During this period [around August-September, 1917] there were a number of important strikes (tannery and textile workers in Moscow, engineering workers in Petrograd, petrol workers in Baku, miners in the Donbas). 'There was a common feature to these struggles: the employers were prepared to make concessions through increased wages but categorically refused to recognise any rights to the Factory Committees. The workers in struggle ... were prepared to fight to the bitter end not so much on the question of wage increases as on the question of the recognition of their factory organisations'. * So much for the workers 'only being capable of trade union consciousness'.
Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control: The State and Counter-Revolution (1970)
