A look at the role of women in the strikes during the period of the First United Front between Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party.

‘The Women’s Part in the Chinese Revolution’ by Tineva from International Press Correspondence. Vol. 7 No. 19. March 11, 1927.

In the civil war in China, which is spreading further and further, women are joining the ranks of the revolutionary combatants in ever increasing numbers. It is characteristic of China that women are joining in the civil war, women not only of the working class, but of almost all classes of society: women workers and peasants, the women of the intelligentsia, of the petty bourgeoisie and of the middle class and even the women belonging to the large bourgeoisie.

The participation of women was greater in the national revolutionary movement than has otherwise been the case in the history of similar movements, because women in China, as in the whole of the East, have a particular interest in any movement for freedom, they being the elements which are most cruelly oppressed by the semi-patriarchal laws and customs which still prevail.

For the bourgeois woman, national emancipation is a lever for her individual emancipation, which is being prepared for and demanded by the introduction of capitalist methods of production and thanks to the new economic and social conditions. The proletarian woman is of course also held down by the same fetters of individual and social enslavement, by patriarchal customs and laws…She however feels the capitalist methods of production directly as the lash of exploitation and thus, being like man an exploited wages’ slave, she enters the arena with the class demands of the revolutionary proletariat, but she too, like man an exploited wage slave, she enters the arena with individual emancipation as a woman.

The feminist movement in China, which originally came into being among the petty bourgeoisie, the middle class and the intelligentsia, and which now embraces the revolutionary elements among the women workers and peasants who take their stand on the class war, is thus casting off its purely feminist character and is slowly but irresistibly merging into the general movement of the broad masses of the Chinese people. Thus for instance, in all speeches, at meetings and in the Press as well as in resolutions, it is being emphasised more and more frequently and by no means accidentally, that the feminist question is indissolubly bound up with the general question of national oppression and of the exploitation of the working class, and that the social revolution should make its own the cause of the complete emancipation of Woman.

Women workers first took part in the revolutionary movement in China by joining in the strike movement. Even in 1920, there were mass strikes in the textile factories, in the silk spinning mills and the cigarette factories of Shanghai, in which thousands of women took part. In sixty factories 30,000 women struck. The strike movement in Shanghai included 44 silk spinning mills in which 92,000 workers struck, most of them being women.

In 1923, the strike movement spread still further and embraced still larger numbers of women workers; in Shanghai alone, 54 strikes occurred, the largest of which included 15,000 women. The strike movement of 1924 assumed still greater dimensions and was chiefly of an organisatory character strike committees cropped up and trade unions were formed. In February 1925, 24,000 persons went vent on strike in the cotton mills of the Japanese firm Nogai-Yata-Kaisha in Shanghai, the majority of them being women. According to the statistics of the Shanghai trades council, the number of workers on strike in the foreign factories in the Spring of 1925, was almost 200,000, 80% of them being in the textile trade, which employs almost exclusively women and children.

The chief causes which led to this strike were the low wages, the long hours of work and the corporal punishments, fines etc. which were the order of the day.

The events in Shanghai in 1925/26 contributed largely to the women workers joining in the strike movement. The celebration of the Shanghai events was the occasion when the largest number of women took part. In Canton, the general strike was declared in all match factories, in which women alone are employed, as a sign of solidarity. In this period of the general revolutionary advance, there were even strike movements of children, as for instance in the English tobacco factory in Shanghai, in which 200 children struck.

This wholesale participation of women in the strike movement made the question of their organisation acute. This demand of the women workers to be organised is growing stronger and stronger and finds expression in the fact that women are being enrolled in the general trade unions (Shanghai) as well as that independent women’s trade unions are being formed, as was the case in some branches of industry in Canton. On this basis a number of meetings and conferences have been held. In March 1926, a conference of women workers in the wool factories was called which was attended by about 500 delegates, representing something like 20,000 women workers. Another conference was called, which was attended by 800 delegates, representing the silk mills. The resolutions passed demand that the Canton Government organise a committee of inspection to carry out the new regulations in the factories, for maternity and child welfare and at the same time demanding equal pay for equal work.

Ever since 1925, when the Kuomintang issued the slogan demanding the convocation of a national assembly, the women who, after the Shanghai events, took an active part in the anti-imperialist movement, began to carry on a wide-spread campaign for this slogan and organised “Committees for Promoting the Convocation of a National Assembly”. They published an appeal with regard to the fight against the imperialism of all countries and with regard to the abolition of the dictatorial treaties, organised propaganda groups, joined in the collection of voluntary contributions for the benefit of the strikers in Shanghai, took an active share in a number of demonstrations, published appeals etc.

The development of the women’s movement from the point of view of organisation and ideology was greatly promoted by the close cooperation of the Communists and the Kuomintang. Both in the Communist party and in the Kuomanting there are women’s sections having authority in the party, which direct the work among the working women in this spirit.

The events in Shanghai have greatly strengthened the revolutionary attitude of mind of the women workers and largely contributed to the consolidation of the movement among them. The chief centres of this movement are Shanghai, Canton and Tientsin, towns in which enormous masses of women of the proletariat are concentrated. In recent times, the women’s movement has begun to consolidate its organisation and to develop a tendency towards coalition and the union of their forces. A number of women’s organisations, associations and unions etc. are springing up, which include not only the intelligentsia, the women of the petty bourgeoisie, but also the women workers and even the peasant women. Thus, in Shanghai, “The Union of the Women of Shanghai” has been formed, with 300 members, a good half of whom are women workers. In the province of Kwantung, 60 local groups of the “League for the Liberation of Women” have been formed and have been joined by many peasant women. Further there is the “Women’s Union of Hupey”, which is composed chiefly of women workers. In Kaifun, there is a “Women’s Union”, in Guangsi “The Women’s Union for the Protection of the Rights of Women”, in Tientsin, the “Women’s Union”. Similar organisations exist in Chekiang, Nimbo, Nanking, Tshakish, Hunnan etc. All these organisations carry on agitation on broad lines with the help of their Press.

The increased influence of the Communist Party and of the Left wing of the Kuomintang finds expression in the participation of women in all the activities organised by the Kuomintang and the Communist party, as well as in the wholesale participation of women in the demonstrations of protest against the despatch of Japanese troops, against Wu Pei Fu etc. In Hunan, the number of women who took part in these activities amounted to almost 30% of the whole number. As a reply to the murder of several women who took part in the demonstrations at Shanghai, a campaign was started in Hunan to recruit women for the Kuomintang, which led to an increase of the number of women by 20%. In recent times, the number of women members of the Communist Party has also greatly increased, and instead of the 320 women members at the end of 1925, the Communist Party now includes 2000 women members.

On the occasion of the International Women’s Day 1926, the women’s movement reached its highest point. This day was celebrated as a real national holiday, on which magnificent demonstrations against imperialism were organised. Fresh masses of women who, up to that time, had not been reached by our agitation and propaganda, took part in it. In some provinces, as for instance in Kwantung, Guangsi, Hunan, Shansi, Chekiang, Hupeh, Shantung, Peking, Tientsin etc., the success was beyond all measure. The greatest demonstration that China has ever seen however, was undoubtedly the stupendous demonstration in Canton.

In recent times, the question has arisen of the ideological and organisatory consolidation of the influence of the Communist Party and the Kuomintang among the large number of proletarian women who have spontaneously taken part in the fight against imperialism. With this object in view, a “Central Chinese Women’s Congress” is to be summoned in the near future, the chief task of which is to gather together and enroll the masses of women in the national movement for freedom and for the support of the Labour movement; the linking together of all existing women’s organisations of course excluding any which are openly reactionary throughout China, under the leadership of a uniform Centre; the collection and study of the experiences of the women’s movement.

All these facts signify a tremendous advance in the direction of a union of all the revolutionary elements into a consolidated advance and a fight of the anti-imperialist united front for the independence of the country. All these facts bear witness to the new phase in the development of the women’s movement in China, of its expansion and its significance within the general fight for freedom.

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.

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