What is the sequence of events in this excerpt from a book? [Past Perfect and Past Continuous]

The excerpt:

But this was not all. There was social revolt too and this often transcended the racial struggle. The disenfranchised lower classes were demanding the ballot, and the workers were insisting on the right to organize trade unions and to strike – not only for higher wages and better working conditions but to gain their democratic political ends. Indeed a general strike had finally brought universal manhood suffrage and with this the end of political dominance by the Austrian Germans, who numbered but a third of the population of the Austrian part of the empire.

To these developments Hitler, the fanatical young German-Austrian nationalist from Linz, was bitterly opposed.

• The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer

The question:

How come the workers "were demanding the ballot" if the general strike mentioned later in the passage had already brought universal suffrage? I suspect the tense choice may have to do with the word "finally". If someone could clear this up for me, that would be great!