1933, almost all harvesting operations came to a halt.
The “growers” (as capitalist farm owners are called in the region) then organized “protective associations” and declared that: “Strikers will work peacefully or leave the state of California.” These protective associations (small militias serving these owners) began evicting strikers from the camps that belonged to these same growers.
The union was led by militants of the Communist Party (CP). These militants were few in number. But they were courageous and devoted to the working class. Their leadership and experience that they had gained in earlier struggles made the huge growth of this strike possible.
One of the first acts of the union was to rent a small 45-acre farm, where they established their headquarters. Five thousand men, women and children then lived in the camp.
The strike spread throughout the San Joaquin Valley. The union sent groups of striking workers to a series of cotton ranches stretching over 100 miles in the valley. The technique was simple, though laborious: groups of strikers in trucks stopped where they found workers in the fields and tried to convince them to join the strike.
In the second week, the growers intensified their attacks against the strikers, terrorizing them using the militias and the police to arrest the strikers. But the strike gained momentum, and most of the cotton remained unharvested in the fields.
On October 10, in the small town of Pixley, 40 members of an employer militia opened fire on a group of unarmed strikers and their families, killing two people. Shortly thereafter, an armed confrontation in another town lasted five hours between the strikers and the growers. After the shootings, local authorities arrested nine strikers, whom they accused of inciting a riot and also of murder. In response to this attempt to break the strike, the workers gathered in front of a church for the funerals of two of the murdered strikers. They turned the funerals into a large demonstration attended by over 5,000 people.
It was the first time in the history of agricultural workers in California that there was a demonstration of this magnitude.
On October 27, the strike committee accepted 75 cents for nearly 100 pounds of harvest, slightly less than what the strikers demanded, but significantly more than the rate offered by the growers at the start of the strike.
Ultimately, the growers and the state claimed victory because they had refused to officially recognize the union as an intermediary to negotiate with the striking workers. But this was only to save face. The agricultural workers’ strike had forced them to back down and grant wage increases. It was a real victory for these 18,000 workers, among the most despised, who had confronted the most powerful landowners in California and their repressive state apparatus.
In this strike, the workers demonstrated that even the most marginalized and exploited segment of the working class could push back powerful employers and their state.
During this strike, the Communist Party had only a small number of active militants in the fields throughout the San Joaquin Valley. These militants deserve serious credit for fighting alongside agricultural workers, providing coherence in organizing the strike and objectives for the struggle. And they effectively won a real credit among some thousands of workers for it.
And at the period of crisis, that influence was priceless. Because this fight can only be understood in a more general context of a significant rise in struggles during this period in the United States. From 1934 on major strikes erupted across the United States, in the automobile industry, in transportation, and the port of San Francisco. That was also true in many other different sectors such as in rubber or textile.
However, the problem is that at that time, the Communist Party under the influence of Stalinism had abandoned its revolutionary ideas. A chance to build a real working class party, a real party of revolution, was missed.
And that would have meant linking this struggle of the farm workers with those of all other American workers. That also would have meant addressing to workers the urgent problem of the period that was coming: a new world war.
The total failure of the capitalist system to ensure a decent future for the population was clearly posing the necessity for workers to overthrow the bourgeoisie and its state, take power, and begin building a socialist society, free from the barbarism we still know today. Once again, it was a missed opportunity that will reappear in one way or another as long as the same capitalist system crushes populations worldwide.
The question remains the same: when workers raise their heads, will there be a significant revolutionary workers’ party to lead this fight to its conclusion against capitalism?!