At 11:00 AM, May 15, 1919, the metalworker and builders union walked out. Soon they were followed by police, firefighters, telegraph, and telephone operators. All told, 30 000 people joined the Winnipeg General Strike. The business and government officials were upset by the control the strikers had of the city; they set up a committee to counteract the strikers, calling themselves the "Citizens Committee of One Thousand- to keep the public utilities running. They were also fiercely determined to break the strike. The government fired police and brought in special troops and members of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police to restore order. The final blow and the end of the strike came after all the strike leaders were arrested. Returning soldiers held a silent parade on June 23. The police fired on the crowd killing a person and wounding about thirty others. Black Saturday, as it was called, marked the end of the strike.
At this moment in history, there was a great scare as people believed that communism was spreading due to the 1917 revolutions in Russia. But the Winnipeg strike was not a communist revolt; it was an attempt by the workers to gain better working conditions and hours that they felt they deserved. The businessmen, and to a certain extent the government itself, wanted to maintain the pre-war inequities to further prosper and labour unions were in no way a part of their plans. To cover up the fact that this was in reality only a strike and not a revolution, the business men of the country who owned the most of the papers in the country wanted to detract attention from the real cause of the strike and thus help their own cause by calling the strike a communist revolt. The more sympathetic papers did their best, but the damage was done. .
"THE BIRTH OF THE ONE BIG UNION: I - .
"BOLSHEVISM IN THE ONE BIG UNION- .
"ORGANIZED BOLSHEVISM IN WINNIPEG- .
"CLEAN OUT THE BOLSHEVISTS- .
"THE UNION JACK vs.
