In Dubious Battle is a novel by John Steinbeck, written in 1936. The central figure of the story is an activist for "the Party" (the American Communist Party, although it is never specifically named in the novel) who is organizing a major strike by the workers, seeking thus to attract followers to his cause. In Steinbeck's obituary, the New York Times said that "Although the writer's sympathies were clearly with the strikers... he pictured them as exploited both by the capitalists and the Communists."

Prior to publication, Steinbeck wrote in a letter: "The talk...is what is usually called vulgar. I have worked along with working stiffs and I have rarely heard a sentence that had not some bit of profanity in it. And in books I am sick of the noble working man talking very like a junior college professor. [The novel] is not controversial enough to draw the support of either the labor or the capital side although either may draw controversial conclusions from it, I suppose."