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In our sixth episode, and final episode of our subset on the struggle of farmworkers,  we discuss the epic agricultural strikes of the 1930s.  With farm wages slashed to starvation levels during the Great Depression, organization in the fields made the slogan "Fight, Don't Starve!" a reality. While the AFL continued to refuse to organize farmworkers, the Communist Party stepped into the gap and organized the largest agricultural strike wave in US history in 1933. In response, farm owners and their allies in the state unleashed truly fascist repression, attempting to drown these struggles in blood. But the perseverance of the workers and their dedication to racial and national unity managed to extract vital wins even in the depths of the worst economic downturn in the country's history. These struggles would terrify farm owners so much, they would lobby the state to create the country's first guest worker program, the Bracero Program, to institute a legalized regime of apartheid in the fields and try to prevent the racial unity that proved so powerful. These fights and the response from the capitalist class laid the foundations for the structures of exploitation and oppression faced by farmworkers today, and carry many lessons for those who would organize for a better future.

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