More than two months ago, your humble Russia Blog predicted a bloody end to an industrial protest in a small town called Pikalevo.

After all, here was a rag tag band of laid off workers up against not only the state but also one of its richest and  most loyal oligarchs, Oleg Deripaska, who owns the ailing aluminium factory.

How wrong I was!

In fact, the movement had been gathering momentum and assumed critical mass on Tuesday. The Moscow Times reported that:

“About 500 people blocked the federal highway near Pikalyovo on Tuesday for several hours, resulting in a traffic jam that stretched 400 kilometers. The protesters chanting “Work! Work!” cleared the road after Leningrad Governor Valery Serdyukov ordered that 5 million rubles ($163,000) be sent to Pikalyovo to partly cover wage arrears to some factory workers. The money also was intended to turn the town’s hot water back on, which was cut after residents could not pay their utility bills”.

But far from allying with Deripaska to crush the uprising,  Putin has turned his ire on the billionaire himself.

According to a report in today’s Daily Telegraph, “the prime minister rounded on the hapless tycoon as they toured a cement plant.

“Why has your factory been so neglected?” he demanded, as Mr Deripaska hung his head in apparent shame. “They’ve turned it into a rubbish dump.Why was everyone running around like cockroaches before my arrival? Why was no one capable of taking decisions?

“He then ordered the tycoon to pay all outstanding wages – £830,000 – before the day was out”.

But that dramatic act obscured the truly groundbreaking developments, which happened out of sight, in the Duma.

There, a United Russia deputy submitted a bill to nationalise the factories affected by industrial unrest.

According to journalist Nabi Abdulaev, “the move threatens to open a Pandora’s box for the government by encouraging laid-off workers in hundreds of other one-factory towns to demand that their former workplaces be nationalized as well”.

Faced with industrial unrest and a threat to its rule, the Kremlin has been known to temper some of its neoliberal policies.

However, the newly emboldened workers of Pikalevo should not swap one master for another by settling for nationalisation.

Instead, they should do what Argentinian workers did during their last economic collapse, and take over the factories as cooperatives.

That policy was a resounding success: two years after the take-overs, the BBC reported that “The National Movement of Recovered Factories boasts more than 100 businesses that went bankrupt during the crisis, but are now up and running, employing some 10,000 people”.

We may hear more from Pikalevo yet!