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Nonviolent popular uprisings have brought down authoritarian regimes in many countries around the world. Conditions for such action do not yet exist in the United States, but the growing wrath of the people make them increasingly plausible.
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Sometimes there is so much rage at a tyrannical government that millions of people are willing to participate in general strikes and popular nonviolent uprisings – what I have called “social strikes” because they represent noncooperation and disruption by an entire society. Previous commentaries in this series have explored how social strikes have overcome tyranny in the Philippines, Serbia, South Korea, other countries; the history of mass strikes and general strikes in the US; how today’s resistance to MAGA authoritarianism might help lay the groundwork for social strikes; and possible timelines and organization for social strikes. This commentary will discuss action when a social strike is looming or underway.
Military strategists distinguish “wars of position” and “wars of movement.” Social strikes are “wars of movement” par excellence. Many of the habits of thought and action developed in quieter times are counterproductive and need to be put in obeyance during what Mark and Paul Engler have called “the whirlwind” of sudden and unexpected popular revolt.
Defining goals
A Black Lives Matter die-in over rail tracks, protesting alleged police brutality in Saint Paul, Minnesota, September 20, 2015. Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, Wikimedia Commons, CC by 2.0.
Social strikes generally grow out of burgeoning discontent about what is, not pre-defined and agreed-to objectives about what should be in the future — think of Black Lives Matter. While some participants may have pre-formed goals (often not aligned or even conflicting with each other), the goals of an emerging social strike movement usually need to be established in the course of the struggle.
This requires a willingness by disparate constituencies to adapt to the goals emerging for the movement as a whole. A prefigurative example might be the way many currents came together around a common set of demands in the Hands Off!, MayDay, and No Kings national days of action. That requires a formal or informal process for discussing, establishing, and modifying goals. Some kind of on-going participatory forums – more or less open depending on the level of repression – need to be part of this process.
In defining the goals of social strikes several criteria need to be coordinated. Their demands need to represent broad objectives that appeal to a broad public. They need to unify different sectors of the population, such as private employees, government employees, women, educated middle class, business owners, rural poor, urban poor, etc. They also need to unify different movements, such as climate, racial justice, labor, immigrant, etc. They need to embody broadly accepted norms. These may be norms broadly held in the society, such as support for democracy. They often are embodied in the existing constitution but denied in practice by the regime. Again, the 2025 national days of action provide good examples of such unifying demands, combining protecting democracy with protection of immigrants, workers, women, LGBTQ+ people, kids, the elderly, the disabled, and others.
It is often possible in a social strike to combine such broad goals with specific demands by more specific groups that can be met by local officials and immediate employers – release of prisoners, permitting of demonstrations, shorter hours, wage increases, or whatever is important to the participants. Broad goals that cannot be realized immediately can be combined with more immediate goals that the regime can grant without completely undermining its own authority. For example, the authorities may refuse to grant full freedom of speech, assembly, and press, but can nevertheless agree to let political prisoners out of jail and restrain vigilante groups.
In many social strikes against tyrannies the unifying goal, often reduced to a single demand, is removal of the top government officials from office. In many situations such a demand may be the best or even the only way to develop the unified power necessary to overcome an authoritarian ruler.
However, as a study of popular uprisings over the 2010s indicates, such a narrow demand can leave a successful uprising with little consensus about how to go forward from initial success. Or it can simply lead to a less terrible but still unsatisfactory status quo ante. The drive for unity around one or limited specific goals needs to be combined with vigorous discussion of longer-range programs by constituent elements of the social strike coalition. A good example of how to do this was provided by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions and other major unions which declared a general strike against president Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempted martial law coup, while also demonstrating for what they called “Beyond Yoon” demands for just working conditions and public policies to ensure quality public services for all Koreans.
Tactical considerations
Nonviolent Leaders and Campaigns. Photo credit: Public domain
Social strikes can use a plethora of tactics. For a compendium of such tactics, I believe there is still no source more useful that Gene Sharp’s magisterial three-volume opus The Politics of Nonviolent Action. The second volume, The Methods of Nonviolent Action, presents 198 different forms of action that have been used by nonviolent movements. A few more have been invented since it was published.
Social strikes can take a lot of different forms. They can be centered in unionized industries or in urban districts or regions. They can take the form of a single uprising or general strike or of “rolling” actions in which different groups strike or otherwise disrupt and then return to work or normal life. They can be “quickie” actions lasting a day or even less, or open-ended ones that last until victory, defeat, or explicit compromise.
Social strikes can involve quiet or disruptive street actions, or they can simply involve people staying quietly at home. Street actions allow social strikers and supporters to show their courage, confidence, and resistance to repression; they also provide easy targets for repression.
Social strikes often include strikes and general strikes, discussed at length in a previous commentary. Social strikes have often involved occupation of workplaces (the Polish general strike that gave birth to the Solidarity union occurred when activists spread the word: Don’t burn Party headquarters; occupy the factories.) Such occupations tend to make repressive violence more difficult. However, they are frequently perceived by those in power as a fundamental, even revolutionary challenge to their authority, making them less willing to compromise.
Social strike tactics need to be selected on the basis of many considerations. For example, what are people willing to do given the present state of the movement? How will the wider public respond to different tactics? What responses are different tactics likely to provoke from the authorities? What kinds of outcomes (e.g. showdowns, negotiations, changes in public opinion, splits and shifts in attitude of the authorities) are different tactics likely to generate?
The ability to shift tactics can be a great asset. When a movement is locked into a particular tactic, its opponents often try to break it by raising the cost and pain of continuing. This can be thwarted if the movement is able to shift tactics on its own initiative. One of the reasons for the demise of Occupy Wall Street was its inability to redirect its energies from continuing the occupation of Zuccotti Park, even when it recognized that police eviction could no longer be effectively prevented. When the authorities are willing to shoot down large numbers of people in the street, staying at home or occupying workplaces may be the best alternative to submission.
Social strikes often benefit from leadership by example. If one group is ready to take an action and face the risks it entails, their initiative may well encourage and inspire others to do the same. This can be a way to escape the impasse where everybody is waiting to act until they see whether others have the courage and commitment to act. Such exemplary actions can precede and lay the groundwork for a social strike. They can also introduce new themes and tactics into an on-going struggle. The Tesla Takedowns and the blockading of downtown Baltimore by trade unionists during the MayDay 2025 day of action illustrate the potential of such exemplary actions.
Faced with the possibility or reality of a social strike, the authorities normally turn to repression, ranging from harassment to arrest to torture to assassination. Often the most effective way to deal with repression is to render it counterproductive for the authorities by means of a “political jujitsu” in which each act of repression further undermines the support and legitimacy of those responsible for it. This generally requires a disciplined nonviolence in which the protestors present themselves as the upholders of peace, order, and legitimate law while the authorities are painting a portrait of themselves as out-of-control hooligans attempting to maintain their own power through illegitimate violence. In such a context, even members of the public who do not fully support the goals of the movement can be mobilized around opposition to its illegitimate repression. An example is the way labor and public opinion swung to support Occupy Wall Street in response to a brutal police attack on peaceful demonstrators crossing a bridge – resulting in an extended suspension of police efforts to evict the Occupy encampment.
Social strikes are ventures into unknown territory. It is impossible to know in advance just what potential participants will actually be willing to do. Nor is it possible to know how those in authority, or the broader public, will respond. Movements can attempt to “test the waters” by means of lesser actions. If people won’t turn out for a peaceful demonstration, maybe it’s not the right time to call on them to strike. Conversely, if larger numbers come out than expected, and they are all talking about what to do next, the time may be ripe to escalate tactics. If the authorities brutalize demonstrators and the public expresses outrage, or sections of the establishment criticize the repression, the movement can get some sense of who it might appeal to for support and who might restrain the authorities from further repression.
The final commentary in this series will discuss “Endgames for Social Strikes.”
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973). Sharp recognizes both well-organized, intentional campaigns with well-defined leaderships like those of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and most trade union-led strikes, and also more “spontaneous” nonviolent “people power” popular uprisings. He is a strong advocate for the former. While movements with such defined and empowered leadership indeed have advantages, the reality of social strikes is often more like an eruption from below. Nonetheless a great deal can be learned about strategy and tactics even for such “whirlwinds” from Sharp’s work. For understanding the dynamics of uprisings that emerge outside any kind of centralized control there is no substitute for studying the actual history of a variety of such movements.
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This is part three of the series on Strikes. For the first two parts go to Labor Network for Sustainability: https://www.labor4sustainability.org/
Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973). Sharp recognizes both well-organized, intentional campaigns with well-defined leaderships like those of Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and most trade union-led strikes, and also more “spontaneous” nonviolent “people power” popular uprisings. He is a strong advocate for the former. While movements with such defined and empowered leadership indeed have advantages, the reality of social strikes is often more like an eruption from below. Nonetheless a great deal can be learned about strategy and tactics even for such “whirlwinds” from Sharp’s work. For understanding the dynamics of uprisings that emerge outside any kind of centralized control there is no substitute for studying the actual history of a variety of such movements.
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