re: "failure"

Mac lowered his voice. He moved close and put his hand on London's knee. "Listen," he said. "I guess we're goin' to lose this strike... But we're getting the stiffs used to working together; getting bigger and bigger bunches working together all the time, see? It doesn't make any difference if we lose. Here's nearly a thousand men who've learned how to strike. When we get a whole slough of men working together, maybe-maybe Torgas Valley, most of it, won't be owned by three men. Maybe a guy can get an apple for himself without going to jail for it, see? Maybe they won't dump apples in the river to keep up the price. When guys like you and me need an apple to keep our god damn bowels open, see? you've got to look at the whole thing, London, not just this little strike."
London was staring painfully at Mac's mouth, as though he tried to see the words as they came out. "That's kind of reva-revolution, aint it?"
-John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle, 1936, p. 290. As quoted in Dorothy Healey and Maurice Isserman, California Red: A Life in the American Communist Party, 1990. p. 42

Not everything works for me - of course it makes a difference if we lose. This, as Healey notes, is where the TUUL/CP erred in the early '30s, striking for striking's sake rather than actually trying to build worker power from below. And I feel obligated to point of the ways in which the masculinist rhetoric disrupts and renders problematic the possibilities for solidarity. But still, there's something here I find really helpful in terms of thinking about what we do now.

Dorothy Healey passed away last month. I may write something more about her when I'm done with incompletes and things are a little less crazy. For those readers not familiar with Healey's life and work, here's the Washington Post and Mike Davis in the Nation. But I highly recommend reading the book.