MASS protests against the February military coup in Myanmar have shown the breadth of popular opposition to the junta headed by Min Aung Hlaing. In the assessment of the illegal Communist Party of Burma (CPB), the current broad movement against the military displays many familiar features from past democratic and left movements as well as some new features. The role of the urban working class is one such factor. Despite the numerical increase in the working class compared with the immediate post-war period, trade unions in Myanmar have often been either co-opted, marginalised or repressed. “One of the significant features of Burma’s politics before independence was the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and leftist movements the world over.