Protest strikes were frequent during the Russian 1905 Revolution. In February, for example. Streetcar workers in Astrakhan held a one-day strike, 11 and in October the printers in St. Petersburg held a three-day strike to show sympathy for the striking printers of Moscow. 12
A conservative bureaucrat described the November strike movement in the capital: “One day the barbers would strike; another day it would be the restaurant and hotel employees. No sooner would these strikes end than the newsboys would strike; then it would be the salesmen in stores.'' A twenty-four-hour protest general strike was held in Ireland on April 23, 1918, and was solidly observed throughout the country, except in Belfast. "Factories stood idle, shops and bars were closed, transport was stopped," writes Edgar Holt. "It was now clear that Southern Ireland had no intention of standing patiently by in the remote hope that conscription, when the Government chose to impose it. would be accompanied by Home Rule 14
Several short protest strikes were conducted in Czechoslovakia t week after the Russian invasion in August 1968. On August 21 at 12 noon, only hours after the invasion, in response to a call for a two-minute protest strike issued by representatives of the creative artists' unions and broadcast on television and radio, all movement on the streets of Prague came to a halt. 15
A broadcast plea from the North Bohemian region brought about a one-hour general strike starting at noon the following day. 16 The Declaration of the Extraordinary Fourteenth Party Congress of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on August 22 contained a call for a one-hour protest strike at noon on Friday, August 23. Appeals were posted that morning that everyone leave the streets of Prague during that hour “ Prague is to become a dead city.” The Communist Party newspaper Rude Pravo reported that strike as seen in the center of Prague:
From the National Museum, a line of young people marches down Wenceslas Square. They are holding hands and shouting: "Evacuate the streets!" Behind them there is only the empty, wide space of the Square. The sirens begin to wail: car horns join them. The soldiers in tanks look around. They don't know what is going on. They are scanning buildings on either side, watching the windows. Some of the tanks are closing their hatches. The machine are guns and cannon turning around, looking for targets. But there is no one to shoot at, nobody is provoking them. The people have begun a general strike, as proclaimed by our Communist Party. All of a sudden Wenceslas Square is empty, only dust, papers, posters rise up in the wind. All that is left are tanks and soldiers. Nobody around them, none of our people. 17