This revolution appeared to break out spontaneously, without any real leadership or formal planning. Russia had been suffering from a number of economic and social problems, which were compounded by the impact of the First World War.
Bread rioters and industrial strikers were joined on the streets by disaffected elements of the city's garrison. As more and more troops deserted, and with loyal troops trapped at the Front, the city moved into a state of anarchy, prompting a revolution the Tsarist regime did not survive.
The February Revolution was followed in the same year by the October Revolution, bringing Bolshevik rule and a change in Russia's social structure, and paving the way for the USSR.
The two revolutions constituted a change in the composition of the country: the first overthrew the Tsar, and the second instituted a new form of government.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_RevolutionThe marches shifted public opinion about the Civil Rights movement. The images of Alabama law enforcement beating the nonviolent protesters were shown all over the country and the world by television networks and newspapers. The visuals of such brutality being carried out by the state of Alabama helped shift the image of the segregationist movement from one of a movement trying to preserve the social order of the South to a system of state-endorsed terrorism against non-whites.<15>
The marches also had a powerful effect in Washington. After witnessing TV coverage of "Bloody Sunday," President Lyndon Baines Johnson met with Governor George Wallace in Washington to discuss with him the civil rights situation in his state. He tried to persuade Wallace to stop the state harassment of the protesters. Two nights later, on March 15, 1965, Johnson presented a bill to a joint session of Congress. The bill itself would later pass and become the Voting Rights Act. Johnson's speech in front of Congress was considered to be a watershed moment for the civil rights movement; Johnson even used the movement's most famous slogan "We shall overcome".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1965)#First_march
The victory by FLU 18384 led to widespread unionization in Toledo. In 1935, the auto workers would successfully strike Chevrolet, leading the unionization of that automaker and the first successful steps in organizing workers in automobile manufacturing.<3> Toledo remains one of the most unionized cities in the United States as of 2007.<37>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Lite_StrikeThe 1936–1937 Flint Sit-Down Strike changed the United Automobile Workers (UAW) from a collection of isolated locals on the fringes of the industry into a major union and led to the unionization of the domestic United States automobile industry.
That development forced GM to bargain with the Union. John L. Lewis, President of the United Mine Workers and founder and leader of the CIO, spoke for the UAW in those negotiations, while the UAW sent its President Homer Martin on a speaking tour to keep him out of the way. GM's representatives refused to be in the same room as the UAW's, so Governor Frank Murphy acted as courier and intermediary between the two groups. Governor Murphy sent in the national guard, not to evict the strikers, but rather to protect the strikers from the police and corporate strike-breakers. The parties finally reached agreement on February 11, 1937 on a one page agreement that recognized the UAW as the exclusive bargaining representative for GM's employees who were members of the union for the next six months.
As short as this agreement was, it gave the UAW instant legitimacy.<2> The UAW capitalized on that opportunity, signing up 100,000 GM employees and building the Union's strength through grievance strikes at GM plants throughout the country. Several participants in the strike, including Charles I. Krause, went on to greater prominence within the union. Other notable participants in the sit-down strike were future D-Day hero and Greco-Roman wrestling champion Dean Rockwell, labor leader Walter Reuther and the uncle of filmmaker Michael Moore.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_StrikeThe New Orleans general strike was a general strike in the U.S. city of New Orleans, Louisiana, that began on November 8, 1892. Despite appeals to racial hatred, black and white workers remained united. The general strike ended on November 12, with unions gaining most of their original demands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1892_New_Orleans_general_strikeThe 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, as well as a number of variations on these names) lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailors and a four-day general strike in San Francisco, and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States. The San Francisco General Strike, along with the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America, were important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1934_West_Coast_waterfront_strikeAfter the Boston Bread Riot, acts were passed prohibiting exports of grain in time of shortage, fixing grain and bread prices at more reasonable levels, and establishing a public granary. These measures somewhat alleviated the immediate shortage, however, food shortages and the attendant rioting and looting recurred in Boston throughout the American Revolution and into the early 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Bread_RiotThe Belgian general strike of 1893 was ordered (12 April) by the General Board of the Belgian Labour Party after the Belgian Parliament rejected (11 April) the Law Proposal on universal suffrage.
This general strike did force a terrified <1> bourgeoisie into concessions (according to Henri Pirenne: the bourgeoisie in the Parliament). But following the same author the leaders of the Belgian Labour Party were also terrified in front of events which were no more under their control <2>.
In the end, on 18 April, a toned down version of universal suffrage, which gave plural votes based on wealth, education and age (ensuring the bourgeoisie of a safe majority), was approved.<3>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_general_strike_of_1893The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country – and the first general wildcat strike in history – was May 1968 in France.<8> The prolonged strike involved eleven million workers for two weeks in a row,<8> and its impact was such that it almost caused the collapse of the de Gaulle government.
May 1968 was a political failure for the protesters, but it had an enormous social impact. In France, it is considered to be the watershed moment when a conservative moral ideal (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) shifted towards a more liberal moral ideal (sexual liberation) that today better describes French society, in theory if not in practice.
Although this change did not take place solely in this one month, the term mai 68 is used to refer to this general shift in principles, especially when referring to its most idealistic aspects.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968_in_France
Reflecting on the factors that guided the British decision to relinquish the Raj in India, Clement Attlee, the then British prime minister, cited several reasons, the most important of which were: which were the INA activities of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, which weakened the Indian Army - the foundation of the British Empire in India- and the RIN Mutiny that made the British realize that the Indian armed forces could no longer be trusted to prop up the Raj.<16>.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Indian_Navy_Mutiny
The sit-in lasted until the workers reached a settlement with the factory over severance, vacation time, and temporary health care benefits; the settlement, which was reached on December 11 and amounted over $1.75 million<8>, was negotiated by the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (of whose Local 1110 branch the workers were members), Republic owners and Bank of America over three days.
On December 10, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase agreed to create a $1.75 million fund to pay the workers their back pay and benefits and to provide two months of health insurance coverage.<3>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_Windows_and_Doors
The victory gained the cocalero and campesino groups international support from anti-globalisation groups.<2> Oscar Olivera and Omar Fernandez have become sought after speakers at venues discussing how to resist resource privatization and venues critical of the World Bank. His actions in the Water Wars raised the profile of Congressman Evo Morales and he became President of Bolivia in 2005. Omar Fernandez joined Morales' socialist party Movimiento al Socialismo and became a Bolivian senator.<14>
The Cochabamba protests of 2000 are chronicled by Olivera in his book Cochabamba! Water Rebellion in Bolivia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Cochabamba_protests
The 1936 Syrian general strike gave fresh momentum to that country's nationalist movement, which had been stalled since the 1933 suspension of parliament. When French Mandate authorities arrested prominent members of the National Bloc and closed its offices in Damascus, demonstrations in that city, Aleppo, Hama, and Homs shattered a lull in anti-French activities on 20 January. Merchants then went on a strike that spread to all major towns, and demonstrations spread throughout the country. Confrontations between protesters and troops resulted in dozens of deaths. The League of National Action, a radical pan-Arab movement, organized protest marches in Damascus, the National Bloc demanded the restoration of the 1930 constitution before the strike would be called off. For five weeks commercial activity was frozen and students boycotted schools. Finally, on 2 March the French agreed to the formation of a Syrian delegation to travel to Paris to negotiate a Franco-Syrian Treaty. When French authorities released the nationalist leaders they had arrested, the Bloc ended the strike.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_Syrian_general_strike
The country was completely and peacefully paralyzed for 24 hours, prompting the government to negotiate with the unions. Even the TV signal was turn off by the workers. That flexible contract was retired and welfare state was increased.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_general_strike_of_1988
The General strike against Leopold III of Belgium broke out on 26 July 1950, mainly in Wallonia, a few days after Leopold III of Belgium returned to the throne on 22 July 1950 after five years' exile in Switzerland. Eventually, during the night from 31 July to 1 August, the king was forced by the Belgian government of Jean Duvieusart to offer to abdicate in favour of his son.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike_against_Leopold_III_of_Belgium
The 1911 Liverpool General Transport Strike involved dockers, railway workers and sailors, as well people from other trades. It paralysed Liverpool commerce for most of the summer of 1911. It also transformed trade unionism on Merseyside. For the first time, general trade unions were able to establish themselves on a permanent footing and become genuine mass organisations of the working class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Liverpool_general_transport_strike
Fearing that the strike would spread to other cities, the Federal Government of Canada ordered Senator Gideon Decker Robertson to mediate the dispute. After hearing both sides, Robertson settled in favour of the strikers and encouraged City Council to accept the civic employee's proposal. Bolstered by their success, the labour unions would use striking again to gain other labour and union reforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_General_Strike
Following this pogrom, on February 24, an open air meeting was held on the Noordermarkt to organise a strike to protest against the pogrom as well as the forced labour in Germany. The Communist Party of the Netherlands, made illegal by the Germans, printed and spread a call to strike throughout the city the next morning. The first to strike were the city's tram drivers, followed by other city services as well as companies like De Bijenkorf and schools. Though the Germans immediately took measures to suppress the strike, which had grown spontaneously as other workers followed the example of the tram drivers, it still spread to other areas, including Zaanstad, Kennemerland and Utrecht. The strike did not last long. By February 27, much of it had been suppressed by the German police. Although ultimately unsuccessful, it was still significant in that it was the first direct action against the Nazis' treatment of Jews.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_strike
Solidarity was the first non-communist party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to start negotiating with the union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_(Polish_trade_union)
The Boston Tea Party was a direct action by colonists in Boston, a town in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the British government. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party
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