Naguib heads the RCC and Mahir the civilian government, but Nasser is the real power behind the RCC

The years between 1952 and 1954 will witness a struggle for control of the government that Nasser will ultimately win.

The first crisis to face the new government comes in August 1952 with a violent strike involving
more than ten thousand workers at the Misr Company textile factories at Kafr ad Dawwar in the Delta.

Workers attack and set fire to part of the premises, destroy machinery, and clash with the police.

The army is called in to put down the strike; several workers lose their lives, and scores are injured.

The RCC sets up a special military court that tries the arrested textile workers.

Two are convicted and executed, and many others are given prison sentences.

The regime reacts quickly and ruthlessly because it has no intention of encouraging a popular revolution that it cannot control.

It now arrests about thirty persons charged with belonging to the outlawed Communist Party of Egypt (CPE).

The Democratic Movement for National Liberation, a faction of the CPE, reacts by denouncing the regime as a military dictatorship.