In May 1934, longshore workers from Bellingham in northern Washington to San Diego in Southern California went on strike under the leadership of the Pacific Coast District of the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA-PCD). They were soon joined by shipboard workers, organized in several unions including the TUUL’s Marine Workers Industrial Union (MWIU). The MWIU played only a small and early role in the strike. In mid-June striking longshore workers rejected a settlement negotiated by their international president, Joseph Ryan, and increasingly looked for leadership to the chair of the strike committee of the San Francisco ILA local, Harry Bridges. On July 5 a daylong battle between San Francisco police and strike supporters left two dead and more than a hundred injured. The governor sent in National Guard troops to protect the strikebreakers. The San Francisco Labor Council then led a four-day general strike to protest police violence and the use of the National Guard. The strikes ended in late July, and a federal arbitration board gave the striking longshore workers nearly everything they had sought. Those events have attracted many historians and journalists. I have written at length elsewhere on Bridges, the longshore workers, and the development of organization on the waterfront. What follows is my understanding of the role of the CP in the early organization of longshore workers in San Francisco and during the strikes, especially the internal divisions within the CP over the correct response to those events.