{"id":735,"date":"2026-07-17T10:35:58","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T13:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/?p=735"},"modified":"2026-07-17T10:35:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T13:35:59","slug":"notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The history of the Chinese labor movement intertwines with the history of the country\u2019s industrial development, stemming from clashes against foreign oppression in China and military conflagration among imperialist powers. Already in the early stages of its confrontation with the ruling class, we observe two essential traits: first, Chinese workers can hardly be classified, at any point in their history, as mere objects of exploitation; second, their class struggle became accustomed to unfolding simultaneously against the native ruling class and foreign oppression. Below, we outline in brief strokes some decisive moments of proletarian struggle in China over the last century and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The properly national formation of China, with the very long process of territorial unification still underway during the Qing dynasty, and later its fall until the founding of the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1949, was intertwined with increasingly significant cycles of workers\u2019 struggles. According to historian Elizabeth Perry, in Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cWorkers\u2019 protests played a central role in the political transformations that traversed China in the twentieth century. The 1911 Revolution that overthrew the imperial system, the May Fourth Movement that inaugurated a new political culture, the rise and fall of the nationalist regime, the victory of the communists, and even the post-1949 political design\u2014all these events were profoundly affected by the Chinese labor movement\u201d (Perry, 1993, p. 2).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In the nineteenth century, only the outline of the Chinese proletariat was present, emerging from the powerful combination of migrant rural workers heading to port cities and dispersed urban artisans. In the twentieth century, with the proletariat fully forming in the \u201cforge of Hephaestus\u201d of the nascent industry, the history of the Chinese labor movement had multiple explosive points. Most notable was the \u201ccataclysmic eruption,\u201d in the words of Mark Selden in Labor Unrest in China<\/em> (1995), in the mid-1920s, as a consequence of World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917. This period, considered by many analysts (Chan 1995; Perry 1993; Selden 1995) as the most convulsive in the history of the Chinese labor movement, is located between 1922 and 1927, encompassing the founding of the Chinese Communist Party and the great workers\u2019 uprising of the Chinese Revolution of 1925\u201327.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second explosion of vitality in the Chinese labor movement, though of lesser intensity than the first, occurred during the Civil War (1946\u201349), which culminated in the Revolution that brought Mao Zedong to power, giving rise to the People\u2019s Republic of China in 1949. Three other relevant moments in which the labor movement played a major role occurred within the PRC itself: in 1967, at the height of the Cultural Revolution; in 1979, during the turbulent transition from the Mao era to the Deng era; and in 1989, with the events related to the Tiananmen Square Massacre. All these periods of workers\u2019 struggle reveal the intimate relationship of the Chinese proletariat with global events, in sharp contrast to the imperial Chinese tradition of isolationism and hostility toward foreigners (a characteristic later adopted by the CCP bureaucracy as part of its strategy to block the expansion of international revolution).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anti-Colonial Struggles in Nineteenth-Century China<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the early stages of workers\u2019 activity in China, still in the first half of the nineteenth century, disturbances aimed to oppose national oppression by European powers, particularly England. Sparse and immersed in a sea of peasants, the working class had little numerical weight at the time of the First Opium War (1839\u20131842), concentrated in guilds that animated artisanal production in coastal cities such as Shanghai and Canton. Even under these conditions, port workers played an important role as vanguard fighters against foreign military intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Sino-British conflict, there are records of disturbances by textile workers in Nanhai and Panyu, near Canton, against the entry of British yarn into Chinese ports, as a way to defend native spinning manufacture. During the Opium War, textile workers also acted in militias that attacked British invaders in the Sanyuanli Incident of 1841 (Selden, 1995, p. 71). After Emperor Daoguang announced the suspension of British trade rights and the forced seizure of Crown merchants\u2019 opium, dockworkers played a prominent role in military resistance\u2014though with little chance of success\u2014against the British fleet commanded by plenipotentiary Henry Pottinger (later the first governor of Hong Kong).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the Treaty of Nanking sealed Britain\u2019s victory, Chinese workers had already taken advantage of contact with enemy military technology to absorb it into their own arms industry. This curious aptitude for appropriating foreign technology, which would later mark China\u2019s industrial life in the transition from the twentieth to the twenty-first century, was already visible in embryo by the mid-nineteenth century. British China specialist Jonathan Spence recounts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIn Xiamen, for example, they found an almost completed replica of a double-deck English warship with thirty cannons; it was nearly ready to be launched, and work on several similar ships was well advanced. In Wusong, they found five paddle-wheel boats ready, armed with newly cast bronze cannons. In Shanghai, they captured eighteen eighteen-pounder naval cannons, new and well executed, perfect in every detail, such as the sights cast into the body and the flintlock ears. All were mounted on sturdy wooden carriages with iron axles\u201d (Spence, 1996, p. 169).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, dockworkers in the Sino-French War of 1885 resisted colonialism by refusing to unload enemy warships\u2014despite the clear military disadvantage given France\u2019s naval superiority. In 1894, during the conflict against Japan that also ended in foreign victory, native workers labored under the command of the Zongli Yamen (a kind of Qing \u201cForeign Ministry\u201d) to build a military apparatus minimally compatible with the challenges posed by Japan. Numerous examples exist of these small skirmishes by Chinese militias against European and Asian colonialism, in which the labor force of major port cities, crushed under Qing rule, served as material strength against invaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
British bombardment during the First Opium War (1839\u20131842).<\/strong> Duncan, Edward; ‘Nemesis’, East India Iron Armed Steamship; Williamson Art Gallery & Museum; http:\/\/www.artuk.org\/artworks\/nemesis-east-india-iron-armed-steamship-67222<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Composition of the Chinese Working Class<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It is crucial to note the degree of confrontation against foreign oppression as a defining mark of the nascent Chinese proletariat. The incidents that triggered the great waves of insurrectionary strikes in the early twentieth century began with abuses by the British and Japanese, who between 1860 and 1895 imposed harsh survival conditions on the Chinese empire after military victories over the Qing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the Treaty of Tianjin (1858), Britain opened Chinese territory to the opium trade. With the Treaty of Shimonoseki (1895), Japan secured the right to build factories in all of China\u2019s open ports, especially in the cotton industry\u2014a bastion of major workers\u2019 revolts prior to the 1925 Revolution and a stronghold of Communist Party influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another notable point was the composition of the Chinese working class: differences in worker qualifications were often decisive in industrial cities for the level and type of organization achieved. Elizabeth Perry notes that in Shanghai, while specialized artisans from southern China held better jobs and enjoyed guild protection (regulating wages and working hours), northern peasants usually could not attain these positions and had to settle for more precarious work. These rural workers, lacking specialization, could not join guilds and were forced to organize into different gangs (such as the \u201cGreen Gang\u201d after the 1911 Revolution), whose hierarchical control over precarious workers placed them in supervisory roles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This division into \u201ctwo souls\u201d of the Chinese working class would later reappear in renewed form in the split between the old state-sector working class and the new rural proletariat that filled export factories during Deng Xiaoping\u2019s pro-capitalist reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Divisions and Workers\u2019 Solidarity<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

These divisions were encouraged by manufacturing managers and foreign administrators operating in China (the gangs had material ties of interest with the bosses). Foremen, who held influence over workers through the hierarchy of gangs or guilds, used this power to extract monetary benefits from owners, under threat of facilitating controlled strikes. However, these divisions did not necessarily predispose workers against common action. On the contrary, Emily Honig (1986; 1989), Gail Hershatter (1986), and Elizabeth Perry (1993) describe processes of workers\u2019 solidarity that integrated\u2014into the incipient traits of class consciousness emerging at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century\u2014lines of gender and place of origin as factors of collective organization and action, for example, in the segment of women workers in the cotton industry, long dominated by the Japanese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Image of the Sino-Japanese War of 1895<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Except for certain excesses in characterizing the identity motives of protests, which permeated Chinese workers\u2019 consciousness, these were not obstacles but rather factors that encouraged a new kind of collective consciousness, often class consciousness, among urban workers. These reasons help illuminate the creative combination of epochal transformations in imperialist capitalism, especially at the turn of the twentieth century, and the influence of revolutionary ideas after the Russian Revolution of 1905, which began to take root in small circles of Chinese industrial cities. Thus, propelled by the defense of class conditions at work, strikes or disturbances against employer arbitrariness were not scarce:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In 1868, workers at the Shanghai Dock and Engineering Company went on strike to prevent a wage cut. In 1879, blacksmiths at Pudong Engineering Works stopped work to protest physical abuse from a foreign supervisor. In 1883, workers at the Jiangnan Arsenal mutinied when a factory foreman tried to extend the workday. Two years later, they staged a walkout demanding higher wages. In 1890, a new administrator provoked a strike by announcing an increase in the workday from 8 to 9 hours. These early protests were largely defensive in nature. Wage cuts, physical abuse, and longer workdays precipitated conflicts. With industrial expansion after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894\u201395, however, the pattern of artisan strikes changed notably. The greater demand for skilled workers encouraged more aggressive forms of protest by this more favored sector of the workforce” (Perry, 1993, p. 38).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workers\u2019 strikes that emerged, especially among skilled artisans (carpentry, masonry, printing, painting), acquired a character not only defensive but also offensive, demanding new concessions during the period leading to the 1911 Revolution, directed by bourgeois nationalist Sun Yat-sen. With the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the last emperor, Xuantong, the freedom of action of the Chinese labor movement, already in full course of industrial concentration, increased, since the penal code that stipulated severe punishments for strikers lost effect. The general politicization of urban discourse at the beginning of the republic encouraged workers, especially skilled artisans, to formulate more ambitious demands in their labor conflicts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industrialization and the Formation of the Chinese Proletariat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

But nineteenth-century China saw only the outlines of a still fragmented, sparse, and small proletariat, rooted in urban crafts and small-scale textile manufacture. Submerged in the vast peasantry, the Chinese working class began to concentrate in urban centers connected to the slow and gradual expansion of foreign maritime trade. The period from 1895 to 1918\u2014spanning from the beginning of reform movements against Qing political oppression to the end of World War I\u2014represents the transitional and maturing phase of the incipient urban working class, which would undergo an intense period of industrialization beginning in 1914, spurred by the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The center of the nascent labor movement in China was Shanghai, the country\u2019s largest city and beneficiary of maritime trade development in the second half of the nineteenth century. Other coastal cities, such as Canton and Tianjin, also saw their industries flourish through foreign trade and developed proletariats tied to these activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Examining the early decades of the Chinese labor movement, Jean Chesneaux identified four strike peaks: 1898\u201399 (10 strikes), 1904\u201306 (15 strikes), 1909\u201313 (38 strikes), 1917\u201319 (46 strikes). Each peak was longer than the previous one. The first coincided with the Reform Movement of 1898, the second with the anti-U.S. boycott of 1905, the third with the 1911 Revolution, and the fourth drew energy from nationalist stimulus during World War I and the Russian Revolution of 1917, culminating in the May Fourth Movement of 1919. While Chesneaux\u2019s reconstruction of national dates is useful, Elizabeth Perry\u2019s detailed study of Shanghai suggests an important modification. Contrary to Chesneaux, Perry found a sharp increase in strikes in Shanghai: from 30 strikes between 1909 and 1913 to 86 strikes between 1914 and 1918. World War I was the \u201cgolden age\u201d of Chinese industry, a moment when China benefited both from high demand for manufactured goods and from the weakening of foreign capital\u2019s control, occupied with the war\u2014a favorable situation for the flourishing of labor militancy” (Selden, 1995, p. 72).<\/mark><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The major events that strengthened Chinese industry and, consequently, increased the weight of the working class were World War I and the Russian Revolution, which enabled the connection of the labor vanguard with the best of Marxist strategic experience developed by Lenin and Trotsky in the Third International (despite the many difficulties arising from linguistic differences and China\u2019s particular political traditions). The stimulus of these international events, along with relentless Japanese aggression in Chinese territory and the growth of the urban proletariat in central economic regions, paved the way for the most intense cycle of labor activism in Chinese history, between 1919 and 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanghai was the center of this dynamic emerging proletariat. In 1933, nearly half of the Chinese working class was located there; between 1918 and 1940, 2,291 strikes were staged in the city, with 65% achieving partial or total success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proportionally, the number of urban workers paled in comparison to the numerical strength of the peasantry. In 1919, China had 2 million urban industrial workers, compared to hundreds of millions of peasants and tens of millions of rural laborers, in a predominantly agrarian society (as was also the case in neighboring Russia). However, as in Russia, the issue was not merely about absolute numbers of these relative populations, but rather their role in production and their concentration in the nerve centers that defined the course of the national economy. In Shanghai, Canton, Tianjin, and Beijing, the importance of the Chinese proletariat was magnified by its concentration in the most strategic positions of the economy and in urban zones most sensitive from the standpoint of national politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A process similar to what Trotsky described in Russia was occurring in China, under the law of combined development: a few million workers, concentrated in the strategic centers of the economy, led a hundred million peasants:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe law of combined development manifests itself at every step, in the economic domain, both in simple and complex phenomena. Almost without national routes, Russia was obliged to build railways. Without having passed through European handicrafts and manufacture, Russia leapt directly into mechanized production. While peasant economy often remained at the level of the seventeenth century, Russian industry was at the same level as advanced countries and sometimes surpassed them in many respects […] A numerically weak Russian bourgeoisie, which had no national roots, thus confronted a relatively strong proletariat with deep and solid roots in the people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nationalism and Communism<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this social formation of the Chinese working class, as noted earlier, the tradition of resistance against foreign aggression marked the consciousness of its political activity. The May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the May 30th Movement of 1925 (not to mention the clashes from 1840 to 1895 against Euro-Asian colonialism) were carried out in the name of resistance to English and Japanese imperialism. National liberation struggles influenced the development of the subjectivity of the Chinese labor movement, and it is no surprise that, politically, this subjectivity expressed itself in heterogeneous ways. Bourgeois nationalism, embodied in Sun Yat-sen\u2019s and Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s Kuomintang, had as much interest as the communists in winning the working-class base to their ranks in the 1920s. This was one of the reasons that led Chen Duxiu, future founder of the Chinese Communist Party, to seek to create Marxist workers\u2019 associations in Shanghai.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether demonstrating loyalty to Sun Yat-sen\u2019s Three Principles of the People<\/em> or to Marxism, leaders of both the CCP and the Kuomintang felt compelled to assign high priority to the working class:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cBelieving that industrialization was the hope of the future, both nationalists and communists made great efforts to enlist the labor movement under their political banners […] Deep divisions persisted within the working class, opening the way to a fragmented base for both parties\u201d (Perry, 1993, p. 68).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This political dispute between nationalism and communism would become central throughout the cycle of revolutions and wars spanning 1922 to 1949. It is therefore important not to examine the results of cycles of strikes and workers\u2019 disturbances as leading to a homogeneous ideological affiliation. As history has often shown, and China was no exception, class struggle shapes political loyalties in contradictory ways, depending heavily on the balance of forces at the national and international level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Hong Kong Seamen\u2019s Strike and the Canton-Hong Kong Strike, May-June 1926<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Shanghai itself, which saw the birth of the CCP in June 1921, communists and nationalists competed to organize the working class through rival unions. Kuomintang politicians, aided by factory foremen and the same gangsters who controlled precarious labor, sought to channel workers\u2019 activism toward their own ends. The Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, controlled by the Kuomintang\u2019s conservative nationalist ideology, persecuted and attacked members of the Shanghai General Federation of Trade Unions, created after the May 30th Movement in 1925 and influenced by the CCP. This communist federation gained considerable prestige between 1923\u20131926, bringing together 117 unions, including the Shanghai Graphic Workers\u2019 Union and unions representing workers in Japanese-owned cotton factories. This strength, however, rested on fragile foundations, as the CCP abandoned political independence in favor of integration into the Kuomintang, following the orientation of the majority faction of the Communist International at the time, led by Stalin and Bukharin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will see later that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party itself, under the auspices of the Communist International, decided to dissolve itself within the Kuomintang and hand over to Chiang Kai-shek the power of life and death over thousands of workers. Few intellectuals manage to untangle this knot, which belongs to the field of strategy. To understand the political disputes between these two currents, the history of internal factional struggles within the parties is conditio sine qua non<\/em>, so as not to fall into superficial examinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the participation of Shanghai workers in the May Fourth Movement of 1919, with 60,000 strikers protesting against the Chinese government\u2019s passivity in the face of Japan\u2019s imperialist intentions under the Treaty of Versailles; through the strike of Hong Kong and Canton sailors in 1922, which virtually paralyzed regional trade for months; to the May 30th Movement in 1925, which began in Shanghai factories and spread throughout the country to give rise to the Chinese Revolution\u2014the labor movement was at the center of national political life as never before. Once again, the Chinese working class, now far stronger than during the British Crown\u2019s incursions in the Opium War, positioned itself as a vanguard against imperialist aggression, especially from Japan and England. To do so, it had to confront obstacles imposed by the Chinese national bourgeoisie (organized in the Kuomintang), which, although not accepting all foreign impositions, harbored a much deeper hatred of the dangers posed by the Chinese working class than of Euro-Asian capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shootout during the May 30th Movement, 1925<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The May 30th Movement of 1925 was sparked by one of the brutal arbitrariness committed by Japanese imperialism and its capital in China. The high point of a great wave of strikes, it began with the murder in Shanghai of a Chinese worker, Gu Zhenghong, a member of the cotton workers\u2019 union, during a three-month strike in a Japanese-owned cotton factory. His funeral, attended by more than 10,000 workers, awakened the sympathy of the city\u2019s proletariat and became a major event. When ten other Chinese workers were shot dead by the British police operating in Shanghai, 160,000 workers went on strike (50,000 students boycotted classes in support). When dockworkers blocked Shanghai\u2019s port, Japanese ships entered the Whangpoo River to reopen it, killing another 60 workers. The continuation of the massacre increased workers\u2019 anger, igniting the Chinese Revolution. Strikes and mass assemblies spread across coastal industrial cities. In 1925, the consequences of the May 30th Movement led to 130 strikes involving 400,000 workers. That year, another foreign power followed closely behind Japan\u2019s crimes: England, which had actively participated in exploiting and militarily devastating Chinese ports in the nineteenth century, also demanded rights over native labor. When British troops killed 52 demonstrators on June 23, 1925, 300,000 Chinese workers took to the streets, once again fueling one of the most significant strike cycles in national history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Revolutionary Peak of 1925\u201327<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This was the most concentrated period of strike activity in the history of the Chinese working class. To defeat Anglo-Japanese oppression and carry out an agrarian revolution, workers\u2014hundreds of thousands organized in the Communist Party\u2014had the strength to overcome the national bourgeoisie itself, a condition for eliminating the remnants of China\u2019s social backwardness inherited from feudal \u201cwarlords.\u201d But there was something rotten in the kingdom of Denmark (in this case, in the \u201cMiddle Kingdom\u201d).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1923, the CCP leadership had been acting in close alignment with the nationalist bourgeoisie, reducing the battle for proletarian hegemony in favor of collaboration in an \u201canti-imperialist united front,\u201d whose essence was the abandonment of class independence\u2014to the point that this \u201cfront\u201d included the triumvirate Huang Jinrong, Du Yuesheng, and Zhang Xiaolin, the leading opium traffickers in Shanghai, who later became Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s intimate allies in the anti-communist offensive of 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1925, a series of strikes began following Gu Zhenghong\u2019s assassination. Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s troops were advancing in their \u201cNorthern Expedition\u201d in 1926 against the warlords, aiming at national unification. The peasant revolt, which followed the expeditionary forces by occupying estates and killing landlords, and the agitation in the cities, deeply disturbed the Kuomintang, which awaited the moment to violently end the disturbances\u2014and the Communist Party. Despite this, all strike activity, which unfolded into a series of insurrectionary calls, was conducted by the CCP with the tactical objective of collaborating in the rear with Chiang\u2019s troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was because, following the line of the Fifth Congress of 1924\u2014in which Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev began organizing the campaign against Trotsky and Lenin\u2019s legacy\u2014the Communist International defined that the CCP should incorporate itself into the Kuomintang (something Trotsky had opposed since 1923). This definition was based on a selective reading of the \u201cGeneral Theses on the Eastern Question,\u201d one of the results of the Fourth Congress of the Comintern in 1922. The \u201cTheses\u201d clearly stated that the national bourgeoisies of colonies and semi-colonies were incapable of achieving national independence and resolving the agrarian question; however, they did not generalize the Russian experience of 1917, failing to assert that the working class must lead the revolution to achieve these goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the semi-staged character of the \u201cTheses\u201d\u2014which would be fully surpassed by Trotsky\u2019s global conception of the theory of permanent revolution in 1930\u2014their strategic aim was the development of communist parties in the East, with class independence as a fundamental principle. Ignoring this principle, Stalin elaborated a rigid \u201ctheoretical\u201d division between \u201cmature and immature\u201d countries for revolution\u2014China fell fatally into the latter category\u2014restoring the old formula of the \u201cdemocratic dictatorship of workers and peasants\u201d for backward capitalist countries, a conception already marked as outdated by Lenin himself, to cover his open policy of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. Furthermore, he revived the idea of \u201cworkers\u2019 and peasants\u2019 parties\u201d for these countries, a way of renouncing the construction of independent revolutionary parties, which objectively led to the subordination of the CCP to the Kuomintang and its gangsters. Nothing could be further removed from the theoretical foundations that had originally given rise to the \u201cEastern Theses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1926, already under Stalin\u2019s direct orders, this orientation deepened, and the CCP was commanded to dissolve organizationally and submit to Chiang\u2019s orders, who was elevated by Stalin to \u201chonorary member of the Comintern.\u201d Against the formation of soviet-type organs of Chinese workers and peasants, and even demanding that the CCP hand over its weapons to nationalist troops, Stalin prepared the catastrophe of the Chinese Revolution. With such a strategy, the enemy needed no great strategic thought to defeat the workers. The issue becomes even more astonishing in light of the successes the Chinese proletariat had achieved in Shanghai in March and April 1927\u2014successes handed over, under Stalin\u2019s orders, to the executioners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real test of class struggle did not take long. On March 21, 1927, a general strike was launched in Shanghai, with undeniable success, founded on the railway strike that paralyzed government functions. The CCP unleashed the insurrectional plan, disarming the police and multiplying workers\u2019 armament. From the standpoint of military preparation and tactical development, the Shanghai insurrection appeared triumphant. But strategically, this partial success was not used to defeat the enemy. Instead of promoting soviets\u2014or self-organization bodies adapted to Chinese tradition\u2014on the night of March 22 the CCP opened Shanghai\u2019s gates to Bai Chongxi\u2019s Kuomintang expeditionary troops. The awaited moment for Chiang Kai-shek had arrived, and in alliance with opium magnates and the British embassy (eager to eliminate communists from factories), repression was unleashed under General Bai\u2019s command against Shanghai\u2019s workers. On April 12, thousands of workers were executed, having previously surrendered their weapons to the Kuomintang under Comintern orders. Strikes and union organization were banned\u2014the gangsters Du Yuesheng and Zhang Xiaolin raised the \u201cSociety of Mutual Advancement,\u201d a shock troop for exterminating communists\u2014while Chiang negotiated with warlords for a pact-based national unification, without land for peasants. Not satisfied with this defeat, the Comintern leadership instructed the CCP to subordinate itself to a supposed \u201cleft wing\u201d of the Kuomintang, personified in Wang Jingwei (an occasional adversary of Chiang on the issue of \u201calliances\u201d), who led the nationalists in Wuhan. The experience led to another massacre of workers, with Wang and Chiang\u2019s rapprochement in 1927.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Chinese poster on the Shanghai Massacre of April 1927<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alarmed by the results of its policy, the Stalinist Kremlin suggested a 180\u00ba turn and launched an insurrectional offensive in Canton. Isolated and weakened by the Shanghai Massacre, Canton\u2019s communists took up arms and seized political and economic control of the city. Under Li Lisan\u2019s leadership, the CCP launched the insurrection on December 11, 1927; within hours, government services and the arsenal were in insurgents\u2019 hands. Unlike in Shanghai, soviets were immediately erected in Canton to organize the economy: a series of decrees instituted land nationalization, confiscation of the city\u2019s great fortunes, nationalization of major industry, banks, and railways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canton proved that it was possible for the Chinese working class to take power in Shanghai independently of the bourgeoisie and to lead the democratic-structural tasks of the oppressed nation, combined with socialist tasks of expropriating capitalists. The workers\u2019 vanguard, supported by millions, was willing to resolve national emancipation and land distribution to peasants with its own independent program, against the bourgeoisie and warlords. However, the situation had changed after April\u2019s events in Shanghai: Kuomintang troops entered Canton and militarily defeated the insurrection. The defeat was \u201csplendidly\u201d organized by Stalin and the new Comintern leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1927 to 1949: Brief Lines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After the defeat of the 1925\u201327 Chinese Revolution, the labor movement fell into a state of catatonia. Under the dictatorial domination of the Kuomintang and warlords in the countryside, as well as Japanese repression, the Chinese working class endured years of setback and did not lead major conflicts until the end of World War II in 1945. Betrayed by the CCP and the Comintern under Stalin and Bukharin\u2019s leadership, Chinese workers were atomized in the cities, disorganized and terrorized by Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s repression and constant surveillance. The economic depression experienced in the country also discouraged any revival, even of defensive resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this nearly 20-year interim of workers\u2019 quietism, some exceptions showed the vigor of anti-imperialist combat that had been part of the Chinese working class\u2019s formation, especially in the late 1930s, when Japan prepared a new war against China. Centered in Shanghai, workers, in reduced expression, left their mark in resisting Japanese oppression between 1935\u201336\u2014years of national protests against the Mikado\u2019s interference\u2014as well as between 1939\u201340, when Shanghai had already recovered from Japan\u2019s military attacks of 1937.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second major cycle of workers\u2019 activism in China came with the end of World War II and the beginning of the civil war (1946\u201349) between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, after Japan\u2019s defeat. Just as the first cycle emerged from revolutionary processes after World War I, this new workers\u2019 uprising arose in tune with revolutionary processes spreading worldwide after World War II (decolonization in Africa and Asia, revolutionary waves in Greece, Italy, and France, anti-bureaucratic processes in countries under Soviet control). However, unlike the impulse given by the Russian Revolution of 1917, which under Lenin and Trotsky sought to expand revolution internationally and strategically aid the construction of new communist leaderships globally, in the post\u2013World War II period Stalin\u2019s bureaucratic leadership\u2014responsible for the defeat of the Chinese Revolution\u2014emerged with greater prestige. The Red Army, with tens of millions dead and the old revolutionary guard murdered in Stalin\u2019s Moscow Trials, was the only force capable of defeating the Nazi German army, which gave the Soviet Union international respect within the workers\u2019 movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the Soviet Union, this scenario meant strengthening bureaucratic control over Russian workers and over one-third of the globe, where capitalists were expropriated by the Red Army (without workers\u2019 protagonism), through the Yalta and Potsdam Agreements between Stalin, Roosevelt, and Churchill. For China, it meant strengthening the Stalinist bureaucracy of the CCP, headed by Mao Zedong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mao, who argued that the revolution in China was directed \u201cagainst imperialism and feudalism, not against capitalism\u201d [4], defended that its driving forces included not only workers and peasants but also national bourgeois sectors and even landlords who \u201csensibly\u201d opposed the Japanese. With Mao, we see Stalin\u2019s earlier strategy of class collaboration with the national bourgeoisie under the idea that it would play a revolutionary role. This meant that, for Mao, the political front with Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s Kuomintang was the central political-strategic piece, subordinating to it his conception of protracted people\u2019s war for victory against the Japanese. Thus, Mao largely defended the policy that had led to the failure of the 1925\u201327 revolution, though unlike Stalin, he did not accept dissolving the CCP\u2014an organizational detail compared to the open renunciation of workers\u2019 political independence. For Mao, the CCP\u2019s role was to guarantee unity with the national bourgeoisie at all costs and therefore protect it from the masses, strictly limiting workers\u2019 and bourgeois struggles as a strategic condition for maintaining the protracted fight against Japanese imperialism. National liberation war was to impose limits on revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, based on a peasant party-army, Mao\u2019s strategy of \u201cprotracted people\u2019s war\u201d did not aim to revive mass self-organization bodies of workers and peasants, but rather to suppress any soviet-type tendencies, like those in Russia in 1917 (which Stalinist bureaucracy had also suppressed). The CCP\u2019s break with the Kuomintang only occurred by Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s imposition, who, after Japan\u2019s defeat and with U.S. support, rejected Mao\u2019s policy of cooperation with the bourgeoisie and sought to eliminate the CCP. With no choice of alliance with bourgeois nationalism and rejecting the revival of democratic-soviet bases for the still atomized urban proletariat, Mao seized power after militarily defeating the Kuomintang. At the end of the civil war, the People\u2019s Republic of China was born already bureaucratized, without Chinese workers having any freedom to decide the country\u2019s political course, much less rational economic planning based on social ownership of the means of production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with the obstacles imposed by Maoist bureaucracy, the second cycle of workers\u2019 activism in China in the late 1940s was stronger than the passivity and resignation of the previous 20 years after 1927. However, the bureaucratic obstacle was strong enough that workers\u2019 activity leading to the PRC\u2019s constitution was substantially weaker than during the 1922\u201327 cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results of World War II were decisive for shaping the new cycle of workers\u2019 activism, located on social terrain where Japanese imperialist aggression had practically receded after its defeat. After Japan\u2019s surrender, the Kuomintang returned to China\u2019s coastal regions. Japanese capital was expropriated, and its former Chinese workers placed under state administration. From 1946 onward, workers\u2019 disturbances in China no longer occurred in the terrain of private capital but in the state arena. The combination of civil war, high unemployment, and rampant inflation after the war spurred major workers\u2019 protests in Kuomintang-controlled cities (the CCP remained in rural areas surrounding major urban regions). In 1946, one in five people in Canton (228,000) were unemployed, and 30% (200,000 people) of Nanjing\u2019s population were jobless. This panorama of poverty imposed by war\u2019s consequences led to 1,716 strikes recorded in Shanghai in 1946, rising to 2,538 strikes in 1947. Behind workers\u2019 revolt, the CCP fanned the flames in Kuomintang-controlled cities, without encouraging any soviet-type self-organization in the cities, over which it sought to exert control. After victory in 1949, the CCP dismantled, by coercion or repression, the labor unrest that had allowed it to defeat Chiang Kai-shek\u2019s followers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the People\u2019s Republic to the Tiananmen Square Massacre<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This was a moment of growth in the material forces of the Chinese working class concentrated in urban regions. Between 1949 and 1956, the Chinese proletariat completed its transition from private property bases to state property. The industrial working class reached 25 million in 1952, increased to 54 million in 1966, and reached 148 million in 1988; of this total by the late 1980s, 100 million workers were employed in state-owned enterprises, while only 8 million were in private industry (Fairbank, 1986).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation of the working class in China, with the expropriation of Japanese imperialism and the socialization of strategic sectors of the economy, improved substantially. In fact, conditions improved for part of the working class\u2014excluding rural workers and peasants. Workers in large state-owned enterprises, such as heavy industry (metallurgy and steel), gained multiple social rights: social security, lifetime employment, retirement, free healthcare, and wage increases. In exchange, the country\u2019s military apparatus blocked all pores of political expression for the masses. The right to strike was virtually abolished, and People\u2019s Liberation Army committees suffocated intellectual life in workplaces, whose administration was ossified by various levels of central and local bureaucracy. Except for scattered protests in the 1950s and 1960s, such as during the Hundred Flowers Movement led by intellectuals in 1957, there are no records of significant workers\u2019 unrest between 1949 and the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1967\u201368, with the major internal split in the CCP and the PLA, resulting from the economic catastrophe of the Great Leap Forward, the Chinese working class appeared as one of the important actors in the Cultural Revolution. Mao needed to restore his prestige, shaken by the economic adventure that starved millions of peasants by accelerating disordered collectivization of the countryside (in the style of Stalin and Bukharin in 1928), beginning in 1958. Peasants who failed to meet extraordinary production targets (with outdated means of production) were accused of sabotage. Against Mao, a faction within the CCP emerged, encouraging an orientation opposite to his regarding reforms. At the head of this opposition were Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. The dispute between factions unfolded in Shanghai\u2019s streets, involving millions. In this contradictory movement, a window opened to strike at a sector of Beijing\u2019s bureaucracy, for which the Red Guards were organized, composed mainly of students and, to a lesser extent, workers. Political turbulence could have escaped Mao\u2019s control; it was not impossible that, under certain conditions, a generalized repudiation of the entire state bureaucracy might develop\u2014a specter haunting the Politburo during the Shanghai Commune. Mao decided to violently end the experiment once the rival faction was weakened; the PLA reestablished control, first in factories. The iron discipline imposed on Chinese workers stabilized the country politically through the provisional reunification of CCP leadership. One result was the transfer of the vanguard of these struggles in Shanghai and cities like Canton, Nanjing, and Tianjin to forced labor in the countryside: seventeen million young urban workers were sent to rural zones to rebuild food production between 1964 and 1978.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other two landmark events of the Chinese proletariat in national life occurred in 1979 and 1989. In the first case, Mao Zedong\u2019s death and the succession process revived factional disputes within the CCP between 1977\u201378. Deng Xiaoping, after returning from exile, sought to seize party machinery against Mao\u2019s chosen successor, Hua Guofeng. Fighting for a faster orientation toward pro-capitalist reforms than his internal adversaries, Deng resorted to a kind of second Hundred Flowers Movement, encouraging questioning of Guofeng\u2019s faction. If we recall the observations of nineteenth-century Prussian general Carl von Clausewitz, we realize that small objectives can mobilize only limited moral forces. Subsequent workers\u2019 activities were thus modest, though the most relevant since 1966, given central government repression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 1989, however, workers\u2019 protests were more robust\u2014led by students\u2014against rampant inflation, and inspired by questioning of Stalinist bureaucracy in Poland (which, lacking a political force simultaneously anti-bureaucratic and anti-imperialist, allowed Lech Walesa and Solidarno\u015b\u0107, with support from Pope John Paul II and Washington, to restore Polish capitalism). Workers took to the streets to improve living conditions. They were mercilessly repressed, in what became known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Way of (In)Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From this brief overview of workers\u2019 activity in twentieth-century China, we see that the Chinese proletariat was always involved in the ebbs and flows of the international situation, acting on the diverse terrain that class struggle produced\u2014whether under foreign private property or under state property commanded by the Communist Party bureaucracy. Having most of its social rights restricted during the twentieth century, with trade union freedom and the right to strike reduced to zero, the Chinese proletariat was forged in the \u201cheroic\u201d mold, to use Giovanni Arrighi\u2019s terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Workers\u2019 movements in China tended to reach their peaks at decisive moments of national political conflict, and were both product and cause of political outcomes and economic crises. But in contrast to the 1922\u201327 period, when workers were at the center of conflict, in earlier and later insurgencies the dominant actors were students, intellectuals, peasants, or the political and military elites of the CCP and the People\u2019s Liberation Army. In sum, we find one epochal moment (1925\u201327), a second important uprising (1947\u201349), and five smaller disturbances of the Chinese working class (1935\u201336, 1940, 1957, 1979, 1989) in its modern history. The most powerful manifestation of working-class strength came in the wake of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution; the second, as a consequence of World War II, coincided with the final stage of the civil war that culminated in communist victory. In China\u2019s case, we observe social conflicts in which workers\u2019 insurgencies were part of a broader revolutionary pattern. During the People\u2019s Republic, workers\u2019 protests arose in the Hundred Flowers Movement of 1957, in 1967 at the height of the Cultural Revolution, in 1979 during the Democracy Wall Movement and Deng Xiaoping\u2019s rise, and in the 1989 movement. In all these moments, deep internal political divisions, usually intensified by international crises, opened the way for large-scale workers\u2019 struggles in China\u2019s major cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is important when considering China\u2019s rise in the world system of states and its place as a power. Chinese workers today must act under conditions of bureaucratic chauvinism encouraged by the CCP, and with contradictions that combine major traits of dependency and backwardness with significant technological-scientific developments that allow it to challenge imperialist powers such as the United States in certain areas. Within this, China seems to constitute itself as a dependent capitalist state with imperialist traits. This descriptive formula has the advantage of better showing what China is today, highlighting its contradictory characteristics, its dependency, and its imperialist tendencies. It is against this internal enemy\u2014the bourgeoisie organized in the CCP, engaged in a structural dispute as a rising power against the world\u2019s greatest imperialist power\u2014that Chinese workers must carve a path toward a policy independent of the post-Maoist bureaucracy and global imperialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than the comprehensive organization of their struggles, the history of the Chinese proletariat is imbued with heroism in combat, and especially with the possibility of victory. Not only victory internally against the national bourgeoisie, but also the expansion of revolutionary triumph internationally, with the Chinese working class carrying forward a great communist strategy worthy of the name, as Trotsky defended. This has not yet happened. In the twentieth century, this perspective was blocked first by Stalinism, and then by its successor, Maoism, from 1949 onward\u2014a brutal tradition to which current plenipotentiary Xi Jinping is heir. But the last word has not yet been spoken for the Chinese giant, and it does not seem that the turbulence will be limited to renewed skirmishes of Chinese nationalism along its Asian borders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Perry, Elizabeth. Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor<\/em>. California: Stanford University Press, 1993.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Selden, Mark. Labor Unrest in China, 1831\u20131990<\/em>. Review (Fernand Braudel Center)<\/em>, Vol. 18, No. 1, Labor Unrest in the World-Economy, 1870\u20131990<\/em> (Winter, 1995), pp. 69\u201386.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Honig, Emily. Sisters and Strangers: Women in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1911\u20131949<\/em>. Stanford: California, 1986.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • \u2014\u2014\u2014. The Politics of Prejudice: Subei People in Republican Shanghai<\/em>. Modern China<\/em> 15, no. 3, 1989, pp. 259\u201362.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Hershatter, Gail. The Workers of Tianjin, 1900\u20131949<\/em>. California: Stanford University Press, 1986.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Fairbank, John King. The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985<\/em>. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Maspero, Henri. Histoire et institutions de la Chine ancienne<\/em>. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2025 (r\u00e9\u00e9dition).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Gernet, Jacques. Le monde chinois<\/em>. Paris: Armand Colin, 1972. 2 tomes.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Grousset, Ren\u00e9. Histoire de la Chine: des origines \u00e0 la seconde r\u00e9volution<\/em>. Paris: Payot, 1942.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Elisseeff, Danielle. Histoire de la Chine<\/em>. Paris: \u00c9ditions du Seuil, 1997.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Cheng, Anne. Histoire de la pens\u00e9e chinoise<\/em>. Paris: \u00c9ditions du Seuil, 1997.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The history of the Chinese labor movement intertwines with the history of the country\u2019s industrial development, stemming from clashes against foreign oppression in China and military conflagration among imperialist powers. Already in the early stages of its confrontation with the ruling class, we observe two essential traits: first, Chinese workers can hardly be classified, at any point in their history, as mere objects of exploitation; second, their class struggle became accustomed to unfolding simultaneously against the native ruling class and foreign oppression. Below, we outline in brief strokes some decisive moments of proletarian struggle in China over the last century and a half.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"crp_sub_category":"","crp_read_time":"","crp_featured":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[102,6,3,5],"tags":[42,23,19],"coauthors":[77],"class_list":["post-735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-china","category-crp-worldwide","category-east-asia","category-theory","tag-asia-pacific","tag-labor","tag-marxism"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nNotes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The history of the Chinese labor movement intertwines with the history of the country\u2019s industrial development, stemming from clashes against foreign oppression in China and military conflagration among imperialist powers. Already in the early stages of its confrontation with the ruling class, we observe two essential traits: first, Chinese workers can hardly be classified, at any point in their history, as mere objects of exploitation; second, their class struggle became accustomed to unfolding simultaneously against the native ruling class and foreign oppression. Below, we outline in brief strokes some decisive moments of proletarian struggle in China over the last century and a half.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"637\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andr\u00e9 Barbieri\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Andr\u00e9 Barbieri\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"31 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Andre Acier\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c\"},\"headline\":\"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":6898,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/monetchina.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Asia-Pacific\",\"Labor\",\"Marxism\"],\"articleSection\":[\"China\",\"CRP Worldwide\",\"East Asia\",\"Theory\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/\",\"name\":\"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/monetchina.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/monetchina.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/monetchina.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":637},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\",\"name\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"description\":\"Trotskyist left in Asia: news, analysis, and strategy from the camp of the Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/logo_crp_en.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/05\\\/logo_crp_en.png\",\"width\":821,\"height\":160,\"caption\":\"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c\",\"name\":\"Andre Acier\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g20480edfc1b511f2dc0b743ef5ac2514\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Andre Acier\"},\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/crpnews.com\\\/asia\\\/author\\\/andre\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","og_description":"The history of the Chinese labor movement intertwines with the history of the country\u2019s industrial development, stemming from clashes against foreign oppression in China and military conflagration among imperialist powers. Already in the early stages of its confrontation with the ruling class, we observe two essential traits: first, Chinese workers can hardly be classified, at any point in their history, as mere objects of exploitation; second, their class struggle became accustomed to unfolding simultaneously against the native ruling class and foreign oppression. Below, we outline in brief strokes some decisive moments of proletarian struggle in China over the last century and a half.","og_url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/","og_site_name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","article_published_time":"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":637,"url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Andr\u00e9 Barbieri","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Andr\u00e9 Barbieri","Est. reading time":"31 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/"},"author":{"name":"Andre Acier","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/person\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c"},"headline":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989","datePublished":"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/"},"wordCount":6898,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg","keywords":["Asia-Pacific","Labor","Marxism"],"articleSection":["China","CRP Worldwide","East Asia","Theory"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/","name":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989 - Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg","datePublished":"2026-07-17T13:35:58+00:00","dateModified":"2026-07-17T13:35:59+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/monetchina.jpg","width":1024,"height":637},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/notes-on-the-formation-of-the-chinese-working-class-1840-1989\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Notes on the Formation of the Chinese Working Class, 1840\u20131989"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#website","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/","name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","description":"Trotskyist left in Asia: news, analysis, and strategy from the camp of the Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#organization","name":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/logo_crp_en.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/logo_crp_en.png","width":821,"height":160,"caption":"Permanent Revolution \u2013 Fourth International (Asia)"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/#\/schema\/person\/083374f01719b23af7e895b69c71864c","name":"Andre Acier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g20480edfc1b511f2dc0b743ef5ac2514","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3dbdbf2bd4411abbf2f0e2e8539d88a7100abf77d38caca780486b68ac969f34?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Andre Acier"},"url":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/author\/andre\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crpnews.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}