Child of the Sit-Downs_ The Revolutionary Life of Genora Dollinger - Carlton Jackson [19]
Genora was a Socialist by the time she was sixteen and ultimately came to believe in the philosophies of Leon Trotsky, a leading member of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Trotsky believed that the revolution could start in Russia, but its continuing successes depended on extending it to the industrial countries of the West. Russia was to be the “pacesetter” of the revolution, but its ultimate victory would come only if the proletariat in other European countries supported it.39 “The battle cry of the party,” Trotsky had written, “must be ‘The Revolution in Permanence.’”40 The defeat of the German revolution in 1919–23 led his opponent, Joseph Stalin, to expound the belief of building “Socialism in One Country,”41 a slower method of world Communism than Trotsky envisaged and the leading cause of rivalry between the two Russians.
Genora was never a “card-carrying Communist,”42 though, of course, she was frequently accused of it. She was, however, a lifelong Socialist of one variation or another. For the last forty years or so of her life, though still imbued with Socialist ideals and activities, she did not affiliate with any one branch of Socialism.43 To most Americans, however—at least historically—Socialism equates with Communism. Americans fail to realize that several layers of Socialism exist and that one can be a practicing Socialist without being a Communist.
After many years of study—although she never did get a high school diploma—and deep reading in religious and political philosophies, Genora was prepared to embrace the cause of Socialist advances. She could not predict how she was going to do this, except that she knew—and had known for a long time—that if she ever did become involved in a major labor-management confrontation, she would not be in the kitchen making sandwiches and coffee for the men. She would be on the front line, as an integral part of it all.
The UAW strike against GM in 1937 was a culmination of grievances that had been brewing for years—brought on in no small way by the deleterious effects of the Great Depression—not only in Genora’s mind but in those of many of her contemporary colleagues. What became unique about the strike was the sit-down technique and, most importantly, the role women played in it. The 1937 sit-downs were the first defining moments, if not the defining moment, in the life of Genora Johnson and, by extension, thousands of other women around the country. One could say that this was the impetus from which a great reform movement began to grow.
Two Genora and Friends—
Standing By Their Men
The stock market crash of October 29, 1929, “Black Tuesday,” heralded dark days ahead for the 1930s and social and political influences on American life that lasted for the rest of the century.1 Unemployment grew to a steady 25 percent, with some cities like Cleveland and Toledo suffering more than twice that amount. Entire families from coast to coast “slept in tar-paper shacks and tin-lined caves and scavenged like dogs for food in the city dump.”2 By-products of the Great Depression included malnutrition, especially in the American South, and alarming increases in the crime rate as bank robbers like Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow terrorized the Midwest and outlaw John Dillinger became public enemy number one.
The crime rate could very well have taken a significant swing upward on Monday, January 11, 1937, because, as it turned out, that would have been a good day to rob a bank in Flint, Michigan. City and corporation police were centered in just a few places—leaving other public and private concerns vulnerable—as talk of a Communist takeover consumed the opinions of company and town folk alike.3 Genesee