2019 IS THE centenary of the greatest labor action in Canadian history: the Winnipeg General Strike. May 15th, 1919, in solidarity with striking construction workers 2/3rds of Winnipeg’s population went on strike. The city was paralyzed, the ruling class, seeing echoes of the Russian revolution two years earlier, were terrified. State and business interests, represented by the so-called, “Citizen’s Committee of 1000” conspired to break the strike. The Winnipeg Police force walked off the job in solidarity and an army of well-paid goons were quickly assembled. The combined forces of the bourgeois media were used to defame the strike and the strikers’ own newspapers were shut down for “seditious activity”. The strike leaders were eventually arrested under the authoritarian War Measures Act. Shortly thereafter the strike came to its dramatic climax on what was called Bloody Saturday, a riot that left two dead and dozens wounded. On June 26th, in an effort to curb more violence, the strike was called off.