We are facing a strike-related amuck running and wholly deliberate actions. Because all this is not about registration, but about using it as a pretext for an all-out demonstration of strength, for humiliating the authorities. Today’s demands will be replaced by other demands tomorrow. This is yet another evidence of escalation of extortions practiced against the authorities.

The union, like no other in history, was being built by a great many people with their own hands. It was won in the course of a strike, even in those work establishments which did not strike; the people who were joining the union, creating its cells, felt - perhaps for the first time ever - that they were the authors of something new in the life of society, and they never allowed that authorship to be taken from them. And not only the first step, but also every single one - till the very end. This is the source of all strengths and weaknesses of this movement. This is one of the factors underlying the union’s internal, kind of anarchistic structure, slightly reminiscent of former noblemen’s assemblies.