On April 28, images flashed across Brazilian social media of burning tires in dozens of roads — blocked off all over the country before dawn by groups of organized workers — of bus garages, river transport stations, airport access, all shut down by groups carrying red flags and signs, affirming the power of people who live by their labor force: general strike! Images that illustrated the news of closed factories, stores, and services. There was a complete paralysis of urban transportation in most of the capitals and many small towns in the north and northeast of Brazil, as well in the southern capitals.

Brazil’s major metropolis, São Paulo, was entirely paralyzed; Rio de Janeiro and other capitals were partly paralyzed. We can say, without further inquiries, that Brazil was widely impacted by the strike of April 28. The massive protests at the end of the day only reinforced this observation.

Among the new generation of militants — responsible for the flood of strike-related images and posts across social media — who didn’t witness the last successful general strike, in 1989 (or even the two limited attempts in the 1990s), the joy of sharing those images and news evoked the best sentiments of socialist struggle. The same sentiments as were felt one hundred years ago, during the Russian Revolution, where the general strike played an important role.