Class War Lessons: The Bay Area General Strikes 10/21 Oakland

Taught by: Louis Prisco and Gifford Hartman*

Readings: “Unions with Leaders Who Stay on the Job” by Stan Weir (chapter 9 in ‘We Are All Leaders’: The Alternative Unionism of the Early 1930s, edited by Staughton Lynd) also available as the pamphlet “Class War Lessons: From Direct Action on the Job to the 1946 Oakland General Strike” which can be obtained by e-mailing SFBay [at] FlyingPicket.org.

Description: Multi-media presentations with critical analyses of the two general strikes that rocked the Bay Area just 12 years apart. Radicals who had lived through the ’34 maritime strikes passed on the lessons they learned and many were put into effect in ’46, but Oakland had been shut down in the ’34 General Strike too. We will present first-hand accounts of solidarity in the two strikes, showing how they both began with the initiative of the rank-and-file, but will also show the many weaknesses that prevented them from becoming as effective as possible.

The San Francisco General Strike came in the midst of the Depression, and along with the general strikes in Minneapolis and Toledo, helped reignite working class militancy throughout the rest of the 1930s. The Oakland General Strike of 1946 came during one of the fiercest episodes of class struggle in U. S. history—and was the last general strike to ever occur. 1946 reached the peak for class struggle in the U.S.; there were 4,985 strikes in that year alone, including six city-wide general strikes, involving 4.6 million workers and 116 million man-days lost to work stoppages (each still the all-time record for the U.S.).

Workers’ struggles have never since reached the same level of militancy or class consciousness; now we seem to be at one of the lowest points ever. History should not be mere recounting of facts, but a call to action. Join us as we draw lessons from these two strikes and try to put them to use in taking the class war on the offensive once again.


Sponsored by the Institute for the Critical Study of Society


Wheelchair accessable


*Louis Prisco has led San Francisco General Strike walks for the last 8 years. Gifford Hartman recently helped organize a 60th anniversary celebration and a General Strike walk in Oakland; he is also part of a collective that is publishing "Oakland’s Work Holiday; A Pictorial History of the 1946 Oakland General Strike" (release date: May 2007).