The 1949 asbestos strike is still a reference point for whoever wishes to reconstitute the stages of industrialization in Quebec and to render the meaning of the social movements that characterized it. Beyond recalling the events, the author underlines the various types of interpretation by which the importance of the strike was recognized and its bearings evaluated. Rather than seeing in the strike the birth of a modern system of industrial relations, or proof of the bonds between Church and working class, the author propounds that the asbestos conflict should be viewed as a situation where the outburst of the struggle between the classes generated a conflict between the Church and the State, one taking a stand for a communal type of society and the other wanting to preserve the balance of a capitalist industrial society. Defining the position of the protagonists - the workers, the enterprises, the State and the Church - the pattern of analysis allows to shed some light on the contradictions in their mutual relationships, so accounting for the elements not integrated by the formerly proposed interpretations, and to clarify the meaning of the victory of 1949. In this conflict lies the paradox of the Church's intervention on the side of the workers marking its loss of ideological power over the State which itself is engaged in economical industrial relationships. In fact, the defense of the community by the Church can only be undertaken if it consents to enrol behind one of the two opposing forces in the struggle that is now inevitably a part of Quebec's society: namely the struggle between the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This research proceeds from a theoretical perspective which shows, on the basis of a concrete analysis, the sequence, with lags, of contradictions on the economical, political and ideological level.