1946 also saw a massive wave of working class struggles and peasant insurgency crossing all previous records. The strike-wave this year recorded 1629 stoppages involving 1,941,948 workers. And with government employees too throwing in their full weight, strikes increasingly became all-India affairs. Most significant in this context was the July strike of postal and telegraph employees. On July 11, 1946, Hie Postman Lower Grade Staff Union went on an indefinite strike. The All India Telegraph Union too joined in. By July 21, posts and telegraph employees all over Bengal and Assam also threw in their lot. Bombay and Madras observed solidarity industrial strikes on July 22 and 23 respectively. On July 29, general strike was observed in Bengal and Assam.

The same day, Calcutta witnessed a massive rally, which has perhaps had very few parallels since in terms of spontaneous mass involvement, firm in its belief that “this historic general strike has marked the beginning of a new chapter of unity and fighting consciousness in the labour movement of the country”. The trike wave continued in 1947 with Calcutta tram workers striking work for 85 days. Kanpur, Coimbatore and Karachi also emerged as prominent centres of working class action.

It is rather painful to believe that following the Muslim League's call for Direct Action on 16 August, 1946, the city of Calcutta would also set in motion a disastrous chain of communal killings. With rival underworld gangs battling it out with unbridled ferocity, some 4,000 people had already been killed and 10,000 injured in Calcutta by August 19. As would almost always happen in communal killings in India ever since, more Muslims were killed in Calcutta than Hindus. Patel would cynically write to Cripps, “In Calcutta the Hindus had the best of it. But that is no comfort”.