Silesia's industry was in bad condition in the decades after 1815. Silesian linen weavers suffered under Prussia's free trade policy and British competitors that already used machines destroyed the competitiveness of Silesian linen. The situation worsened after Russia imposed an import embargo and the Silesian linen industry began to mechanize. In several towns this traditional craft died out altogether, costing many linen weavers their profession. As social conditions worsened, growing unrest culminated in the Silesian cotton weavers' uprising (German: Schlesischer Weberaufstand) of 1844. This uprising, on the eve of the revolution of 1848, was closely observed by German society and treated by several artists, among them Gerhart Hauptmann (with his 1892 play "The Weavers") and Heinrich Heine (poem "Die schlesischen Weber").