This essay describes the growth of popular protest against the government in Guinea, organized by two trade union umbrella groups. In analyzing the « structure of the conjuncture » of these general strikes and demonstrations, it shows why longstanding Guinean complaints transformed into mass protest when they did and in the way they did. This mobilization has been most significant not as an instrumental attempt to force the government into making concessions, but as a rhetorical and symbolic shift that breaks with a political style that dates from Guinea’s 1958-1984 socialist period.