draft leaked in August further escalated tensions because its opponents believed that it was even more pro-nationalist and radical than the first draft. The law was passed in a stormy Supreme Soviet session on 31 August 1989. It declared that "The state language of Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic is Moldovan. The state language is used in political, economic, social and cultural life and functions on the basis of the Latin alphabet." However, it went on to promise protection of Russian and other languages of Moldova's minority populations. The passage of the language laws was accompanied by massive rallies outside the legislature building in Chișinău with upwards of 500,000 people gathered in a "Grand National Assembly" in Chișinău's Victory Square outside of the Supreme Soviet building to show their support. Elsewhere in Chișinău and other cities, smaller rallies voiced opposition. The most effective opposition came in the form of a massive strike movement that originated in the Transnistrian city of Tiraspol. Strikers and strike breakers While the group Intermovement-"Unitate-Edinstvo" ("Unity") was the first to organize significant opposition to the language legislation, more effective activity began in the workplace. STKs became the focus around which opposition activity turned in the early part of the conflict. In Transnistria, close-knit work collectives were ready-made institutional alternatives to the Communist Party cells—also omnipresent at the Soviet workplace. From 1989 to 1991, many Transnistrian party members handed in their party cards or simply stopped paying their dues. By the end of August 1989, STKs had de facto control over their factories throughout much of Transnistria. Often they worked with or were dominated by, factory management. Occasionally, they effectively ousted unsympathetic directors or staff. Many that were to become active in the strike campaign had been suspicious of the language legislation from the beginning—they suspected this to be the first step towards "nationalization" of the republic at the expense of "their country," the Soviet Union. However, on 10 August 1989 I. M. Zaslavskii, a deputy to the Moldavian Supreme Soviet and resident of the Transnistrian city of Tiraspol, leaked a new draft of the law to the factory newspaper of the "Tochlitmash" Tiraspol Machine-Building Factory im. Kirova. Seeing that the new version would establish Moldovan as the only official language of the MSSR, activists from a number of Tiraspol factories came together to create the United Work Collective Council (Ob"edinnennyi Sovet trudovykh kollektivov, OSTK) and called an