According to the dedication lines in Eats, Shoots & Leaves…
The Bolshevik revolution gained momentum when the typesetters in print
shops went on strike asking for higher rates for punctuation marks (on
par with the letters of the alphabet; up until then, printers
apparently paid only half the rate of a letter for a punctuation mark)
Read on for more…
From:
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org...182/morgan.htm
The second strike wave in October began in Moscow when typesetters at
Sytin's print works went on strike for a shorter working day and
higher piecework rates for punctuation marks.
The October Strike and the Soviet
[
http://www.marxist.com/bolshevism/part2-3.html]
By late summer the strike wave appeared to have subsided. The
conclusion of peace with Japan, the Bulygin Duma and a series of other
concessions seemed to have brought it to a close. But this appearance
was deceptive. The movement was far from exhausted.… Wave after wave
joined in the struggle. A new impulse came from the Moscow printers'
strike which led to a general strike in Moscow on September 27.
Beginning with a small dispute at the Sytin print-works in Moscow, the
printers' strike spread to 50 print-shops within a few days and then
rapidly became general throughout the city.
Just when the movement in Moscow appeared to be dying down, there was
a new upsurge in St Petersburg. On October 2, a sympathy strike of the
printers was followed by a railway strike in Moscow on October 6. The
railway workers struck and elected delegates. By October 10 there was
an all-out railway strike. By mid-October, three quarters of a million
railwaymen were on strike. The strikes became general, involving
Moscow, Kharkov, Revel, Smolensk, Lodz, Minsk, Petersburg, Vilna,
Odessa, Kazan, Tiflis and other major centres. On October 16 Finland
joined in. The rail strike became 100 per cent, and the movement then
spread swiftly to the post offices, telephones, telegrams, service
employees and professional workers. The strike rapidly took on a
political character.
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From an external source
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Punctuation and the proletariat
