1989 Soviet miners' strikes

In July 1989, coal miners across the Soviet Union went on strike in protest of goods shortages, lack of property rights and poor working conditions. The largest strike in Soviet history, it was the first strike in the Soviet Union's history to be conducted legally. The miners' strike gathered support from Soviet dissidents and nationalist groups, and later snowballed into broader support for anti-communist causes, ultimately playing a significant part in the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The strikes play a significant role in both Russian and Ukrainian history; in Ukraine, the strikes are frequently described as the beginning of the 1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution, while among Russia's independent trade unionists 11 July is an informal holiday known as "miners' solidarity day."

While it is generally agreed that unsafe working conditions, low life expectancy, and general poor quality of living pushed Soviet coal miners to strike, but it is disagreed on what caused coal miners to strike before other occupations. Strikes began in the Kuznetsk Basin of western Siberia on 10 or 11 July 1989, although sporadic strikes had previously taken place across the Soviet Union from February to April of that year. The Kuznetsk Basin subsequently spread to the Donbas region of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic; strikes in both regions subsequently adopted political demands alongside their original economic ones, though the reasons for such were separate in both cases. The strikes continued to spread throughout the Soviet Union in July before coming to an end late in the month. Ukrainian strikes continued, and radicalised into demands for Ukrainian sovereignty from the Soviet Union; Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, the hardline and anti-strike leader of Ukraine's communist party, was removed in September. Strikes continued to heat up in the next month, and later broke out in March and April 1991 with support from Russian anti-communist leader Boris Yeltsin. The strikes ended in May of that year after ownership of the mines was transferred from the Soviet central government to the republics of the Soviet Union.