The head of the Eastern Department of the Profintern, Lev Heller, with an extremely informative look at the phenomenal, corresponding, growth of the Chinese national and workers’ movements in the mid-1920s.

‘The Nationalist Movement and Labour in China’ by L. Heller from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 5 Nos. 71, 72 & 73. September 24, October 1 & 8, 1925.

I.

The Distinctive Features of the present Movement.

Never, since the Boxer uprising, has China been to such an extent, the centre of political attention of the entire world as during the last three months. Both London and New York, Tokio and Moscow have been watching with close attention the developments in Shanghai and Hong Kong, have been listening eagerly to the crash of events in China.

Only important wars attract so much public interest. Yet is a mere strike of some 300,000 workers (200,000 in Shanghai and 120,000 in Hong Kong) that is responsible for it now. Why then do the headlines of the world’s press refer so persistently to the events in Shanghai? Why such a troubled air among the Honourables of the Lower House and the Noble Lords of the Upper House, who have devoted more than one sitting of Parliament and Committee meeting to the Shanghai strike? Why this overwhelming interest, these passionate sympathies for the Shanghai workers on the part of the workers and peasants of the U.S.S.R. and of the entire world proletariat?

The answer lies not only in that China in the last years has become a most important junction, in which the fundamental problems of international politics collide and cross. This is not new. New is the fact that the Chinese masses have become a nation, acting as a unit, as a single body throughout the length and breadth of that vast country; new is the fact that the leader of the movement is no longer the radical intelligentsia, the Student body, as has been the case in the past five years, but the working class; and new is the fact that the workers’ strike has become the backbone of the entire nationalist emancipation movement, the fact that the Supremacy of the proletariat in this movement has been recognised by the entire nation.

Social and Ideological Forces.

The national movement in China originated at the end of the past century. Its initiators in China, as elsewhere, were the intelligentsia, the students, teachers, a section of the professors, journalists and some of the elements of the emigrant Chinese commercialists, who rallied around the Kouming Tang Party or, to be more precise, around Sun-Yat-Sen, its leader. In 1915, in connection with the Japanese 21 demands, and in 1919, as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, which so thoroughly disappointed the Chinese nationalists, who found themselves deceived and betrayed by their own “allies”, the nationalist movement received a new powerful impulse. For some months the Chinese public was in a state of uproar and extreme agitation. The Japanese Ministers were forced to resign; the boycott of Japanese goods reduced Chino-Japanese trade by 40%. But the leadership of the movement, the activity on the political stage, the cries of protest at the public meetings, the slogans in the fight these all came from the student body. The voice of the worker was, as yet, silent.

Soon, however, the situation changed. The industrialisation of China during the last years of the imperialist war and the early post-war period, was proceeding apace.

Side by side with the foreign industries and with the old Chinese trading, go-between (comprador) bourgeoisie, there appeared a new industrial Chinese bourgeoisie.

The industrial centres, Shanghai, Tientsin, Hankow, Changsha, Tsingtao, etc., have been rapidly growing; within them there steadily grew large compact masses of the newly-risen working class. Soon this working class began to display its activity by a series of strikes.

Much has been written recently of the terrible conditions. of labour in China. Men, women and children alike work 12 to 15 hours per day; the wages received by them are miserable. Cheap docile labour rendered China a “paradise for employers”, to quote the report of the British Council, at China, recently published in the British “Blue Book”.

But this capitalist paradise is a veritable hell for the workers. No wonder then that, under the influence of the general rise of the East after the war, under the influence of the November Russian Revolution and of their own national movement, a spontaneous movement for better conditions has developed among the Chinese workers, taking the form of a widespread strike struggle.

During the first period covering about 2 years from the beginning of 1920 to the latter half of 1922 the labour movement, still largely spontaneous, met with practically no serious opposition. The strikes were limited mainly to the foreign industries, and the Chinese public opinion, moulded, as it was, not only by the influential studentry, but also by the new Chinese industrial bourgeoisie, maintained, on the whole, a position of friendly neutrality towards the labour movement. This was quite natural, since in defending their economic interests against the foreign capitalists the workers were indirectly strengthening the position of the native industry, thus also objectively fighting the imperialists and gaining the sympathies of the nationalist intelligentsia and, more particularly, of the students. No wonder, therefore, that the strike of the Hong Kong seamen in the spring of 1922 not only met with a sympathetic response throughout the country, but even received material assistance from the Southern bourgeoisie. In this atmosphere of general support the strikes of that period resulted, in their majority, in complete or partial success.

However, already towards the end of 1922, a change was marked. The strike movement, in its expansion, began to embrace Chinese establishments as well. A change of front immediately took place among the Chinese industrialists who took up an openly hostile attitude towards the workers’ movement. This change was already felt during the strike of the Tan-Shang miners in October 1922. For the first time in the history of China not only the police but the army as well were used against the strikers on that occasion. There were casualties in killed and wounded, and the strike was put down by force.

Even more cruel was the treatment of the striking railwaymen on the Peking-Hankow Line, in February 1923, at the hands of the combined forces of reaction. Equally alarmed by the growth of organisation among the railway workers, the foreign and native capitalists, together with the Chinese militarists, joined in a united front against labour. The strike was drowned in the blood of the workers by the military dictator of China, Wu-Pei-Fu.

The defeat of the railwaymen served as a signal for a general offensive on the part of all the combined forces of the reaction against Labour. Not only were the recently organised trade unions dissolved, their premises sealed and the leaders arrested, but even the co-operatives, the schools and the clubs were everywhere closed. All over China (with the exception of Canton) the labour unions were driven underground, and only in isolated places were some semi-legal workers’ organisations allowed to exist.

Things continued practically unchanged until the latter part of 1924. For about a year and a half quiet reigned in the labour movement of China. The Pacific Conference of Transport Workers, convened in Canton in June 1924, marked the end of this period. The Shameen strike (Canton) which flared up in July and which, like the 1922 Hong-Kong strike, was directed against the foreign capitalists, again demonstrated to all China the significance of the labour movement to the nationalist emancipation movement.

The New Political Situation and the Revival of the Labour Movement.

It will be recalled that in the Autumn of the same year Peking was the scene of a coup d’etat in which the Chilhi clique suffered defeat, Wu-Pei-Fu, the erstwhile almighty dictator, was forced to flee to the Yan-Tse-Kiang Valley, and Tuan-Tzi-Jui took over power. This new government has been maintaining itself only by grace of Chang-Tso-Lin and Feng-Yusiang, the heads of two hostile military groups, between which it has been very cleverly balancing. There lies the weakness of the present government, which has no considerable military forces of its own. Yet, its very military weakness is the source of its political strength. Just because Tuan-Tsi-Jui has no army of his own, Chany and Feng, who are not strong enough to capture the entire power, reconcile themselves with Tua-Tsi-Jui, who is dependent upon both of them.

The disappearance of Wu-Pei-Fu and of his fosterling, President Tsao-Kun, who was extremely hostile towards the labour movement, and their replacement by the “weak” Tuan-Tsi-Jui Government, has created a favourable situation that was promptly utilised both by the labour and the nationalist movements. The Tuan-Tsi-Jui government styles itself as temporary, thus indirectly recognising its “illegal” origin. Tuan-Tsi-Jui in the past has been the chief of the Japanofile Anfu clique, hateful to the people, as was clearly demonstrated during the stormy years of 1919-20. However, Tuan-Tsi-Jui is a very clever politician, and from the very first days of his coming to power he began to talk of a “National Assembly” that was to establish a “lawful” government, while trying, at the same time, to win over the sympathies of the public, for which purpose he appealed to the support of the Kuo-Ming-Tang Party by appointing some members of the Right Wing of that party to certain government positions and inviting to Peking the leader of Kuo-Ming-Tang, Sun-Yat-Sen.

This of course, was merely a chess-move. There could be no agreements between the reactionary Tuan-Tsi-Jui and the revolutionary Sun-Yat-Sen on the fundamental questions of home and foreign policy. Nevertheless, as a result of the new situation, the Kuo-Ming-Tang Party, whose political activity is centred in the Kwen-Tung province in the South, obtained an opportunity to appear on the national arena. Sun Yat-Sen came north, and in the course of several months, with the aid of appeals and manifestoes in connection with the struggle over the political character of the future national Assembly and of the conference that was to precede it, he carried out tremendous propaganda work in Northern and Central China, noticeably strengthening the nationalist movement in Peking and Shanghai.

This enlivening of the political movement had its immediate effect also on the labour movement.

The railwaymen’s and miners’ organisations that had been driven underground, began to grow and expand; the recently closed workers’ schools and courses were reopened and new ones established. The propaganda and organisation activities carried out during the early period, as future developments have shown, were not in vain; immediately the unfavourable period had passed and a new warm wave appeared in the political atmosphere, the seeds sown two and more years previously, began to blossom anew. The labour movement, put down after the crushing of the Peking-Hankow strike, again revived. More than that, the beginning of 1925 was marked by the development of a strong movement on the part of the most numerous and backward section of Chinese labour the textile workers.

II.

The Textile Workers and their Struggle against the Capitalist Offensive.

The first place in the Chinese labour movement, from the point of view of activity and organisation, has until lately been held by the railwaymen, seamen and miners. To be sure, there have been sporadic strikes of textile workers in the past as well, but they were generally short-lived and, owing to weak organisation, ended as a rule in defeat. The main cause of the organisational backwardness of the textile workers is the domination of female and child labour. It will suffice to state that in many of the largest textile factories women constitute 90% of all the workers. In the silk industry the percentage is still higher, reaching even as much as 99%. About half the workers consist of children.

This explains why Shanghai, the foremost industrial centre of China, where is concentrated one third of the entire industrial proletariat of the country, has not until recently played any noticeable part in the Chinese labour movement; of the 500,000 workers of China, the cotton workers (160,000) and silk workers (80,000) constitute nearly one half. In addition, the next largest group, the porters (100,000), are also not easily given to organisation. Only after the Peking coup last autumn, in connection with the new political situation and with the rise of the nationalist movement in Northern and Central China, did the backward Shanghai proletariat begin to move.

The birth of the first trade union organisations among the Shanghai textile workers dates back to the second half of the past year. The first to be organised were the workers of certain Japanese textile factories, where men constituted a relatively high percentage. There were four such factories and they formed the nucleus of the Shanghai textile workers’ organisation.

The Japanese capitalists immediately saw a menace in the organisation of trade unions, and started a determined offensive against them. The biggest Japanese textile company, Nagai-Wata, owning 13 textile factories in Shanghai and two in Tsintao, began systematically to replace the men by women, increasing at the same time the standard of production, and discharging, under various pretexts, the most active men. This led to the February strike involving all the factories of this company. Despite the cry raised by the entire imperialist press over this strike, despite all intimidations and provocations, despite attempts to corrupt the strike leaders and despite even the formidable intervention of the Japanese Ambassador, the strikers held out valiantly, and after eleven days of struggle came out partially victorious.

This success served to raise very high the prestige of the Union in the eyes of the workers and in a short time the union movement made very good progress, the membership growing from 2,000 to 10,000.

Two months later, in April, a strike broke out in the Japanese textile factories of Tsintao. The Japanese capitalists decided to show their teeth in Tsintao, a small town in the Shantung province, only recently evacuated by the Japanese, where they found it more safe politically to use force and easier to brow-beat the workers. The most ferocious measures were employed, including mass arrests and deportations, beatings and shootings. Things came to a head when a Japanese warship entered the Chinese port of Tsintao to crush Chinese workers.

In response to these events a second strike was declared in Shanghai by the textile workers, in solidarity with the striking textile workers of Tsintao. The Japanese capitalists then decided to apply the same ferocity in Shanghai. Clashes followed, in which the Japanese foremen killed one and wounded 30 Chinese workers.

On May 30th a peaceful demonstration, held by the workers and students in protest against the murder of Chinese workers by the Japanese, was fired upon by the British police of the Foreign Settlement of Shanghai. This served as a prelude to the Shanghai events, which reverberated so loudly in every country, leading to the unheard of rise of the national movement that is still gripping the whole of China today. In this rise, there is reflected the entire nationalist and labour movement of the last decade. During that period the movement was having its ups and downs, first in the stormy onrush on to the political stage of the student movement in 1919 and in the splendid activities developed by the young Chinese proletariat, such as the strike of the Hong Kong seamen in the spring of 1922 or the Shanghai strike in 1924, and then the movement, during periods of reaction, would disappear underground, engaging there in invisible activities and gathering volume and energy for the next outbreak. The events of this summer represent one of this series of outbreaks. Their mainstay are the strikes in Shanghai. and Hong-Kong.

The Result of the Strikes in Shanghai and Hong-Kong.

The distinctive feature of the mass Shanghai strike that has been carried on fully three months is that in it two currents, a nationalist and a labour, merged into one powerful stream.

The first results are extremely favourable to the fighting Shanghai workers. Such points of the settlement between the Chinese Seamen’s Union and the Japanese shipping companies, as the reinstatement of all the strikers, the payment of wages for the entire period of strike, the forthcoming negotiations for wage advances, signify an indisputable and important, though not complete, victory for the Chinese seamen. The Textile Workers Union apparently came to a similar agreement with the Japanese textile companies (full information is not available at this writing).

It was not with a light heart that the Japanese capitalists and the Japanese Government, which took a very active hand in this conflict the negotiations on behalf of the Japanese company were conducted by the Japanese General Council in Shanghai granted these concessions. “The paradise for employers” mentioned in the report of the British Consul is apparently disappearing in China. The Chinese worker, whom the Japanese capitalists only recently could mercilessly exploit without meeting resistance, whom the Japanese foreman could beat and intimidate with impunity, has begun to rebel. Worse than that, he has even set up trade unions, formed councils and federations that must not only be recognised, but which even force one to retreat.

This victory of the Chinese workers is the more obnoxious to the Japanese bourgeoisie, in that it will undoubtedly be reflected in Japan itself and strengthen the revolutionary wing of the Japanese labour movement.

We do not know the exact losses sustained by Japan in the three months of strike and in the boycott of her goods. As has been mentioned, the 1919 boycott resulted in the trade between Japan and China being reduced by 40%. The losses caused by the present strike and by the much more effective boycott are undoubtedly incomparably larger. This, apart from the more general political motives, lie at the root of the present Japanese “leniency”.

Japan’s decision to seek a reconciliation with the Chinese workers through serious concessions greatly weakens the position of the British capitalists in the strike. The losses sustained by Great Britain are tremendous. This is seen in the drastic falling off of the exports of the Lancashire textile industry, in the complete paralization of British shipping in the pacific. Each day of the Hong Kong strike alone, according to the Hong Kong correspondent of the London “Times”, causes a loss of 250,000 pounds; the Hong Kong losses for the two months’ strike are equal at least to 15 million pounds. Wholesale bankruptcies have become the order of the day in Hong Kong, and even the most solidly established firms are experiencing serious difficulties and are cutting down their forces. Panicky Hong Kong has been bombarding London with telegrams demanding immediate military intervention in Hong Kong, the crushing of the Chinese Bolsheviks, of the “Moscow bandits” who have seized power in Canton, who destroy civilisation and culture, lead China to its doom, etc. But London is “reluctant”. True, fresh troops have been brought up to Hong Kong from India, a special warship loaded with hydroplanes arrived from Malta. Still London is practically inactive. Moreover, London is actually preparing “treason” and seems to be inclined to compromise, to make concessions to the “rebellious slaves”.

Britain’s Isolation.

From the very first and to the very last England has been pursuing a policy of threats and violence. However, there are already signs to the effect that England, preparing with one hand for intervention, is ready to stretch out the other with an olive branch in it. This is indicated in the recall of the Hong Kong governor, Sir Reginald Stubbs, notorious for having introduced leading light in the Joint Committee consisting, in addition to the corporal punishment for “agitators”, whose name fills with pride the heart of every imperialist jingo, but who has become hateful to the Chinese masses, as a symbol of British arrogance and of the most ruthless colonial oppression. This arch-imperialist, with whom the representatives of labour would not think of dealing, has been removed from Hong Kong and transferred to Jamaica. Even the very tone of the British press, after three months of threats and provocation, has changed. It will suffice to compare several extracts from the leading British organs.

The “North China Daily News” of Shanghai, a semi-official press organ of British imperialism, wrote as follows in regards to the efforts of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai to find a compromise in the conflict: “As for the merchants of Shanghai we appreciate their efforts to restore peace, but…we tell them frankly that they are wasting their time. There is only one way in which peace can be restored, and that is by the unconditional surrender of the students and other agitators.” Such was the attitude of the British organ in June. In July the paper deciphered the meaning of the “surrender of the agitators”: by openly and persistently demanding capital punishment for them. Hong Kong, where Sir R. Stubbs, referred to above, did not hesitate at shooting the active workers, was offered as an example to Shanghai.

However, at the end of August, when the front of the Shanghai and Hong Kong workers remained, as at the beginning, firm and unshaken, while Lancashire in England and Hong Kong on the Pacific were feeling more and more acutely the crushing blows coming from the Chinese strikers and the unabated boycott of British goods, the British press found a new language:

“While the diplomats are disputing and frittering away valuable time bitterly complains the London “China Express and Telegraph”, a journal closely associated with the Colonial Department the boycott has reduced the normal movement of British goods by 80%.” (Issue of Aug. 6th, 1925.)

The diplomatic parleys really accomplished nothing of practical value, at least from the standpoint of the interests of British imperialism. All the efforts to line up America and France failed completely. Japan, who at one time followed in the wake of England, finally compromised and parted ways with that country, taking up the path of agreement, at a costly price to herself.

There was a time in the happy days of Lord Palmerston, when Britain was deliberately striving for “splendid isolation”. Today this isolation is a fact, established against her will, and it is far from splendid, and the latest articles of the same London weekly reflect this black mood of sobered imperialism, while the Conservative Government finds it necessary to prepare the “public opinion”, but more particularly the arrogant Hong Kong bankers and shipping interests, the Shanghai Municipal Council, the British Chamber of Commerce, which represent the most die-hard elements of British imperialism in China, of the necessity to seek a compromise, to agree to concessions.

“…The British Government recognises,” the London Weekly writes in an evidently inspired editorial on Aug. 27th,, “the real grievances from which China suffers and is anxious to remove these with the least possible delay.”

“It is admitted”, continues the editorial even more outspokenly, “that the treaties are out of date and must be revised, and it is obvious that the principle of extra-territoriality must be modified in face of the new China.” (China Express and Telegraph, Aug. 27.)

So that is how the influential London circles began to see light.

And this tremendous work of “enlightening” has been carried out by the plain, illiterate Chinese coolies, by the Shanghai and Hong Kong strikers, by the dockers, seamen, textile workers, under the leadership of the Shanghai Trades Council, and of the All-Chinese Federation in the South.

Labour in the Van.

The Shanghai Trades Council was formed at the very outbreak of the strike, soon gaining general recognition as the centre of the labour movement. Its popularity not only in Shanghai, but throughout the country is enormous. To it flock with their various problems and difficulties, not only the labour organisations and various groups of workers, but all the various institutions; the civil and military authorities negotiate with it, the entire stored up hatred of the imperialists has been focused upon it, and they are constantly working to undermine it with all the means at their disposal. The Shanghai Trades Council is the

Council, of the Student Council and the Committee of the Street Unions which comprises petty business men. The Trades Council has not only developed great propagandist and organisational activities among the strikers but, with the aid of its daily, devoted to political and trade union affairs, and of the specially created Press Bureau, which circularises all the Chinese newspapers with daily information bulletins, it has exercised a decisive influence in the moulding of public opinion and in the growth of the national consciousness of the Chinese masses. Its prestige among the Shanghai workers is unchallenged. The latest events have proved this beyond any doubt. Only because it enjoys the complete confidence of the great masses of the Shanghai workers was the Trades Council able to put through such a complicated manouvre as was that of shifting from the fundamental national demands to economic issues, and retaining at the same time the integrity and solidarity of the proletarian front. For it must not be forgotten that, apart from the enormous outside difficulties, the very make-up of the body of strikers contains within itself tremendous handicaps for the mere direction of the strike, and even more so for the execution of drastic strategic turns. Indeed, the main body of the strikers consists of textile workers, seamen and dockers. As a whole the strike movement has rallied entirely untrained sections of the proletariat that have only recently got into touch with any movement. The art of manoeuvring such masses, of making sharp turns, requires, in addition to a certain political maturity, cleverness and tact on the part of the leaders, and also, and particularly, complete confidence in them on the part of the masses.

The main body of the strikers was made up, as is known, of the workers employed in British and Japanese establishments. The latest despatches indicate that the strike in the Japanese factories has been settled in a manner denoting a serious, even if incomplete, victory for the workers. The workers of the British establishments still continue to strike. This again bears witness to the strong contact existing between the Council and the labouring masses. Only this contact permits of such an organised, step by step liquidation of this grand strike, when one section of the front is being liquidated, while at the others the struggle continues unabated. The entire weight and force of the struggle will now be concentrated against Britain, and this is the best guarantee that on this front as well the Shanghai workers will be victorious.

The Hong-Kong strike, though a direct continuation of that of Shanghai has, however, one distinct aspect: its character is purely political, it being a clear expression of the national emancipation struggle conducted by the revolutionary means and methods at the disposal of the working class.

It is hardly possible to name another place on the Pacific where British imperialism has been revealing itself more nakedly, more insolently than in Hong-Kong. A handful of big capitalists, backed by an adequate military force under the command of the Governor, is having full and unlimited sway on the Island. There is one trouble, however: within six hours travel by steamer, on the opposite shore is Canton (the capital of the Kwantung province, with a population close on 40,000,000), the foremost revolutionary city in China, with its Kuo-Ming-Tang Government, friendly to Soviet Russia; a city where the labour movement is developing freely, and where a revolutionary army of workers and peasants has been created. In short, a city that is the very opposite of Hong Kong, which hates it with the deepest hatred as a hotbed of the “Bolshevist germ” that is spreading throughout China, portending nothing good to the Britishers. The working population of Hong-Kong, in turn, have nothing but the profoundest hatred for their haughty oppressors and look with hope to Canton, with whom they maintain the liveliest connections. No wonder that it was precisely in Hong-Kong that the Shanghai events aroused not only a sympathetic, but a much more effective response. The proximity of Canton played a decisive part.

The Hong-Kong strike was led by the Executive Committee of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The latter is a very young organisation, formed at the All-China Trade Union Congress early last May. Backed by the active support of the Canton masses and of the government, the Federation Executive has been successfully handling this extremely difficult problem.

The Hong-Kong strike and this must not be forgotten–is limited to a small island, dominated by a true despotism with the entire power, both civil and military, concentrated in the hands of an autocratic British governor. Nor should it be forgotten that the Hong-Kong strike hits the pockets of the British capitalists more painfully than that of Shanghai, where the Japanese interests are more directly affected. And finally, it should also be remembered that the Britishers wanted to make of Hong-Kong an example of the superiority of their methods of quelling disturbances. There is much “interference” in Shanghai on the part of other countries, and this leads to a lot of red tape and wavering; in Hong-Kong, however, there is a “purely” British rule, which knows what it wants and how to get it. Yet despite the fact that the authorities really did not stop at anything, including shootings, corporal punishment and mass deportations; despite the fact that they recruited scabs everywhere in the Philippines; in the adjacent Portuguese colony of Makoa, etc.; in spite of the fact that even the Russian white guards were rallied to this glorious business, of strike breaking, despite all this, the Hong-Kong strike, led by the Canton Federation, turned into a general strike affecting every branch of employment.

As a result, after two months of struggle, Hong-Kong s ruined. Unable to crush the strike unaided, Hong-Kong has been appealing to London, demanding intervention, military interference, an occupation, or at least the complete blockade of Canton. As has already been stated, there is every ground to believe that these militant outcries will hardly be heard in London. The Conservative Government is, of course, “at heart” with the Hong-Kong reactionaries, but conditions at home and abroad particularly, in China, are such that England will hardly dare to decide upon an intervention in Canton. A war with Canton would be a challenge to all of China. For the Chinese masses have become a nation.

The Birth of the New, Free China.

The traditions of provincialism and clanishness are still, as a matter of fact, strong in China. However, within the womb of old China, a new China has arisen. Owing to industrialisation, its life has been revivified, “modernised”. The growth of cities, the development of railways, the greater mobility of the population, the spread of literacy, the rise of the press, the springing up and proletarianisation of an intelligencia, and last and most important the appearance of an industrial proletariat, its activities and the growth of its trade union and political organisations, all these have undermined the foundations of old China, have led to the readjustment of the social forces, to the revision of the social relations, to what the Chinese themselves term as, the “revaluation of the old values”.

At the same time, on top of the old traditions grew and strengthened the feeling of national unity, of national integrity and a wrathful protest against the colonial slavery in all its forms and manifestations, a heightened resentfulness towards everything restricting Chinese sovereignty and handicapping the emancipation and unification of China. All this has been briefly formulated in the slogan of the entire nation: “Down with the Treaties!” This means, down with the “concessions”, down with the control by foreigners of the Chinese customs and railways, down with extra-territoriality, down with the Consular Courts”. And finally, it means “China free, independent, sovereign!”

That this is the common demand of the entire nation, of every section of the Chinese population, is not denied even by the most dyed-in-the-wool imperialists. Thus the Peking correspondent of the arch-imperialist Shanghai “North China Daily News” reports in the middle of July:

“The slogan “Abolish Unequal Treaties” used to be monopolised by the Kuomintang, but nowadays even the most conservative Chinese, who three months ago would have condemned such talk as the talk of wild men, are asserting themselves on the side of the rights recovery movement.”

The strike of the Hong-Kong seamen in the spring of 1922 and the Seamen strike in summer of 1924 represent, perhaps, the finest pages in the recent history of the nationalist movement. And these pages have been written by the young Chinese proletariat.

But splendid and significant as these activities have been in their time, they were only a prelude to the events of the summer, when the role of the working class as the leader of the national emancipation movement, was so strikingly revealed. This is recognised by all, both the petty and the middle bourgeoisie and even, in a certain sense, by the Peking Government itself. Everyone became aware that the workers’ strike movement was the backbone of the nationalist movement. This explains the support that the Shanghai and Hong-Kong strikes received throughout the country among every section of the population. This explains also the singular fact that the Tuan-Tsi-Jui government contributed 150,000 dollars to the Shanghai strikers and 100,000 dollars by way of Canton to the Hong-Kong strikers.

This role of the Chinese proletariat, considering its small numbers there are hardly two million industrial workers in China, a country with 400 million people, and its weak political and trade union organisation may seen surprising and strange.

III.

The Commercial and Industrial Bourgeoisie. However, the conditions here, from the point of view of the relationship of the class forces, largely resemble the position of pre-revolutionary Russia. Precisely because such an overwhelmingly important place in the mining, metal, railway, shipping and textile industries and in banking is held by foreign capital, precisely because of all this, the Chinese industrial bourgeoisie is so weak. The Chinese industrialists quite frequently function also as compradors, that is, middle-men, catering for the foreign capitalists and finding this an additional source of self enrichment. This double role played by the Chinese industrial bourgeoisie lessens its importance still further in the national movement. For it is clear that only a really industrial bourgeoisie can become the promoter of a nationalist emancipation movement, while the comprador capitalists are only humble servants of imperialism. This weakness is the only explanation of the political peculiarity of China where the native bourgeoisie has not as yet produced any definite political organisation with definite programme and platform, comparable even with those of India and Japan. Yet the growing power of the commercial and industrial capitalists finds its political expression in their ever-growing control over the party of the petty bourgeoisie, Kuo-Min-Tang, whose right wing has been breaking loose from the national revolutionary movement and seeking a compromise with imperialism. Though small in number, these elements are very powerful. They constitute the nucleus of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, which even as far back as June, was already trying to find the means whereby they could put an end to this “troublesome business” as the strike, and of the “too far-fetched” struggle against imperialism.

These same comprador elements of Hong Kong and Canton are responsible for the arming the merchant corps (the so-called “paper tigers”) that have more than once attacked the Canton workers. It was they who, in alliance with Hong Kong, stood behind the Generals Tan-Chi-Tso, Yan-Hsi-Ming, who were defeated by the Canton troops last June. And lastly, it was they who promoted the political assassination of Lao-Chun-Kai, the stalwart leader of the Kuo-Min-Tang Left Wing.

The Peasantry, the Working Class and the Petty Bourgeoisie.

The peasantry, making up the overwhelming majority of the Chinese people, and who will decide in the long run the outcome of the struggle, have not yet been lined up in the movement en mass. Only in the Kwantung province is there anything like a mass peasant organisation. Outside this province the only still inarticulate political expression of the processes developing among the peasantry are banditism and hunhusism.

A much greater part is still played by the very large petty bourgeoisie of the Chinese cities, composed of impoverished artisans, small traders and, to some extent, of the proletarianised intelligensia, who supply the main forces of the Kuo-Min-Tang Party. The recent events have shown that this small business man of the city, constituting the majority of the urban population, follows the lead of the proletariat. The commercial and industrial bourgeoisie, both on economic grounds the common interests. between the compradors and the foreign capitalists and on political grounds the fear of the growing consciousness and organisation of the working class are rapidly and resolutely leaving the nationalist revolutionary movement, thus deserting, objectively, to the camp of imperialism. The petty-bourgeoisie and those of the middle class who have remained true to the national cause, as well the radical intelligencia, can do nothing but to follow the working class whose fight is wrecking the forces of imperialism.

This working class, mercilessly exploited, especially by foreign capital, and labouring under the double yoke of class and national oppression, is revolutionary in spirit and has displayed splendid fighting capacities right from the start. Its determined struggle, more than anything else, awakens and puts into motion the Chinese masses, reverberates far beyond the boundaries of the particular city or province, arouses the entire vast country, moulds its public opinion and transforms the Chinese masses into a Chinese nation. There is, of course, contradiction in the fact that this same struggle of the working class results also in a rapid differentiation and division within this nation that is taking shape in front of our eyes.

In this process, which under the Chinese conditions is inevitably bound up with the irreconcilable fight against imperialism, the petty bourgeoisie, as we have seen, follows the working class. However, its role, both at the present and at the immediate future, must still be very great, greater than was the role of the Russian petty bourgeoisie in the struggle against Tzarism. The Chinese city, the Chinese petty bourgeoisie, has century old organisational traditions. The guilds, the clans, the street unions, give this small business men of the city a certain organisational strength, a certain stability, considerable initiative, that increase its weight on the social scale.

Prospects of the Struggle.

The role of the peasantry, on the contrary, despite its numerical strength, will probably be of smaller importance than it was in Russia. There is no large landowning class in China. The struggle of the various interests within the peasantry itself will be more complex and variegated than was the case in pre-revolutionary Russia.

Under these conditions the working class of China is sure to play the leading part. Thereby the task confronting the Communist Party of China, the unchallenged leader of the Chinese working class vanguard, and the Chinese trade unions, is exceptionally great. Despite the immense achievements already on hand we are only witnessing the beginning of the revolutionary struggle in China. On its way to freedom the working class will meet with not a few temporary defeats and trials. The events of this summer have shown that the working class, despite its youth, is capable not only of attacking, but of steering and retreating in the best fighting order. This is the surest guarantee that the working class of China will retain its supremacy and will bring the task, with which history has confronted it, to a successful completion.

Thus the struggle of the Chinese proletariat is assuming world historical significance and fully deserves the universal attention that it has attracted.

International Press Correspondence, widely known as”Inprecorr” was published by the Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI) regularly in German and English, occasionally in many other languages, beginning in 1921 and lasting in English until 1938. Inprecorr’s role was to supply translated articles to the English-speaking press of the International from the Comintern’s different sections, as well as news and statements from the ECCI. Many ‘Daily Worker’ and ‘Communist’ articles originated in Inprecorr, and it also published articles by American comrades for use in other countries. It was published at least weekly, and often thrice weekly. Inprecorr is an invaluable English-language source on the history of the Communist International and its sections.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1925/v05n71-sep-24-1925-inprecor.pdf

PDF of issue 2: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1925/v05n72-oct-01-1925-inprecor.pdf

PDF of issue 3: https://www.marxists.org/history/international/comintern/inprecor/1925/v05n73-oct-08-1925-inprecor.pdf