Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895-1927 (Comparative and International Working-Class History)

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LIKE CATTLE AND HORSES S . A . SMITH

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LIKE CATTLE AND HORSES

A book in the series

comparative and international working-class history General Editors: Andrew Gordon, Harvard University Daniel James, Indiana University Alexander Keyssar, Harvard University

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LI KE CATTLE AN D HORSES Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895 –1927

s. a. smith

duke university press

Durham and London 2002

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© 2002 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan. Typeset in Bembo by G&S Typesetters, Inc. Library of Congress Catalogingin-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.

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I have the misfortune to be born Chinese And the greater misfortune to be an enslaved worker We work more than ten hours a day, yet earn a pittance Like cattle and horses Yet they say our lives are easy We lose blood and sweat For a few hundred cash If we buy oil or salt, there is no money left for rice We go the whole day without a meal We dare not think of different clothes for different seasons Even the rags we wear are too few At night we sleep in mat sheds or under the open sky Truly it is hell on earth It’s a cruel life Why is everything so unfair? We cry to heaven yet there is no reply Oh heaven, do even you look down on us poor folk? Small wonder, that the boss is so heartless If we fall short in any way He tells us to be off If we bow three times and implore him He may let us off with a fine So the righ get richer and the poor poorer Who created this evil state of affairs? In the past we workers dare not even mention it But now we have the chance to make the future Just to talk of liberation is vain We have to bring it about ourselves Come workers! Let us hasten to see justice done poem by an anonymous worker, Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 November 1921


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CONTE NTS

Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 1

Traditional Social Networks and Identities 15

2

Nationalist and Labor Protest at the End of the Qing Dynasty 38

3

The 1911 Revolution in Shanghai 60

4

Nationalist and Labor Protest, 1913 –1919 76

5

The May Fourth Movement of 1919 92

6

The Discourse of Class 116

7

The Communist Attempt to Organize Labor, 1920 –1923 133

8

Workers and the Nation: Left versus Right, 1923 –1925 148

9

The May Thirtieth Movement, 1925 168

10

National and Class Identities, 1925 –1927 190

11

The Surge in Labor Organization, 1927 214

12

The Climax of the National Revolution, March–April 1927 236 Conclusion 257 Notes 271 Bibliography 325 Index 351


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AC KNOWLE DG M E NTS

This book has been far longer in the making than I ever anticipated when I began the research for it in 1986. Since then it has split, amoeba-like, into two books, the first of which, on the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai during the 1920s, was published in 2000. This volume, however, despite many vicissitudes, is basically the book I planned to write from the outset. I must, therefore, begin by thanking the British Council for awarding me a six-month scholarship to Fudan University in Shanghai, which is where I began my research. Professor Huang Meizhen of the History Department kindly helped me locate useful materials, and the librarians at Fudan University and the Shanghai Public Library, especially those in the newspaper reading rooms, were very helpful. I should also record my gratitude to staff at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, where I worked on three very pleasant occasions, and to staff members at the library of the University of California at Berkeley. While I was in Berkeley, Professor Elizabeth Perry, now of Harvard University, generously lent me materials to which I would otherwise not have had access. Basically, however, the research was possible because I live near the excellent collections both in Cambridge University Library and in the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University. I warmly thank both of these institutions for allowing me the privilege of using their facilities. My biggest debt is to Paul Naish and Vanessa Coombe of the Interlibrary Loans Department of the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex, who over many years were unfailingly efficient in tracking down requests for obscure items. Working at the University of Essex, where there is no Chinese program, and teaching and writing mainly in Russian history, as I do, I have often felt isolated in the course of my research. I am especially grateful, therefore, to Professor Greg Benton of Cardiff University for his warm encouragement and for making me feel less marginal to the China studies field. Dr. Robert Bickers of Bristol University, Dr. Henrietta Harrison of Leeds

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x Acknowledgments

University, and Dr. Rana Mitter of Warwick University have, in their different ways, done likewise and helped to deepen my understanding of nationalism in modern China. Jeff Wasserstrom of Indiana University offered a characteristically enthusiastic but trenchant critique of the manuscript, as did two other referees, and I wish to thank all of them for their astute comments. Incidentally, toiling up Huang Shan in Anhui province proved to be an excellent way to get to know and to share ideas with Jeff Wasserstrom and Barbara Mittler, following an excellent conference on the May Fourth Movement at Peking University in May 1999. My warm thanks go to conference organizer Professor Lowell Dittmer for offering me the chance to try out some of the ideas in this book. Finally, I would like to thank the University of Essex, still a stimulating institution in spite of all the upheavals inflicted on British higher education during the past two decades, for granting me various terms of study leave during the writing of this book. I am also indebted to the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy for one term’s replacement teaching costs in 1996 –1997. Last, but most important, my thanks go as ever to Phil Jakes. Sine qua non. . . . The book is dedicated to the memory of Jill Dennett with whom I made my first tour of China in 1982 and who took an intelligent interest in the progress of my research up to her untimely death in 1994. I miss our latenight conversations.

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I NTRODUCTION

This book seeks to connect two narratives that have remained largely separate in the historiography of modern China: the narrative of Chinese nationalism and the narrative of the labor movement. Its subject is the development of national identity among workers in Shanghai and the part that workers played in the nationalist movement from around 1895, when foreigners were first officially allowed to set up factories on Chinese soil, to April 1927, the high point of the revolution to reunify the country, when Chiang Kai-shek, commander-in-chief of the Guomindang’s National Revolutionary Army, struck against the Communist-controlled labor unions. Shanghai provides an ideal vantage point from which to study the interaction of labor and nationalism because the city was at the forefront of China’s fluctuating nationalist movement throughout the period, especially in the years 1905, 1925, and 1927 (although less so in the 1911 Revolution and the May Fourth Movement of 1919). Moreover, as China’s principal commercial and industrial center, Shanghai witnessed far more strike action than any other industrial region in this period—indeed it was the scene of the country’s first general strike in June 1919. In recent years, a cluster of distinguished works on Shanghai labor has appeared that, despite their differing concerns, have demonstrated how riven the city’s workers were by social divisions.1 These works have challenged the thesis, once argued so eloquently by the doyen of Chinese labor history, Jean Chesneaux, that Chinese workers in this period evolved from being a class “in itself ” to a “class for itself.” 2 Even as these studies have established how far Shanghai workers fell short of the ideal of a class-conscious proletariat, however, they have continued to be conceived within the paradigm of social class.3 By contrast this study removes the history of Shanghai labor from that paradigm and relocates it within a paradigm of nation formation. The nub of its argument is that insofar as a working-class movement came into existence in Shanghai, it did so not as the direct consequence of the

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2 Like Cattle and Horses

social changes induced by industrialization and urbanization—although these were its necessary preconditions—but rather as the by-product of the growth of nationalism, itself a response to the collapse of effective government and to the erosion of political sovereignty by the foreign powers. The massive wave of labor protest and organization that erupted in Shanghai in the years 1925 to 1927 was, therefore, principally an expression of militant nationalism rather than of class consciousness. This study argues, however, that through participation in the nationalist movement, elements of class identity did take root among Shanghai workers, albeit precariously, because the dominant idiom of national identity in these years, put into circulation by the Chinese Communist Party (ccp), was one that was heavily inflected by a language of class. There has been a wealth of writing on the theory of nationalism in the past two decades, relatively little of which is directly applicable to the Chinese case. One of the most influential paradigms is that which links the rise of the nation to socioeconomic modernization. Typical of this paradigm is the work of Ernest Gellner, which posits that industrial societies require a type of literate “high culture” that is best inculcated through a mass, standardized education system.4 China had had a standardized national culture for centuries, although not of the type that would meet the exigencies of industrialism as defined by Gellner. Nevertheless, the rise of a modern school system did have a bearing on the growth of nationalism. In 1902 the Qing government began to set up a hierarchy of local schools, and by the early years of the republic there were over 500 primary, secondary, and higher schools in Shanghai.5 By 1929 –1930, there were 832 primary schools with 113,019 pupils (28.3 percent female), 123 secondary schools with 22,586 pupils (25.5 percent female), and 35 higher schools with 14,435 students (10.9 percent female).6 Students in modern schools were to be a key vector of nationalist ideology, especially among the city’s populace.7 Even so, Gellner’s insistence on the correlation of nationalism with industrialism and mass education is only of limited relevance to China, since it was still overwhelmingly agrarian and illiterate when the ccp took power in 1949. Another variant of the paradigm linking nationalism to socioeconomic modernization is the “communications” approach pioneered by Karl Deutsch, which sees the growth of the market, urbanization, the expansion of the role of the state, and the development of modern means of communication as the keys to bringing forth the nation as a “community of complementary habits and facilities of communication.” 8 Again,

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Introduction 3

Chinese nationalism does not fit neatly into this perspective. On the one hand, neither market penetration nor urbanization were new developments, the former going back to the Ming dynasty, the latter to the Song dynasty; on the other, modern communications in the strict sense—railways, a road system, a national press—were still in an embryonic stage by the turn of the century. Nevertheless, new technologies such as the telegraph (and by 1910 there were 560 telegraph offices and 28,000 miles of overhead cable in China) did play a role in enabling the “nation”—initially, a small educated public—to address political issues simultaneously and to communicate its views to the government.9 In what is perhaps the most scintillating attempt to anchor the nation in the process of socioeconomic modernization, Benedict Anderson has built on the idea that new technologies generate new conceptions of simultaneity and community, arguing that the development of print as a commodity served to promote the nation as an “imagined community.” 10 In China commercial printing had transformed popular culture as early as the Song and Yuan dynasties, yet there is little doubt that the emergence of newspapers, the increase in the number of publishing houses, and the growth of commercial fiction aimed at an urban lower-middle class did stimulate the growth of nationalist sentiment.11 By the early years of the twentieth century, an estimated three hundred thousand people in Shanghai read newspapers, many of which were concerned to alert their readers to the plight of the nation.12 Yet this was still only a minority of the city’s population. Over the following decades, it would not be through the printed word that the overwhelmingly illiterate populace would come to identify with the nation, but through speeches, symbols, images, and rituals. This suggests that the significance of print capitalism as the modality whereby the nation imagines itself as the subject of history should not be exaggerated.13 Of more value in explicating the Chinese case are the paradigms that link nationalism to the modernization of politics. The state-making paradigm, whose most impressive exponents are Charles Tilly and Michael Mann, posits the nation as the by-product of a process of state building, shaped by the exigencies of war, taxation, and capital accumulation.14 More particularly, John Breuilly suggests how the modern state, with its centralized bureaucracy and capacity to penetrate society, shapes attachment to and identification with the nation through mechanisms such as schools, courts, plebiscites, censuses, and maps.15 This perspective is illuminating because the process of state building had been underway since the last de-

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cade of the Qing dynasty and was accelerated during the first years of the republic.16 Yet the more pertinent development in our period— one that haunted the imagination of contemporaries—was the breakdown of central government after the 1911 Revolution, particularly after 1916. Indeed even after Chiang Kai-shek reunified the country in 1927, attempts to project the power of the central state were consistently undercut by internal strife and external military pressure.17 Therefore, few of the institutions emphasized by Breuilly were effective before the 1930s. Nevertheless the desire to eliminate militarism and to consolidate a strong state power was a major driving force behind the nationalist movement, one that the Communists, in their obsession with anti-imperialism, tended to underestimate. The theoretical paradigm into which the Chinese case fits most comfortably is that of anticolonial nationalism, which construes nationalism as the product of social and political changes set in motion by the foreign presence. China, of course, never became the colony of any single foreign power, and the retention of territorial sovereignty, along with its large size, were crucial factors in the nation’s ability to contain western influence. Nevertheless treaty ports such as Shanghai were dominated by the foreign enclaves where the British and French governed, taxed, and policed the mainly Chinese populations. Most historians today, including some in the People’s Republic of China (PRC), would agree that the empire’s precipitous decline in the nineteenth century was brought about more by internal developments than by the intrusion of foreign powers, at least until the end of the century. They would contend that China’s economic backwardness was more the product of factors such as the poverty of the rural market and the relative weakness of the bourgeoisie than of foreign imperialism.18 Although one should not minimize the distorting effects on China’s economy of foreign control of the railways, mining rights, the customs, the salt administration, and the post office, foreign trade and investment did more overall to stimulate than retard modern economic development. Albert Feuerwerker has argued that the most devastating consequences of the foreign presence were not economic but political, cultural, and psychological, and that these consequences were manifest in the drastic impairment of political sovereignty, the trauma of military defeat, and the collapse of confidence in the Confucian tradition. The perception of economic exploitation at the hands of foreigners certainly stirred nationalist concern, but theories of imperialism that lay heavy stress on the economic depredations of colonialism are of limited analytical value. In a

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Introduction 5

provocative reworking of the anticolonial paradigm, Partha Chatterjee contends that national liberation movements aspire to defend and regenerate an indigenous culture threatened by western imperialism, even as they seek to adapt that culture to meet the heteronomous requirements of progress and modernity.19 Once again, China does not quite fit this pattern because the majority of Chinese nationalists were animated neither by a strong impulse to defend indigenous culture nor by the iconoclastic antiConfucianism of the New Culture Movement. Sun Yat-sen, for example, was proud of China’s long history of civilization, but also castigated her people for their “slave mentality.” The overriding concerns of nationalists were to preserve China as a state and to avoid “national extinction” (wangguo). Although they recognized that China’s problems had a cultural and social dimension, the root causes of her decline were political, bound up with such factors as the corruption of her rulers and the antiquated character of her institutions. According to Elie Kedourie’s rather jaundiced analysis of the dynamics of anticolonial nationalism, the imposition of colonial rule engenders a class of “marginal men” alienated from the condescending colonial order yet drawn toward western ideals of independence and self-reliance, who turn to messianic nationalism as a means to mobilize the masses and further their self-aggrandizement.20 Insofar as the intelligentsia in China, as elsewhere, played a critical role in the generation of nationalism, Kedourie’s perspective is of value. Modern political movements require the skills of oratory, propaganda, organization, and communication, which the intelligentsia possesses par excellence. In China, however, merchants, professionals, army officers, and even warlords and secret-society bosses at various times provided leadership to the nationalist movement.21 More generally, the period examined here sees a shift in the nature of the nationalist movement from being an elite movement to being a mass movement, a shift paralleled more or less simultaneously in India, Korea, and Vietnam. The literature on nationalism in general belittles the contributions made to nation formation by “subelites,” such as students in the Chinese case, and particularly those of ordinary workers, traders, and peasants. One of the most contentious issues in recent writing has been the relationship of ethnicity to nationalism.22 For theorists such as Gellner, Anderson, and Eric Hobsbawm, it is axiomatic that modern society alone can generate the type of political awareness in which the nation is imagined as an inherently limited and sovereign community.23 This axiom has long

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been challenged by writers such as Anthony Smith who, although recognizing that nationalism is a product of modernity, insists that national identity is constrained by its ethnic antecedents.24 In the case of China, the world’s longest enduring polity, there were plenty of ethnic idioms— distinctive cultural practices, myths of ancestry, historical memories, identifications with territory—that could be utilized by the new politics of nationalism to forge connections between the Han people, its territory, its culture, and the state. Such sentiments of “collective belonging which already existed and which could operate . . . potentially on the macropolitical scale” may be called idioms of protonational identity.25 They made the task of creating modern national identity easier by permitting nationalists selectively to rework myths of ancestry, traditional representations of foreigners, Han conceptions of ethnic distinctiveness, and the like, within the parameters set by the requirements of modern statehood.26 So although national identity may be considered an “invention” involving the importation of many novel ideas and representations, it combined these with the selective reworking of long-standing ethnic idioms. National identity may be defined as the way the national “we” is constructed. In her study of national identity in the United States and Australia, Lynn Spillman suggests that it has a double dimension: on the one hand, it is concerned with internal integration—with answering the question “what can we agree we share?”; and, on the other, with international position—with answering the question “what is our position in the world?” 27 This dual concern is reflected in the discourse of nationalism, which makes its case for nationhood both on claims of common descent, common culture, and social solidarity, and on claims to distinctiveness visà-vis other nations and to sovereignty within the world system of nationstates.28 An important advance has been made in recent years by those theorists who insist that national identities—and also protonational identities—are never unitary or coherent. Prasenjit Duara has shown that in imperial China a “culturalist” and an “ethnocentric” construal of what it meant to be Chinese vied with one another, thus allowing people to imagine their relationship to the polity in different ways in different contexts. He makes the trenchant point that competing narratives of community mean that the nation is always an object of contestation as well as of loyalty.29 Similarly, Katherine Verdery suggests that within nation-states, different social groups entertain different ideas about cultural patrimony, national character, or the nation’s mission, and that the nation is a construct

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Introduction 7

whose meaning shifts with the changing balance of social forces.30 One of the arguments in this book is that in China in the republican period, class formed one fault line around which competing conceptions of the nation crystallized. Sun Yat-sen delineated the five criteria of nationhood as blood lineage, language, custom, religion, and livelihood. Yet to think of the nation as an imagined community is to challenge Sun’s notion that the nation is defined by objective attributes. The fact that the nation is not a reality “out there,” however, but a human fiction imagined in different ways by different groups is not to discount that it may have real causes and real effects. In his stimulating study of the civil war of 1924, Arthur Waldron casts doubt on the “idea of nationalism as an animating and directing power” in China’s history by arguing that nationalism was a consequence not a cause of the process of state building.31 In this book I heed his stricture, emphasizing the contingent rather than causal character of nationalism: nationalism as explanandum rather than explanans. At the same time I remain alert to the performative nature of nationalist discourse; that is, to its capacity to bring into being that which its ideology presupposes—namely the “nation” as a real, mobilized group.32 During the 1920s—and this is where I differ from Waldron—nationalism was transformed into an organized political force, and its institutions—the Guomindang (gmd), the National Revolutionary Army, the ccp—proved capable of transforming the balance of power within the country. Surprisingly little attention has been paid by historians to the dynamics of popular nationalism in any country. Historians of China are no exception, although Chalmers Johnson’s groundbreaking work generated a lively debate on the relation of peasants to nationalism following the SinoJapanese War of 1937.33 Generally, however, Chinese nationalism has been treated as an elite phenomenon.34 Recently historians have begun to look beyond intellectuals and political parties: Bryna Goodman’s work on nativeplace associations valuably shifts attention to merchants and professionals; and John Fitzgerald and Henrietta Harrison cast their social net wide in their innovative studies of the political culture of nationalism.35 Nevertheless there are to date no studies that explore the dynamics of nationalism once it escapes the grip of the educated, the economically powerful, and the politically ambitious. This study seeks to fill that gap by exploring what the nation meant to the artisans, coolies, and factory workers of Shanghai and, to a lesser extent, to the thousands of shopkeepers and small traders

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who intermingled with its workers. The central concern of this volume is to explore how, and to what extent, workers identified with the new conceptions of nation and class and to comprehend how these conceptions became meaningful for their understanding of who they were and of their place in the political and social order. Workers’ responses to the politics of nation and class were shaped by their inherited beliefs and dispositions, by their modes of articulating experience and of evaluating the social world, by their ingrained practices of forming social bonds, and by their taken-for-granted orientations toward social action.36 New political ideals and practices were selected, appropriated, reworked, or rejected within the framework of their existing culture or, more correctly, of their subcultures, whether these were centered on particular regions, occupational crafts, or secret societies. This book seeks to bring out the ways in which existing solidarities and cultural dispositions shaped the relation of workers to the politics of nationalism and of class. It understands culture not as a unified and enduring system of symbols and meanings, nor as a discrete and bounded entity, but rather, following John Comaroff, as a “contested field of historically contrived, socially situated and relatively empowered, always evanescent signs and practices.” 37 Because one could define the theme of this book as the dissemination of the social identities of nation and class, a word about the concept of identity is in order. It is obviously beyond the capacity of any historian to recover identity if it is conceived as something residing in the mind. I follow Michael Billig’s enjoinder to think of identity not as a mental state but as “the embodied habits of social life.” 38 Billig defines national identity as “forms of social life rather than internal psychological states” and suggests that “to have a national identity is to possess ways of talking about nationhood.” 39 This orientation is akin to that of Paul Ricoeur, who sees identity as constituted by publicly available narratives that emplot the surrounding world in meaningful ways and provide roles into which individuals and groups can be slotted.40 In the quest to discover if and how the imagined communities of nation and class took hold among Shanghai’s workers, this book looks to find evidence of “ways of talking” and “embodied habits of social life.” Changes in social structure enable and constrain processes of identity formation, exposing some groups more than others to experiences that challenge past identities; but identity formation is never a direct product of structural change, it is always constituted through discourse and collective action.

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Introduction 9

Social identities are the stuff of politics, as much as conflicts over who gets what, and when and how. In thinking about the relationship of identity to politics, the concept of social movement is useful. A social movement is defined by a sense of collective purpose and by loosely “political” objectives that bring it into interaction with other differentially empowered actors.41 Whereas the older literature on social movements was grounded in a problematic of resource mobilization that stressed strategicinstrumental rationality,42 recent approaches have focused on how social identities and interests get defined and interpreted in the process of collective action.43 This book follows these approaches by investigating how the nationalist and labor movements came to define and act on the social order through forms of collective action such as strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, or violent confrontations with armed forces. An examination of the participation of workers in the key political conflicts of this period— the 1905 boycott against the United States, the 1911 Revolution to overthrow the Qing dynasty, the May Fourth Movement of 1919, the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, and the armed uprisings of 1926 –1927—is crucial in assessing how far workers came to identify with the narratives of nation and class that constructed the social and political world in historically novel ways. I treat nation and class as discourses, that is, as fields of symbolic practice that organize and construe the world in certain ways. My approach loosely follows Michel Foucault in conceiving discourse as a particular system of language imbricated by social practice, but it gives more emphasis to the role of human agency in creating, sustaining, and utilizing discourses for specific ends.44 Chapters 6 and 10 look specifically at the linguistic dimension of the discourses of class and of anti-imperialist nationalism, but in general class and nation are treated not only as complexes of ideas and representations but also as fields of practice that can encompass forms of organization, collective action, and sociability. A discursive approach to class assumes that there is no pregiven relationship between class as structural fact and class as social identity; so that even when industrial capitalism has reconfigured social relationships along class lines, there is no reason why class should become the dominant mode of representing and experiencing social reality.45 This is not to deny the “objective” existence of class as a structure that determines life chances and access to resources. In this sense, class had a devastating impact on the lives of Shanghai workers, whether in terms of diet, life expectancy, propensity to disease, or hours spent in dead-

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ening toil. Yet this study is concerned not with these oppressive facts of life—which have been admirably explored by some of the historians discussed later in this introduction—but rather with the processes by which they took on social meaning and, by extension, came to generate social movements and to influence wider struggles for power. If a discursive approach tends to equate nation and class conceptually by treating both as constructed social identities, this “objective” dimension of class is a reminder of the difference in epistemological status between the two categories, because class, unlike nation, can exist even when it is not culturally signified. An exploration of the simultaneous development and mutual interaction of national and class identities may seem odd to those who understand the two identities to be mutually exclusive. Michael Mann defines a nation as “an extensive cross-class community affirming its distinct ethnic identity and history and claiming its own state,” and Tom Nairn characterizes nationalism as the creation of a “militant, inter-class community rendered strongly (if mythically) aware of its own separate destiny vis-à-vis the outside forces of domination.” 46 Both definitions assume, incidentally, that national identities are singular rather than plural, but more pertinently, that the creation of the nation involves the subsuming of class differences in a larger identification with a national community. Historically, of course, class has frequently functioned to undermine national unity, but there are many instances where they have reinforced one another, not least because labor movements have generally pursued their interests through the structures of the nation-state.47 From the time of the May Thirtieth Movement in 1925, class did become a fault line around which rival definitions of the nation competed, but in the dominant idiom of class-inflected antiimperialism promoted by the ccp, national and class identities tended to be mutually constitutive because discursive mechanisms functioned to link the treatment of the Chinese nation at the hands of the foreign powers to the treatment of workers at the hands of capitalists, mechanisms such as that which likened the treatment of both to that of “cattle and horses.” 48 Thus the title of the book.49 The subject of Chinese labor has generated a fecund historiography in recent times. It is now more than thirty-five years since Jean Chesneaux published his superb history of the labor movement in China during the 1920s. His broad argument is that in the period between the May Fourth Movement of 1919 and the reunification of China in 1927, the proletariat

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Introduction 11

acquired maturity as a class, pursuing ever broader and more organized strikes and moving into a position of leadership in the political struggles against “feudalism” and imperialism.50 Chesneaux is alert to the circumstantial factors that facilitated the political mobilization of workers in this period, but for him the history of labor is ultimately separate from the history of the nationalist movement because China replicated a universal narrative of class formation in which class becomes salient as a direct consequence of industrialization and urbanization. From the 1970s a new generation of scholars, working mainly in the United States, launched a powerful critique of Chesneaux’s account of a working class gradually acquiring unity and class consciousness. Influenced by the “new labor history,” with its focus on shop-floor relations and workers’ culture, this cohort demonstrated that Chinese workers were profoundly divided by the particularisms of native place, gender, craft, secret-society affiliation, and clientelist networks.51 This perspective profoundly transformed our understanding of Chinese labor. One of the most imaginative contributions to this new approach was made by Emily Honig, whose study of women cotton workers in Shanghai deftly evokes the texture of their lives both inside and outside of work. She argues that “differences in local dialects, as well as job and residential segregation, kept women of different geographical origins separate from and antagonistic toward one another” and shows how such divisions were played on by foreign imperialism and by the secret societies.52 Honig further suggests that until 1949 women workers displayed little inclination to become involved in the labor movement or to identify with the politics of class.53 The present study evaluates women workers’ capacity for militant collective action more positively than Honig, but it echoes her stress on the ubiquity of division. In an outstanding study of strikes in Shanghai, Elizabeth Perry probed the tight-knit solidarities of skill, native place, and gender among Shanghai workers, and showed with great insight how such solidarities could generate labor militancy, albeit usually on a sectional rather than class-wide basis.54 Her study has fundamentally shaped the way in which I think about workers’ social identities, although I take a different approach in seeking to explain how a precarious political unity could be forged in spite of deep sectional solidarities. The most recent works on Shanghai labor are two rich and fine-grained volumes by Alain Roux that explore the conditions and social relations of cotton workers, silk weavers, coolies, and mechanics in the 1930s and provide a sophisticated and comprehensive account of labor militancy. Like his

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American counterparts, Roux emphasizes the severe limitations placed on class-based collective action by the divisions of skill, gender, and native place: “We have not encountered the working class, at least not if one ascribes to this term the meaning of a coherent force, conscious of having its own future, organized within structures that it has itself created to promote its interests and capable when the occasion arises of carrying out an effective strike action.” 55 Although it is a fair summary of the author’s findings, I cite this passage because it invokes criteria for determining the existence of a working class that seem to me to be too exacting. On this definition, it would be hard to argue that a working class existed in Asia and Africa, or even the United States. Nevertheless working-class conflicts and identities have not been absent from these regions in the twentieth century; rather they have been more ephemeral, less deeply rooted, and less politically influential than Roux’s ideal type suggests. This implies that we should bring a less stringent criterion to bear when seeking to register elements of class within labor protest. In fact, Roux himself does this in an exemplary fashion when he writes of Shanghai workers in the 1930s: “Arising during a crisis and strengthened by a clearly perceived awareness of its strength during collective action, the class tends, as soon as the crisis has passed, to dissolve into its pre-existing solidarities [une cohérence antérieure] which group workers vertically rather than horizontally, according to nativeplace, guild or other structures of association.” 56 This captures the evanescent quality of much class-based collective action, not only in China but in many parts of the world, and suggests that the labor movement in China may have been closer to a global norm than some suppose. This volume is based on a wide range of periodical and archival sources (principally the files of the Shanghai municipal police), plus the valuable, but somewhat selective, collections of documents published in the PRC on the key turning points in the nationalist movement. Particularly detailed in their coverage of nationalist and labor affairs are the newspapers Shibao (Eastern times), a constitutionalist newspaper founded in 1904; Shenbao (Shanghai times), originally founded in 1872 by Frederick Major but under full Chinese management from 1912; and Minguo ribao (Republican daily), initially published to oppose President Yuan Shikai but becoming the organ of the gmd in 1916. Of central importance in reconstructing the discourse of class were the labor journals, beginning with Minsheng (People’s voice) in 1914, but especially those published by the ccp, such as

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Introduction 13

Laodongjie (Labor world), Laodong zhoukan (Labor weekly), and Rexue ribao (Hot-blooded daily). As this list implies, the research is heavily reliant on what observers—whether the police of the International Settlement or sympathetic journalists—believed workers were thinking and doing; or in the case of the Communist press, on what radical intellectuals would have liked them to think and do. The overwhelming majority of workers, being illiterate and powerless, left little direct expression of their thoughts and feelings.57 Strikers, of course, raise demands in abundance, and when thousands go on strike in support of them it is reasonable to suppose that many identify with those demands, even if some, possibly many, struck unwillingly. Similarly, when a leaflet is put out by a strike committee, it can be inferred that it expresses widely held beliefs, although we can be sure that the average illiterate striker would not have expressed her or his views in the same way as the leaflet. Again, when a speaker is listened to with rapt attention by a crowd, it can be assumed that he or she is putting into words sentiments that find ready endorsement. In addition, we can seek to decipher the meanings inscribed within forms of collective action—a boycott of foreign goods, a demonstration, the trial of a “running dog”—and thus read them as evidence of the identifications they both reflect and create. At the same time, we need to bear in mind that people participate in collective action for all kinds of reasons— out of a burning sense of injustice, out of fear, conformism, or simply a desire to have some fun. During the antiAmerican boycott of 1905, the press carried reports of mass meetings attended by thousands of people, yet a thinly fictionalized account by Bao Tianxiao of a boycott meeting at the Zhangyuan park is a reminder that many came simply to “see the fun,” that the audience was so noisy that the speaker could not be heard, and that everyone applauded even when they had not heard a word of the speech.58 Similarly, when Elizabeth Perry asked a woman who had worked in the packing department at BritishAmerican Tobacco (bat) about her participation in the May Thirtieth Movement strike of 1925, she replied: “I didn’t understand much about strikes. . . . When people marched I just followed them. . . . During the four-month strike, we received quite a bit of strike pay. We thought: ‘Here we are getting money without even working.’ We didn’t understand anything else.” 59 As these examples suggest, the danger of inferring motivations from collective action is that one chooses the interpretation that fits one’s prejudices. In order to try to circumvent this problem, I have con-

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centrated on tracing the processes whereby subject-positions, or “ways of talking” in Billig’s formulation (such as the “awoken” patriot, the classconscious worker, and so forth), were put into circulation and then sought for evidence of workers identifying with them. It is by no means an unproblematic methodology, but wherever possible, I have followed Brecht’s injunction to “watch the people’s mouth.”

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1

Traditional Social Networks and Identities

In 1895 Shanghai had a population of between 800,000 and 900,000.1 By 1910 the population had grown to 1,289,353, comprising 671,866 in the Chinese-controlled areas of the city, 501,541 in the International Settlement, and 115,946 in the French Concession.2 Thereafter the tempo of growth intensified, with the population exceeding 2,000,000 by 1915 and reaching 3,114,805 by 1930.3 Migration from the countryside was the major cause of the city’s rapid growth. Up to the late nineteenth century, the majority of immigrants consisted of the more mobile and marginal elements of rural society, such as boatmen, salt smugglers, pole carriers, and day laborers. Thereafter migrants came increasingly from farming families. Young men made up the bulk of immigrants—in 1925 there were 172 men for every 100 women in the International Settlement—but the disparity between the sexes tended to diminish over time, so that by 1930 women made up 41 percent of the population.4 In-migration on such a vast scale meant that Shanghai was a city largely made up of recent in-comers: in 1930 only 22 percent of its inhabitants had been born in the city.5 The majority of migrants came from Jiangsu province, in which Shanghai was situated, and from Zhejiang, the next closest province. In 1925, 42.7 percent of the Chinese population of the International Settlement was born in Jiangsu (including natives of Shanghai), with 31.7 percent born in Zhejiang, followed by 7.1 percent in Guangdong, 3.7 percent in Anhui, and 2.2 percent in Zhili.6 Immigrants from Jiangsu may be divided between those who came from the north and those who came from the south of the province. The part of Jiangsu north of the Yangtze River on either side of the bed of the old Huai River was known as Subei (but more commonly at the time as Jiangbei, or Kompo in Shanghai dialect). It was an impoverished and declining rice-producing region that was prone to flooding, and its northern reaches, around Yancheng and Funing, were particularly wretched. By contrast, the southern part of Jiangsu was a prosperous silk-

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weaving area and, together with the prefectures of Jiaxing, Huzhou, and Hangzhou in the north of Zhejiang province, was designated Jiangnan by the Qing government. The difference between Subei and Jiangnan testifies to the fact that there was no single set of causes of migration to Shanghai. Chinese social scientists working in the 1920s and 1930s believed that all migration was a flight from poverty and destitution, assuming that Chinese peasants would leave their farms and families only if driven by desperation. Today many economic historians are skeptical that there was a systemic crisis in the Chinese countryside before the 1930s. They argue that the intensification of farming through involution, the expansion of handicrafts, and the growth in commerce were sufficient to sustain the huge increase in population that took place from the eighteenth century, even in the absence of a technical transformation of agriculture to increase output per capita.7 The fact remains, however, that many peasants lived perilously close to subsistence. In 1906 the newspaper Shibao reported that over fifteen million people in Subei were going hungry.8 Droughts and floods were a major factor precipitating migration to Shanghai; major floods in Subei in 1911 and 1921, for example, sent huge numbers flocking to the city. Gu Zhenghong, the worker whose death at the hands of a Japanese mill guard indirectly triggered the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, was born in 1905 in Funing county in Subei. His father struggled to support Gu and his eight younger brothers and sisters on the five mu (one mu is about 0.8 acre) of land that he owned and the twenty mu of saline land that he rented close to the mouth of a river. In 1916 Gu came to Shanghai to work as a coolie in a nut oil mill. After the great flood of 1921 the rest of the family joined him.9 A study of migrant families in Yangshupu district in 1929 showed that fiftysix out of eighty-eight families had been forced to leave their villages, with fourteen mentioning frequent flooding as the key reason. Nevertheless eighteen families said that they had chosen to come to Shanghai because of the better prospects it offered, showing that not all families moved because they were “pushed.” 10

The Growth of Wage Labor From the sixteenth century China’s workforce underwent a process of proletarianization, increasingly becoming legally free, geographically mobile, and dependent for its livelihood on the sale of its labor power.11 Up to the

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Social Networks and Identities 17

late nineteenth century, Shanghai’s wage labor force consisted, on the one hand, of hired hands doing semiskilled and unskilled jobs in the handicraft sector, and, on the other, of porters, dockers, boatmen, and passenger bearers in the transportation sector. Handicraft workers were considered to form part of the category of gong (labor)— one of the “four vocations” (simin) of the Confucian social order—a term that designated anyone employed in handicrafts, regardless of whether they were employers or employees. By the nineteenth century, however, permanent wage workers in artisanal and retail enterprises were commonly described as gongren or gugong, in contradistinction to jiang, who were the masters and journeymen.12 Workers in transportation, by contrast, were mainly casual, and were generally seen as belonging to the youmin, or “floating population,” which comprised vagrants without regular employment or fixed abode, and which did not comprise one of the “four vocations.” Casual workers were also associated with a more particular group of youmin known as liumang, or vagabonds and rogues, who specialized in mugging, pickpocketing, extortion, kidnapping, and protection rackets.13 The nascent industrial labor force did not fit easily into either of these two broad categories. Those migrants who were casual or transient tended to be classed as youmin, whereas those who were in relatively settled jobs and fixed abodes were generally classed as gong. In 1894 it was estimated that 36,220 workers were employed in Shanghai’s mechanized enterprises, of whom around 20,000 were cotton workers. This estimate represented more than one-third of China’s modern labor force.14 By the time of the 1911 Revolution, there were reckoned to be close to 100,000 workers in Shanghai’s modern sector.15 By 1919 the entire labor force of the city was estimated to comprise 181,485 factory workers (in 2,291 factories, which thus included many very small workshops, presumably distinguished from handicraft enterprises by their use of power-driven machinery); 116,250 workers in the transportation sector; 3,200 in the service sector; and 212,833 handicraft workers in 6,804 enterprises. These numbers made a grand total of 513,768.16 There are many problems with the figures: the number of handicraft workers, for instance, appears to include many who were employed in commerce, as well as some who were self-employed; whereas the number employed in the service sector is an underestimate (which does not include telephone and telegraph employees, or department store employees). Nevertheless the total is of the right order of magnitude.

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During the 1920s the labor force in all sectors continued to grow. In 1928 the first systematic survey of the factory workforce was undertaken by the Bureau of Social Affairs of the new gmd city administration, which calculated the number of workers at 223,680, of whom three-quarters (170,552) were employed in various branches of the textile industry.17 In 1927 the Shanghai General Labor Union (glu) estimated the number of workers in the handicraft sector at 226,960, which is close to a Bureau of Social Affairs estimate for 1930 of 278,000 workers, and which would be compatible with the 1919 figure.18 Unfortunately, the number of wage workers in the retail sector cannot be disaggregated from the composite figure for handicrafts, but the retail sector was certainly expanding. In 1927 the glu claimed that the membership of the shop-employees’ federation was 81,070.19 Even more difficult to quantify is the number of workers in transportation, many of whom were casual. By 1927 there were probably about 120,000 coolies employed more or less permanently (changgong) in various forms of transportation, with over 30,000 working on the fourteen miles of docks and warehouses.20 If one adds up the available figures, using only the most conservative estimates and making allowance for the fact that many estimates include the partially self-employed and irregularly employed, the total number of wage workers in factory, handicrafts (including construction), services, transportation, and public utilities comes to over 600,000 by about 1928.21 This broadly coincides with the detailed calculations made by Alain Roux, who estimated that in 1928 the factory workforce stood at 280,000 to 300,000 and the regular waged workforce at around 600,000, of whom about a half were in the “modern” sector.22 What emerges from these data is that well into the twentieth century the archetypal proletarian remained the coolie rather than the cotton worker, even though Shanghai was China’s principal center of modern manufacturing. Women and children formed a majority of the factory workforce. In 1899 out of 34,500 factory workers it was reckoned that 20,000 were women and 7,000 children.23 By 1928, out of a total factory workforce of 223,680, 56.7 percent were adult women, 34.1 percent were adult men, and 9.2 percent were children (of whom two-thirds were girls).24 The preeminence of women was a result of their dominance in the cotton and silk industries, where they formed the bulk of the labor force in spinning, although not in weaving. In the handicraft sector men predominated, especially in construction and manufacturing, but the number of women was

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probably increasing because sweated trades, such as box making, readymade clothing, and lace making, boomed with capitalist development on the basis of labor-intensive methods. In the service trades women were employed as domestics, but groups such as waiters, bath-house attendants, and department store employees were mainly men. Finally, in the extremely large transportation sector men were in the overwhelming majority, although there are no data to quantify this.25 In the wage labor force as a whole, therefore, adult men were in the majority. The low level of literacy discussed in the introduction to this volume correlates with the low levels of skill. In 1927 it was estimated that among the 103,669 workers in fifty-seven cotton mills, only 2 percent to 3 percent were skilled, 40 percent were semiskilled (their work taking about two to three weeks to learn), and the rest were unskilled. Skilled workers were drawn disproportionately from the socioeconomically developed areas of Jiangnan, whereas the unskilled came from Subei.26 The skill profile of silk reelers was similar. Of 55,363 workers in 1928, 5 percent were skilled, 60 percent were semiskilled, and the rest were unskilled workers—mainly children— engaged in steeping and stripping cocoons.27 In the tobacco industry it was reckoned that about 12 percent of the workers were skilled, and these were almost entirely men.28 In handicrafts and in some sectors of factory industry there was a more substantial presence of skilled workers.29 Alain Roux, using wage data from the Bureau of Social Affairs for 1929, reckons that one can distinguish a highly paid, exclusively male elite of workers in industries such as ship building, silk weaving, and printing. He reckons that they comprised about 6.5 percent of the industrial workforce, and numbered between 10,000 and 15,000.30 During the nineteenth century craftsmen had come from Guangdong and later from Ningbo to work in the repair and construction of steamships, and their aptitude and versatility were admired by foreign engineers.31 By the twentieth century, one of the biggest contingents of skilled workers were the so-called mechanics ( jiqi gongren), who included engineers, pattern makers, iron and steel founders, casters, and electricians.32 These workers usually had no formal technical training but were knowledgeable about the machines they operated and maintained. By the 1920s, as stated by the China Year Book: “With the westernization of Shanghai larger numbers of Chinese have become familiar with foreign machines, and such special knowledge can no longer command special wages.” 33 Nevertheless the skills of these men, the job control they exercised, their relatively good earnings,

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and the fact that they were more likely to stay with one employer placed them far above the unskilled, poorly paid women who dominated factory industry. The men tended, moreover, to be drawn from the south and from Jiangnan, whereas unskilled workers hailed mainly from Subei.34 Such skilled workers were to play an important role in the nationalist movement after 1919.

Native-Place Networks For migrants to Shanghai the most profound source of social identity was native place. One’s jiaxiang, the place where one’s family had its roots and where one was notionally born and buried, was central to the Chinese sense of self.35 Yet the significance of native place only became fully apparent once migrants moved to the city, because there they met workers from other provinces who ate different food, enjoyed their leisure in different ways, practiced different marriage and funerary customs, and spoke incomprehensible dialects. In living and working side by side the regional groups contrasted themselves with one another, often reinforcing centuries-old stereotypes. Cantonese workers had a reputation for being unwilling to compromise; Ningbo workers were reckoned to be doughty and difficult to restrain.36 Shanghai natives saw themselves as sophisticated, a world away from the rude, ignorant, and filthy migrants from Subei.37 Even after years in the city, migrants would still refer to themselves as sojourners as, for example, “Ningbo travelers to Shanghai” (lü Hu Ningboren), and people who ultimately belonged in the place where their ancestors were buried, where the “wine is better and the moon rounder.” 38 Perhaps the most telling index of the pertinence of regional identities in the city is the fact that among 230 cotton-worker families in 1927–1928, 94.8 percent of men were married to women from the same province.39 Yet nativeplace identity was not simply a “traditional” identity transferred to the city; in the urban-industrial environment it took on new functions and meanings. Native place could be defined at a number of levels by reference to a village, town, county, or province of origin, and this allowed individuals to expand their levels of affiliation as they moved farther afield. Native place generated “connections” (guanxi; known as jiaolu; pronounced kau-loo in Shanghai dialect) that served to extend contacts, create mutual obligations and protection, and establish social distance and hierarchy.40 Guanxi

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were particularistic ties that normally had an affective component (ganqing) and that knit groups together.41 Native-place connections were vital in helping migrants to find jobs and accommodation or to access the resources at the disposal of the regional guilds and native-place associations.42 A Chinese proverb states that “one common ancestral village is worth three official seals” (yige laoxiang dengyu sange tuzhang), and native-place ties were particularly crucial in gaining entry to the job market.43 In general, recruitment into factory jobs was done by foremen, who tended to hire workers from the same region as themselves.44 This meant that different shops and sections of an enterprise tended to be dominated by workers from a particular area, and employers sometimes encouraged this. Bao Xiamen and Xia Ruifeng, founders of the Commercial Press, Shanghai’s highly successful publishing house, recruited their first employees from their respective home districts of Ningbo and Qingpu (close to Shanghai).45 Mu Ouchu, who founded the Deda cotton mill in 1914, recruited peasants and fishermen from his native Pudong district on the east bank of Shanghai’s Huangpu River, but when Rong Zongjing took over the mill in 1925, renaming it the Shenxin No. 5 mill, he recruited from among his fellow countrymen in Wuxi.46 There was, however, nothing fixed about this preference for fellow provincials, for when Mu Ouchu set up a new cotton factory in 1918, the Housheng mill, he chose to recruit in Hunan. For these dubious recruitment methods he drew down the wrath of Chen Duxiu, soon to become the ccp’s first general secretary.47 Indeed such calculated exploitation of native-place ties by employers, as opposed to their foremen and labor contractors, was probably the exception rather than the rule, but it obviously tended to encourage workers to identify with the enterprise so that industrial relations were played out in a context that celebrated common regional identity and emphasized the mutual regard of employer and employee. Shanghai had a labor force that was far more diverse in terms of regional origin than those of Guangzhou, Beijing, or the mining industry in Hunan. In 1928 the Bureau of Social Affairs reckoned that no more than 30 percent of the factory workforce had been born in Shanghai, and the proportion among coolies and domestic servants was much lower.48 In the early years of the cotton industry, the biggest proportion of operatives came from Jiangnan, but as the industry expanded during and after the First World War, the proportion of workers from low-status Subei increased.49 By 1928 natives of Subei made up the biggest contingent of the cotton

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workforce (40 percent), followed by natives of Jiangnan (30 percent), Hunan and Hubei (15 percent), and Jiangxi, Anhui, and Shandong.50 A study of 2,219 workers in a Japanese cotton mill, of whom 45.8 percent were male, showed that 48.2 percent of men and 59.5 percent of women came from Subei, whereas 21.2 percent of men and 29.3 percent of women were from Jiangnan (including Shanghai itself ).51 In a fascinating study of immigrants from Subei, Emily Honig has suggested that Subei migrants, lacking powerful patrons in the business elite and fleeing from destitution, had little choice but to accept the worst jobs on offer. Thereafter they became associated with lowly jobs and faced discrimination if they tried to enter more skilled and better-paid sectors of the job market.52 In 1934 a survey of 304 rickshaw pullers showed that 96 percent came from Subei.53 At most times the supply of labor greatly exceeded demand, so one response was for workers to use native-place ties to restrict entry into a particular sector of the job market. A group of workers who monopolized a particular sector was usually known as a bang, and the particular niche it occupied often reflected its prestige in the native-place hierarchy. At the International Settlement water works the Ningbo bang monopolized the best-paid jobs of fitters and electricians; the Shanghai bang monopolized less skilled jobs in the boiler room, filter section, and water supply section; the Shandong bang specialized in laying water pipes; and the Chongming bang was in construction.54 In the tanning trade skilled operations were dominated by men from Guangdong and Ningbo, whereas less skilled operations were done by the Jing and Shaoxing bangs, which together made up around 60 percent of the labor force of two thousand.55 Although this regionally structured division of labor was not usually the deliberate creation of the employers, they did not hesitate to turn it to their advantage. Among ships’ carpenters Ningbo men were employed to do less skilled work at a rate of sixty cents per day, compared with the seventy-five cents earned by Cantonese carpenters. When the latter went on strike in September 1911 for a daily rate of ninety cents, the Ningbonese were happy to break the strike in return for the rate normally paid to the Cantonese.56 Similarly in March 1926 the management at the Hengfeng mill used the association of workers from Hunan and Hubei (Liang Hu tongxianghui) to try to undermine a strike.57 In the transportation sector a bang was more similar to a voluntary association. From the time of the Northern Song dynasty (960 –1126), gangs

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of laborers from the same region had hired themselves out, and by the eighteenth century these gangs had developed complex structures in such sectors as water transport. Bangs were generally led by a single head or by a senior and junior head (xiao toumu), who often operated as labor contractors. A worker joined a bang on the recommendation of an existing member, and he had to entertain the members on his acceptance into the fraternity. Once accepted, he could not hire himself out to another bang. Because many bangs operated clandestinely, and because many heads were also bosses in the secret societies, the bangs were often indistinguishable from secret societies.58 Bangs may be seen as the coolies’ equivalent of occupational guilds, but they were looser in structure, more open, more territorial, and less wealthy than the corporate bodies that controlled the handicraft and retail sectors.59 Moreover, the internal relations of bangs had a more strongly clientelist character than those of the guilds, whose directors were formally accountable to the membership. Furthermore, because bangs jealously guarded their particular niche of the job market, they frequently clashed with one another. When contracts were due for negotiation on the Shanghai docks it was not unknown for heads of bangs or labor contractors to organize pitched battles for turf.60 In November 1915 Tang Jinsheng, contractor of the Meifu paraffin warehouse, fell into a quarrel with Gu Xinyuan, head of the Ningbo bang, which rapidly escalated into a fight involving over two hundred coolies.61 The structuring of the job market around native place and the salience of native place to the social relations of the workplace greatly increased the significance of native-place identity in the city. No doubt workers were aware that regional divisions were exploited by employers, labor contractors, and foremen, yet native-place connections provided them with a modicum of protection and predictability in a deeply insecure world. By contrast, the benefits that might ensue from class-wide organization seemed too remote to persuade many to give up the slender, hard-fought privileges of access to particular trades or shops and the modest security that came from grouping with fellow provincials. After 1920 the Communists regularly bemoaned the way in which native-place loyalties dogged the progress of labor organization, and Gongchandang (the Communist Party) reported that “the bangs are each dissimilar; there is no common feeling; they often jostle with one another and forget their common enemy, the capitalist class.” 62

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Foremen and Forewomen As we have seen, guanxi with a foreman or forewoman were crucial in getting and maintaining a job. An investigation of Japanese cotton mills in 1925 showed that 64.3 percent of employees had been hired through forewomen, 32.8 percent had been hired according to the rules, and 2.9 percent of employees had presented themselves directly to the company.63 After the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, more and more companies, Chinese as well as foreign, went over to direct hiring, but recruitment by foremen and labor contractors remained widespread in all sectors. Writing in 1924, Zhuo Xi told of how he came to Shanghai in search of work, having lost his job in a hardware store in Nanjing after the “Second Revolution” of 1913, when the gmd governors of seven provinces rebelled against the government of Yuan Shikai. Initially, he had no luck and soon spent his savings of thirty dollars. Falling ill, however, he met a fellow countryman in the hospital, a mill foreman who fixed him up with a job.64 Guanxi, however, need not always be based on native place or kinship. An unemployed woman worker in east Shanghai looked up a fellow provincial in a glass factory and told him of her plight. He replied: “I’ll take you to a family that will give you board and lodging. If you lodge with them, they will be able to recommend you for a job. If you can find some way to raise a few dollars, then give the head of the family four dollars and he will take a present to the foreman or interpreter on your behalf. If you can’t raise four dollars, two will do, though it won’t be as effective.” 65 A foreman’s patronage, in other words, was a commodity that could be bought. In the mid-1920s it was reckoned that $1.50, which was no mean sum, was needed to bribe a foreman, interpreter, or factory guard to get a job, and some workers pawned clothes to raise it.66 “Bribe,” however, is not the mot juste here because it implies an illegal, one-shot transaction designed to procure a specific end, whereas the sum paid to a foreman was intended not merely to buy a job but to establish trust and some degree of future patronage. Such relations of trust, although often rooted in ties of kinship or territoriality, were entered into voluntarily and thus are best classed as a form of clientelism. They were informal relations between two parties of unequal status with differential access to resources, based on mutual obligations and benefits.67 They combined elements of coercion and exploitation with voluntary contract and mutually accepted duties.68 In a context of asymmetry of power, they were a means of creating social solidarity and

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had implications for individual identity (for example, “I, worker Zhou, am beholden to and protected by forewoman Wang”). In addition to providing jobs, foremen, forewomen, and labor contractors could offer workers protection against management and some mitigation of working conditions. There was thus never a shortage of workers willing to become their clients.69 According to one source, in return for help and protection a foreman expected to receive gifts “when there were weddings, funerals, births, when a baby was one month old, when there were family birthdays and birthdays of eight generations of ancestors.” 70 The forewoman of the box section at the bat plant on Thornburn Road, who had begun as a child worker, warned her clients: “If you don’t burn tinfoil, expect trouble.” Tinfoil, being used as a funeral offering, referred to the gifts necessary to placate her.71 At the Shenxin company the “Number Ones” (the lowest rank of the supervisory hierarchy) expected workers’ children to do their washing and housework.72 Workers might consider it worth the price, however, because foremen were in a position to ensure that one earned a reasonable rate. Thus although relations of clientelism were exploitative they provided a degree of security and protection, and workers became unhappy if they had to deal with a supervisor with whom they had no reciprocal ties. If patronage, like everything in Shanghai, was something that could be bought and sold, foremen nevertheless liked to present their relationship to their clients as a moral one, emphasizing their generosity and concern.73 “Human obligations” (renqing) and even yiqi (which might in this context translate as personal devotion) were terms invoked to characterize the moral content of the relationship. Supervisors encouraged old-world courtesies, expecting workers to address them as “old immortal” (lao busi), “old fellow” (lao jiahuo), or “venerable grandmother” (lao taipo).74 A visitor to the Shenxin mill in 1920 reported that apprentices, on coming into work each day, lit incense and candles set on a table, made three kowtows toward the wall to signify their respect for the factory, then bowed three times to the foreman and once to each of his assistants (in theory, kowtowing, like the use of the bamboo for corporal punishment of apprentices, had been abolished by the republic, although bowing [ jugong] was permitted).75 In the foil-wrapping room of the bat plant at Thorburn Road, forewoman Wang insisted that the women call her “aunt” ( jiuma), while a foreman nicknamed “Dispel Adversity” (Xiao Hui) was addressed as “Venerable Uncle” by twenty-six out of the twenty-eight coppersmiths who were his

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disciples. Both of these examples show the importance of kinship as a model for putting together social relations.76 Relations between a supervisor and his or her clients were generally informal, kept up through regular, face-to-face contact and periodic gifts, although sometimes they acquired a more organized form. At the Thorburn Road bat plant the foreman of the rolling department ran a Guandi society (Guandi being the popular god of wealth and the protector of temples) and a boxing club for his disciples.77 At the Jiangnan shipyard if one wished for a job as a painter one had to join a tea society run by the principal painting contractor, to which one paid one cent a day. At the same plant the contractors organized an “old gentlemen’s society” (laojunhui) among “cold” metalworkers (that is, those who worked on the hulls of ships doing jobs such as riveting, lofting, or sealing joints), the membership of which was compulsory if one wished to be guaranteed work. Among the carpenters, the core of permanently employed workers was known scornfully as the “protect the emperor faction.” 78 The social relations of clientelism were essentially personalistic. Workers looked to a particular foreman or forewoman for protection and tended to see fellow workers as potential competitors for the foreman or woman’s favor. Such orientations impeded identifications with class; and although, as we shall see, foremen and forewomen were quite capable of bringing workers out on strike, the effect of clientelism was largely to dampen worker unrest. One worker, asked if there had been troubles in his factory, replied: “No. Never. For all the workers in the factory, male and female, have connections with the employer or with certain members of staff. All have been hired by the foreman or via workers with years of loyal service. Consequently, if they are not relatives or friends of the boss, they are relatives of relatives or friends of friends.” 79

Sisterhoods and Brotherhoods Associations of sworn sisterhood and brotherhood were even more informal than networks of clientelism and thus are even harder to trace in the written record. Sisterhoods were voluntary groupings of up to ten women, usually from the same native place, designed to provide mutual aid and protection. Although they existed on the edge of the secret societies, they were usually distinct from that largely male world. Sisterhoods had little of the ritual associated with secret societies, and were far less structured than

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the sisterhoods of “marriage resisters” in Shunde county in the Guangdong delta.80 One of Emily Honig’s interviewees told her: “If I thought a person was very decent, I would say to her ‘Why don’t we pledge loyalty? Then if you have some problems I’ll help you, and if I have some problems you can help me.’” 81 They would then drink a cup of “one-heart wine” or burn incense at the temple to seal the pact. Thereafter they would walk each other home, protect each other from unwanted male attention, and help each other with money. Sisterhoods were a form of fictive kinship in a society where kinship provided a powerful metaphor for putting groups together. Use of kinship terminology was widespread among women workers: single women addressed each other as ajie (sister), married women as ayi (auntie). Married women were generally addressed as taitai (mistress), younger unmarried women as xiaojie (miss).82 Sisterhood was not one of the five Confucian relationships of authority, although it was assumed to work by analogy with that between elder and younger brother and was thus, to some degree, regulated by the ethic of filiality. In contrast to the brother-brother relationship, which was structured on recognition of the fact that brothers remain together throughout their lives, the sister-sister relation was essentially temporary because it was a woman’s destiny to leave her natal family and spend the rest of her life in the household of her father-in-law.83 This may imply that sisterhood was a rather weak social relationship, yet there is indirect evidence that it was characterized by greater flexibility and choice than other relationships within the patriarchal kinship system.84 Indeed it may not be too fanciful to suggest that for working women whose roles as daughters and wives were rigidly defined within the patriarchal household, sisterhood offered space for personal autonomy. The extent of sisterly equality, however, should not be exaggerated. A sorority was normally led by a “Big Sister,” who was often the forewoman or Number One of a particular section in a workplace, so it could incorporate a dimension of clientelism. In Shanghai the Big Sister was sometimes called lao xie. Lao means “old” and xie means “to thank,” but xie is a modification of the word shi, meaning “ten,” so that the original meaning was a leader of a group of ten women, the “old tenth.” However, because the word shi in Shanghai dialect sounds close to the word for “brigand” (zei), xie came to be preferred.85 It was also not uncommon for men to be members of sisterhoods, usually in order to provide protection against the hooligans who roamed working-class neighborhoods.86 Sisterhoods could generate strike action (see chapter 2), but employers

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also could exploit divisions between male and female workers. At the Housheng mill the majority of porters were women, but there was a group of twenty male porters who were paid more than their female counterparts. As a prelude to forming a labor union, the Yangshupu district committee of the Communist Youth League formed a sisterhood among the female porters, one of whose first acts was to demand equal pay with the men. When the company refused, the sisterhood called a strike. The company responded by offering to fire the male porters, whereupon they too went on strike. Solidarity between male and female workers, however, was short-lived, because the company spoke to the boss of the secret society to which the men belonged and promised that it would retract the threat of dismissal if the men abandoned the strike. This they did, leaving their sisters to go down to defeat.87 Informal brotherhoods were analogous to sisterhoods, but were more likely to be connected to the secret societies. The relationship between brothers was a fundamental element of the social structure, and it was invested with far more cultural meaning than that between sisters because it was assumed to remain central throughout life. Sworn brotherhood, for its part, was one of the techniques for declaring great friendship; it can be seen in traditional novels such as the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin. That said, in practice brotherhood could be a relatively flexible and ephemeral arrangement. When the seventeen-year-old Gu Zhenghong got a job at Nagai Wata Kaisha (nwk) No. 9 mill in 1922, he so resented having to pay off the foreman that he ganged up with several “brothers” and beat him up. This brotherhood almost certainly did not last—not least because Gu was fired for his refractoriness. Moreover, it probably had some connection with a more formal secret society, because the head of Gu’s lineage, Gu Xueqiao, was a big gang boss in the Xiaoshadu district where the mill was situated. It is worth noting that although Gu was fired, he soon found a job at the nwk No. 7 mill via another foreman.88

Secret Societies During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the Green Gang grew among workers in Subei involved in taking the grain tax to the capital. As the grain tax system declined, many came to Shanghai in search of work. By 1911 the Green Gang was the largest secret society in the city.89 Broadly

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organized along fictive kinship lines, it operated as though it were an extended lineage, with its leaders, called “teachers,” deriving seniority from their generational status. In the republican period four “generations” (zibei) existed—da, tong, wu, and xue— each enjoying a different status, with about a dozen masters in Shanghai enjoying the highest da status. In theory, only teachers could recruit followers (tudi), but the gang also operated a system of “incense halls” (xiangtang). Entry into these halls simply entailed swearing oaths and burning incense, so that one could become a “student” merely by pledging discipleship to a Green Gang master—that is, without acquiring a formal position in the generational hierarchy.90 Rules forbade disciples to deceive their teachers or disgrace the Green Gang ancestors, and members were enjoined to deal fairly with one other, keep the society’s secrets, and avoid adultery and theft. They were also expected to uphold the Confucian virtues of benevolence (ren), righteousness (yi), propriety (li), wisdom (zhi), and sincerity (xin).91 In 1901 the grain tribute finally ceased, and thereafter the Green Gang rapidly transformed itself into a mafia running a lucrative business empire based on opium trafficking and forms of racketeering. By the mid-1920s the gang was dominated by the “Big Three,” Du Yuesheng (1888 –1951), Huang Jinrong (1868 –1953), and Zhang Xiaolin (1877–1940), who together controlled the opium trade.92 The Red Gang established itself in Shanghai in 1886, when Jiang Peishan, a “dragon head” of the Hong League or Triads, teamed up with the remnants of the defeated Small Sword Society.93 The Hong League, which also embraced the Elder Brother Society, originated at the end of the Ming dynasty and was fiercely opposed to the Manchus. Its constituent units were lodges, usually named after mountains or rivers, many with a native-place character.94 In 1911 the Red Gang had fewer than one thousand members, mostly from Guangdong and Fujian, and it remained smaller and looser than the Green Gang.95 In practice, the distinction between the two societies was blurred. Liu Fubiao, boss of the Red Gang at the time of the 1911 Revolution, enjoyed tong generational status in the Green Gang, while Xu Langxi, a Red Gang member who was briefly frontline commander-in-chief of Sun Yat-sen’s Northern Expedition, enjoyed da status.96 Of more significance in the lives of ordinary workers than the “Big Three” were the lower-level bosses of the Green Gang, such as Jin Jiuling and Gu Zhuxuan, both of whom drew their disciples from among Subei migrants. Jin (d.1980), a disciple of “Big Three” member Huang Jinrong,

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was the chief detective in charge of the Chinese detectives of the French Concession. He also owned a rickshaw company and was said to have five thousand disciples.97 Gu Zhuxuan (1885 –1956) was born in Yancheng and came to Shanghai at the age of sixteen, where he worked first as a policeman in the International Settlement and then as a rickshaw puller. By the age of twenty he had become a disciple of the prestigious Green Gang master Liu Dengjie. Gu had tong generational status and drew more than a hundred disciples and students around himself. Like many bosses, he was physically strong and had a reputation for violence. Around 1918 he acquired his own rickshaw company and developed close ties to Yu Xiaqing, who was fast becoming the city’s leading businessman. By the mid-1920s he held a number of important positions, including the chairmanship of the native-place association (tongxianghui) of the Jiangsu-Huai region and the vice-chairmanship of the Subei tongxianghui (which was more or less a Green Gang front).98 Green Gang networks controlled huge swaths of the job market, one of the most lucrative being the system of labor contracting on Shanghai’s waterfront. The Sixteen Shops docks in Nanshi, for example, was the turf of the Thirty-Six Mob, and another gang ran the Butterfield and Swire (Taigu) dock.99 Because import-export companies could never be sure when a cargo would arrive, they used contractors to recruit labor as necessary. The chief contractors (baogongtou), their subcontractors (batou), and runners (pao matou) were all members of the secret societies, who lived from “squeeze” taken from the wages of the men they hired.100 It was estimated that on average barely a fifth of the sum paid by a comprador for handling a cargo ended up in the pockets of workers, with the rest being creamed off by the contractors.101 Men such as Li Rongji, chief contractor of the Japanese Mitsui and Osaka docks and head of the Subei bang of wharf coolies, and Zhang Zhifa, chief contractor of the British Shuntai docks, who carried a rattan cane and wore an enormous gold ring with which he had been known to slash the cheek of a worker, wielded enormous power over their disciples’ lives.102 Those who fell foul of the mob found it hard to find work and might end up beaten or even killed.103 The very first strike in the cotton industry, which took place at the Shanghai weaving mill in 1891, was led by Zhang Guiqing, a secret-society boss with thirty-six disciples in Yangshupu. He was executed after the strike, accused of rape and attacking the carriage of the county magistrate’s wife.104 In general, however, until the second decade of the twentieth cen-

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tury the secret societies did not infiltrate the manufacturing sector. By the 1930s it was claimed that in the cotton industry “eight or nine of every ten male workers joined the Green and Red Gangs, and swore allegiance to the bosses (lao touzi).” 105 This needs to be set in context, however, because the majority of workers in cotton and silk were young and female and thus outside the orbit of the gangs. Women were admitted to membership of the Green Gang from 1895, subject to certain restrictions, such as being allowed only to recruit other women, but the world of the secret societies remained largely male.106 In the tobacco industry a similar situation prevailed, the power of the gangs resting on foremen and skilled mechanics rather than on the female majority of unskilled workers. Toward the late 1920s, the secret societies began to penetrate some of the best-paid sectors of the job market, including the post office, tram service, banks, customs service, power stations, and municipal government. Zhu Xuefan recalled that when he passed the examination to join the post office in 1925 there was no gang presence, but by the 1930s around one-fifth of postal employees were gang members.107 It is impossible to calculate the proportion of the labor force as a whole that was under the sway of the Green and Red gangs, not least because of the problem of defining membership. Contemporaries often counted as secret-society members all who had ties of loyalty to labor contractors or foremen. This is what Chen Duxiu must have had in mind when he claimed at the beginning of the 1920s that the “greater part” of factory workers and “all” transport workers were within the orbit of the Green Gang.108 Similarly, the Communist historian Hua Gang, commenting in 1930 on what he termed the “gangsterization” of the workforce, reckoned that around half of the workforce were members of the Green and Red gangs.109 Recent historians have been more circumspect. Brian Martin, author of the definitive work on the Green Gang, estimates that by the 1930s the total number of gang members in Shanghai was one hundred thousand, or just over 3 percent of the city’s population.110 And a more recent history from the PRC puts the proportion of workers in the gangs at around one-fifth of the workforce, which seems plausible.111 The fact that the membership of the secret societies was drawn mainly from the lower classes did not make them plebeian organizations. The Green Gang had intimate connections with Chinese businessmen, warlords, gmd and ccp politicians, and, in particular, with the police forces of the International Settlement and French Concession.112 To that extent it

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was part of the power structure of the city. Nevertheless, even after the Green Gang had become one of the city’s most successful business corporations it continued at its lower levels to offer a degree of protection to workers, small traders, and the unemployed. Such support came with a large price tag because the gangs milked their clientele ruthlessly, yet it also reflected the continuing, if increasingly residual, attachment of secret societies to a subaltern tradition of fighting in defense of the common people. Both Green Gang and Red Gang drew on the fraternal tradition represented by the vernacular novels mentioned earlier, a tradition that was constantly recycled in folk opera and by professional storytellers. Members of the secret societies were not averse to presenting themselves as haoxia, fighters moved by “public-spirited righteousness,” ready to defend the downtrodden. Later, the Communists would try to win over the secret societies by tapping into this tradition.

Guilds Guilds were well entrenched within the handicraft and retail sectors of Shanghai’s economy, and they also had a toehold in the transportation sector. Guilds (gongsuo, hang) were hierarchically organized corporations of all who practiced a particular craft or trade. Whether engaged in manufacture, commerce, or the provision of services, all trades were, in theory, organized into guilds, whose rules specified the rights and duties of each member. Guilds were many and complex in structure, and it was not easy to distinguish occupational guilds from regional guilds because so many trades were dominated by workers from a particular region.113 Some guilds, moreover, were organized according to both occupational and nativeplace principles. Economically, they sought to regulate the market by fixing the prices of raw materials, finished goods, and wages.114 Politically, they exercised a number of semigovernmental functions, including the collection of taxes (notably the lijin tax), the organization of public works, and the maintenance of order among the populace.115 From their members’ point of view, however, the most important function they provided was that of mutual aid and protection, offering everything from loans, help in finding work, and financial assistance in case of sickness or old age to the provision of coffins and land for burial.116 In a sample of forty-eight occupational guilds in Shanghai, seventeen had their own temples, eight had

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schools or apprentices’ institutes, four had burial grounds, and five had hospitals or medical dispensaries.117 In the decades following the Taiping rebellion (1850 –1864), the guilds of Shanghai staged a remarkable recovery. Between 1864 and 1894, thirty commercial guilds appeared in the city, twenty-four of which were new; together with eight handicraft guilds, four of which were new.118 Diversification of economic activity, combined with the gradual devolution of political power, spurred sustained growth. By 1925 the Shanghai city directory listed no fewer than 175 occupational guilds, which were particularly well entrenched in the construction and consumer-goods trades, ranging from sesame oil makers to women’s hat makers to the guild for the sellers of foreign goods (such as soap and matches).119 The guilds thus not only survived but adapted remarkably well to the modernization of Shanghai’s economy. The existence of a minute division of labor in the handicraft and retail sector, usually overlaid by regional groupings, led to a dense interweaving of craft specialisms and native-place ties. Among the makers of wooden cases, for example, there were those who specialized in replaning old wood to make new boxes; those who repaired old boxes; and those who made the wooden frames for leather cases. The three crafts were divided between the Shaoxing, Shanghai, Ningbo, and Suzhou bangs.120 A further distinction was sometimes made between handicrafts based in Nanshi, the old Chinese City where workshops were densely concentrated, and those in the north of the city, where they were more scattered. The conditions of the silk dyers, for example, who worked for the ten firms in the north of the city and who belonged to the Hangzhou bang, differed significantly from those in the thirty or so workshops of the south who belonged to the Beijing bang.121 Such interweaving of craft and native-place loyalties created highly particularistic occupational identities that posed substantial obstacles to collective action by the trade as a whole. All guilds embraced masters and journeymen, and most included permanently employed wage workers and apprentices. They were predominantly male organizations, with women allowed membership only in the less prestigious hang (although in 1918 the head of the beancurd makers guild in Nanshi was a woman).122 Formally, the directors of the guilds were elected by and accountable to the members, but they were frequently drawn from the ranks of the wealthiest merchants in the trade.123 Nevertheless the guilds could command a fierce loyalty that was usually sufficient

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to overwhelm any potential rift between the wealthy elite who controlled the affairs of the guild and the mass of journeymen and workers. All members derived benefits and security from the guild, and rituals cemented the collective ethos that was such a feature of guild life. Central to this ethos was the maintenance of “face” through honest dealing or high-quality workmanship and the upholding of fellowship (ganqing) and friendship between members.124 In addition, masculine status formed an important element in corporate solidarity, because learning the secrets of the trade at the hands of a master (shifu) was closely bound up with an apprentice’s initiation into manhood. Nevertheless long-term economic and political changes meant that social relations within the guilds were no longer as cohesive as they once had been. Religious rituals were less entrenched in more recent guilds, the last guild to open a temple being the Japanese seafood guild in 1907. Traditionally, members saw themselves as disciples of the mythical founder of the trade, who was worshipped as the patron deity of the guild. Carpenters worshipped Lu Ban (the Guangdong and Ningbo bangs each having their own temple to him), and their annual general meetings were usually accompanied by a religious ceremony. In May 1918 the carpenters marked the end of the construction workers’ strike with a ceremony of thanksgiving to Lu Ban.125 By the early twentieth century there were complaints that religion no longer carried much weight in guild life and that “public morality is not what it used to be” (ren xin bu gu).126 In addition, concern was expressed at the difficulty of enforcing guild rules because elders no longer carried sufficient clout to punish delinquents.127 When they were prevented from deducting one fen from the daily wage of each member to donate to the guild charity fund, the directors of the lacquerware guild bemoaned the decline of fellowship.128 Perhaps the most telling evidence of the erosion of corporate solidarity— evidence that will be examined in more detail in chapter 4 —was the tendency of employers and employees to organize separately within the guild. As early as 1734, striking silk weavers in Suzhou had tried to set up a separate guild of employees, and by the nineteenth century it was not uncommon for guilds to have separate sections for owners/masters, usually known as the dahang, and for employees/men, usually known as the xiaohang.129 Each section had its own board and chief, and the director presided over both sections as an impartial figure. In the dyers’ guild, for example, Xu Kun was head of the dahang; Zhu Shengsan was head of the xiaohang; and the director was Ma Shufan.130

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Because separate organization of employers and employees predated the rise of industrial capitalism, such bifurcation cannot be seen as solely a consequence of the latter, although William Rowe suggests that bifurcation of the guilds in Hankou was linked to the challenge to the handicraft economy posed by more capitalist forms of work organization and by the increasing flow of cheap labor.131 The trend to separate organization, however, certainly intensified in the early years of the republic. In 1914, for example, separate xiaohang were established in both the guild of silk reelers and the guild of hot-water sellers (shuihu).132 We shall see in chapter 4 that this coincided with growing conflict in the traditional sector. Yet the extent to which economic and political change imperiled the solidarity of the guilds should not exaggerated. Although signs of capitalist development within the handicraft sector were palpable—for example, in the expanded role of middlemen and in the enhanced application of wage labor—factors such as the general availability of cheap labor and the ability of households to sustain labor input at returns below market wages discouraged large-scale investment in machinery and labor-saving techniques. There was thus no ineluctable trend to restructure production along lines that would bring about sizable increases in productivity and income per unit of labor. Moreover, we should not underestimate the resilience of the handicraft sector and the adaptability of the guilds to capitalist development. At the height of the national revolution in 1926 –1927 it looked as though the labor unions would quickly supplant the guilds, but in many respects the guilds went on to outlive them. The particularist social identities reviewed above have certain characteristics that had implications for the dissemination of the new identities of nation and class. First, these identities used a language of kinship, even though they were not equivalent in terms of their ontological status. It is sometimes claimed that native-place identity, like kinship, was “primordial” in that it seemed to stem from the givens of social existence and to have an ineffable and irresistible quality.133 In fact, as we shall see, it was as socially constructed as any other identity. Nevertheless it was a less-chosen, more-ascribed identity than those based on clientelism, secret-society affiliation, or guild membership, which were more likely to be associated with a particular phase in one’s career and not carried from cradle to grave. However, even these more “chosen” identities frequently drew on the primordial rhetoric of kinship. The clients of a labor contractor, the members

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of a sisterhood, or the students of a Green Gang master seem instinctively to have turned to the family/lineage as a model for putting their groups together. Second, whether “primordial” or voluntary, in all cases the primacy of the group was absolute and individual identity was unthinkable except in relation to the overpowering “pull” of one’s peers. Whether in a regional bang or a patronage network, the locus of self-control and selfevaluation was external to the individual and inherent in the group. Third, the small scale of many of these groups is striking, as if the only real group were one whose members knew each other face to face. Small, tightly knit defensive groupings were a characteristic building block of social relations in China, and they obviously fostered highly parochial forms of identity. Such identities, moreover, were often “nested” inside each other such that an informal sisterhood could be the client group of a particular forewoman and, in turn, part of a broader native-place network. Fourth, such groups were more strongly articulated along a vertical than a horizontal axis; the reliance on kinship as a model, for example, implicitly valorized hierarchical relations of authority, so that even in the case of informal brotherhoods and sisterhoods, where the accent was on equality, age, and status differences quickly became the basis for hierarchical distinctions (for example, “elder brother” versus “younger brother”). Finally, another means by which the vertical articulation of groups was bolstered at the expense of their horizontal articulation was via the reliance on guanxi. Groups were knit together by the active construction of ties of an affective and instrumental character, in which issues of “face”— of defining, gaining, maintaining, and losing honor—were densely interwoven. Not all guanxi presuppose that relations between people are unequal, but the pursuit of patronage does tend to make for stronger vertical than horizontal connections.134 Such general characteristics of group construction set up psycho-cultural barriers to forming identifications with the larger, more abstract “imagined communities” of nation or class. Craig Calhoun points out that national, class, and individualist identities share an understanding of social groups as sets of equivalent persons rather than as webs of relationships among persons or hierarchies of position.135 And although in China the modern idea of the nation was rooted in a notion of ancestral descent, it nevertheless operated as a category of equivalent persons. Particularistic identities were not easily compatible with such a conception because they celebrated difference rather than commonality of condition. Nevertheless, as the example of native-place identity shows, such identities could be-

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come subsumed within larger “imagined communities.” Pamela Crossley has suggested that it is largely a matter of semantic convention that in the Chinese context native-place identities are defined as “subethnic” rather than “ethnic” because they satisfy many of the criteria of the latter, even though Chinese from different regions all see themselves as Han.136 Since loyalty to native place had the potential to disrupt the unity of the Chinese nation, stabilizing its political significance became a critical issue for nationalists. Historically, regional loyalties had not been heavily politicized, coexisting satisfactorily with a vigorous central power, but after the 1911 Revolution, as politics became provincialized, those who aspired to create a strong centralized state could not afford to be sanguine about the political implications of regional identities.137 Indeed by the 1920s federalists were seeking to forge a narrative of the nation that opposed the centralist one promoted by the gmd, one that upheld the province as a vehicle of national regeneration and a shield against the foreign powers.138 Nevertheless, as we shall see, mainstream nationalism did succeed in constituting native-place sentiment politically as the local form of a centralized national identity. Native-place loyalties posed more of an impediment to the construction of class identity than of national identity, and this was true of all the particularistic identities reviewed above. Native-place loyalties were institutionalized in the structure of the labor market and deeply implicated in workers’ struggles to survive; and in a situation of fierce job competition the specific attributes of one group of workers were easily used to deny opportunities or capabilities to another. Particularistic identities, in other words, served as a basis for what Frank Parkin calls “social closure.” 139 Yet although such solidarities militated against the emergence of horizontal class identity, their meaning was never completely fixed. Elizabeth Perry has shown how the narrow identities of native place or craft could become the “very stuff of which labor activism was made.” 140 In other words, unity could be forged in circumstances where the advantages of mutual cooperation against a third party were perceived to outweigh differences of interest. And when caught up in broader social and political movements, particularistic identities could be discursively reconfigured so that they endowed workers with organizational coherence and a novel sense of purpose.

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2

Nationalist and Labor Protest at the End of the Qing Dynasty

The birth of nationalism in China can be conveniently dated from the victory of Japan in the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. Following her defeat by a people she had once dismissed as “dwarf slaves,” China’s educated elite generated a new and urgent discourse of nationhood.1 In 1901 the great reformer Liang Qichao proclaimed that “nationalism” (minzu zhuyi) was the “world’s brightest, most just and honest principle.” 2 In forging a language of nationhood, intellectuals drew on western ideologies in an effort to make sense of the disturbing world in which they found themselves. Under the influence of nationalism, the meaning of guojia was transformed so that it no longer denoted the territory of the ruling dynasty but a state belonging to the “Chinese nation” (Zhonghua minzu).3 And because there was no concept that corresponded to “nation” in Chinese, they borrowed the term minzu from Japanese intellectuals in the 1890s.4 This concept connected the “people” (min) to its “ancestral line” (zu), which implied that the state should be founded on a lineage sharing a common racial stock and territory, thereby inviting a racist conceptualization of nationality, very much in keeping with the principles of social Darwinism then in vogue. From the turn of the century, the idea of a confrontation between the white and yellow races became a staple of urban nationalism.5 Traditionally, the Chinese had thought about their relationship to the political community in terms of two idioms. According to the first and most influential of these, membership of the political community was defined by participation in the Zhonghua; that is, the ritual order based on Confucian norms and values, at the center of which stood the emperor. In this culturalist idiom political loyalties were not to the territorial state, but to the “world-under-Heaven” (tianxia), a culturally monolithic and “universal” empire.6 Prasenjit Duara has argued convincingly that beneath the universalism of this conception lay a certain ethnic identification, insofar as Zhonghua represented a bounded community (Zhongguo) that was ethni-

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National/Labor Protest, End of Qing Dynasty 39

cally Chinese.7 The second, more explicitly ethnic idiom, was that the empire represented the Han people, those “children of the Yellow Emperor” (Huangdi zisun) who shared a common descent and history. Evidence of a Han ethnic identity can be traced back centuries. A phrase in the Spring and Autumn Annals—“if they are not of the same race as us, their minds will be different” ( fei wo zu lei, qi xin bi yi)—had long been used to authorize an ethnic reading of Confucius. But it was only in the late eighteenth century as the Han Chinese expanded into the peripheries of the Middle Kingdom and confronted non-Han peoples for the first time that this ethnic idiom became influential.8 Categories such as zhong (seed, race), lei (category, group), and zhonglei (kind), were now invoked to designate non-Han peoples, although were never applied to the Han themselves. The term Zhongguo ren, “people of the Middle Kingdom,” came to function as a proxy for the Han, but never narrowed to the point where it was used exclusively to designate them as an ethnic group; it remained rooted in the culturalist problematic.9 In forging a new language of nationhood, nationalist intellectuals drew on and reworked these vintage idioms. Crudely speaking, these intellectuals fell into two political camps— constitutionalists and revolutionaries.10 Constitutionalist thinkers such as Kang Youwei (1858 –1927) and Liang Qichao (1873 –1939) rejected anti-Manchuism as the key to national renewal, seeing bad governance, rather than the ethnicity of her rulers, as China’s fundamental problem. In formulating a new conception of the nation, they drew mainly on the culturalist idiom, outlining a reformed China that consisted of the “five races”—Manchus, Mongols, Muslims, Tibetans, and Han—rather than a nation-state belonging exclusively to the Han. To save the nation they were prepared to abandon much of China’s heritage, but they believed in preserving the monarchy in a constitutional form.11 The most pressing task, according to Liang Qichao, was to change the nature of the relationship between state and people— “among our people there is not one who looks on national affairs as if they were his own affairs”—and to integrate them into the political community through citizenship. Earlier reformers had grafted “branches onto our withered trunk” while neglecting to foster the roots, which were “the people’s virtue, the people’s wisdom, and the people’s vitality.” 12 By contrast, revolutionaries, led by Sun Yat-sen, were bent on the violent overthrow of the Qing dynasty, which they blamed for all of China’s ills. The program of the Alliance Society, which Sun established in 1905, aimed to

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“expel our Northern captors, revive China, establish a republic and equal land rights.” 13 Revolutionaries such as Zhang Binglin (1869 –1936) and Wang Jingwei (1883 –1944) drew more on the long-standing ethnocentric idiom to articulate their conception of nationhood, although their thinking was heavily influenced by the social Darwinist ideas of racial competition and evolutionary hierarchy. For them, China’s sorry decline was a consequence of her enslavement by an alien race, and expulsion of the Manchus was the key to rescuing the nation from extinction.14 After 1905 anti-Manchuism came to predominate within the nationalist movement. Nationalist discourse began to circulate among a wider educated public through the modern schools, student associations, study societies, literary societies, women’s organizations, newspapers, journals, and commercial fiction. Central to this ideologically inchoate discourse were the twin themes of “national salvation” ( jiuguo) and “national extinction” (wangguo). Yan Fu (1853 –1921), who translated a vast corpus of western writing into Chinese, first articulated the idea that China faced a stark choice between salvation and extinction. The idea was widely taken up, framed by the social Darwinist catchwords of “evolution,” “competition,” “natural selection,” and the “struggle for survival.” 15 The rhetoric of national extinction paid curiously little attention to the foreign threat per se, emphasizing instead the internal factors—the waning of patriotism, the erosion of military ardor, the corruption of officials, and the despotism of rulers—that were pushing China into terminal decline.16 Yan Fu and Liang Qichao declared that the Chinese people lacked competitiveness, self-reliance, military ardor, and public spiritedness (minqi), with Liang calling for the creation of a “new people” (xinmin). In 1903 Chen Duxiu wrote contemptuously that “in China so long as the people can only act like slaves, like cattle and horses, they shall never enjoy the rights of citizens.” 17 Even Sun Yat-sen castigated the “slave mentality” of the Chinese—the fact that “men of intelligence and talent have enslaved the masses as though they were cattle and horses”—although generally he was positive in his estimation of a Chinese nation freed from the Manchu yoke. “No other people can compare with the Chinese in intelligence and talent, and their cultural heritage is unique and dominated the world as long as a thousand years ago.” 18 The central concern of late Qing nationalism, therefore, was with China’s inner decay, which suggests that the standard way of conceptualizing Chinese nationalism in terms of two parameters—as either antiforeign (for example, the Boxer movement) or antidynastic/antigovernmental (Sun Yat-

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sen’s Alliance Society) or both (the May Fourth Movement of 1919)— misses what might be considered a third parameter: namely, a concern with the internal condition of the Chinese people themselves. The accent placed on the “people” (min) in nationalist discourse gestured toward a notion of popular sovereignty, although it is doubtful whether at this stage most nationalists extended this to the common people, as opposed to the politically conscious minority. Joan Judge shows that the reformist press was ambivalent in its view of the common people, seeing them basically as ignorant masses (yumin) who needed to be educated out of their passivity and ignorance.19 Constitutionalists, while counterposing the western notion of “popular power” (minquan) to overarching official power, did not envisage replacing dynastic authority with democracy (minzhu). Revolutionaries tended to be more positive in their estimation of the common people, but there was a pronounced strain of elitism within their thinking too. They played upon the long tradition that upheld the people as the foundation of the nation (minben), but their main emphasis was on the duty of ordinary folk to defend their country. A pamphlet, written in the vernacular, titled “Tale of Ill-Treatment Inflicted upon Our Compatriots,” called on the common folk (baixing) to “fulfill their responsibility to the country.” 20 In seeking to communicate new understandings of the nation to a wider audience, nationalists deployed protonational idioms that circulated in folktales, ballads, plays, and regional opera. These narratives frequently told of anguished moments in China’s history when the state had been threatened with destruction, such as Liu Bei’s defeat by the Wei during the Three Kingdoms period (220 –265) or the last Ming emperor’s suicide in 1644, thereby familiarizing a popular audience with the idea of wangguo.21 Nationalist intellectuals reclothed old legends that celebrated the patriotism of well-known heroes in new garb. These heroes, such as Yue Fei (1103 –1141), leader of the resistance to the Jurchen during the Song dynasty who was executed after being falsely accused of treachery, were held up as inspiration to the rising generation, who were called on to “strengthen the state and support its races, so that the forces of the nation may develop and its projects flourish.” Others lauded for their selfsacrifice, loyalty to the Chinese race, and love of the people were Shi Kefa (?–1645), Xia Wanchun (1631–1647), and Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) (1624 –1662), all of whom fought against the Qings. Some of these stories appeared in popular journals, such as the New Vernacular Paper, which

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ran a story about Wen Tianxiang (1236 –1282) who fought against the Mongols.22 In urging the “people” to save the nation, nationalists drew on the homespun imagery of family and lineage: “Men born of the same parents are brothers (xiongdi) and together make up a family. Several families make up a clan, and men of the same clan are all brothers. Several clans make up a township and men of the same township are all brothers. . . . Several prefectures make up a province and men of the same province are all brothers. Provinces make up the country and men of the country are all brothers.” 23 Other key terms in this family-centered discourse were zuguo (the ancestral nation) and tongbao (compatriots; literally, those born of the same womb). Don Price has argued that the appeal to tongbao helped to recuperate a patriarchal conception of the state as a family, thereby fostering an organic nationalism rather than an egalitarian fraternité. He suggests that potency of an ancestral rendition of the nation played no small part in the failure of the republic, because the 1911 Revolution was seen as having taken place for the sake of the ancestors rather than the sons. There is some substance in this, although chapter 6 suggests that tongbao was a protean term capable of being utilized to emphasize not only the vertical relation between father and son but the horizontal relation between brothers. Moreover, as Peter Zarrow points out, nationalist discourse was ideologically heterogeneous, with the ancestral conception of the nation competing with more democratic notions of citizenship.24 Nevertheless during the last decade of the empire these more democratic notions had barely taken root outside a narrow circle of the educated public, and among the populace older construals of an ethnically and ancestrally defined nation were far more influential. Workers and small traders responded far more readily to interpellation as “children of the Yellow Emperor” than as citizens.

Opposition to the Foreign Powers Traditionally, China had shown little interest in the world beyond its borders, in the “barbarians” whose fate was not to share in the cultural efflorescence that was China. What Paul Cohen calls the “venerable Chinese tradition of scabrous, harrowing and often racist lore about foreigners” placed “barbarians” outside the moral and civilized order and traduced them as dogs, sheep, and pigs 25 lest there be any doubt about their lack of

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qualification for being considered human. This way of thinking categorized outsiders as fundamentally “other” and sought to be rid of their contaminating presence. There is no question that such xenophobia was rife in popular culture, as the recent Boxer uprising had revealed, but it is possible that such xenophobia was less virulent in Shanghai than elsewhere. During the nineteenth century, it has been suggested, the natives of Shanghai tolerated the small foreign population and showed some appetite for western consumer goods. Whereas in many regions the Chinese referred to foreigners as “foreign devils” or “devil slaves,” in Shanghai they were generally called by the neutral term “foreigner” (in Shanghai dialect, ngakoknyung). In the same way, the International Settlement tended to be called the “ten li [one li equals 0.5 km] of foreign settlement” rather than “barbarian quarter.” 26 Conversely, there is evidence that the British considered the natives of the city to be easygoing and more complaisant than the Cantonese. As the foreign population grew, however, racist attitudes toward the Chinese seem to have become more explicit, in part as a function of the need for the enlarged community to police its racial and class boundaries and in part because of the popularization of scientific theories of race, which became central to the apologetics of imperialism.27 In principle, nationalists sought to distance themselves from traditional xenophobia. Although they reprehended the foreign powers for their brutal “power politics” (qiangquan), which abrogated all “moral principle” (gongli), they believed that there was much that Chinese people could learn from western culture. Curiously, constitutionalists tended to be more hostile to foreign aggression than were the revolutionaries of the Alliance Society, who were ever hopeful of winning foreign support for their struggle to overthrow the Manchus. Nevertheless, the distinction between opposition to imperialism and xenophobia was never absolute.28 Tsarist Russia used the Boxer rebellion to bolster its position in Manchuria, and in March 1901 it demanded far-reaching concessions in return for withdrawing its troops. Initially, protests were led by the merchants and urban gentry (shenshang) of the regional and occupational guilds, but in 1902 the embryonic intelligentsia, in the shape of students, teachers, and journalists, came to the fore in a “resist Russia” campaign.29 It looked as though the matter had been resolved when Russia signed a treaty on 8 April 1902, but in March 1903 she reneged on its provisions and even presented seven new demands. This event caused consternation among the patriotic pub-

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lic, who for the first time linked China’s vulnerability to foreign aggression to the feebleness of her government.30 On 27 April a huge protest rally, attended mainly by students and teachers from the modern schools, set up a Committee of the Four Vocations (Simin danghui) to “unite the public spiritedness (mingong) of peasants, artisans, scholars, and merchants across the entire country into one large organization,” and to “protect the entire territory and sovereignty of China.” 31 Three days later at a second mass meeting the name of the organization was changed to the Citizens’ Association (Guomin gonghui), suggesting that the leaders were consciously appealing to a new political identity. Henceforward the appeal to “citizens” to mobilize in defense of the nation would become a staple of nationalist agitation.32 The category of citizen (guomin) was one of those terms originally from classical Chinese that had been reimported with new meaning from Japan.33 Its referent, however, was unstable, often referring exclusively to literate urbanites, sometimes to the middle levels of society (shen, shang, xuejie), or at other times also to the lower levels (xialiu, xiadeng shehui).34 From autumn 1903, tension built up as Russian troops moved into the Fengtian province of Manchuria. In December revolutionary nationalists, including Cai Yuanpei and Liu Shipei, established an Association of Comrades to Resist Russia, which vociferously condemned the Manchu regime for China’s weakness. Typical was this piece written in the vernacular for a popular audience: Russia intends to seize our eighteen provinces and to make our 400 million compatriots its cattle and horses. . . . But he who is usually called the Great Qing emperor . . . sees the Russians and acts like a little devil who has seen Yama, King of Hell. . . . If we do not find a way to save our country quickly, I fear it will not be long before all our wealth is taken by this shameless low breed and the Chinese race exterminated. Ah! Can we really not find a way to save our fatherland? If we wish to save the country we must drive out this low breed . . . but there is only one thing that will give us a lease of life. What it that? It is a revolution to expel the Manchus.35 This early use of baihua, or “simple speech,” at a time when the mainstream press used a semiclassical language indicated that the newspaper was aimed at sections of the population with limited literacy. The first vernacular newspaper, the Hangzhou Vernacular Newspaper, was founded by a

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schoolteacher in 1901. In June 1904 in Shanghai, the Yangtze River Vernacular Newspaper (Yangzijiang baihua bao) was published. Nearly all vernacular newspapers were founded by people with little financial backing and few social connections, and most proved to be short-lived.36 In March 1904 war broke out between Russia and Japan. The imperial government’s declaration of neutrality did nothing to mollify anti-Manchu sentiment in Shanghai.37 On 15 December 1904 hostility to Russia flared up when a drunken Russian sailor killed a carpenter from Ningbo. The next day some thirty thousand Ningbo artisans, rickshaw pullers, and fishermen took to the streets. The directors of the Ningbo guild issued a protest demanding that the Russian authorities hand over the sailor for trial, and they were backed by the recently formed Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce (gcc) (shangwu zonghui).38 At the Zongmeng Girls’ School, the Female Association of Comrades to Resist Russia put on a play depicting the murder. On 14 January a Russian military tribunal found the sailor guilty, but sentenced him to only four years imprisonment on the grounds that the crime had been accidental. The same day, the gcc resolved not to use notes issued by the Russian bank. Zeng Shaoqing, chair of the Fujian guild, told the meeting that they should not put their trust in officials because “they care only about their own lives and well-being.” 39 The following day several thousand Ningbo workers met at the guild to demand that the murderer be handed over to the Chinese authorities, but the merchant leaders of the Ningbo guild warned against reckless actions. Calls were made for the formation of a People’s Destiny Mutual Protection Society (Minming hubaohui) to raise an armed force to attack Russia.40 In 1905 the target of the nationalist movement switched from Russia to the United States, when a nationwide campaign got underway to persuade the U.S. government not to renew the Exclusion Act of 1894. This act had prohibited immigration by Chinese laborers for a period of ten years, but the Chinese government hoped that in renewing the act, the U.S. government would enlarge the category of those exempt from its provisions. Instead, the U.S. government determined to widen the ban on Chinese immigration. On 5 May a meeting of students declared: “The Chinese Labor Exclusion Treaty claims to debar Chinese laborers, but in fact will ban all Chinese from entering the country. It damages China’s prestige and stains the honor of her people. Chinese have sent $50 million . . . back to China during the past four-and-a-half years, and if this ceases our country will lose a major source of revenue.” 41 On 10 May the gcc decided to back a

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proposal for a boycott, sending a communiqué made by Zeng Shaoqing to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that declared: “American laws and regulations mistreat Chinese, from workers to merchants. . . . This is a serious matter that affects the polity and national livelihood (guoti minsheng). We plead with you to refuse to sign the treaty so as to assert national rights (guoquan).” 42 However, the gcc insisted that a boycott should not begin at once because many merchants had stocks of American goods or orders for such goods that could not be canceled. It was decided to wait two months before launching the boycott, ostensibly to give the Americans time to come up with an acceptable compromise. That evening the gcc’s decision was endorsed by a large meeting of students, merchants, small traders, and artisans. Over the following four weeks, some thirty occupational and regional guilds came out in support of the boycott, and seventysix guilds took the boycott pledge.43 The use of the boycott as a means to exert political pressure was intended to mark the distance between the “civilized” (wenming) methods of the new nationalism and the blindly antiforeign (paiwai) ways of the Boxers.44 As early as 10 May the idea of the boycott was linked to a campaign to promote native produce as an alternative to foreign imports, thus initiating a theme that was to become central to nationalist discourse over the next two decades.45 With no response forthcoming from the U.S. government, the boycott was announced on 19 July at a meeting of fifteen hundred people, organized by the Shanghai Educational Association. The next day the gcc confirmed that the twomonth moratorium was over and formed a committee, chaired by Zeng Shaoqing, to implement the boycott.46 Although the boycott was formally led by the gcc, the task of implementing it fell largely to the regional and occupational guilds and most of the activism and ideological direction came from students and petty intellectuals.47 The Shanghai Educational Association, representing twentyfour colleges, sent speakers to the guilds to explain the significance of the boycott and the history of Chinese migration overseas.48 Public meetings were held that normally featured a speaker who recounted the history of Chinese emigration; another who told of how America had “deserted” Chinese laborers once they had built the railways; and another who dwelt on the discrimination that the Chinese faced.49 Much of the rhetoric played on the theme of common humanity, both to indict Americans for their inhuman treatment of Chinese and to summon the audience to act on behalf of their brothers in the United States. However, the fact that the

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issue at stake in the conflict related mainly to Chinese immigrant workers drew attention to the position of labor within the Chinese nation, allowing more radical nationalists explicitly to demand that workers be treated as equal citizens. In his fine study of the 1905 boycott, Guanhua Wang quotes from one of the boycott novels of the time, The Golden World. A woman addresses a gathering of women: “Sisters! Aren’t we mothers of Chinese nationals? . . . In the eyes of a mother, there are no classes, only children. . . . Among the overseas Chinese, workers form the greatest number and they also suffer the most. If workers can get out of the bitter sea onto the happy land, merchants and students will automatically enjoy the same rights. If we just revise the treaty in order to benefit merchants and students alone, the workers will not have the same rights. Sisters! Aren’t they our children too?” 50 Here the rhetoric of common humanity, with its long Confucian pedigree, was used to appeal for an end to class prejudice and for equal rights. Traditionally, the Chinese had not used songs to boost morale, but from the turn of the century the modern school system encouraged group singing as a means of instilling patriotism, civic discipline, and commitment to social reform.51 The singing of songs such as the “Patriotic Song” became a feature of nationalist demonstrations, serving to heighten emotion and weld the crowd into a single body.52 Songs composed specifically to communicate the message of the boycott included some for children, such as that in which a child proclaims his hatred of all things American and calls on other children to follow his example by smashing up American products.53 The writer Lu Xun complained of the chauvinism of two songs from this period, “Song for the New-Style School” and “Army Song,” the former of which contained the words “Poland lies shattered, India is done / The last of the Jews to the four winds is flung!” 54 A racist undercurrent in the new nationalism was also evident in a play devised by the actor Wang Xiaonong, which was performed in the open air at the Chunxing teahouse. Titled “The Hard Journey,” it told of the travails of a nation without a sovereign state, beginning with an account of the partitions of Poland. The second act told of the barbarous government of the “red” (sic) African race and proclaimed that “our citizens are not an inferior race and have the qualifications to be among the fittest.” The final act depicted the Yellow Emperor issuing an edict to carry on the boycott to the end.55 Other propaganda techniques that became standard in later nationalist

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agitations included slogans, handbills, leaflets, posters, and public fundraising. Flags bearing simple slogans, such as “don’t use American goods” and “boycott American goods,” hung from shops supporting the boycott, and walls were plastered with posters saying “if you buy or sell American goods you are lower than a pig or dog.” Some fairly xenophobic cartoons showing Americans abusing Chinese appeared in the press, and the Pictorial Magazine on Current Affairs (Shishi huabao), which first appeared in September, contained many depictions of the boycott, including cartoons of Chinese “turtles” smoking American cigarettes. Thousands of leaflets were produced that listed American brands to be boycotted, and appeals were issued to smoke Chinese cigarettes rather than those made by bat.56 The most shocking act of protest was carried out by Feng Xiawei, a Cantonese who had been refused permission to study in the United States, who committed suicide on the steps of the American consulate in Shanghai. His memorial service turned into a piece of political theater.57 Many workers participated in the boycott but acted as guild members in unison with their employers rather than as members of a class, with artisans from Ningbo and Guangdong being particularly active. The guilds of ironmongers, mechanics, sellers of piece goods, and millers monitored the stocks of their members and publicized the names of those found to be selling American wares.58 On 5 August the engravers’ guild agreed not to print advertisements for American products and to print songs and handbills in support of the boycott literature at half price.59 The Nanjing, Suzhou, and Shanghai bangs of the tailors’ guild pledged not to use cloth imported from America and vowed to spread the boycott to the surrounding region. Threatening letters were sent to Chinese employees of American firms, and one comprador resigned after receiving a picture of a dagger.60 In a few cases workers took independent action against foreign employers. Chinese clerks working for foreign companies refused to handle American orders, and shop assistants refused to sell American wares.61 At a missionary publishing house the workers went on strike when a foreman was arrested for printing a leaflet denouncing the restrictions on immigration.62 There was considerable talk of the importance of dock workers not unloading American goods arriving in port, but concrete information on the subject is lacking. Workers did participate in the boycott, therefore, but mainly as members of occupational and regional guilds or secret societies. Factory workers remained quiescent. By August radical groups such as the Public Loyalty Oratorical Society

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(Gongzhong yanshuohui), which claimed to represent a popular front of the students’, merchants’, and workers’ sections of society (xue-shang-gong jie), were increasingly critical of the half-hearted support for the boycott shown by the gcc. On 10 August Zeng Shaoqing warned that the boycott was fostering popular disorder, and when the emperor issued an edict banning the boycott on 31 August, the gcc was secretly relieved.63 Its decision to accept the edict was condemned by many small traders, students, and workers, and the Public Loyalty Oratorical Society called for the ban to be ignored. At the end of October a Peace Society claiming to represent the “workers’ section of society” (gongjie) organized a meeting attended by five hundred, which called for the boycott to be pursued come what may.64 Even at this early stage, therefore, class tensions threatened to split the patriotic movement, just as they would do in every subsequent nationalist mobilization. Shanghai merchants had acted politically for the first time, but their attitude to the government, to popular mobilization, and to law and order was far more cautious than that of many students, traders, and workers. Just as the boycott was running out of steam, the nationalist movement received an unexpected fillip when Li Huangshi, the widow of a respected official, was arrested by the International Settlement police. She was on her way to Guangdong with the body of her husband, accompanied by her daughter, servants, and fifteen children. Because she had papers for only twelve of the children, the police charged her with kidnapping three girls to sell as slaves.65 On 8 December she came before the Chinese magistrate in the Mixed Court. At the end of the day’s proceedings British Assessor Twyman ordered that she be remanded in the women’s ward of the municipal jail, but the Chinese magistrate objected on the grounds that he alone had the authority to remand the accused and that regulations stipulated that women be detained in the Mixed Court jail rather than the municipal jail. Ignoring his objection, the police, using truncheons, forcibly removed Mrs. Li, and in the ensuing scuffle the magistrate was assaulted.66 When the boycott groups heard of this latest affront to national dignity they were convulsed with rage. The gcc and the Guang-Zhao guild, which represented various Cantonese-dominated trades and was thus particularly furious at the affront to Mrs. Li, a fellow provincial, called protest meetings to demand that the Chinese authorities seek restitution from the British. By 10 December Ge Pengyun, an English teacher, small trader, and leading light of the Public

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Loyalty Oratorical Society, addressed a large meeting where he called for those who had assaulted the magistrate to be brought to justice and for Chinese to have representation on the Municipal Council.67 On 12 December “clerks, shroffs in foreign employ, small shopkeepers and laborers” at a meeting at the Guang-Zhao guild expressed anger that a Chinese magistrate should be subject to such indignity.68 The meeting deplored the fact that the Chinese paid for the police through their taxes yet had no representation on the Municipal Council. The same day Ge Pengyun told two thousand people at the Ningbo guild that the Mixed Court magistrates— with the honorable exception of the assaulted magistrate—were servants of the foreign aggressors and called for the dismissal of Assessor Twyman. Other speakers protested that the Chinese were subject to taxation without representation and were banned from the racecourse and parks. The meeting passed a vote of no confidence in the Shanghai circuit intendant: “All that can be done must be done by the people themselves.” 69 One old man got up and wept at China’s weakness, but others countered that “in the native schools Chinese are being well-trained and when they grow up, will make their country stronger.” 70 At a meeting of the jade guild on 14 December a speaker entreated the young people of China “not to learn to gamble, smoke or visit Fuzhou Road [the red-light district]. China is weak and helpless and cannot stand against the foreigners because her people have been corrupted.” The president of the jade guild called for a boycott of the British banks, while Liu Renjie of the Civilized Treaty Resistance Society, described as a “fortune teller” by the British, urged the Chinese to resolve their disputes without recourse to foreign courts.71 The release of Mrs. Li on 15 December did nothing to brake the movement. On that day one thousand people, including Cantonese, attended a meeting at the Ningbo guild organized by the Public Loyalty Oratorical Society. At this meeting Ge Pengyun and Yan Chengye of the Ningbo native-place association (Siming tongxianghui) called on traders to suspend business from the following day.72 On 17 December another rally at the Siming regional guild heard calls for Chinese firms in the International Settlement to strike starting the following day. According to the police, the audience was composed of “men unemployed and bad characters. . . . Without doubt the leaders of the small bands of bad characters present at the meeting were privately requested to use their efforts in forcing the shopkeepers to close their shops.” The gcc put out a circular condemning the proposal for a strike, but to no avail.73 Early the following morning, a

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circular criticizing the gcc was distributed through the sellers of native newspapers.74 On the morning of 18 December groups of secret-society members, consisting mainly of migrants from Subei and Shandong, invaded the International Settlement from three directions, forcing shops to close and rickshaw and wheelbarrow coolies to cease their trade. At Hongkou market, peasants were prevented from selling their wares, rice shops were closed down, and rickshaws overturned. By far the most serious trouble was caused by members of the “loafer gang” known as Zheng Ziming (after its former leader). The gang entered the International Settlement from the south and west of the Chinese City and, joining forces with a band from Pudong, attacked the annex of the Hotel Metropole and then set fire to the Laozha (Louza) police station.75 The beggars’ guild, a secret-society front, played a leading part in the riot, allegedly under the leadership of Chen Zemin who in 1919 became president of the Federation of Street Associations. By contrast the cotton workers of Pudong and the “respectable guilds and regional associations” remained aloof.76 British sailors were summoned from ships anchored along the Bund and, together with the International Settlement Volunteers, opened fire on the rioters, killing eighteen and injuring nineteen. There was a certain grim irony to this because an attack on the Laozha police station twenty years later—involving a smaller death toll—triggered a far more fateful reaction in the form of the May Thirtieth Movement.77 Despite the huffing of the North China Herald, the boycott and riot demonstrated that mass protest had the capacity to make the foreign powers sit up and listen. As a result of skillful negotiation by Yu Xiaqing, the Ningbo comprador of the Netherlands Bank, the Municipal Council agreed to establish a Chinese consultative committee of seven members, but this concession was overruled by the annual meeting of International Settlement ratepayers, and it was not until 1920 that it came into effect.78 Nevertheless the businessmen of the gcc and the regional guilds concluded that they could, through a judicious mix of mass pressure, petitioning, and negotiation, force the foreign powers to heed their demands. By backing the boycott and by advocating the development of native produce, businessmen strengthened their political influence under the sign of bringing China “wealth and power.” If ultimate influence in the nationalist movement rested with the merchants, political direction and energy were provided by students, teachers, journalists, and other emergent professionals. New

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organizations such as the Public Loyalty Oratorical Society (which had close ties to the Ningbo guild) and the Civilized Treaty Resistance Society spoke a language of radical nationalism and set the political agenda. This included demands for the rescission of the Mixed Court and for Chinese representation on the Municipal Council, condemnation of the cupidity of imperial officials, and a commitment to stand up to foreign affronts to Chinese dignity. Participation in the nationalist movement helped merchants, students, and professionals to firm up their corporate identities. Nationalist discourse called on the nation to strengthen itself through the formation of groups (tuan, qun) in order to counteract the looseness of Chinese society, which Sun Yat-sen famously likened to a sheet of sand (yi pian san sha).79 By organizing in the gcc or the Educational Association, merchants, students, and professionals began to think of themselves as specific jie, or sections of society, which must organize not only, or even mainly, to promote their corporate interests but to ensure that they were properly represented in the union of all sections of society (xue-shang-gong jie) that alone could save the nation.80 As early as the “resist Russia” campaign, a “workers’ section of society” (gongjie) staked a claim to be recognized as an element in that union, although the term gongjie could at this time denote employers as well as employees. During the boycott a radical pamphlet asked: “The gentry, peasants, artisans and merchants make up the Chinese people. Why should laborers alone suffer? Are they inferior to the other three classes?” 81 Another article deserves mention (although it was untypical of the time) because it appealed in simple vernacular to workers to organize. The “Appeal to Workers” appeared in the periodical Russian Incident Alert in January 1904: Chinese workers have no power. They are used by the people of our country, subdued and exploited by their fellow nationals; and they are used by foreigners, subdued and exploited by them. They dare not act in their own defense. They are like cattle and horses. . . . This is all because you yourselves cannot unite. Today a disaster faces us. Russia has seized the three North-eastern provinces, and we do nothing to get them back. In fact every country wishes to seize our Chinese territory and give it to foreigners. When you hear this, you think that since you have no property, you have nothing to fear from the seizures of the foreigners. . . . But you do not know that in foreign countries they will

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not allow us Chinese to work. This is because their labor organizations, although they talk about international unity, speak only for the white race and do not include us, the yellow race. Because of our temperament, our willingness to work hard for little money, and our refusal to observe the regulations when we work in foreign countries, they look upon as though we are snakes and serpents and hate us so much that they can barely restrain themselves from killing us.82 This statement, which almost certainly emanated from an intellectual, is interesting because it marks the beginning of the construction of a subjectposition that would become widely propagated after the 1911 Revolution, one that called on workers to organize in defense of the national interest. In keeping with the racialized nationalism then in vogue, it justified labor organization not by reference to the pieties of labor-movement internationalism, but by raising the specter of foreign workers colluding in the oppression of Chinese workers and stealing their jobs. Even at this early stage there were signs that the discourse of nationalism could be manipulated by lower-class elements to their advantage. A stela erected at the Lu Ban temple of the Shanghai and Shaoxing construction workers’ guild in 1911 suggests how artisans articulated a version of national identity mistrustful of traditional elites: In China artisans are looked down upon. Lofty scholars and officials like to indulge in empty words, while shunning practical work. If anyone dares to mention an innovation in manufacturing he will immediately be denounced for “pursuing the insignificant” or “practicing worthless crafts.” As a result, we who engage in practical work also tend to feel inferior and do not dare to defy the scholars and officials. Thus our knowledge gradually narrows, our skills deteriorate and our tools become out of date. Foreigners then exploit this opportunity to export their goods to our country. . . . The European fad comes sweeping through our country like a flood and there is no stopping it. . . . There is only one profession independent of foreign influence, the construction industry. . . . I would like to promote the spirit of our guild as an example for all 800,000 citizens of Shanghai. . . . Our construction workers’ guild is a vital, united organization. What is its spirit? It lies in resistance to foreign encroachment and the care of our fellow members. What is its essence? It lies in oneness of our members’ minds and in the improvement of our knowledge and skills.83

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This statement celebrates the determination of one group of workers to stand up to foreign imperialism and calls on the nation as a whole to learn from their unity and combativity. Although it criticizes the traditional ruling class, it cannot count as an expression of class sentiment because it represses any distinction between employers and employees and places the construction industry on a pedestal above other trades. Yet it adumbrated later nationalist discourse in assigning to workers a special role in the drama of national redemption.

Early Workers’ Struggles: Class and Gender The one group that played no part in the nationalist protests of 1905 – 6 was factory workers. The fifteen years before 1911 saw factory workers undertake strikes on an increasingly regular basis, yet the dynamics of labor protest remained quite separate from those of the nationalist movement. The decade up to 1911 saw popular living standards come under severe pressure. First, there was a steep rise in taxes, particularly the salt tax, imposed by the Qing government to cover the approximate doubling of expenditure entailed by its impressive but belated program of educational, military, and constitutional reform.84 Second, there was a sharp depreciation in the value of copper currency, which in the early years of the century had been strong against silver. The silver dollar, valued somewhat unrealistically in 1903 at 100 new copper coins (mei), exchanged for 127 coppers by 1909, and 130 by 1911.85 Third, prices of basic commodities rose, particularly of rice, owing to major floods or droughts in 1901, 1906 (with particularly major flooding in Subei), 1909, and 1910.86 Whereas a picul (dan; one picul equals 200 lbs.) of rice had cost just over $2.50 in the mid-1890s, by 1911 it cost around $7.00.87 It was the pressure on living standards that lay behind the mounting tide of strikes. According to incomplete data, between 1895 and 1913 there were fiftyone strikes in Shanghai by industrial workers and five by handicraft workers. The peak years were 1898 (seven), 1905 (six), 1911 (ten), and 1913 (six). Of these, thirty (59 percent) took place in Chinese-owned enterprises, nineteen in foreign enterprises, and two in enterprises that were jointly owned by native and foreign capitalists. No fewer than twenty-six of the strikes were in silk filatures, four in cotton mills, four in shipyards, three in printing, two in public utilities, one each in paper making, tobacco, rubber, and so forth.88 What is noteworthy about this pattern is,

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first, the prominence of factory workers, who represented a minority of the workforce overall; and second, the prominence of industries in which women comprised a majority of the workforce. Although the data do not distinguish strikers by sex, there seems to be little doubt that women constituted the bulk of strikers in the late Qing period. Indeed over a longer period, from 1895 to 4 May 1919, one can identify no fewer than fiftyseven strikes in which women were the main participants.89 The largest work stoppage took place in the last year of the Qing dynasty, although it had no connection to the republican revolution, when up to four thousand women in the Chinese-owned silk filatures in Zhabei district walked out in protest at a wage cut. On 6 August 1911 several thousand women from the Jincheng, Changlun, Jinhua, and Xiehe filatures met to discuss their predicament. They posted a notice on the factory gates, the first extant statement by a group of factory workers: In recent years, the price of rice has been high and other trades have received wage increases, but our compradores have harshly put down the weaker sex [nüliu] and successively cut the rate so that now we only earn three jiao two fen. The workers hardly get to show their faces in public, they work night and day, in the rain and in the heat, without ceasing. We have been forced by hunger and cold to give voice to our distress. Now we 3,000 –4,000 workers of the Zhabei silk industry have stopped work to demand a rate of three jiao five fen [thirty-five cents]. Otherwise we will have to find other jobs. We shall not give in.90 The strikers marched to the gates of the Xiehe mill, which had initiated the wage cut, but were prevented from entering by a Sikh guard. In the scuffles that followed the guard hit an “elder sister” of the Subei women from Yancheng, thereby provoking a riot that the police were called in to suppress. The police chief promised to investigate the women’s grievances, but demanded they return to work. The women refused even though the employers agreed to review the wage cut, insisting that they would settle for nothing less than a daily rate of thirty-five cents.91 On 8 August several hundred women gathered at the police station to ask the superintendent to mediate on their behalf. He agreed, but condemned the women for “gathering to cause disorder and adopting barbaric methods.” 92 He warned that arrests and imprisonment would follow if they did not go back. He posted a notice, written in six-character rhyming lines for ease of comprehension: “If you strike it disturbs the peace and can

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bring no benefit. We recognize that you are ignorant, so simply warn you against further blind recklessness and urge you to return to work.” 93 In fact, the strike grew, spreading to the Qinchang and Jiucheng filatures, and mounted police were stationed at the gates of the four filatures at the heart of the stoppage.94 On 9 August one of the mounted policemen knocked a young girl from Subei to the ground, and she narrowly escaped being trampled by his horse. The incident badly soured relations with the police.95 The next day, a small group of women returned to work at Xiehe, but fled in panic through the back gate when their angry sisters bore down on the filature, accusing them of “destroying unity.” 96 On the same day the directors of the guild met but could not agree on an offer, some refusing to give in to “blackmail.” Eventually they consented to a partial restoration of a daily rate of thirty-three cents, thereby bringing the strike to an end.97 This short, defensive strike hardly bears out the label of “backwardness” (luohou) which men—whether millowners or marxists—regularly pinned on women workers.98 Even before a labor movement existed, women silk workers showed a capacity for effective organization, with strikers touring the filatures in a noisy throng to bring out other workers; pickets preventing strikebreaking; representatives coordinating action across different factories; grievances being publicized; and efforts being made to win public support. The forcefulness and clarity of purpose displayed by the silk women was characteristic of all strikes by women workers in this era. Typical tactics included occupying the manager’s office or taking him hostage as a means of pressing demands.99 Women’s strikes had a rambunctious rather than calculated character. Spread by contagion and rumor, they involved plenty of noise—from hurling insults, shouting, and banging pots and pans to cheering and singing—and a ready resort to disorder.100 It was not that such tactics were exclusive to female strikers—they were typical of workers outside the orbit of the organized labor movement—but when engaged in by women, such behavior had disconcerting implications for conventional understandings of gender. The sight of women asserting themselves, showing scant regard for property, and making demands as breadwinners, proved abhorrent to the authorities.101 To some degree, these women followed a customary script of popular protest, such as one sees earlier in the rice riots.102 In spring 1906 lower-class women in Shanghai had seized rice from wealthy merchants and tried to force officials to lower prices and curb speculation.103 In Pudong in September 1911 women

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“for the most part of the class finding a living on the river, though they were accompanied by a number of country women” walked into rice shops and helped themselves to the rice they could not afford to buy.104 At the same time, tactics such as forming pickets, coordinating action across different factories, publicizing grievances, and seeking to win public support seem to be novel. Factory managers, police, and courts tended to perceive unrest by women differently from that by men. With male workers the task was to seek out and punish the leaders. In the case of female strikes, there is evidence that women accused of initiating and leading stoppages received more lenient treatment than men. In the course of a riot at the Baocheng filature in January 1899 the police made eight arrests. Several hundred women formed a rowdy picket outside the police station, demanding their release. In spite of the scale of the disturbance, the magistrate took an indulgent view on the grounds that he was dealing with the “weaker sex” (nüliu).105 Such references to the “weaker sex” were common, and suggest that the authorities did not believe that women were fully responsible for their actions. In autumn 1912 at the Xiefeng filature a delegation of four women demanded payment of wages from the comprador. He replied that he would not listen to threats and called the police. When the four women appeared in court, the foreign owner of the filature appealed for clemency on the grounds that they were ignorant women (nüliu wuzhi), and the American consul agreed to their release.106 In the same way the court pronounced three leaders of disturbances at the filature at 6 Xinzha Road “ignorant women,” but sentenced them to only three days of custody for leading a strike in support of a wage rise.107 The idea of the “weaker sex” seems to have been associated not with some Victorian ideal of gentility or submissiveness, but with the idea that female faculties were incomplete, that women were less capable of rationality than men. The idea was used by women themselves, although whether out of tactical considerations—as an attempt by strikers to turn their womanhood to their advantage— or out of conviction is uncertain.108 Strike leaders were often forewomen. In 1898 Wang Xingfu, a forewoman at the Huasheng textile mill, ordered her charges to stop work after management cut the piece rate from ten to nine copper cash (in 1903, a silver dollar was deemed to equal one thousand copper cash). During the strike she was beaten up by two sidekicks of the foreman.109 In January 1910 at the Changlun filature forewoman Wang Zhaoxiong argued

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with the comprador over the poor quality of her work. He summoned the police to arrest her and fined the women under her charge five jiao for egging her on. The women immediately trooped out of the filature and off to the police station where they demanded Wang’s release.110 Women were thus willing to give fervent support to a forewoman with whom they had connections, illustrating how clientelist networks and native-place ties could motivate workers to protest when they perceived an injustice had been done.111 Where the injustice affected more than one native-place bang or clientelist grouping united action could overcome sectionalism. The 1911 silk filatures stoppage involved women from both Jiangnan, particularly the traditional silk-making region of Ningbo, and from Subei, because all were affected by the wage cut.112 Subei women did not yet make up the largest regional grouping, as they would by the late 1920s,113 although the riot erupted when the Indian guard hit a Mrs. Chen, the forewoman of the workers from Yancheng. Over a decade later, however, in a much bigger strike by silk workers, regional networks worked in a more ambivalent fashion. Initially the women joined forces, but once the strike began to lose momentum regional divisions came to the fore. The Yancheng bang, known as the Little Foot Party (xiaojiao dang) because of the bound feet of the women, stayed resolute, whereas the Taizhou bang, also from Subei but known as the Big Foot Party (dajiao dang) because women from that area did not bind their feet, opted to return to work.114 The split between the two groups—who in the eyes of those from Jiangnan were all Subei sojourners—highlights the labile quality of regional identifications.115 Unity across clientelist, native-place, and gender barriers was possible, but it was always fragile and ever likely to rupture into its constituent particularisms. These early strikes took place well before the creation of a labor movement, yet showed qualities of organization and purpose associated with more permanent labor organization. Some of the elements in these strikes appear to be drawn from a traditional script of popular protest, but there is no precedence in that script for certain others.116 The protests were structured by class relations—women organizing to defend wages, conditions, and protective networks against employers determined to cut labor costs and uphold their authority—but only glimmerings of class identity were evident. The strikers clearly identified owners and compradors (and occasionally foremen) as their opponents, and sometimes used terms such as “exploitation” (as in April 1905 when women at the Jicheng filature

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struck because the manager of the southern section “exploited” the workers).117 Yet although the women displayed solidarity and militancy, it is doubtful that they may be said to have displayed class consciousness. Generally they referred to themselves as “female labor” (nügong), rather than as part of a broader category of gongjie or gongren, and they justified their conduct by reference to fairness and the duty of employers and authorities not to let them starve. Implicitly, they condemned the employers for breaching the ethical code that they believed should regulate relations between unequals.118 Yet the fact that they dared to challenge authority and were aware of their legal and moral rights (even if they did not use the language of rights) and that they were determined to make their voices heard suggests that they were beginning to think about themselves as workers and as women in new ways.

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3

The 1911 Revolution in Shanghai

The overthrow of the Qing dynasty began in Wuchang on 10 October 1911. Essentially, the revolution consisted of a series of secessions by individual provinces, the character of which varied according to the social forces that carried them out. In Shanghai and the lower Yangtze delta the leading role was played by revolutionary nationalists from the Alliance Society, supported by the Restoration Society (Guangfuhui), with backing from Shanghai’s business elite. Months before the Wuchang uprising, the merchant-dominated Self-Government Guild in Nanshi district came out in favor of the anti-Qing cause and the gcc-promised subventions to the revolutionaries.1 Following the Wuchang uprising, the Self-Government Guild took steps to secure the neutrality of the imperial police force, for which it substituted the merchant militias.2 On 4 November a determined assault on the Jiangnan arsenal began. Some five thousand to six thousand insurgents mobilized over the next few days, including the Dare-to-Die corps (gansi dui) of secret-society members, particularly the Red Gang forces of Liu Fubiao, the Restoration army of Li Xiehe, the veteran Hunanese revolutionary who had switched allegiance from the Alliance Society to the Restoration Society, the merchant militias, and small detachments of students, shopkeepers, and workers organized by the guilds.3 For more than six hours rebels fought to take the arsenal, until a small group, led by a relative of a worker at the arsenal, climbed over the wall, set fire to the buildings, and forced the military commander to flee. The same day the garrison at Wusong surrendered.4 On 6 November members of the Self-Government Guild, the gcc, the merchant militias, and the Alliance Society met to organize a new municipal administration. The leader of the Central China Bureau of the Alliance Society, Chen Qimei, was made military governor of Shanghai, although only after an impassioned speech from Liu Fubiao, who waved a revolver to make his point. Chen’s backers in the business world took up posts in the new government: Shen Manyun be-

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came administrator of finance; Wang Zhen became administrator of agriculture, industry, and commerce, and Yu Xiaqing, who acted as adviser to Chen Qimei, became head of the Zhabei municipality. The post of civil administrator (zhishi), however, went to Li Pingshu, a native of Pudong who was one of the few business leaders in Shanghai sympathetic to the constitutionalists. Forced in the contest to become military governor to defer to his bitter foe, Chen Qimei, Li Xiehe declared himself governor of Wusong.5 The revolution in Shanghai was a largely military affair in which political leadership came from revolutionaries who had the support of the business elite. Nevertheless there was some popular input. Workers and small traders declared their resolve to “destroy the Manchus, revive the Han, and establish a republic.” 6 Of these objectives, the first two commanded the widest support. Slogans and posters spoke of “Manchu barbarians” (hu lu; literally, non-Han captives) and the Han family (Han jia). Street signs redolent of the Qing dynasty were torn down, and shop names that featured the characters qing (meaning “clear” or “bright,” as in the name of the former dynasty) or man (“full,” “satisfied,” as in Manchu) were removed. The head of the Town God temple was driven out and a statue of Yue Fei was set up in the main hall.7 Anti-Manchuism, which had surged in popularity since 1905, was visible above all in the cutting off of queues, long a symbol of Han abasement, and the unbinding of women’s feet.8 The new military government ordered soldiers in the revolutionary army to cut off their pigtails and decreed that civilians should be persuaded—but not compelled— to do likewise.9 Shenbao claimed, probably exaggeratedly, that 80 percent to 90 percent of men in Shanghai complied.10 There were, however, many reports of “citizen volunteers” and groups of soldiers forcibly cutting off the queues of country people coming into the city.11 And the resistance they encountered suggests that, for some at least, the queue had ceased to be an emblem of alien domination and had become an integral part of their Han identity. Nevertheless, the symbolic significance of queue cutting should not be minimized. A novel partly set in the period depicts boys calling those who kept their pigtails (weiba: literally, “tail”) “pigs.” 12 Liu Hua, who was to become the most talented workers’ leader in Shanghai before his execution at the end of 1925, recalled that as a twelve-year-old boy in Sichuan he watched, mesmerized, as a group of men who had cut off their pigtails walked along a road outside the county town of Yibin. The incident had such an effect that he rushed home and cut off his own, shouting:

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“Today I am a true citizen!” 13 As these actions suggest, the national identity most in evidence was defined in ethnic rather than civic terms, notwithstanding the rhetoric of republicanism. Yet anti-Manchuism was a recent political trend, and with the Qing dynasty gone for good it disappeared almost as fast as it had surfaced. During his brief tenure as president of the republic, Sun Yat-sen called for the introduction of new styles of dress “good for health, easy to move in, economical and elegant to look at.” He did not think that the adoption of western dress was appropriate for Chinese people, but the revolution boosted its popularity among Shanghai’s elites.14 This caused consternation on the part of the silk guild, and persuaded Chen Qimei to back the call for people not to wear western dress, although he did urge silk producers to develop cloth suitable for making western clothes.15 The Society to Promote National Products (Guohuo weichi hui), whose aims were “to promote national produce, develop enterprise, reform manufacture and broaden trade,” also called on people to cut off their queues and not to wear western clothes. The society discussed calling for a complete ban on the use of woolen cloth, but eventually it came down in favor of promoting Chinesemanufactured woolen cloth. In 1912 it put out 189,500 leaflets calling for use of national produce and for an improvement in the quality of native manufacture. In the seventeen months up to 1914, ninety of its activists addressed fifty-nine public meetings.16 The movement to promote national produce thus took off, and what had once been known as tuhuo (local produce), in contrast to yanghuo (foreign produce), became known as guohuo (national produce).17 Insofar as workers mobilized, it was mainly as members of the regional and occupational guilds and of the secret societies. In their relatively few declarations, workers generally describe themselves as “citizens,” “children of the Yellow Emperor,” or as “brothers,” and their concerns are mainly nationalist rather than class-related. On 6 November staff at the Telegraph Office refused to transmit telegrams by government troops or agencies and expressed support for the people’s army; they may also have gone on strike.18 On the same day workers at the Longhua gunpowder works agreed to work a night shift in order to increase output. A week later, Li Pingshu, who was the acting director of the Jiangnan arsenal as well as civil administrator, introduced a night shift with the backing of the workers— this in spite of the fact that working overtime had been resisted by the arsenal workers in 1883, 1890, and 1904.19 The workers formed a guard to

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defend the plant because of the upsurge in banditry, and groups volunteered to go to other areas to repair damaged artillery.20 As one of many examples, at the Jiangnan dockyard 250 workers and staff collected $276 to help pay the salaries of the soldiers of the people’s army.21 Ningbo and Shaoxing construction workers met at their guild to express “hot-blooded” (rexue) enthusiasm for the revolution and to raise money for the army.22 At one teahouse waiters and kitchen staff raised over fifty dollars “in support of the uprising of the people’s army, for the recovery of Han territory, and to follow wherever the righteous banner leads.” They said that although their own wages were meager, they would gain happiness in their work and peace in their lives from the “civilizing change” that was underway.23 Workers clearly expected the revolution to bring improvement in their lives. As early as 10 November, when the battle to increase output for the army was fiercest, craftsmen in the ordnance department and steel mill of the arsenal struck in protest at harsh treatment by managers who, they said, had resorted to their old tricks as soon as soldiers had left the premises. Li Pingshu warned them that they risked dismissal and criminal prosecution for breaching martial law.24 Two days later, craftsmen at the arsenal fell into a fight with a supervisor, as a result of which some were placed in military detention for several weeks.25 To judge from the evidence of these and other strikes, the issue of humane treatment was raised with new urgency, especially by artisans. Sun Yat-sen had long declared the “people’s livelihood” (minsheng) to be one of the Three People’s Principles of the national revolution. This was not a particularly radical sentiment, because the ruler had always recognized his obligation to attend to the people’s welfare and to guarantee peace and prosperity. Sun, however, began the process of dissociating the concept from values of social obligation and harmony and linking it to claims for economic rights.26 Chen Qimei thus felt it incumbent to promise improvements in the condition of the common people, not least because he relied on them for manpower and financial contributions. His administration introduced bans on opium, gambling, pollution from factories, and on the forcible conscription of civilians. It also liberalized military discipline, outlawing such punishments as the cutting off of ears.27 The most substantial concession, however, was a promise to remit taxes for a year, with certain taxes and duties being abolished in perpetuity.28 Chen’s promises to improve the livelihood of the people soon proved hollow. The moratorium on taxes threatened to compound the appalling financial

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difficulties of the new administration. Merchants and bankers were not prepared to countenance progressive fiscal reform, and the new tax schedule placed the fiscal burden firmly on the less well-off, provoking protests from the Society for the People’s Livelihood and National Prosperity (Minsheng guoji hui).29 Popular disaffection was not slow to surface. On 17 March 1912 the print trades wrote to Li Pingshu protesting over taxes, and in May bean-curd makers smashed up the commodity-tax office in fury at the new schedule.30 The overriding concern of Shanghai’s new rulers was to restore stability. Once Sun Yat-sen made clear his readiness to allow Yuan Shikai to become president, the city’s merchants began to distance themselves from the Alliance Society. As early as November, Zhang Jian, one of the few businessmen who was a staunch constitutionalist, promised Yuan his support.31 On 14 February 1912 Yuan became provisional president. On 29 April he announced a package of reforms designed to win the support of businessmen, which included abolition of the lijin tax, reduction in export taxes, unification of the currency, and support for industrial development.32 Henceforward, the city’s business leaders retreated into political neutrality or switched allegiance to moderate parties such as the Republican Party and the Progressive Party.33 Chen Qimei refused to serve under Yuan and was forced to resign as military governor at the end of July. His rival, Li Xiehe, swung behind the new president, even lending support to his bid to become emperor in 1915. Yet the influence of the revolutionaries was not yet played out. In August 1912 the Alliance Society transformed itself into the Guomindang (gmd), and those merchants and bankers who were long-standing members of the Alliance Society, such as Wang Yiting, Shen Manyun, and Zhu Baosan, joined the short-lived Shanghai branch of the gmd on 8 December 1912. In the elections of December and January, in which less than 10 percent of the population were eligible to vote, Song Jiaoren mobilized support for the new party very effectively, with the result that the gmd won 269 out of 596 seats in the House of Representatives.34

Labor and Nationalism Sun Yat-sen had long recognized the importance of organizing labor as part of the struggle against the Qings. In 1906 he instructed Ma Chaojun to “unify fellow feeling” (lianhe ganqing) among the mechanics in the arsenals

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and among the munitions workers and the transport workers, all of whom had strategic significance in any campaign to overthrow the dynasty. Ma had completed an apprenticeship as a mechanic in Hong Kong in 1902, before going to work as a mechanic in the shipyards of San Francisco. There he joined a lodge of the Triads, through which he met Sun in 1905.35 Upon his return to China, he went north in 1906 to organize Cantonese artisans; he worked for three months as a mechanic at the Jiangnan arsenal, where he recruited some foremen to the Alliance Society.36 Back south, he established ties with seamen’s leaders, including Su Zhaozheng, Lin Weimin, and Yang Yin, all natives of Sun Yat-sen’s home county of Xiangshan, who proved useful in smuggling arms and letters and transmitting information.37 At this stage, however, none of these initiatives was intended to organize labor as an end in itself, but rather to advance the overthrow of the dynasty. The inauguration of a republic put labor organization on the order of the day. Even before the collapse of the dynasty, strikers at the Faxing print works in the French Concession had formed a Society for Unity (tuanjieshe) in August 1911. The owners accused typesetter, Zhu Jianlin, of tyrannizing his fellow workers, and they had him arrested. A public outcry ensued when he fled into the Chinese City and was pursued by French police.38 In February 1912 the Nanjing parliament promulgated a provisional constitution, chapter 6 article 4 of which declared that citizens enjoyed full rights of assembly and association.39 This spurred the first attempt to create a labor movement in the city by members of the educated classes and some advanced workers. Railway employees were among the first to take advantage of the new rights enshrined in the constitution: on 1 April 1912 the Chinese Republic railway workers’ union was formed in Shanghai, with Shi Qing as its president, and employees in the workshops of the Shanghai-Wusong railway formed a consumer cooperative.40 That older beliefs still very much influenced these initiatives is shown by the fact that some railway employees formed an Association to Promote Morality ( jindehui) under the patronage of the goddess Guanyin.41 On 29 April 1912 the Chinese Women’s Republican Cooperative Society and other feminist organizations helped to bring into being a Silk Filatures Women Workers’ Benevolent Society (Saosi nügong tongrenhui), led by a woman worker Jin Guifeng.42 The silk guild objected strenuously when the society sought to affiliate to the Labor Party in July. The head of the guild, Yang Xinzhi, who had been a staunch supporter of Chen Qimei, called on Yu Xiaqing,

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now in charge of the district administration in Zhabei, to ban the society. In fact, it had already begun to falter, unable to build on its tiny initial membership of about thirty workers because so few could afford the subscription of three jiao a month.43 By far the most successful of the early labor organizations was the Manufacturing Workers’ Alliance Society (Zhizao gongren tongmenghui). Formed at the Jiangnan arsenal early in 1912, it soon claimed 1,000 members. This body was remarkable in seeing the interests of labor and capital (which it identified with the military administration of the arsenal) as distinct, if not completely antagonistic. Condemned in March by Chen Qimei as an “evil association” (xiehui), in June he banned it outright on the grounds that arsenal employees were under military discipline.44 His order, issued at a time when he was locked in a struggle with Yuan Shikai, made the following astonishing claim: “In their speeches the mechanics compare themselves with all workers and even assert that they must free themselves from capitalist exploitation. Moreover, they declare that although it was the mechanics who supplied the revolution with weapons, it was the arsenal officials who got the credit, just as the credit for fighting resolutely for victory went to the officers rather than the soldiers.” 45 The leaders of the society, in a boldly worded letter to Li Pingshu, director of the arsenal, reminded him that according to the provisional constitution, all citizens enjoyed inalienable rights of assembly, association, and freedom of the person.46 “However, our honorable director has decreed that workers at the arsenal are subject to military regulations, thereby confusing state authority with the rights of the citizen.” They pointed out that if they were under military discipline so was Li; in which case he should resign as head of the Republican Constitutional Party. If, however, he could belong to an organization, so could they. It was unthinkable that a year earlier anyone would have dared to address a government official in such a disrespectful tone, and the event testified to the extent to which the inauguration of a republic had emboldened a minority of workers to assert their rights. On 7 July 1912 the Manufacturing Workers’ Alliance Society held a meeting attended by more than eight hundred workers and five hundred members of the public. Greeted by military music and republican flags, each guest was given a fan as a memento of the occasion. The tone of the speeches revealed the extent to which revolutionaries now saw the organization of labor as an integral element in nation building. The president of the society, Yu Huimin, not himself a worker but a returned student from Japan,

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declared that because the foreign powers only respected military might, the arsenal, as China’s leading arms manufacturer, was of vital national importance.47 If the potential of the workers and the plant were to be realized, and if the arsenal were to compete with its foreign rivals, then workers and management had to rouse themselves from complacency. The purpose of the Alliance Society was to improve the morality (daode) of the workers and inspire them with patriotic fervor. He explained how moved he had been during the revolution to see workers on low wages stepping up the output of guns and ammunition without any thought for themselves. Only through organization could this spirit of commitment to the common cause be sustained.48 Shen Peizhen from the Women’s Martial Spirit Association (Nüzi shangwu hui) called on workers in all trades to study the mechanical arts and to implement new technology in order to increase national strength and the people’s happiness.49 Lin Hongjie said that under the old order, workers had not been equal members of society. The republic now provided the opportunity to advance the people’s livelihood by eliminating the floating population and allowing all workers to acquire skills. If workers united they would acquire strength, like a bunch of chopsticks that cannot be broken. Li Zhuoyun struck a note characteristic of the new republican discourse by reminding the audience of the vital importance to the national interest of cooperation between workers and “capitalists.” Likening China’s situation to that in 202 b.c. when Liu Bang had fought to establish the Han dynasty, Li said that it was a matter of urgency to increase the output of military matériel and raise the skills of workers. Only by improving morality, only through education, and only by working for a common purpose could China’s revival be ensured. The final speaker, Li Zongsu, proved to be an uncompromising advocate of workers’ rights. In civilized countries, she argued, workers enjoyed prestige because their work was the foundation of social existence, whereas in China they were treated no better than cattle or horses. Unless industry progressed, China would become ever poorer. She ended on a rousing note by saying that if workers were treated unequally they should strike. Workers should rely only on themselves and not on rich lords or rotten officials.50 Despite Chen Qimei’s ban, the society survived until 1913, when Yuan Shikai succeeded in liquidating it.51 It is evident from these speeches that the figure of the worker had definitively entered nationalist discourse. Workers’ poverty and oppression were recognized, as was their need to organize. But for most, if not all, support-

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ers of labor, the worker was interpellated as a member of the Chinese nation rather than as the member of a class. Workers were to organize principally to build the industrial strength of the nation, and only secondly to improve their material situation; labor organization, like technological innovation and raising skills, was perceived as vital to the modernization of China’s economy. Furthermore, workers were now seen as equal members of society and their poverty and oppression were deprecated; but some at least felt that they currently lacked the education in patriotism and morality necessary to realize their contribution to nation building. The immediate tasks of organization, therefore, were to instill morality, love of the nation, and a spirit of cooperation in working people.52

The Socialist Party With the installation of a republic, as many as three hundred political parties sprang up, most exceedingly small, some alternate incarnations of the same body, and many no more than vehicles to advance the fortunes of ambitious politicians (zhengke).53 Among the parties claiming to represent the interests of the common people were two that commanded a significant degree of support: the Socialist Party and the Labor Party. Shanghai’s nascent intelligentsia had been familiar with socialist ideas for several years, in part as a result of study in Japan where there was considerable interest in German state socialism, and in part as a result of Alliance Society publications.54 The latter regularly discussed socialist theory and practice, and Sun Yat-sen had gone so far as to equate the “people’s livelihood” with socialism, although not all Alliance Society members endorsed this. A Socialism Research Society was founded in Shanghai on 10 July 1911 by Jiang Kanghu (1883 –1954), who had made three sojourns to Japan between 1900 and 1907, where he had been attracted by anarchism.55 At that time, he liked to counterpose the anarchist notion of the Three Negations (san wu zhuyi)—the negation of family, government, and religion—to Sun Yatsen’s Three People’s Principles.56 Subsequently, however, he moved toward a type of reformist socialism colored by anarchism. Like Sun, he advocated “the encouragement of labor” and eschewed the idea of class struggle. Unlike him, he believed that socialism, which he equated with the “promotion of public enterprise” and common ownership of land, should be built from the bottom up.57 At the height of the revolution, on 5 November 1911, Jiang decided that the Socialism Research Society should change its

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name to the Chinese Socialist Party (Zhongguo shehui dang). From the start, however, he saw this not as a party that would engage in political struggle but as a “social party” that would devote itself to propaganda. Its program called for a republic, a lessening of racial divisions, reform of the law and respect for the individual, abolition of the right of inheritance, universal education, promotion of public enterprise and the encouragement of labor, a single land tax, and limitations on military expenditure. On 30 December 1911, shortly after his return to China, Sun Yat-sen held talks with Jiang and gave his approval to the program of the new party.58 We know, however, that Sun was ambivalent on one issue on which Jiang was unequivocal—namely, women’s suffrage.59 The Socialist Party grew rapidly because many were optimistic that the state could become the instrument for promoting industrial development and improving the lot of the people, thereby obviating the class conflict and social inequality that had accompanied capitalist development in the West.60 By January 1912 there were four thousand to five thousand members in thirty or so branches, many of them returned students from Japan. By April this had risen to ninety branches with thirty-five thousand members; and by summer there were at least one hundred thousand members.61 By November there may have been three hundred branches with two hundred thousand members.62 Membership was defined loosely, because the party saw itself more as an educational organization than as a political party. The bulk of members were students, professionals, and urban gentry, but included some artisans and urban unemployed; many were said to be members of secret societies.63 The party’s publications were catholic in their approach to the socialist tradition, introducing the ideas of thinkers as diverse as Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Kropotkin, and Marx.64 Chen Yilong (1886 – 1913), a journalist from Luotian in Hubei who had been active in the revolutionary movement before 1911, was secretary of the Shanghai branch and spent a good deal of time touring the country, speaking to newly formed branches.65 Meetings were held in Shanghai every Sunday and drew an average audience of several hundred, although a meeting at the Xinwutai theater on 2 June 1912 attracted a record five thousand, including two hundred women.66 Some members of the party were more drawn to active politics and campaigned for the abolition of the law on inheritance, for equal educational opportunities, and for a single land tax. Nationally, they set up about a hundred schools for the common people.67 Jiang Kanghu spoke about the “sacredness of labor” and about improv-

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ing the lot of workers, but he believed that it was premature to recruit workers into the party. Nevertheless on 1 May 1912, three thousand members of the Socialist Party and the Labor Party held a joint meeting at the Xinwutai theater, in what was arguably the first May Day celebration in the city, at which they agreed that the common aim was “the accumulation of capital with the aim of public ownership.” 68 On 23 June the two groups proposed to amalgamate, with advocates of merger pointing to the example of Europe where, they claimed, labor parties had a membership consisting of workers and a leadership consisting of intellectuals. They argued that a fusion would produce a model labor party.69 It is not clear how far the merger was actually implemented. The Socialist Party was split into at least three factions: one arguing that it should evolve into a normal political party; another, the advocates of “pure socialism,” opposing any compromise with the existing order and thus hostile to the merger with the Labor Party; and another with those like Jiang Kanghu who advocated a middle way.70 The views of the pure socialists, or anarchists, were expressed in a proclamation of the party’s industrial unit in July 1912: “In view of all that has to be done, Communism will brook no delay. Communism is the means, and public ownership of the land is its first principle.” 71 Following the party conference in November, the anarchist wing, led by Sha Gan, split to form the Pure Socialist Party, based in Shanghai. Within ten days the party was banned for preaching communism, the abolition of authority, and world revolution. Following the “Second Revolution” of July 1913, in which Chen Qimei made a desperate attempt to stop Yuan Shikai from installing an authoritarian regime, the Socialist Party as a whole was banned. Sha Gan and Chen Yilong (who had been a fearless critic of Yuan Shikai) were two of those executed for sedition.72 Notwithstanding its ideological incoherence and its paucity of practical achievement, the Socialist Party played a significant role through its newspaper, journal, and pamphlets in promoting knowledge of socialism, especially in the Shanghai region, and in forging a discourse through which the claims of labor could be articulated. The party may have had little success in organizing labor—although in Beijing especially some initiatives were taken—but its ideological and moral influence was by no means negligible.73 Jiang Kanghu was later characterized by the Communists as a typical zhengke, but although he may have been fickle in his ideology it is doubtful that his motivation was personal ambition.74 His residual anarchism made him uninterested in standing for parliament, although mem-

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bers of the Socialist Party did stand for elections to the House of Representatives in winter 1912 –1913, winning twenty to thirty seats.75 Furthermore, his party was too sprawling and heterogeneous to serve as the vehicle for one man’s ambitions.

The Labor Party The Labor Party was of far more significance in promoting the development of a labor movement in Shanghai. Founded on 21 January 1912, the Chinese Republican Labor Party began with just two hundred members. Those at a preparatory meeting were mainly craftsmen (gongshi) from the Qiuxin machine works in Nanshi, the Tongchang textile mill and oil factory, the British-owned Boyd engineering works (Xiangsheng), the Xinyi western-style furniture company, and the Gonghua leather factory.76 The driving force of the party was the worker Xu Qiwen, the son of a soldier in the Qing army and an Alliance Society member.77 Although the party distinguished between workers and capitalists, and although it supported workers in their struggles against “inhuman” capitalists, it was not quite the pure working-class party that its name suggests.78 The party saw itself as representing the gongjie, or workers’ section of society, but although increasingly used to denote workers alone, that term could still encompass all who were economically self-supporting, including employers. The preparatory meeting thus discussed whether capitalists and benefactors— one of whom was said to have donated eight hundred acres of land to the party— should be allowed to join the party. It agreed that nonworkers (waijie) could be supporters of the party, but that full membership should be restricted to self-supporting workers aged sixteen or over, regardless of wealth, sex, or religion.79 The inaugural meeting chose Zhu Zhiyao (1863 –1955), owner of the Qiuxin engineering company and the Tongchang textile mill and a member of Shanghai’s Roman Catholic community, to be its president.80 The founders of the party were broadly supportive of Sun Yat-sen, seeing labor organization as a key element in the drive to build the nation’s industry. Yet the party was also influenced by the syndicalism then in vogue in Europe and the United States, which was generally hostile to nationalism. Thus the party proclaimed its intention to unite workers into one big union that would represent their industrial and political needs and expressed mistrust of formal politics—“just talk for talking’s sake.” In some respects it resembled a federation of trade unions more than a political

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party, because workers were organized within it by trade. According to the constitution, the party’s aims were to: (1) encourage industrial development; (2) remove obstacles to workers’ knowledge; (3) alleviate the difficulties of workers; (4) promote the martial spirit of workers; and (5) advocate worker participation in government.81 The first aim was to be realized through exhibitions of manufactures, model workshops, industrial competitions, and industrial training schools. Workers’ education was to be advanced through extramural classes, weekend schools, periodicals, and newspapers. The economic hardships of labor were to be alleviated through the establishment of industrial banks, workers’ savings banks, and legislation regulating working hours and conditions. The martial spirit was to be nurtured through syndicates (gongtuan). Finally, worker participation in politics was to be encouraged by parliament legislating on matters to do with industry.82 Despite its syndicalist leanings, the Labor Party subscribed to the central tenet of nationalism, which linked the advancement of labor to the industrial development of the nation. Organization was seen as the key to mobilizing the energies of labor and to building China’s industrial strength.83 By summer 1912 the Labor Party claimed to have seventy branches, the biggest being in Hunan and at the Tangshan mines, although only sixteen were represented at the First National Congress in Nanjing on 3 November.84 There Xu Qiwen and Long Zhang, head of the Hunan party organization, were elected leader and deputy leader, respectively, and Sun Yat-sen was chosen honorary leader of the party (despite the fact that the gmd had on 25 August set itself up as a national party).85 In the Shanghai branch foundry workers, silversmiths, jewelry workers, and silk workers each formed their own sections, the social weight of artisans in the handicraft and machine trades far outweighing that of workers in the factory or transportation sectors. If the number of representatives per trade is any guide, it appears that support for the party was greatest among mechanics, foreign furniture makers, and spectacles makers.86 The branch also embraced some technical personnel (mainly in the engineering factories) and some small traders. Moreover, employers were not without influence in the party’s counsels. Zhu Zhiyao was the most obvious example, but the vice-president, Long Zhang, was president of the Hunan Chamber of Commerce and active in the Constitutionalist Clique.87 He conformed to the stereotype of the zhengke in all respects, which is not to suggest that the Labor Party was a tool of the zhengke.

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Under the energetic leadership of Xu Qiwen, the party made sterling efforts to support workers’ struggles. One of its first initiatives was to help foundry workers establish a Unity Association (tongyihui), which proceeded to challenge the directors of the foundry workers’ guild by proposing the addition of four new articles to guild regulations, one of which restricted the number of apprentices.88 In June 1912 Xu Qiwen met with the owners to discuss the proposals, but was met with a barrage of animosity. Ding Fulian, owner of the Peifeng works, told the meeting that their opposition to the new articles was shared by his “cousin,” Li Pingshu. When Xu reported back to the workers they were furious and declared a strike. A committee was formed, and within a day the employers accepted the articles.89 In November 1912 the Labor Party helped four thousand to seven thousand carpenters (the estimates vary) to renew a strike for a 20 percent wage increase to compensate for high rice prices by setting up a strike committee and producing handbills. When the strikers discovered that the Wenzhou bang was still working, they rushed to the scene and beat up the scabs. The civil administrator ordered everyone back to work as a precondition of arbitration, but the strike resumed when employees walked out of Sun Ayuan’s workshop by the Guandi temple at the West Gate.90 The guild directors were livid at Xu Qiwen’s interference, accusing him of not appreciating the weak position of the trade and of onesidedly upholding the interests of workers against employers. He was arraigned on a charge of incitement, and two traders made statements to the police that they had been pressured by Xu to become carpenters’ representatives within the Labor Party. Although the court found him not guilty, the Shanghai garrison commander gave Xu a severe reprimand. In January the carpenters accepted the 10 percent offer from the employers.91 On 7 December 1912 the silversmiths’ section of the Labor Party, led by Zhang Hongyao, rejected the guild directors’ offer of an 8 percent wage rise for datong workers (those doing larger-scale work) and 4 percent for xiaotong workers (those doing more detailed work), calling instead for a 10 percent increase across the board. The Labor Party helped the silversmiths by setting up a strike headquarters, printing leaflets, and promising strike pay. The manager of the Yuanda store took Ge Jixian and Wang Cuilang to court for inciting the strike and breaching guild regulations. He asked the court to dissolve the union, arguing that the majority of workers in the industry were ready to accept the offer made by the guild. The judge complied, and sentenced the two men to one month’s imprisonment

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for incitement.92 This, however, did not end the stoppage. Indeed workers in the gold shops of the Chinese areas and the French Concession briefly joined the strike. They, too, formed a union that was quickly dissolved by the police.93 An editorial in the North China Herald, titled “The Tyranny of Labour,” opined: “It is impossible to regard the action of the gold workers as anything else than the first concrete example of methods, hitherto unknown, which must become more and more familiar as knowledge of the outside world increases among the working classes of China.” 94 In March 1913 trouble flared up again among the foundry workers. Three employees of the Farnham (Yesong) works, including the organizer of the Unity Association, Zhou Yuwen, were accused of sprinkling nitric acid in the foreman’s wine, a charge almost certainly trumped up by the Peace Preservation Association, an employers’ front. Workers at the Farnham and Ruirong foundries walked out in protest, causing the British director of the Farnham company to press for the release of the three men. But the strike quickly broadened into one to defend the changes in the guild regulations that had been introduced after the previous stoppage in June 1912.95 The outcome of the strike is uncertain, but the Unity Association survived the “Second Revolution” of 1913, in spite of resistance from the foundry owners. In February 1916 it launched a new month-long strike for higher wages, in which the owners of thirteen foundries took the leaders of the association, Wang Yijie and Jiang Linquan, to court in an attempt to crush the union.96 In 1913 the Labor Party became embroiled in the movement to oppose Yuan Shikai’s growing dictatorship which culminated in the “Second Revolution.” In Shanghai this saw Chen Qimei’s secret-society forces engage in bitter fighting with government troops, centered on the Jiangnan arsenal, which led to hundreds being killed and wounded between 23 and 28 July.97 As a prelude to this event, on 28 May 1913 the Labor Party was involved in a minor skirmish that also centered on the Jiangnan arsenal. Xu Qiwen organized some seventy to eighty party members into a citizens’ army of the Chinese Republic in support of Chen Qimei, which at 1 a.m. attacked the Jiangnan arsenal, with backing from Zhang Yaoqing’s Green Gang forces. But the director had been forewarned, and within half an hour the rebels were crushed. Xu was taken to Beijing and executed in July, and the Labor Party was immediately outlawed.98 The republic was stillborn, with few of its political innovations surviving beyond 1913, yet it set China irrevocably on a new course. The revo-

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lution laid the foundation of a labor movement, a fact that has been obscured by historians in the PRC who wish to give the ccp full credit for this. Yet it is clear that in Shanghai it was the Labor Party, backed by the gmd, that conceived a labor movement. Moreover, even if the membership figures for the Socialist and Labor parties are grossly exaggerated, the two groups clearly played a major role in broadening public interest in socialism and labor politics and in propagating a political language in which worker interests could be articulated. More generally, the revolution gave rise to a discourse that justified labor organization not only in order to improve workers’ wages and conditions but also to build the industrial strength of the nation, and one that urged workers and employers to cooperate in building China’s economic strength. This discourse proved remarkably enduring, constituting the centerpiece of gmd thinking on the labor question right through the 1920s, even if certain elements in it, such as the emphasis on martial training for workers and the racial construal of nationalism, tended later to recede in importance. However, the extent of the ideological and organizational innovation set in motion by the 1911 Revolution should not be exaggerated. Many labor associations continued to articulate an essentially traditional concern with the moral education of the workers, stressing their commitment to uphold “the morality of the trade” and fortify “good faith”—themes at the heart of the culture of the guilds.99 And even the relatively radical Labor Party, which modeled itself on its British namesake and paid court to fashionable syndicalist ideas, combined old and new understandings of politics. In its policy statement of July 1912, for example, it claimed both that its aims derived from ideals of “right, equality, and republicanism”—highly novel concepts in the Chinese context—yet stressed that its methods were rooted in “justice, humanitarianism, caution and balance”—values at which no Confucian would have demurred.100

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4

Nationalist and Labor Protest, 1913 –1919

After the suppression of parliamentary and representative institutions in 1913 –1914, many students, teachers, writers, and journalists turned away in bitterness from political parties, convinced that those who had been elected to serve the people had proved to be base opportunists. This mood deepened after the death of Yuan Shikai in 1916 as rival factions fought for control of the Beijing government, thereby accelerating the disintegration of China as a sovereign state. Soul-searching among the intelligentsia, increasingly designated by the neologism zhishifenzi (knowledgeable elements), led to a realization that nation building would require far more than the establishment of modern political institutions and a modern economy. Disillusioned with politics, some radical intellectuals turned to culture as the realm of true change, believing that the nation could only be resurrected if its fundamental values and practices were radically recast. In 1915 Chen Duxiu (1879 –1942), soon to become dean at Beijing University, founded the journal Youth, which became the mouthpiece of the socalled New Culture movement. The movement lambasted Confucian culture for its subordination of the individual to state, kin, and family and lauded western values of science and democracy. It proclaimed that the key to national salvation lay in the awakening of the consciousness of individuality, because a people imbued with a “slave mentality” could never be free.1 Youth and women, in particular, were seen to be the vector of the liberty that alone could rejuvenate the nation, and their battles against patriarchal authority became charged with patriotic significance. But the New Culture Movement had a limited impact on the educated public prior to the May Fourth Movement of 1919. For those seeking to advance the cause of nationalism and of labor the years between 1913 and 1919 were ones of frustration, yet neither the nationalist movement nor the labor movement fell into complete desuetude. In particular, the anti-imperialist

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National/Labor Protest, 1913 –1919 77

protests that erupted for the first time in a decade in 1915 did much to shape the longer-term development of nationalism in Shanghai.

The Twenty-One Demands In 1890 there were only 4,265 foreign residents in Shanghai, of whom 3,821 were in the International Settlement and 444 in the French Concession. Between 1910 and 1930 the number grew from 15,012 to 58,607. This rapid growth was due in large part to the influx of Japanese, whose numbers rose from 3,361 in 1910 to 26,193 in 1928, of whom 46.8 percent were women, making them by far the largest national group in the foreign population.2 The social profile of the Japanese population was far more plebeian than that of other national communities, dominated as it was by traders and shopkeepers, and so much closer in composition to the majority Chinese community.3 The Japanese were also much more selfcontained than the other foreign communities, concentrated in the Hongkou district and the “external roads” area of the International Settlement, where Japanese shops, hotels, and restaurants abounded, where Japanese was spoken, and where Japanese goods were on sale in Chinese stores.4 The Chinese viewed the Japanese differently from the other predominantly western nationals in the city. Not only were they Asians in “racial” terms, their culture was seen as an inferior derivative of that of China. Moreover, there was a long tradition of anti-Japanese feeling in China that viewed the Japanese as a race of “dwarf slaves,” which the nationalist movement inherited. Li Hongzhang, for instance, differentiated Japan, which he saw as a poor, greedy, and untrustworthy power, from the “civilized” powers of the West, whose activities in China were of a different moral order.5 For their part, Japanese residents in China “all too often let their irritation and disgust at what they saw as the disorder and uncleanliness of the Chinese show through in small manifestations of pettiness and contempt.” 6 Nevertheless until 1915 relations between the Chinese and Japanese in Shanghai remained fairly calm. In January 1915 the Japanese government placed Twenty-One Demands on the government of Yuan Shikai that were tantamount to claiming China as a Japanese protectorate. This event triggered the first outburst of antiimperialist sentiment since 1905. On 19 February a Citizens’ Patriotic Society formed to press Yuan Shikai to resist the demands. On 4 March he

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responded by ordering the suppression of all antiforeign demonstrations. Students refused to be cowed, playing on the ethno-national idiom so familiar to ordinary people: “Alas, the Chinese Republic will follow the steps of Korea. Why did Korea perish? She perished because her people lacked the sense of unity and heroism and patriotic shame. After it perished, Japan executed and slaughtered the Korean people at will, appropriated their property, dishonored their women and girls, and corpses filled the streams and gutters.” 7 On 7 May the Japanese presented Yuan’s government with an ultimatum, to which the government essentially capitulated two days later. Henceforward, 7 and 9 May became known as National Humiliation (guochi) Days, key events in the patriotic calendar. By the period 1926 – 1927, May was a month that the authorities dreaded because it saw a series of anniversaries—May Day, 4 May (the start of the May Fourth Movement in 1919), 5 May (Marx’s birthday; never popular but heavily promoted by the ccp), 7 and 9 May (National Humiliation Days), and 30 May (the start of the May Thirtieth Movement)—that drove anti-imperialist agitation to fever pitch.8 More generally, “national humiliation” became a key term in the lexicon of nationalism, adumbrating the shift toward the reconfiguration of nationalism in terms of anti-imperialism that was to follow in the 1920s. Japan was behaving little differently from the western powers, yet popular opposition to the Japanese was virulent. Since the Chinese had always seen Japan as a borrower of superior Chinese civilization, such infractions of sovereignty as the last of the Twenty-One Demands, which asserted the right of Japan to propagate Shintoism in China, were deeply wounding to the national psyche. A National Humiliation Society was formed to protest the government’s capitulation, and on 24 May a boisterous meeting of over two thousand people called for the execution of the minister of foreign affairs and for war against Japan.9 Zhou Shoujuan wrote a “castigatory novel,” Diary of a Subjugated People, which was widely reprinted.10 Protest songs appeared, one of which, “The Five Watches” (Wu geng diao), caught the public mood: “The first watch strikes one / The moon has just risen / the dwarf slaves / ya-ya-de-wei / have insulted us Chinese / presented the Twenty-One Demands / revealed naked aggression / have taken Shandong and occupied Qingdao / How frightening and worrisome / ya-ya-de-wei / Countrymen, hurry to combat them.” 11 Resistance to the Twenty-One Demands mainly took the form of a boycott of Japanese goods, tied to a campaign to “buy Chinese.” On 23 March

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the Society to Promote National Products was re-formed in Shanghai: forty-nine businesses affiliated and the society put out 318,000 leaflets. Henceforward Chinese cloth would become known as “patriotic cloth.” 12 A National Salvation Fund was set up to raise fifty million dollars to develop native industries and reduce China’s economic dependence on Japan, and the gcc agreed to a 20 percent increase in freight rates, the proceeds of which were to go into the fund. It claimed, dubiously, that half the projected sum had been raised by mid-July. Within the gcc more nationalistically minded businessmen spearheaded the boycott, thereby preparing the ground for a seizure of control of that body from more conservative elements in 1919.13 As in 1905, however, most of the work of enforcing the boycott was carried out by students. Despite a presidential decree of 29 June banning the boycott, the movement grew through July and August, diminishing gradually thereafter. The battered remnants of the gmd, which had recast itself as the Chinese Revolutionary Party in July 1914, had retreated into military conspiracy and took no part in the movement. Indeed, Sun Yat-sen professed readiness to make even greater concessions to the Japanese than those they were demanding, if only they would back his struggle against Yuan Shikai.14 Workers continued to play an ancillary role in the boycott. Those most involved were the Pudong dockers working for Japanese companies. On 3 April workers on the wharves of the Osaka, Nisshin, and Mitsubishi companies refused to handle cargoes, stating that it was “our people’s utmost duty” to support the boycott.15 They were joined on 9 April by their comrades at the old and new docks of the Osaka company and at the Mitsui coal depot. Some railway workers also took steps to enforce the boycott.16 On 2 April 1915 a riot broke out at the nwk No. 5 mill when wages were not paid. Windows and machinery were smashed and the police arrested twenty-seven men, aged sixteen to thirty-two. Although the riot had a work-related cause, there were hints in the press that it was fueled by anger at the Twenty-One Demands.17 Han Hui, who was seeking at this time to revive the Labor Party, may have had a hand in the strike.18 Those most affected by the boycott were the small traders and shopkeepers, who made up the majority of the Japanese community in Shanghai and who formed neighborhood associations and vigilantes “for self-defense and selfprotection” in the face of physical attack. These economically insecure strata of the Japanese population were far more threatened by Chinese nationalism than the wealthier strata, and they became “increasingly un-

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yielding, combative and vengeful.” 19 This mood was to intensify with the boycotts of 1919 and 1923. The protests against the Twenty-One Demands thus marked what Mark Peattie calls “the beginning of a darkening era of Sino-Japanese relations.” 20

Conflict within the Guilds As in the last years of the empire, working-class protest remained disconnected from the nationalist movement, continuing to be inspired by overwhelmingly economic concerns. The weakening of competition from foreign manufactures, which came about as a result of the First World War, caused Chinese manufacturing to expand between 1915 and 1918 and to surge ahead between 1919 and 1922. After 1913, the handicraft industry also recovered from the depression into which it had sunk at the end of the old regime, as the reduction in foreign imports led to a broadening of the domestic market.21 Yet if the war years were a halcyon time for native manufacturers, they also were ones of increasing insecurity for workers. The depreciation of the copper currency, which had been a serious problem since 1908, continued. The exchange rate, although subject to fluctuation, at times reached 140 coppers to 1 silver dollar, causing a steady increase in the cost of rice and other subsistence items.22 As a result, labor unrest steadily mounted. Whereas thirty strikes took place in Shanghai between 1909 and 1913, there were eighty-nine in the period 1914 to 4 May 1919, and they were bigger and longer than in the earlier period.23 Moreover, they took place in spite of the fact that section 22 of the Law on the Preservation of Public Order of March 1914 prohibited any gathering that might lead to a strike and prescribed penalties of up to five months imprisonment or fines of between five and fifty dollars for incitement or disturbing the peace.24 Workers of all types went on strike, but in contrast to the period before 1911 it is the participation of workers in the handicraft sector that stands out. The chief, although by no means only reason for their militancy was the depreciation of the copper currency. Artisans were generally better paid than workers in the factory sector, but they continued to be paid in copper cash or the newer copper coinage (mei), whereas after 1913 many workers in the cotton mills (although not in the silk filatures) were paid in silver.25 The extent of the problem this caused may be seen in the fact that in November 1914 shopkeepers refused all copper coins, demanding payment in “big money.” 26

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Wage disputes had been a long-standing feature of industrial relations in the handicraft sector but had rarely posed a serious threat to the organic solidarity of the trade. After 1911, much industrial unrest continued to be absorbed by the structures of the guilds, but there were a number of disputes that suggest that the corporate ethos of the guilds was coming under unprecedented strain. One such was the painters’ strike, which broke out in fall 1914. There may have been as many as seven thousand painters in Shanghai, employed by 350 to 360 firms that specialized in indoor or outdoor painting. The trade was split between five native-place bangs— Shanghai, Hangzhou, Shaoxing, Suzhou, and Hunan—but all workers were represented in the guild (qiyi gongsuo) by the xiaohang.27 At the end of October 1914 eight leaders of the xiaohang called a meeting at the guild headquarters, attended by four hundred representatives, which resolved to ask the owners for a raise of forty-five cash per day and for payment in silver. The employers agreed to a temporary increase of fifteen cash, pending an investigation of prices by the civil administrator. The workers rushed to celebrate victory with music and a thanksgiving to the gods, only to have the employers withdraw the raise.28 This action led to painters occupying the guild premises and to hundreds of people taking part in raids on workshops that continued to work. In one spree a crowd of two hundred to three hundred smashed the windows of half a dozen strikebreaking firms. Armed Sikhs were called in and two men were arrested.29 On 18 November the two arrested men, who may have been members of secret societies, were sentenced to six months of imprisonment, the harshness of the punishment outraging not only the painters but workers in the construction trade as a whole.30 Two days later some thirty painters came before the Mixed Court, charged with intimidation following an incident in which 150 men had smashed up a paint shop on Jiujiang Road. In another case, fifteen men, two of them under the age of thirteen, were accused of intimidating workers on a building site. All were sentenced to a week in jail.31 At this point, the strike spilt over into a stoppage by the entire construction (shui-mu-ju) trade. Although closely allied to the painters, the seven thousand construction workers were divided into three basic trades—masons, carpenters, and joiners ( jugong)—and organized into a separate guild. They belonged to the Shanghai, Shaoxing, and Ningbo bangs.32 On 18 November six joiners were arrested for putting out a leaflet that said that they could no longer live on their wages and that demanded justice (gongyi) in the form of one dollar for three days of work. The next day, more than one

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thousand builders, carpenters, and joiners converged on the Lu Ban temple in Nanshi, but were barred entry by the guild director. Several were injured as they tried to invade the temple, and the police were called. The next day workers attacked a police station in Nanshi.33 Joiners were the first of the construction trades to down tools, their leaders insisting that they hand in their axes in return for a strike subsidy of two hundred cash.34 Builders and carpenters soon followed. From 20 November all construction sites were at a halt. The three bangs issued a joint leaflet, explaining that they had not taken the decision to strike lightly, and had only done so after the employers failed to respond to their written requests. The police issued a counterstatement accusing a handful of men of coercing their colleagues by confiscating their tools. This statement likened the strikers to bandits, and warned the majority of “honest” construction workers that they would not benefit from the action.35 The stoppage lasted four days. On 24 November the civil administrator presided at a meeting of the guild in the City temple, where he persuaded the owners to agree to a raise of thirty cash. He said that his decision was motivated by a desire to relieve the hardship of the workers and to maintain business for the owners— to “share weal and woe” (xin-qi yu gong)—and by a concern to deter “unworthy” apprentices from again stirring up trouble.36 Meanwhile the painters’ strike also came to an end, but with a less satisfactory outcome. Under the settlement, also brokered by the civil administrator, the painters gained a raise of twenty-five cash.37 Relations between the xiaohang and dahang of the painters’ guild never recovered. In 1916 a revived Labor Party encouraged the painters to form a trade union, the qiyi gongsuo (a name almost identical to that of the guild, except for one character), which launched a strike to improve wages at the end of August.38 The guild directors took its leaders to court, accusing them of incitement, causing damage to paint shops, and beating up nonstrikers.39 Qu Gang (Qu Jinsheng), the Labor Party representative, was charged with kidnapping after four painters locked up a paint-shop proprietor for refusing to give five piculs of white rice and ten of firewood to the union.40 On 18 September the civil administrator ordered the employers to negotiate with the men, but the employers said that payment in dollars—a key demand of the strikers—was out of the question. Some were ready to offer a thirty cash raise, but others would concede no more than ten. The strikers insisted that they would settle for nothing less than forty-two cash. At a joint meeting a workers’ representative deplored the meanness of the employers and a fight

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broke out, which led to two more arrests.41 The strike dragged on, becoming increasingly acrimonious. On 9 October the leader of the Labor Party, Han Hui, sent an “impertinent” letter to the civil administrator demanding that he force the owners to agree to the strikers’ terms.42 In the end, the workers settled for thirty cash. The virulence of the strike shook the authorities, and within the weeks the Mixed Court ordered the closure of the painters’ union.43 The British acting-consul later opined that this strike saw “the language employed by western labor agitators and communists first used in Shanghai.” 44 Strikes in the handicraft sector demonstrate that workers were capable of overcoming particularistic solidarities when they felt that cooperation against the employers outweighed differences of interest. Among butchers, for instance, about half were natives of the city, a quarter belonged to the Hangzhou bang, and a quarter to the Suzhou bang. In December 1915 all three bangs went on strike.45 The three hundred leather-case makers of Shanghai were divided into the Shanghai, Ningbo, and Shaoxing bangs, with the Shanghai bang being the largest and the other two more or less equal in size. All three belonged to the xiaohang, which coordinated a stoppage in May 1913 that lasted two weeks.46 Palm-couch makers, similarly divided by minute distinctions of craft and native place, also pursued a successful strike in the same month.47 In other words, in the face of economic problems that affected the trade as a whole, workers could transcend regional and craft divisions and act in unison against the employers. Indeed it may have been easier for handicraft workers to act in common, because the guild tradition celebrated ganqing—the emotional commitment of guild members to one another and their willingness to make sacrifices for the common cause. Yet if there was a potential for solidarity among members of the trade, alliances between different regional and craft groups were fundamentally tactical and governed by self-interest. In May 1918, for example, when construction workers went on strike for a second time, the Ningbo bang refused to support the stoppage, which did not prevent the strikers from achieving their aims.48 Similarly, when the xiaohang of the wooden-box makers’ guild called a strike in May 1918, three of the four bangs took part, but the Suzhou bang refused and caused the action to go down in defeat.49 Where unity was achieved, it is possible sometimes to discern the hand of the secret societies. The British police accused Chen Qimei and Red Gang leader Liu Fubiao of involvement in the painters’ strike of Novem-

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ber 1914, saying that among the instigators were a “fair sprinkling of the ‘Dare-to-Die’ and ‘Blood-and-Iron’ types.” 50 Similarly, in the three-week strike by dyers in May 1915 among those arrested was Li Shengxian, head of the “gray” section of the dyers’ guild, who was nicknamed “Number Two Foot.” Accused by the dye shop owners of being a gang member and of extorting money, he was found guilty by the Mixed Court and fined $20.51 The most overt intervention by the secret societies came in May 1918, when sixteen hundred masons and carpenters in the Shanghai and Shaoxing bangs of the construction workers’ guild went on strike, without the backing of their Ningbo comrades. The instigator of the strike was alleged to be Xie Qing, a veteran of the Green Gang and known as “Scurvy Head,” who was a bona fide member of the Nanshi section of the construction workers’ guild. He had been brought to court in the past by the guild directors for fomenting unrest and was said to have organized at least three strikes, including one by peddlers. To muster support for the stoppage, Xie invited a dozen prominent guild members to a feast at a daoist temple. To the accompaniment of hired musicians, they drank “one-heart” wine and pledged support for the strikers. Once the strike was won, the Green Gang demanded its pound of flesh in the shape of one cash per worker, apparently on a regular basis.52 A final instance of secret-society involvement came in April 1919, when recrimination arose between the dahang and xiaohang of the leather-case makers’ guild over deposit money. The dahang reported Wang Tingfa (nicknamed “Little Eyes”), Chen Laorong (nicknamed “Foot of the Mound”), and Gao Fusheng (nicknamed “Military Adviser”) to the police for incitement.53 The first years of the republic thus saw an unprecedented level of dissension in the handicraft sector, which on a loose definition qualifies as class conflict insofar as deteriorating economic circumstances pushed workers into conflict with the masters over wages and conditions. More pertinently, the strikes displayed a degree of animosity between masters and men that was historically new. Even so, it is doubtful whether workers in the handicraft sector had acquired a class identity because secret-society and native-place networks were vital in mobilizing them to defend their interests. Moreover, much of the solidarity evinced in these disputes derived from values intrinsic to the ethos of guilds or secret societies, such as ganqing and brotherhood, with strikers also drawing on such guild practices as requiring members to hand in tools at the beginning of a stoppage, petitioning the magistrate to arbitrate, and engaging in religious rituals.

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Nevertheless there were signs of change. In virtually all the stoppages, handicraft workers formed strike committees, publicized their demands, issued leaflets, formed pickets, and endeavored to provide strike pay to their members. There were also instances of a demonstration effect, wherein the success of one group inspired another to follow their example, notably in May 1918 when leather-case makers, palm-leaf couch makers, and wooden-case makers all cited the recent successful strike by construction workers as their inspiration.54 Yet if weapons from the arsenal of modern trade unionism were now being deployed, there was no general move by workers to split from the guilds. The painters were exceptional in this regard, and their attempt to create a trade union had much to do with the involvement of the Labor Party. More typical of this period was the setting up in 1917 of a guild to represent printers throughout the city by skilled printers and some foremen at the Shenbao print works, the Xinwenbao print works, Commercial Press, and Zhonghua book company.55 Antagonism between employees and employers was a fact, therefore, but it did not lead to general undermining of the guilds. This required a language of class, backed by organizations to promote it. For this reason the work of intellectuals was vital in creating new vocabularies in which the common interest of workers could be articulated and labor protest legitimated.

Anarchism in Shanghai Between 1905 and the early 1920s, anarchism had a profound impact on radical social thought in China. In June 1907 Liu Shipei and his wife, He Zhen, founded the Journal of Natural Justice in Tokyo, while in Paris, the major center of Chinese anarchism at the time, the journal New Century appeared from 1907 to 1910. By the beginning of the republic era, most of the anarchist classics were available in Chinese, something that could not be said of marxism until 1920 and after.56 Both the Tokyo and Paris groups, inspired largely by Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism, advocated the abolition of private property and “authoritarian power” (qiangquan), and called for a society based on mutual aid in which each contributed according to ability and received according to need.57 Whereas for Sun Yat-sen the seizure of political power was the paramount goal, for the anarchists it was social revolution—understood as the free association of free individuals— that was the aim.58 Taking the individual as their starting point, they advocated a cultural revolution in which the values of “selfishness” (si) would

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be supplanted by those of public-mindedness (gongdao).59 Such ideas proved influential in the New Culture Movement, which did much to popularize such anarchist notions as education of the common people, the abolition of the patriarchal family, and the liberation of the individual.60 It was less as a formal ideology, however, and more as a political orientation, an inspiration, even a mood, that anarchism captured the imagination of radical intellectuals. In practice, it was not always easy to distinguish anarchism from socialism, and much of the thinking of the first Chinese marxists bore traces of anarchist influence.61 Initially, anarchists showed little interest in the labor movement. Prior to 1911 the Journal of Natural Justice published a handful of marxist writings that touched on the position of the working class, and New Century published a few pieces on labor problems in its hundred-odd issues, but it was not until the republic began to founder that anarchists seriously addressed the labor issue.62 In July 1914 Shifu (Liu Sifu, 1884 –1915), who hailed from the same county in Guangdong as Sun Yat-sen, set up the Society of Anarchist-Communist Comrades in Shanghai. This group called for the overthrow of capitalism and all forms of authority and for the reorganization of society on the basis of mutual aid.63 Between spring and autumn 1914 the society published issue numbers five to twenty-two (the last that was edited by Shifu before his death) of a journal called Minsheng (subtitled in Esperanto La Voco de la Popolo).64 This publication made an important ideological contribution to the development of the labor movement in Shanghai, with Shifu publishing extended critiques of the state socialism of Sun Yat-sen and Jiang Kanghu and arguing for social revolution carried out by common people. But it also did much to propagate the importance of independent class organization from a broadly syndicalist perspective. When Cantonese seamen broke the strike by Ningbo seamen in October 1914, for example, Minsheng appealed: The reason for the failure of this strike is entirely to do with the inability of Ningbo and Cantonese seamen to unite. In normal times much harm is done through internecine strife between the two groups. Their organizations are divided by region of origin, and when there is a strike the capitalists turn this to their advantage. This must be thoroughly deplored. We respectfully inform all laborers to become aware of their common interest, to form a united organization to resist the capitalists (the great enemy of the laborers). We hope that the distinc-

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tions among workers (by region or by occupation) will not allow the capitalists to reap unfair gains.65 In a piece published posthumously, titled “The Shanghai Strike Wave,” Shifu diagnosed the causes of the strikes in Shanghai of 1914 as lying in workers’ poverty and ignorance and, more fundamentally, in the “evils of the capitalist system.” He called on workers to “organize syndicates [gongtuan] and to seek knowledge,” to set up common people’s schools and workers’ newspapers, and to awaken consciousness in addition to fighting for higher wages, an eight-hour working day, and a Sunday holiday.66 Following Shifu’s death, four issues of Minsheng appeared in May and June 1915, and thereafter the journal appeared sporadically, and mainly under the editorship of Liang Bingxian and Zheng Peigang, until issue twenty-nine in late 1916. Following the journal’s demise, Shifu’s four younger sisters took jobs in a tobacco factory in Shanghai, and Zheng Peigang served as a crewman for a shipping company.67 In March 1918 Liang, Zheng, and Shixin, the younger brother of Shifu, teamed up with Wu Zhihui, formerly of the Parisian New Century group (mistakenly identified by the International Settlement police as a dangerous “Bolshevist”), to start a new journal, Labor (Laodong).68 At some point in 1918, however, the Society of Anarchist-Communist Comrades also launched the journal Workers Mirror (Gongren Baojian), which carried many theoretical articles such as writings by Errico Malatesta, polemics on the general strike, and so forth.69 Written in literary Chinese, Labor addressed problems of a more practical kind from a standpoint that was still anarchocommunist but influenced by anarcho-syndicalism. Its first issue bore a picture of Proudhon and set forth its founding principles: “Respect for labor; the promotion of laborism; support for true labor and the elimination of false labor; fostering the ethics of labor; inculcating knowledge about the world and the basic education of labor; recording the activities of world labor in order to clarify the social question; encouraging contact between our laborers and those in the rest of the world in order to solve the social question.” 70 Its guiding principle of “laborism” (laodongzhuyi), supposedly derived from Tolstoy via Mushakoji Saneatsu, inspirer of the New Village Movement in Japan, posited work as the key to social equality and called for the abolition of wage labor as the principal form of subordination in modern society.71 Together with the allied notion of the “sacredness of labor,” laborism became central to the discourse of the labor movement

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during the May Fourth Movement of 1919. More practically, Labor helped to spread knowledge of the international labor movement, running short articles on workers’ struggles abroad, the significance of May Day, overseas Chinese workers, and the work-study movement. The journal also carried a “letter from a worker” column and occasional cartoons, and it was the first Chinese publication to discuss the significance of the Russian Revolution, with all five issues carrying news about developments in Soviet Russia.72 Through these publications anarchist ideas began to percolate through nascent labor circles in Shanghai. Despite its influence on the labor movement, however, anarchism was never as influential in Shanghai as in Guangzhou. Its organized forces were always tiny and anarchists found it difficult to integrate “small deeds,” such as common people’s schools and the work-study movement, into a longerterm strategy for social revolution. In particular their aversion to nationalism made it difficult for them to link up with the one movement that was capable of mobilizing large swathes of the urban populace. Nevertheless by the time of the May Fourth Movement, anarchist notions such as mutual aid, the sacredness of labor, laborism, selfishness, innate goodness (liangxin), egalitarianism, humanitarianism, common people’s education, combined work and study, and “going to the people” had become commonplace in the hybrid and ideologically inchoate discourse of the labor movement.73 And while certain ideas, such as laborism, were to fade in importance during the 1920s, others, such as mutual aid and innate goodness, proved to be long-lasting.

Continuing Attempts at Labor Organization The years after the “Second Revolution” saw the dissolution of most of the labor initiatives born of the 1911 Revolution. As early as 1914, however, Han Hui, a former military governor (dujun) of Anhui who had been head of the general affairs bureau of the Labor Party in 1912, reopened a branch of the Labor Party in the French Concession. And after Chen Qimei’s assassination in May 1916, he used his connections as a tong-generation member of the Green Gang to resume the Labor Party’s activities.74 The party proclaimed its aim to be “to seek to raise the position of Chinese workers and to promote equality and cooperation between laborers and capitalists in order to develop the productive forces of society.” Its constitution stated that the party “advocates workers’ autonomy (zizhi) and de-

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mands that it share in political power.” 75 In late summer 1916, the revived party immersed itself in several strikes and played a significant role in encouraging the painters to form a trade union. In December 1916 Han petitioned the Beijing government to legalize the Labor Party.76 How far his efforts were disinterested is unclear, because in spite of his association with Sun Yat-sen’s Revolutionary Party he was rumored to be interested in the vacant post of Shanghai’s chief of police.77 On 18 February 1917 a branch of the Labor Party was opened in Pudong, and by the following month the party claimed to have twenty branches in Shanghai. In Pudong the branch sent speakers around the factories and organized street-corner meetings on the docks and outside cotton mills, but the axis of the party’s work appears to have shifted from supporting workers’ struggles to constructing schemes for model factories and workers’ banks.78 As friction among feuding factions in Beijing intensified, the authorities in Shanghai clamped down on the Labor Party. Han Hui was arrested by the French Concession police, accused of brigandage, and later executed.79 Apart from assisting the painters in their bid to set up a trade union, the most significant initiative by the Labor Party occurred among the employees of the Commercial Press, some of the most literate and well-paid workers in Shanghai. In January 1917 a friendly society (tongzhishe) was formed “to investigate progress and to unify sentiment.” Despite this vague aim, the society viewed itself as a workers’ defense organization and ignored the company’s demand that it dissolve.80 In March it embarked on the first strike in the company’s twenty-odd year history, after the management began to pay typesetters according to the number of characters set rather than by the page.81 A foreman, Zhang Liangfu, was dismissed, allegedly for sympathizing with the typesetters, although the company later claimed that he was laid off owing to lung disease. A bookbinder named He, who was a member of the governing council of the Labor Party, drew up a list of three demands: an end to on-the-spot dismissals; paid holidays; and for the Labor Party to be allowed to distribute its propaganda.82 The company brusquely rejected the demands, causing one-third of the workforce of fifteen hundred to walk out.83 The sacking of four strike leaders caused the remaining letterpress and western-language sections to join the stoppage. Only the female employees, who mainly worked in the bindery, continued to work normally. The strike spread to the Zhonghua book company, whose director coaxed his employees back to work by offering them a pay raise. He also made a donation to the friendly society at the Commercial

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Press in a canny bid to weaken his rival.84 The Commercial Press put out publicity pointing out that the workers were among the best-paid in Shanghai and that facilities included a company doctor and a school. Because the Press had no difficulty recruiting strikebreakers, the strike collapsed.85 The typesetters, led by Yang Changyuan, struggled to keep the friendly society afloat, announcing in December that “because we experience the suffering brought upon workers’ lives by the oppression of capital, several dozen comrades are resolutely uniting in order to seek liberation.” 86 In July 1918 seven members of the society called a strike in protest at the “embezzlement” of their wages by management. The company may have provoked this stoppage, for hoodlums were brought in to beat up the ringleaders, who were then fired. The years between 1913 and the May Fourth Movement were not quite as bleak for the advocates of national and class politics as they superficially appear. After a relatively subdued role in the 1911 Revolution, students, teachers, and the intelligentsia asserted themselves once more in the antiimperialist protests of 1915, although the involvement of workers remained limited. The suppression of the gmd and the retreat of its successor into military conspiracy were factors that diverted public attention away from organized labor as a factor in national salvation, although the dogged efforts of anarchists and, to a lesser extent, of the revived Labor Party meant that labor organization never dropped off the political agenda completely. Indeed worker militancy, far from diminishing in these years, increased apace. Furthermore, unlike much labor activism in the 1920s, it was directed as much at Chinese as at foreign employers; in that limited sense it was a more purely class movement than the much larger strikes of the 1920s. Between 1895 and 1913, there were fifty-six strikes in Shanghai, of which fifty-one were in the modern sector and five in the traditional sector. Of the fifty-one in the modern sector, 59 percent were in Chineseowned enterprises, 37 percent in foreign-owned businesses, and 4 percent affected both Chinese and foreign firms.87 The data on the distribution of workers by ownership of enterprise must be treated with caution but suggest that the strike propensity of workers in foreign firms was disproportionately low.88 For the period between 1914 and May 1919, my calculations suggest that there were forty-three strikes in the handicraft sector and forty-five in the factory, transportation, and municipal sectors; among the latter, twenty took place in Chinese firms, nineteen in foreign firms, and six affected both Chinese and foreign companies (mainly actions by sea-

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men and rickshaw pullers). Again, certainly if one takes the handicraft sector into account, there is no obvious sign that workers in foreign firms were more likely to go on strike than in native-owned enterprises. Nevertheless, toward the end of the period there was a distinct increase in the number of strikes in foreign firms: five disputes occurred at bat between 1916 and 1919 and four at the Nikko (Rihua) cotton mills between 1918 and 1919 (both firms being located in Pudong), none of which touched directly on the issue of foreign ownership. A typical conflict occurred in March 1918 at the Boyd engineering works when, because materials had gone missing, the management dismissed the red-turbaned Sikhs who served as guards in Chinese and foreign factories alike, and who were hated by the workers.89 The Sikhs were replaced with nineteen Chinese from Shandong, who were said to be of an irascible disposition (xinqing baozei). When one of them accused a worker of stealing and slapped him on the face, the workers rose up and attacked the guards, and in the skirmish a worker was wounded in the head by a bayonet.90 What is noteworthy in this instance is that although the dispute occurred in a foreign factory, it was provoked by the behavior of Chinese. There was no antipathy to the Boyd management. That said, there are tidbits in the press that suggest that workers were becoming sensitive to issues of foreign ownership. In April 1905 China’s leading bureaucratic capitalist, Sheng Xuanhuai, sold the Huaxin mill in Yangshupu to a Japanese businessman. Rumors quickly spread that the workforce was to be cut. When the new vendor came to visit the mill, accompanied by two managers from the Farnham company, ugly gestures were made and the visitors were jumped on in the storeroom and one was concussed.91 At the Farnham foundry itself in March 1913 the foreman was accused by workers of “relying on foreign force to oppress his compatriots.” 92 At bat when women rowdily protested the arrest of two strike pickets, Shibao disavowed their “barbaric” behavior but expressed sneaking admiration that they were “doubtless making life difficult for the foreigners.” 93 These instances apart, there are no strong grounds for inferring that in this period the dynamics of strikes in Chinese-owned and foreign-owned factories were fundamentally dissimilar.

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5

The May Fourth Movement of 1919

Although the May Fourth Movement was nationwide, its local manifestations were distinctive. It is generally agreed that in Shanghai the movement, although triggered by events in Beijing, was broader in its social composition than that of the capital, because it culminated in June 1919 in a triple stoppage (sanba) by students, merchants, and workers aimed at the removal of three pro-Japanese officials and the release of students under arrest in Beijing. Most agree that in Shanghai, as elsewhere, the movement was led by the intelligentsia, especially by students, but the role played by businessmen, large and small, was particularly pronounced.1 It was, however, the participation of workers that clearly set the movement in Shanghai apart from that in other cities.2 For the workers’ strike can justly claim to be the first political strike and the first general strike in the history of China. For this reason summer 1919 has been seen by many historians as marking the inception of a Chinese labor movement, the moment when the working class first evinced class consciousness.3 However, it is more accurate to see the general strike in Shanghai as marking the beginning of working-class participation in the nationalist movement and, more particularly, the identification of a growing number of workers with a modern conception of the nation.

Worker Participation in the Movement In early 1919, as it became known that the peacemakers in Versailles proposed to transfer German rights in China to Japan, patriotic organizations in Shanghai mobilized to demand that the government stand up for the country’s rights.4 Business people were indignant, but the gcc was less than prompt to act because its chairman, Zhu Baosan, the august Ningbo comprador, favored negotiation with the Japanese government. Thus on 2 March, fifty-three commercial organizations and native-place associa-

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May Fourth Movement of 1919 93

tions bypassed the gcc and set up the Shanghai Commercial Association (shangye lianhehui) to act as the political mouthpiece of organized business.5 On 5 May news of the arrest of student demonstrators in the capital caused college principals— coordinated through the Jiangsu Educational Association—and students to call meetings of protest. The next day, more than seventy representatives from over thirty educational and business organizations formed the Citizens’ Association (guomin dahui).6 On 7 May at 1 p.m. a crowd of ten thousand, three thousand of which were students, gathered at the Public Recreation Ground outside the West Gate of the Chinese City to denounce the impending loss of Qingdao, the treachery of government ministers, and the arrest of students.7 The following day, a Shanghai Students’ Union (ssu) was formed, which soon claimed to represent sixty-one schools and some twelve thousand students.8 On 9 May, National Humiliation Day, shops, firms, and schools shut throughout the city. Students, together with various trades, pressed for a boycott of trade with the Japanese, a call that neither the gcc nor the Commercial Association was quick to endorse.9 Convinced that China’s weakness derived from her people being “like a sheet of loose sand,” students formed groups of ten (shiren tuan) to muster popular support for the boycott. These groups may have been modeled on traditional decimal organizations such as the baojia system, which guaranteed mutual security between households.10 According to British intelligence, the groups had the character of secret societies, being “neither anarchist nor Bolshevik.” 11 There were more than fifty of them by midMay.12 The groups of ten inspected stocks of Japanese goods, checked that traders were not selling such goods, picketed stores thought to be breaking the boycott, distributed propaganda and posters, organized demonstrations and speaking tours, and visited guilds and chambers of commerce.13 They soon won support for the boycott among the city’s thousands of small traders, making the boycott the most effective weapon of the patriotic movement in 1919. Workers played a relatively minor role in enforcing the boycott, but were more publicly visible than they had been during the anti-American boycott of 1905 and the anti-Japanese boycott of 1915.14 On 7 May twenty-eight hundred workers at the Hengfeng mill in Yangshupu resolved not to use Japanese goods, and sent delegates to other mills urging them to do likewise.15 On 14 May rickshaw pullers in the Hongkou-Wusong area agreed not to serve Japanese customers, and within ten days most other rickshaw pullers followed suit. On 25 May one hundred

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pole carriers at the Pudong docks refused to touch Japanese goods and were later backed by other dockers. Barbers declared that they would not serve customers with Japanese-style haircuts and would only use Chinese razors. Cooks affirmed their patriotic fervor (aiguo rexin) and called for a ban on the sale of all Japanese goods.16 On 25 May, following the decision of the Beijing government to charge student protesters with sedition, the ssu announced that students would not attend classes starting from the following day and appealed to merchants to suspend their businesses in order to put pressure on the government. On 26 May more than twenty thousand students and citizens gathered at the Public Recreation Ground, with each contingent carrying its school or college banner. Lining up around the republican flag, the youthful crowd shouted “Long Live the Republic of China,” and then paraded around the Chinese City, evoking warm admiration among the onlookers.17 On 4 June police intervened to clear a demonstration that was lobbying the county chamber of commerce to call a stoppage of trade. Anger flared up after news came through that 178 students had been arrested in the capital.18 The ssu called on the gcc and the Nanshi Chamber of Commerce to back a strike by merchants and sent activists to persuade small traders to close their shops, “uphold justice,” and support the “people’s rights.” 19 By the afternoon of 5 June, shops throughout the city were closed and were adorned with white banners and slogans such as “merchants and students have now joined hands and will endeavor to rescue the arrested students and save our country from danger and extinction.” 20 At 5 p.m. that day two hundred representatives of educational, commercial, and political groups agreed that the strike by students and traders should demand the dismissal and punishment of the “three national traitors” (that is, the Beijing politicians who had capitulated to Japanese pressure), the release of the arrested students, and the recovery of the people’s rights. They also agreed to establish a Confederation of Labor, Merchant, Student, and Journalist Organizations (Gongshang xuebao lianhehui).21 This proved to be the inauguration of the sanba, the threefold stoppage of lessons, trade, and work (bake, bashi, bagong), in which students, traders, and workers suspended their daily business as a means of exerting pressure on the government.22 The tactic was developed more by accident than by design, but it went on to play a vital role in mobilizing the nationalist movement in June 1925 and March 1927. Neither the ssu nor the gcc initially planned to involve workers in the

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stoppage. Some feared that workers “without knowledge” would cause disorder if encouraged to stop work.23 Zhang Dongsun of the former Research Clique opined: “Their patriotism is fervent to the point of stupidity and can easily lead to violence with great harm to everyone. Efforts to unify laborers require much, much caution.” 24 Others argued that workers could best make a contribution by continuing to work normally, in order to promote native manufactures and keep students and traders fed. Others were concerned that by going on strike workers would suffer privations far worse than those faced by students and traders.25 Even organizations claiming to represent labor saw a strike by workers only as a “backup” (houdun) to the stoppages by students and business people. The China Industrial Association (Zhonghua gongye xiehui), which had been founded in March 1919 by two veterans of the Alliance Society, Feng Ziyou and Cao Yabo, and whose aims were “to unite the workers’ section of society, vigorously develop our country’s enterprise, and eliminate the sufferings of workers,” issued a telegram on 4 June declaring that the “workers’ section of society vows to be a back-up to the students.” 26 And on 6 June the moribund Labor Party proclaimed: “We tens of thousands of workers are willing to sacrifice our lives in order to be the back-up to the students and merchants.” 27 The wave of student protest had had a profound effect on workers, and at once many made it clear that they would not work normally while students and merchants were sacrificing themselves for the nation’s honor. The arrest of students, in particular, outraged many workers because students, having inherited the social prestige traditionally enjoyed by the scholar-gentry, were considered the conscience of the nation.28 BAT workers struck to protest the “lamentable treatment of the students, the hateful government which is helping tyrants, the sufferings of the nation.” 29 On 5 June the crews of merchant vessels proclaimed: “We cannot stand idly by. We are going on strike for the recovery of national territory and for the release of arrested students.” 30 Six hundred coppersmiths and ironsmiths, later joined by foundry workers, embarked on a three-day strike starting on 9 June: “The ranks of the workers’ section of society are a part of the nation, so at a time when the students and merchants are struggling to save the nation, should workers lag behind?” 31 From 6 to 11 June, up to one hundred thousand workers stopped work. They included twenty thousand workers in transportation (mainly dockers), and twenty-three thousand workers in the handicraft sector.32 On

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Tuesday, 10 June, the strike reached its apogee. According to the International Settlement police, “apart from students, merchants, shopkeepers and shop assistants . . . some 24,000 industrial and other workers joined the strike, including chauffeurs, carpenters, fitters, machinists, shipwrights, stone masons, telephone operators, mill hands, printers, mafoos [grooms], washermen, brass-smiths and engineers. There were also large numbers on strike outside the International Settlement.” 33 The scale of the strike caused previous stoppages in Shanghai to pale by comparison, yet it represented only about one-fifth to one-quarter of the city’s labor force.34 It is hard to discern any pattern in the type of workers who joined the stoppage. Joseph Chen is probably correct to say that workers in Japanese-owned enterprises were more supportive of the strike than those in Chinese-owned enterprises.35 Certainly, the employees of the Japanese mills formed the single largest contingent of strikers. Whether Shen Yixing is correct to argue that the strongest supporters of the strike were workers in larger factories is more open to question.36 It is true that the small-scale handicraft trades were relatively unrepresented within the strike movement, but the participation rates of groups such as ironworkers, mechanics, painters, and construction workers were high.37 Moreover, seamen, dockers, and railway workers, who did not work in large enterprises, were vigorous in support of the stoppage. Despite being a “back-up” to the students and merchants, it was the workers’ strike that most alarmed the authorities because it threatened railway, tram, and maritime transportation, public utilities—such as electricity supply and telephones—and the general movement of goods. On 10 June, following the lead given three days earlier by the military governor of the Chinese districts, the International Settlement authorities declared martial law.38 The next afternoon, it appeared that the protesters had won a victory because news arrived that the three “national traitors” had been dismissed. That evening the Confederation of Labor, Merchant, Student, and Journalist Organizations called an emergency meeting, attended by about four hundred delegates, to decide whether to call off the action. Satisfaction was expressed at the government’s capitulation, but ssu representatives insisted that the struggle to rid China of its corrupt government must continue. The gcc representatives categorically opposed this and persuaded the meeting to end the stoppage the next day.39 The China Industrial Association proposed that the strike continue in Japanese enterprises. Xie Shenyue told a meeting of several thousand on 11 June that

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workers should use the strike weapon against the Japanese, but not against Chinese capitalists. Labor was sacred, he averred, and its value should not be demeaned. He called on guild directors and merchants to raise special levies in support of the strikers.40 The following day delegates from the three Japanese cotton companies in Shanghai pledged that they would continue the strike until they had fulfilled the “people’s duty.” 41 The next day twelve representatives of the China Industrial Association met with thirty worker delegates and discussed how to sustain the stoppage in enterprises owned by “enemies” (chouren) and by the government. But workers showed little enthusiasm to continue, and by 16 June all were working normally.42

Spreading the Nationalist Message Benedict Anderson has stressed the role of “print capitalism” in transforming the way in which individuals imagined their relationship to the time and space of the nation.43 But the May Fourth Movement reminds us that nonprint media—including quite traditional oral forms— can also serve to foster new ways of imagining the nation as an inherently limited and sovereign community. Because Shanghai’s workers were overwhelmingly illiterate, there was limited possibility of relying on the kinds of commercially produced fiction, newspapers, magazines, and school textbooks that Anderson emphasizes. That is not to deny that posters, handbills, banners, and newspapers played a part in disseminating the nationalist message among the common people, but this message was communicated largely by word of mouth through student speaker teams, street-corner gatherings, public rallies, and demonstrations. On 17 May the China Industrial Association agreed to set up speaker teams to tour workplaces and workingclass neighborhoods to ensure that people understood the need to avenge national humiliation and save the nation.44 Literate workers, such as those at the Commercial Press and the Zhonghua book company, formed their own teams. A young workers’ “encourage aspirations” speaker team of ten from Baoshan Road toured Zhabei calling on workers to fight national humiliation, support the boycott, and promote native produce.45 Street theater—which in the 1930s became known as jietou ju —was another means whereby the threat of national extinction (wangguo) and the promise of national salvation ( jiuguo) were dramatized to a popular audience. Short sketches, generally consisting of no more than one episode and requiring simple props and few performers, were put on for passers-by.

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Rather more sophisticated were folk plays about ancient heroes who had stood up to foreign aggression, which were put on in lower-class districts.46 More sophisticated still was a modern play, staged a couple of years later, titled “The Bloody Tears of the Chinese Worker,” which drew on stock traditional characters to fuse nationalist and class themes. The handbill for the play declared: That labor is sacred has already been loudly proclaimed by all the five great continents . . . [but] Chinese workers are employed as slaves and animals by foreigners who constantly scourge, punish and injure them. Even an unguarded utterance renders the worker suspect, as a result of which he may be shot dead, executed, or maimed. Despite loud calls for redress, the government ignores the appeals of the workers, who are treated as enemies. . . . This company has written a play which demonstrates the value of brotherly love in national affairs. The characters in the play include a candidate for Imperial honors, a greedy girl smuggler, a poor lady, a beautiful girl from overseas, a wicked foreman, an irresponsible Minister, a savage policeman and several patriotic and brave youths. The play has moments of joy, sadness, astonishment and horror. Patriots will see that this play is something more than a commercial venture.47 Symbolic practices—weak in words, strong in visual or gestural meaning—were crucial in creating identification with the nation and its plight. After 1915 the wearing of a white armband quickly established itself as a symbol of China’s abasement, while raising the republican flag symbolized the determination of her people to resist. During the boycott, traders decked out their shops and stalls with white flags to signal their support. Cages were placed on the street, similar to those that had once been used for execution by slow torture, with the inscription: “To be let to the slaves of the foreigners” (that is, those who broke the boycott).48 According to the International Settlement police, “students and loafers began to snatch and mutilate Japan-made straw hats from the heads of otherwise unoffending citizens,” and people selling Japanese articles were abused as “turtles.” 49 The burning or destruction of Japanese goods was widely practiced. On 1 January 1920 more than three thousand people attended a meeting at the Public Recreation Ground at which students burnt 390 bales of Japanese cotton.50 Rituals, which may be thought of as elaborate metaphorical scenarios, were also critical in popularizing new renditions of the nation. On

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National Humiliation Day one thousand workers at the Sanyou company agreed to meet each evening after work to publicize the nation’s plight. Each meeting began with fifty-nine strokes of a bamboo clapper to symbolize the ninth day of the fifth month of 1915, when premier Yuan Shikai had acceded to Japan’s Twenty-One Demands. At each meeting the assembled throng was asked: “Will you ever forget the national humiliation of the ninth day of the fifth month?”; to which they replied: “We will not dare forget.” 51 On 6 June engineering workers at the Qiuxin factory— around which the Labor Party had been organized in 1912 —sent a letter to the press saying: “Our country has suffered a diplomatic defeat, the vital forces of the nation are in peril. All citizens are deeply indignant. The blood of the workers’ section of society is boiling, we are united by conscience. How can we sit idly and watch? . . . With the same ardor and conscience as the students and merchants, we declare a strike from the 6th and are raising funds to construct a ceremonial gateway [ pailou] to commemorate national humiliation.” The structure, 20 meters high and 16.6 meters wide, was duly erected, inscribed with four characters, saying “never forget the national humiliation.” It was hung with white flags and a weather vane bearing four characters saying “awaken the citizens.” 52 Finally, visual propaganda in the form of drawings and cartoons was put to good effect, with Japan depicted in various unpleasant guises, such as a scorpion crawling over the body of China.53 Most cartoons which circulated among the populace have not survived because they appeared on ephemeral leaflets or as chalk drawings on the street, but the simpler cartoons that appeared in the press were readily comprehensible to the illiterate. In the Forest of Merriment (Kuaihuolin), the literary supplement of the Shanghai newspaper Xinwenbao, for example, Ma Xingshi published many powerful cartoons, such as one that depicted the people breathing out simultaneously in order to blow down the national traitors, thereby playing on the double sense of the word minqi, the “people’s morale,” whose literal meaning is “people’s breath.” Another depicted an adult male, Japan, cajoling a young boy, China, on his knee; while speaking soothing words about fair treatment, he slyly stretches out his foot to pin down Shandong.54 The authorities were well aware of the potency of verbal, written, visual, and symbolic propaganda. On 6 June the Volunteer Corps was raised in the International Settlement and proceeded to remove flags and offensive handbills. A police truck accompanied by Chinese coolies with brushes and buckets of water drove about tearing down posters.55 Three days later on

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9 June the Municipal Council posted proclamations banning persons from wearing any kind of uniform or badge on the streets. During the month of June, the police confiscated over five hundred handbills and cartoons and closed newspapers such as the Salvation Daily News and the Students Union Daily.56

Mobilizing Workers Historians stress the spontaneity of the strikes.57 Certainly students, who were crucial in giving ideological and organizational direction to the May Fourth Movement, did little to encourage workers to strike; indeed they were more likely to discourage them, as they did in the case of tram workers, telephone operators, and railway workers. Yet while workers were certainly capable of stopping work of their own accord, the notion of “spontaneity” obscures the fact that many joined the strikes as the result of initiatives by political organizations, guilds, and native-place associations or, more commonly, by informal networks based on foremen and secretsociety bosses. Such informal networks and grassroots leaders are rarely referred to in contemporary newspaper and police reports, yet we know that they were of considerable significance. There was no central leadership to the strike, such as was provided by the Shanghai General Labor Union (zonggonghui) during the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925, but there were political organizations that encouraged labor to participate in the boycott and in the triple stoppage. These included the Labor Party, the China Labor Union (Zhonghua Gonghui), and, above all, the China Industrial Association— organizations all closely tied to the gmd. There were real limitations to the effectiveness of the gmd at this time because it had not yet relaunched itself as a political party. Moreover, many leading members were ambivalent about worker participation in the stoppage, with Republican Daily (Minguo ribao), for example, giving backing only to the strike by workers in Japanese enterprises.58 More influential than such political organizations were the guilds and native-place associations. The Jun’an guild of seamen, led by Zhu Baoting (1880 –1947), was instrumental in getting seamen from Ningbo to join the stoppage.59 On 8 June the Ningbo and Shaoxing lacquerware makers resolved to strike until the government “shall bow to the will of the people.” 60 The coppersmiths and ironsmiths’ guild called out its members, partly at the instigation of Zhu Zhuowen who, in addition to being di-

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rector of the Housheng steamship company, was deputy head of the general affairs section of the Citizens’ Association, founder member of the Labor Party, and a member of the gmd.61 In many guilds, however, directors were decidedly unenthusiastic about the stoppage: The directors of the construction workers’ guild pressed workers not to stop work, but on 10 June they were overruled by all three bangs in the trade.62 The Long Life Society (changsheng), which represented Ningbo workers and servants employed by foreigners, discussed calling a strike, but their Cantonese counterparts, meeting at the Guang-Zhao guild, decided not to join the stoppage.63 In general, the elite-dominated regional guilds and native-place associations were suspicious of worker initiatives. When one hundred cooks and “boys” employed in foreign hotels, all from Ningbo, met at the premises of the Ningbo guild, a director of the guild prevailed on them not to strike.64 In the factory and transportation sectors foremen and secret-society leaders exercised a critical influence.65 A Chinese correspondent to the North China Herald opined: “Labourers, who are ignorant and have not the slightest knowledge of the national disaster, went on strike by obeying their foremen. . . . Some wished to disturb the peace and order of the community.” 66 At the Boyd shipyard Yang Peisheng (1883 –1927), foreman of the fitters and later a prominent member of the ccp, initiated the strike; at the Boyd engineering works the director begged the foremen to persuade the workers to remain at work, but to no avail.67 On 11 June foremen led carpenters in a victory parade around the Chinese City.68 Employers exhorted foremen and compradors to dissuade workers from striking. At the Jiangnan shipyard the foremen succeeded in preventing contract workers from striking, but at the Shanghai weaving mill the comprador was unsuccessful.69 At bat, where the foremen were members of the Green Gang, one such employee told the workers on 9 June that he, too, was angry at the insults heaped on the Chinese by the Japanese, but that a strike was pointless; he urged the workers instead to rely on the capacity of British and American diplomats to prevail on the Japanese government. His advice was spurned and the workers walked out.70 The press made much of the fact that the Red and Green gangs were encouraging strikes.71 The gmd-backed Weekly Review (Xingqi pinglun) reported with amazement that gang bosses were declaring: “We, too, are nationalists [ guomin fenzi].” 72 In Japanese concerns, especially, where national honor was at stake, the secret societies were energetic in bringing workers

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out on strike. On 5 June, workers in the nwk No. 5 mill, followed by their colleagues in the company’s other mills, walked out at the instigation of Li Fengchi, a foreman in the spinning room who hailed from Hubei. It is not clear whether Li was connected to the secret societies because he was active in the China Industrial Association and was later arrested for fomenting strikes.73 However, after the workers failed to stay out, “ruffians” (baotu) forced them to resume their strike by making a surprise attack on the No. 5 mill on 8 June. They broke machinery, smashed furniture, moved goods out of the factory, and also damaged the canteens of the No. 7 and No. 8 mills. The ruffians then went on to the No. 3 and No. 4 mills, where the police were also called in, and another group gained entry to the No. 9 mill by smashing down the gates.74 Similarly, on the evening of 12 June, after police shot at a crowd in the International Settlement, killing one coolie and injuring nine workers and traders, a “gang of loafers” stopped trams from running.75 As all of these events suggest, workers were sometimes forced to halt work against their will. Nevertheless, although there was some coercion, the strong impression is that the majority of workers supported the stoppage voluntarily because even groups who did not strike justified their action in patriotic terms. Postal workers, for example, decided not to strike on the grounds that this would deprive the nation of news, but they agreed to donate money for handbills.76 Telegraphists made the same decision in order to keep open lines of communication with Beijing.77 Representatives of women in the silk filatures also agreed not to strike because new cocoons had arrived that would rot if they were not attended to, and would thus give an advantage to foreign competitors. Some did, however, join in demonstrations, and the Jinhua filature decided to strike anyway.78 Dyers announced that they shared the patriotic anger, but resolved not to strike because they did not wish to jeopardize the livelihood of women in the textile industries. The latter, for their part, were said to be agitated, but to have been restrained from striking by their foremen.79

Identifying with the Nation In contrast to the May Thirtieth Movement, the May Fourth Movement had no grand strategic objective, such as the overthrow of warlordism and imperialism. Its aims were concrete—to liberate the arrested students and to punish the three “national traitors.” The workers’ strikes shared these

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aims, although there was some variation in the expressed objectives of different groups. For example, the Qiuxin strikers called for the removal of Duan Qirui and the Shanghai chief of police as well as the three “national traitors,” whereas at the Ruili works the strikers were more concerned to see the release of the students.80 Again in contrast to the May Thirtieth Movement, the May Fourth Movement was not fundamentally anti-imperialist because it did not oppose the foreign presence in China tout court, and the term “imperialism” (diguozhuyi), in circulation since the end of the nineteenth century, was used only sporadically. Like the 1911 Revolution, it was targeted as much at the internal as the external enemy.81 Indeed it is striking the extent to which the “other” against which the nation defined itself was the maiguo zei rather than the foreign powers, who were still designated by the vague term qiangquan. Slogans such as “there is only might in this world, there is no justice,” were commonplace.82 Although strikes were most widespread in Japanese enterprises, attempts to prevent them in Chinese-owned enterprises were ineffective because all workers were bent on voicing their anger against the government. Of course, Japan did constitute a clear and powerful external enemy, yet it was not uncommon for merchants and workers to express hatred of the Japanese government while extending forgiveness to ordinary Japanese.83 Undoubtedly, many harbored intense animosity toward the Japanese, but some at least were at pains to insist that they were not engaged in an antiforeign (paiwai) movement. At the Compagnie française de tramways et d’éclairage électrique workers declared: “Our resentment is directed against a certain nation. Nevertheless we remain on good terms with the others. If we were to strike, it would appear as if our hostility were directed against all foreigners.” 84 (In fact, they did go on strike). On 10 June two hundred representatives of Cantonese clerks in foreign firms decided not to strike “since our foreign friends would regard us with a feeling of disgust, if not actual enmity, instead of giving us moral support.” 85 Handbills included one in English headed “attention,” which assured foreigners of the strikers’ good will.86 Nevertheless among wider layers of working people a gut fear of the Japanese was palpable, reminding us that national identities are not formed solely at the level of rational consciousness. For example, rumors (which, in the words of writer Ye Shengtao, “have no wings but fly faster than if they had; have no sharp horns, yet pierce deep into people’s hearts”) were a potent force shaping popular behavior and mentality.87 There were almost daily reports of assaults on Japanese and Koreans in response to ru-

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mors that they were poisoning water and food. According to the International Settlement police chief, the rumors claimed that “Japanese are going about in Chinese clothes poisoning tea urns placed outside shops for the convenience of thirsty pedestrians, and that they have poisoned the city water supply.” 88 At the Nikko mills in Pudong a rumor circulated that management was poisoning tea provided for the workforce. On 9 June factory guards prevented two women from leaving the mill to buy tea, insisting that they drink the tea provided. This caused pandemonium, and when the electric lights were switched off, workers were almost crushed in a stampede to get out of the mill.89 On 13 June a handbill posted on Nanjing Road said that four out of a family of six in Wuchang Road had died after eating cabbage poisoned by Japanese. The fact that the rumor was in written form lends credence to the claim by International Settlement police that students were behind many of the rumors.90 The rumors accord precisely with what Paul Cohen, in his fine analysis of rumor in the Boxer rebellion, calls the most widely circulated “generic rumor,” namely that which charged foreigners and Christians with contaminating the water supply by placing poison in village wells. It may be significant that many of the women at the Nikko mill came from Shandong, where as early as 1899 rumors of well poisoning were rife, and that this was the region where Japanese expansionism was concentrated.91 Beyond that, it is difficult to read these rumors. Writing of peasant resistance to collectivization in the Soviet Union, Lynne Viola has suggested that rumors serve as a “map of the normally hidden and remote terrain of peasant attitudes,” mental projections of a disturbed, inchoate political world.92 But what exactly the rumors of water and tea poisoning are projections of is difficult to fathom. Certainly, they suggest psychic disturbance, but it is hard to understand why a rather distant— even abstract—threat to Chinese sovereignty from Japan should have seemed so personally threatening to these ordinary people.93 The existence of such fears may seem to cast doubt on the claim that the May Fourth Movement witnessed the dissemination of a more modern national identity among Shanghai’s workers. But it better serves to remind us, first, of the unevenness of the process of identity construction among different layers of workers; and second, of the complex interplay between old and new, and rational and irrational, elements in the making of national identity. National identity—so often assumed to be an unqualifiedly modern social identity—was forged in 1919, to some extent out of elements within

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existing popular culture. Instead of relying exclusively on the importation of new ideas and representations, the architects of nationalist discourse sought to reconfigure traditional idioms in new ways. The relationship between the May Fourth Movement and the New Culture Movement has long been the subject of scholarly contention, but it can safely be said that the attack on Confucian culture, which lay at the heart of the New Culture Movement, figured little in nationalist propaganda.94 When playing to a popular audience, students and intellectuals preferred to work on conventional themes. One of the most pervasive of these themes was that of wangguo, the threat of “national extinction,” which had been a staple of the nationalist movement since the turn of the century. Speaker teams harped on this danger, warning that China would go the way of Korea, Annam, and India. In a typical speech, delivered to a meeting of some two thousand workers, Wu Zhuozhu, an employee at the Qiuxin engineering works who later became a worker-student in France, pointed to the tragic example of Korea and warned that the loss of Qingdao and Shandong would lead to national extinction. His audience was reported to have wept at his words.95 The paired theme of national salvation ( jiuguo) was less pronounced than during the anti-Manchu movement, but was by no means absent: railway workers, for instance, affirmed their commitment to “save the country and save the people, without any selfish motive.” 96 The paradox of the trope of national extinction was that the threat of annihilation was seen to lie less in foreign aggression—although bountiful reference was made to the danger of China being “sliced up like a melon” (guafen)—than in internal factors, such as waning patriotism, the erosion of military ardor, the corruption of officials, and the despotism of rulers.97 The crucial point, however, was that the nationalist movement appropriated the trope of national extinction for its own ends, rearticulating it in a new discursive context, where the guo in peril was no longer that of the diguo, or world empire, but of the minguo, of people’s China.98 Nationalist discourse appropriated and reworked other traditional themes and norms. For example, the idea that in extremis the fate of the country rested with the common people had long been current, evinced in proverbs such as “in times of trouble everyone has a responsibility for their country” (tianxia xingwang, pifu you ze); or “neither riches nor honors can lead us astray, neither poverty nor lowly condition can make us swerve from principle, no force can subdue us” ( fu gui bu neng yin, pin jian bu neng gou, wei wu bu neng qu).99 But now the idea of the people’s respon-

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sibility for their country was reinflected and tied to a notion of the people’s right to influence government policy and to protect the national interest (guoli). Similarly, workers appealed to “conscience” (liangxin)—that is, to a traditional moral norm—when justifying their strikes; the tramworkers and mechanics at the Ruili works declared on 6 June 1919 that “conscience” did not allow them to remain at work so long as students were in jail. Three days later, the bat workers walked out “as an expression of conscience.” 100 Yet this notion of liangxin was now infused with new political content because anarchists had appropriated the concept to denote the innate goodness of humanity, which they believed had been scientifically demonstrated by Kropotkin’s theory of mutual aid.101 Thus when Li Henglin, a foreman at the Anderson and Meyer (Shenchang) electrical company accused of inciting tram employees in the International Settlement to strike, came before the Mixed Court, he declared: “This leaflet is an expression of the workers’ section of society united as one, it is not the work of me as an individual; all have discovered in their consciences that the existence of the nation is at issue.” 102 By examining their consciences, in other words, workers had come to realize their duties as members of the nation. Yet if nationalist discourse relied on rearticulating familiar themes it also put new conceptions and representations into circulation. The May Fourth Movement propagated a far-reaching populist version of democracy, in which democracy was seen as all-embracing, rather than limited to a specific form of rule, and as strongly associated with the common people.103 Themes of people’s rights (minquan), people’s sovereignty (minzhu), people’s voice (minsheng), people’s will (minyi), and people’s welfare (minfu) began to find an audience outside that of small radical circles.104 And although a racial construal of the minzu continued to be influential throughout the 1920s, it now competed with a more democratic construal, in which the min was understood as the sovereign people endowed with rights, as the guomin, or citizenry. Particularly common were denunciations of the Beijing government for failing to carry out the “people’s will” (minyi): “The people’s will must not be trampled on by officials.” 105 Equally striking was the way in which workers presented themselves as “citizens” who had political rights and responsibilities and who enjoyed membership of the political community by virtue of shared nationality. Postal workers promised to “do our utmost to fulfill our sacred duty as citizens,” laundry workers referred to themselves as “citizens of the Chinese

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republic,” and cotton workers in the Japanese mills pledged to uphold their duty as citizens (guomin tianzhi).106 Some workers— especially, the skilled artisans from Ningbo and Guangdong or the relatively well-paid factory workers from Zhejiang—were influenced by a far-reaching vision of “democracy,” which was increasingly designated by the term pingmin zhuyi, or “politics of the common people.” Finally, we may note the ways in which workers tentatively began to appropriate nationalist discourse for class-specific ends. A notable feature of the general strike of June 1919, which differentiated it sharply from that of 1925, was that no effort was made to link workers’ economic grievances to their patriotic protest. It was assumed that sectional class interest should be put aside in the interests of national unity. Nevertheless, through its use of the category of jie, nationalist discourse served to firm up workers’ sense of themselves as a specific group with its own concerns and interests. With the May Fourth Movement the notion of the “worker’s section of society” was increasingly used to denote workers exclusively. By representing themselves as gongjie, workers laid claim to be part of the nation, as when chauffeurs in foreign employment declared: “We of the workers’ section of society also have a conscience and can endure inaction no longer.” 107 At the same time representing themselves as gongjie legitimized their right to speak out as workers. Urged not to go on strike, one public utility worker retorted: “You students and merchants happen to be better educated and richer than we. Do you think we have no conscience to express our indignation against these traitors? Do you think for a moment that patriotism is confined to your classes alone?” 108 And the accents of labor are audible in a petition from 260 coolies to the China Industrial Association, calling on that body to telegraph the government to stop the export of rice, which was shooting up in price in Shanghai: Formerly, no one encouraged the patriotism of us workers, no one ever complained about the hardships of our job. But now with the foundation of the China Industrial Association, as a general organ of the workers, our thoughts can be broadcast through it. We workers are willing to act with the students and merchants to save the nation, as we have already indicated to the whole country, but the work we do bears no comparison in terms of earnings with that of students, merchants or other circles. In a year when the harvest is good and when all is peace and tranquillity, we still find it extremely difficult to feed

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and clothe ourselves. However, the gang of traitors pays no attention to our sufferings.109 Here coolies linked their economic plight to the defense of the national interest, representing their exploitation as an element in the government’s pillaging of the country’s resources. Nevertheless, if the gongjie represented a collective with which all workers could potentially identify, the actual mobilization of workers during the triple stoppage reminds us of the continuing potency of narrower solidarities based on guild, native place, or affiliation to foremen and secret-society bosses.

Organizing Labor The participation of workers in the triple strike convinced radical students and intellectuals that labor had the potential to play a key role in the struggle for national liberation. Nevertheless there was some debate as to whether workers could play this role before they had been educated. On 16 June Zhong Zhong, described as a “labor leader,” called on the inaugural conference of the National Students’ Union to carry out educational work among workers, who, he said, were ignorant and lacking in knowledge of national affairs.110 A few days later, Sun Yat-sen, resident in Shanghai throughout the summer, appeared to endorse this approach, when in an interview with Dai Jitao he said that because the masses, especially the workers, were illiterate it would be better to educate them first before seeking to organize them.111 On 14 July the ssu responded by setting up eight common people’s schools in Shanghai, staffed by volunteer student teachers. The school set up by students of the Nanyang Public Institute declared its aim to be “to propagate patriotic thought and instill the rudiments of citizenship.” 112 In November the National Students’ Union called on students throughout the land to set up schools for the poor (pinmin).113 In spite of Sun Yat-sen’s coolness toward the prospect of immediate organization of labor, members of the reemerging gmd threw themselves into the work of labor organization. Recently, there has been discussion about the role of the gmd in the May Fourth Movement that has challenged the assumption that, in the words of Joseph Chen, “Sun Yat-sen and the kmt exerted little or no political influence.” 114 Liu Yongming has shown that many individuals affiliated with the former gmd exercised leadership in the nationalist movement, particularly in the ssu, the Commer-

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cial Federation, and the embryonic labor movement.115 The gmd press, particularly the Republican Daily, which was founded in 1915, and its weekend supplement, the Weekly Review, which appeared between June 1919 and June 1920 under the editorship of Shen Xuanlu and Dai Jitao, were critical in giving ideological direction to the movement.116 Moreover, the authorities of the International Settlement were convinced that the gmd was the moving force behind the May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, notwithstanding the fact that the party was not formally relaunched until October.117 At the same time the movement exposed the limitations of Sun’s Revolutionary Party, with its conspiratorial methods, oaths of loyalty to the leader, taking of fingerprints, and forced its leaders to recognize that “new thinking and radical reorientation of their operational modes were required to rejuvenate the party and place it at the forefront of the almost derailed national revolution.” 118 It was in this context of rethinking political strategy that gmd activists turned to labor organization, launching a number of different and, to some extent, competing initiatives. On 27 May the moribund Labor Party called a meeting of a dozen labor representatives, chaired by Chen Guoliang, the proprietor of a tailor’s shop and a restaurant in the French Concession and head of the Beihai street association. He had been one of nearly two hundred thousand members of the Chinese Labor Corps, who had worked for the Allied war effort in France.119 Deng Yimin told the meeting that trade unions were necessary to put an end to cheap labor, to stimulate the growth of industry, to integrate workers into the nation, and to advance the progress of the nation. Jiao Zhenhua declared that peasants, workers, and merchants, like food, clothing, and shelter, were all equally necessary to human existence. Workers had lofty ideals, but because of centuries of autocratic oppression, low wages, and lack of education, were as yet unable to stand side by side with the rest of society. Only organization and education could ensure that they were no longer looked down on.120 The meeting agreed to set up the China Labor Union (Zhonghua gonghui) to coordinate the formation of trade unions. When the May Fourth strike broke out the union busied itself in bringing the docks to a halt. Neither of its leaders was a worker. Chen Jia’nai, a member of the Hunan provincial assembly, had been active in gmd circles in Guangdong and was alleged—probably scurrilously—to go about in a three-man sedan chair followed by a retainer. His deputy, Li Rongkui, was the owner of a firm in Hongkou.121 At its second meeting on 30 June, the union agreed to set up trade unions nationally, to “unite

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workers in fellowship, promote workers’ welfare and expand industry.” 122 Its manifesto played up the nationalist rationale for trade unions, stressing that their task was to promote the development of national industry, expel foreign manufactures, and make families rich and the country strong ( fu wu jia, qiang wu guo).123 By far the most influential of the labor organizations active during the May Fourth Movement was the China Industrial Association, whose cofounder Cao Yabo had been one of Sun Yat-sen’s secretaries.124 On 13 June the association set up the Convention of the Workers’ Section of Society (Gongjie dahui) in temporary headquarters at Liuqingli to expedite the building of labor unions.125 In October it joined forces with members of the Labor Party to form the China National Alliance of Workers and Peasants (Zhonghua quanguo nonggong lianhehui), with a view to combating the exploitation of one person by another by overcoming class distinctions and promoting socialism. This explicitly socialist démarche was probably advanced by Huang Jiemin, a Cantonese student returned from Japan who was the principal activist in the China Industrial Association.126 The latter continued to exist alongside the National Alliance, and in March 1920 Huang invited Zhang Guotao, who had been sent by the Beijing students to organize the patriotic movement in Shanghai, to become general secretary. Zhang discovered that although the association claimed more than ten thousand members, it had only handfuls of members in various factories, usually recruited through secret-society networks. He soon tired of the association and went off to join the embryonic ccp.127 Another organization with links to the gmd was the All-China Association for the Progress of the Workers’ Section of Society (Zhonghua quanguo gongjie xiejinhui), which may have originated as early as 1917 among members of the Guangdong native-place association. It was formally inaugurated in August 1919 when gmd luminaries Hu Hanmin, Dai Jitao, Liao Zhongkai, Zhu Zhixin (who died the following year), and Cao Yabo addressed a large tea party. On 14 September it held its first public meeting, attended by more than one thousand people. Lu Weichang, a director of the Guang-Zhao guild and proprietor of the Zhonghua Patriotic Company, was elected chair of the association. His deputies were Wang Xiangli of the tailors’ guild and Yang Guangcai of the mechanics’ guild. It claimed to have 4,000 members.128 In a separate initiative in July 1919, Lu Weichang cofounded the Chinese Workers’ Cooperative Association (Zhongguo gongren hezuo xiehui), along with Chen Gongzhe, a fellow Can-

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tonese, who had studied in the United States and was owner of a hardware business. The cooperative association claimed to have around 2,000 members, mostly Cantonese, comprising 700 seamen, 100 employees of the Nanyang tobacco company, 100 employees of the Yongan (Wing on) and Xianshi (Sincere) department stores, 100 employees of the Municipal Council power station, 100 tailors, 100 workers from various factories in Pudong, and about 60 printers and 40 ironsmiths. It set up a club, a school, and evening classes in Chinese, English, and Russian (with 120 members studying Chinese and English but only two studying Russian). The chair of the association was Sun Yat-sen’s former secretary, Cao Yabo.129 The last of the labor associations set up by members of the gmd was the China Workers’ Association (Zhonghua gongren xiehui), established in June by Ming Runsheng, head of the Changming school. Its members were mainly foremen in the Yangshupu cotton mills and its honorary director was the owner of the Dafeng iron works. Its slogan was: “Encourage national goods, promote industrial crafts, seek truth from facts, without party or bias.” It received a monthly subsidy of sixty dollars from the Cantonese government and tried to raise capital for a model weaving mill by floating one thousand shares at five dollars each. In September its first weaving loom went into operation.130 On 28 January 1920, seventeen delegates from five of the above organizations met to create a federal body. Chen Guoliang, who had recently split from the China Labor Union after falling out with its leader, Chen Jia’nai, was the moving spirit behind the federation, which took the confusingly similar name of the Chinese Labor Union (Zhongguo gonghui).131 All the organizations present at the meeting had connections with the gmd, but not all gmd-linked bodies affiliated to the union, presumably because of personal or factional rivalries. Quite different in ideological coloration was the China Alliance of the Workers’ Section of Society (Zhonghua gongjie lianhehui), an anarchist initiative that repudiated all political activity on principle.132 It comprised administrative staff and manual workers at Fudan University, about forty in all, under the leadership of Xu Fu, an administrator who came from Yangzhou. In contrast to some of the gmd-backed organizations, the China Alliance would only accept workers as members and did not subordinate labor organization to the larger nationalist project. Its manifesto of July 1919 proclaimed: “Because in peacetime we do not communicate with one another, because we are not in touch with one another, we are dispersed through society like grains of sand. Even people who work together look

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on each other with suspicion, exclude and crush one another. Negative individualism has almost become the supreme faith of the majority, who do not see that their interest lies in cooperation.” 133 This stress on cooperation reflected the belief in social revolution as an antidote to selfishness.134 It would be artificial to suggest that the difference between gmd and anarchist conceptions of labor organization was sharply registered in public consciousness, yet one can detect two distinct orientations to labor organization that persisted into the 1920s. The first linked labor organization to the progress of industry and national salvation; the second linked it to the education and moral growth of workers and, in the longer term, to the strengthening of mutual aid and public-mindedness in society at large. In Shanghai the former proved to be much stronger than the latter. With the partial exception of the China Labor Union and the Chinese Workers’ Cooperative Association, none of the aforementioned organizations seriously got down to the business of organizing trade unions. Most appealed to workers en bloc rather than to specific trades, reflecting the gmd desire to tap the political potential of organized labor rather than create strong trade unions capable of improving the lot of their members. Nevertheless the May Fourth Movement saw the birth of a number of trade unions. In August 1919 an electricians’ union was formed by Li Henglin, a foreman at the Anderson and Meyer electrical company who had ties to Christian circles in Shanghai.135 Its secretary was Chen Yuefu, an executive of the Huitong company and manager of the Zhonghua electrical materials firm. The union had over 300 members, mainly in foreignowned public utilities and companies, at a time when there were estimated to be about 1,500 electricians in the city working in telegraphs and telephones, at the power station, and at the three tram companies.136 Although it relied on support from sympathetic employers, it saw its purpose as being to defend and improve the working conditions of its members.137 In 1921, 114 workers and a dozen apprentices at Anderson and Meyer tried to split from the electricians’ guild and join the union.138 In January 1920 a pharmacists’ friendly society was created during a strike by 4,000 pharmacy employees as a counter to the herbalists’ guild; by the end of the year it claimed a membership of 2,500 to 2,700, only half of whom were said to be active.139 On 15 October the society invited all native-place bangs to send a representative to a meeting, warning them to be discreet in view of the employers’ hostility.140 Not all the workers who formed unions in this period had a tradition of

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guild organization. On 17 July 1919 an association of tram employees was formed, which had 200 members a year later. On 29 February 1920 the inaugural meeting of the federation of workers in warehouse and shipping companies took place, which was addressed by Vadim A. Stopani, a bookkeeper in the Russian publishing and printing company and, according to British Intelligence, “a typical wild-eyed and under-sized Hyde Park orator.” He spoke in Esperanto and urged his audience to learn this language in order to promote internationalism and communism.141 On 2 April a meeting of more than 200 members of the federation listened to a starstudded cast of speakers, including the anarchist Wu Zhihui, Chen Duxiu, and Cao Yabo.142 Early labor organization was dominated by artisans, along with such groups as tram workers, employees of department stores, and employees of the Municipal Council and the Nanyang tobacco company. Such workers stood out from the bulk of factory and transportation workers by virtue of their relatively high degree of education and skill. Many—probably a majority—were Cantonese, reflecting the fact that Cantonese were disproportionately represented among skilled workers, as well as the fact that the gmd, which took the initiative in labor organization in this period, was still largely a southern party. More generally it reflected the continuing salience of native-place sentiment—along with craft sentiment—as a core around which class organization could jell, and reminds us that even when trade unions were set up in opposition to the guilds, they still depended on traditional social networks. Native-place bangs continued to structure the activities of the pharmacists’ friendly society, for example, and the federation of workers in warehouse and shipping companies consisted entirely of Cantonese workers, at least in its early years. Its revised constitution of July 1923, however, stated that it was open to all who handled goods in dock warehouses, regardless of regional origin.143 The role of the gmd in resurrecting labor organization in Shanghai has received insufficient recognition from historians. It is true that most of its initiatives amounted to very little, but they testify to awareness of the potential of labor in the national revolution. At the same time, the paramount concern with capturing political power meant that gmd activists paid little attention to the practical problems of creating unions capable of defending the economic interests of their members. Moreover, it is something of a mystery why so many essentially similar associations were set up, sometimes by the same individuals. It probably reflects the fact that individuals

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and factions saw the formation of such organizations as a means to promote their influence within the renascent party. Deng Zhongxia, probably the most talented Communist labor leader of the 1920s, dismissed these May Fourth labor unions as “fake” because they had no firm grasp of class principles.144 It is true that they rejected class struggle and accepted businessmen and politicians as patrons; yet to write off these initiatives is to overlook the fact that they succeeded in pushing the labor question back on to the political agenda after the hiatus of the war years.

Conclusion The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai was a broad nationalist movement that even Lu Yongxiang, military governor of the city, purported to support. Its cross-class character was manifest above all in the triple stoppage, which thereafter became a standard weapon in the arsenal of the nationalist movement. Because of their superior material resources and social connections, merchants, bankers, and industrialists might have been expected to exercise political leadership of the movement; but the gcc entered the triple stoppage politically and organizationally split, so that business leaders proved unable to seize the political initiative in the way they would do in the May Thirtieth Movement. It would be an exaggeration to say that teachers, journalists, and especially students seized the initiative in their stead, but they gave the movement such ideological and organizational direction as it possessed. The activism of shopkeepers and small traders was greater than in previous anti-imperialist mobilizations, with the cessation of trade—more than the student boycott of classes—bringing home to government and public the extent of support for the patriotic movement. This activism led to the creation by August 1919 of fifty-two street associations, which on 26 October formed the Shanghai Federation of Street Associations (Gelu shangjie zonglianhehui), whose president, the barrister Chen Zemin, had been active in the boycott of 1905. The aims of the federation were to lobby for revision of the Land Regulations, which underpinned the tenuous legality of the International Settlement; for a tax boycott, under the slogan “no taxation without representation”; and for the institution of the Chinese Advisory Board to the Municipal Council, first promised in 1905.145 Workers played a supporting role throughout the May Fourth Movement, proving considerably less effective than they would in 1925 yet more

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influential than they had been during the anti-American boycott of 1905 and the 1911 Revolution. The suddenness with which they erupted onto the political scene had what one historian has called a “traumatic” impact on the intelligentsia, confronting them with a new force that they were ill-prepared to comprehend.146 Nevertheless, students, the gmd, and, to a lesser extent, merchants rose to the challenge of educating and organizing labor, establishing common people’s schools, labor unions, and street associations. The workers’ strike marked the entry of workers into nationalist politics and demonstrated the capacity of a general strike to exert pressure on government. It testified to the fact that workers were gradually coming to identify with a more democratic conception of the nation, one that was more civic than ethnic in character, one that saw the nation as rooted in the common people.

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6

The Discourse of Class

One consequence of the May Fourth Movement and of the foundation of the Communist Party in Shanghai in autumn 1920 was that a new discourse was put into circulation that appealed to workers as members of an exploited class rather than as citizens of an oppressed nation. The groundwork had been laid by Society of Anarchist-Communist Comrades as well as by the gmd, whose publications such as the Republican Daily, Weekly Review and Awakening, despite emphasizing the significance of labor organization for national renewal, regularly featured articles explaining the rudiments of class theory by leading intellectuals such as Shen Xuanlu and Dai Jitao.1 The emergent discourse of class drew heavily on western ideologies, such as anarchism, state socialism, and marxism, but did so in an eclectic fashion. More importantly, as a by-product of the New Culture Movement, its understanding of class and labor organization was framed by notions central to the New Culture problematic, such as “enlightenment” (qimeng), “awakening” ( juewu), “liberation” ( jiefang), “democracy” (minzhu), “dignity” (renge), “liberty” (ziyou), and “reconstruction” (gaizao). Yet if the discourse of class drew extensively on new ideologies, it was not immaculately conceived. New ideas and practices were synthesized with values and notions of ancient pedigree; moreover, even when the discourse of class opposed what Chen Duxiu called the “fake idols” of Confucianism, it was negatively marked by those idols, in terms of overcompensation or disavowal. In other words, western ideas and practices, once transplanted into a new cultural milieu and translated into a popular idiom, broke loose from their original moorings and fused with or defined themselves against Chinese norms and practices. It is helpful to think of class as a “discourse” because it was not simply a system of concepts and representations but a set of symbolically articulated social practices. An event such as the abortive attempt to stage China’s first May Day celebration in 1920, for example, can be seen as a formative ele-

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ment of that discourse. On 28 April, eight labor organizations put out a manifesto urging workers to celebrate May Day: “The aim of us workers of all trades is to improve the life of the Chinese worker, to advance the knowledge of the Chinese worker and to reveal the dignity of the Chinese worker, without the least political intent.” 2 The Republican Daily invited workers to pen inscriptions in support of May Day for publication in the newspaper, and workers sent in messages such as “the clothes, food and houses of those who do not labor are stolen goods”; and “the sacred morality of those who do not labor is false.” 3 Leaflets, written in a plain style, were scattered along the streets: “What is today, 1 May? It is the anniversary of labor throughout the world. What kind of anniversary? It is to mark the movement to achieve eight hours work and eight hours rest. How is that movement to be realized? By joining together the blood and sweat of laborers throughout the world.” 4 In the event, police prevented a mass rally from taking place at the Public Recreation Ground, but demonstrators succeeded in holding smaller meetings, including some on street corners. Through such activities, the discourse of class—in the sense of new ideas, values, social practices, and forms of organization—was put into circulation. Only a small minority of workers ever came to identify with it, but in the course of time certain class-related notions and practices were taken up by broader layers of workers.

Enlightenment and Class Consciousness The anarchist novelist Ba Jin wrote: “The May Fourth Movement awoke me from my sleepy dreams like a clap of spring thunder. I opened my eyes and beheld a new world.” 5 John Fitzgerald has shown how pervasive was the trope of “awakening” during the May Fourth Movement, and suggested that the freedom and autonomy associated with the awakened self served as a way of thinking about the liberation of the nation. Just as an awakened individual emancipated herself from the bonds of family and tradition, so the awakened nation would throw off the bonds of internal degradation and external oppression.6 In the discourse of class the image of “awakening” was closely allied to notions of self-awakening (zijue) and of enlightenment, echoing Zen Buddhism’s belief that the attainment of “consciousness” (yishi)—another of those classical compounds that migrated to Japanese before returning as a neologism to Chinese—was akin to a sudden awakening to the light.7 The minority of workers who read the

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labor press often described their exposure to its message in terms of a sudden revelation. A worker wrote to the Shanghai Shopclerk, describing a chance encounter with an article by the great liberal thinker Hu Shi, titled “The New Life”: “I was born in this vicious society, and never received a good education. For twenty years I lived an ‘inhuman’ existence. Smoking, drinking, gambling, whoring, cheating, swindling, getting rich, becoming an official, these were the evil devils that clouded my conscience. . . . After reading the article . . . I began to ask myself the question, why? Gradually the eight devils left me and became my sworn enemies. Life was revealed in its true colors and I started out along the bright path of struggle and effort in order to become a man.” 8 This moment of epiphany— described by another writer as the “ray of light which has penetrated this dark place”—transformed the consciousness of the worker-reader and brought a new sense of existential purpose, which entailed rejection of the traditional ethic of filiality and obedience and a commitment to the essential equality of humanity.9 It implied a sense of dignity, an aspiration to selfimprovement and to the betterment of one’s fellows, breadth of outlook, an orientation to the future, and a desire to raise one’s level of educational and moral development. Soon the theme of awakening to “consciousness” became intrinsically associated with class consciousness. In 1922 the Shanghai branch of the seamen’s union declared: “At this time when the people are fully imbued with new ideas, the laborers are finally waking up and will never bow their heads or incline their ears or unwillingly submit to the oppression by capitalists.” 10 Other terms central to the New Culture Movement that served to articulate the project of working-class emancipation were those of “liberty” and “liberation.” The term liberty (ziyou) was introduced from Japanese as early as 1868, although it too had classical antecedents. It had been used positively by the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi to signify the spiritual freedom of the individual, but in the Confucian tradition it carried the resonance of being left alone and of “self-will.” Some of these negative connotations lingered after the concept was reintroduced into modern Chinese to denote the concept of liberty (see chapter 12).11 In the discourse of class, more than in the New Culture Movement in general, liberty was seen not so much as an individual aspiration as a collective one, something to be achieved through organization and concerted action. The masthead of the Communist journal Labor Weekly proclaimed: “Organization Happiness and Liberty.” The concept of liberation ( jiefang) was viewed in

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a similar way. Xie Shenyue, a gmd activist, told a meeting of electricians on 6 July 1919: “The twentieth century is entirely the era of workers’ liberation, so now is the time for us, the workers’ section of society, to develop our new-found strength.” 12 Articles in the Shanghai Shopclerk, possibly written by Chen Duxiu, argued that women and workers, despite their “lack of consciousness, lack of dignity, lack of education,” were destined to be the principal agents of liberation.13 The Guangzhou journal Women and Labor, in which Chen also had a hand, declared: “Laborers are demanding liberation, and the proper way to demand this is through uniting in organization. The wrong way is to beseech the capitalists to liberate you. Women are demanding liberation, and the proper way is for women to demand this for themselves. The wrong way is to beg men to liberate you.” 14 This link between organization and liberation became standard during the 1920s. Enlightenment, however, could bring peril as well as promise, anguish as well as hope. A worker wrote the following to the Shanghai Shopclerk: “In my spare time I like to read the New Thought publications, but suddenly I do not want to read them any more. . . . I think that the more you try to increase your knowledge, the unhappier you feel. After I have read the New Thought publications, my spirit experiences unusual suffering. I fear that the more conscious one becomes, the more difficulties one experiences. To promote human liberation and reconstruction, and to encourage talk of struggle, sacrifice, patience and striving are mere empty words. What possible effect can they have?” 15 The editors of the Shanghai Shopclerk gave short shrift to this existential dilemma. “Such despondency goes against your true inner feelings, and springs from fear. If you are depressed and everyone else is depressed, there will be no people to struggle, and we will be defeated by the obstinate conservatives.” 16 But as this man’s confession suggests, the “enlightened” worker was a liminal figure, stuck between two conditions and cut off both from his fellow workers and from the intellectuals who articulated the vision to which he aspired, “structurally, if not physically, ‘invisible.’” 17

Class as Exploitation The labor press talked about class in ways that were heavily marked by anarchism. Anarchist publications had long utilized the terms “capitalist” and “proletarian,” but in propaganda they usually distinguished simply

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between those who labored and those who did not. Although believing that the economic problems of contemporary society arose from the exploitation of laborers by a parasitic class, they saw the root cause of exploitation as being authoritarian power (qiangquan) and human selfishness.18 Journals such as the Shanghai Shopclerk and Labor World thus counterposed those who labored to those who did not; those who were productive to those who were parasitic; those who were honest and public-spirited to those who were corrupt and selfish; and those who were rich to those who were poor. As a mechanic explained in Labor Weekly: The capitalists do not plow the fields themselves, yet eat huge meals and drink beer by robbing the surplus of us workers. Yet we who plow the fields and work hard, day in day out, never have full bellies. Why does society tolerate these parasites, these rice buckets? They do not weave cloth themselves, yet wear silks, satins and fur coats. Yet we who weave the cloth can’t even afford a cotton jacket that is not completely worn out. Why does society tolerate these coat-hangers? They don’t make tiles or prepare wood themselves, yet they occupy mansions with courtyards secure against all weather. Yet we, the builders, live in straw huts which are dark and so low and small that they are like hell.19 Labor World published a series of diaries by a Japanese-style rickshaw puller, an ordinary rickshaw puller, a coolie, and a metalworker in which workers movingly recounted their working day.20 Retailing the basic details of their working lives, such as how much they earned, how their earnings depended on the weather and on not getting ill, and how difficult it was to feed and clothe their families, their stories were written in a melodramatic style clearly designed to stir the reader to sympathy and rage. One story from a “tragic young laborer” ends: “The reader who reads these words and ponders them will no doubt find that the more they think, the more hatred they will nurse in their heart. What reason [daoli] is there for a state of affairs in which the laborer, as the price of his sweat and blood, has not even the right to draw his wages? . . . Maintain the rich, oppress the poor. Everywhere it’s the same. These vicious capitalists are truly our worst enemies. Fellow workers, why do we put up with it?” 21 The use of the rhetorical question, incidentally, was a typical device of these narratives, designed to lessen the distance between the reader and the text. Exploitation, understood broadly as the use of an inequality of power to

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achieve further inequalities, was not a concept completely absent from traditional Chinese social thought. Laozi, for example, wrote: The court is corrupt The fields are overgrown with weeds The granaries are empty Yet there are those dressed in fineries With swords at their sides Filled with food and drink And possessed of too much wealth This is known as taking the lead in robbery Far indeed is this from the way.22 In seeking to popularize a class-based conception of exploitation, propagandists utilized familiar notions such as “taking the lead in robbery.” Li Dazhao, a founder of the Beijing group of Communists, wrote: “We should make use of the tide of democracy and laborism to enable everyone to become a worker and not a robber. Anyone who eats without working is a robber. . . . We Chinese are accustomed to being covetous and easy-going; we are either robbers or beggars. We always hope not to have to work so that we can rob others or beg from them.” 23 Another theme that propagandists sought to tap into was the long-standing idea that those in power acquired and maintained power through trickery and deceit. The May Day leaflet of 1920 proclaimed: “People who do not work are all thieves and robbers, tricksters and swindlers.” 24 One worker suggested that class society had come about as the result of a gigantic act of knavery: “You should know that once everyone on the earth was equal, there were no class distinctions. All money, property, tools were owned in common, no one could claim them as private property. But then certain rascals [wulai], using all kinds of crafty methods, seized the common money, land and tools and made them their private property.” 25 This representation played on the sense both that capitalists were inherently crafty ( jiaohuo) and that their cheating was an expression of contempt for ordinary people. The propagandists of class used these traditional themes to communicate a novel conception of exploitation. An article titled “The Slaves of Robbers” drew on the customary idiom of robbery to explain the labor theory of value: “Because the life of the propertied class is not based on labor, we call them the robber class since they use their money to rob the producers of

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their surplus. . . . For every hundred drops of sweat, only thirty or forty go to feed us . . . the rest go to support the capitalist.” 26 James Scott has argued that objective theories of exploitation, such as the marxist one, do not provide a conceptual link between the structural relationship of exploitation and the feelings of the exploited. He suggests that exploitation can only make sense out of the experience of the exploited when it is seen to entail the abrogation of a moral norm, one that is fundamentally bound up with a right of subsistence and an ethic of reciprocity.27 Samuel Popkin and others have questioned the idea of a fixed norm of justice and a culturally determined “subsistence level,” seeing these as malleable and negotiable, susceptible to shifts in the balance of power between individuals.28 In the Chinese case the rhetoric of exploitation was certainly a moral one and, to that extent, may support Scott’s argument. Moreover, because class relations might be construed as legitimate if they did not entail selfishness or dishonesty, ideas of robbery and deceit could potentially be used for rather conservative ends. As against that, Popkin’s stress on the relativism of moral norms also seems apposite because the ideological innovation brought about by the May Fourth Movement did cause workers to bring new criteria of evaluation to bear on their situation and thus to challenge the narrow horizon of expectation that underpins an authentic moral economy.29

The Denial of Dignity The sensitivity of class-conscious workers to being tricked was in part a reflection of their experience of politics after 1911, when zhengke used the nascent labor movement as a vehicle of self-aggrandizement. The sense of betrayal that this engendered in the politicized minority is palpable in a piece written by the printer Pan Alao against the self-styled “friends of labor”: “Although we workers have no education, we have tasted suffering long enough, we have been duped by your fine words for long enough. We have now woken up. No matter what tricks you try to play on us, we won’t be taken in any longer. So do not rack your brains thinking up schemes of deception.” 30 In another piece, a rickshaw puller—apparently a downwardly mobile intellectual—told of how he had been barred from a labor meeting because of his tattered attire: “Readers, are there not already enough places from which we are barred, without being barred from

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a workers’ meeting? I have had a middle-school education, but have ended up like this. If I have fallen into the working class, it doesn’t mean that I have lost my dignity. The sad truth is that these grand gentlemen who talk about labor also look down on us.” 31 As well as an expression of anger at the zhengke, such railing against the “friends of labor” arose from anger at the assumption that workers could be slighted with impunity. Through its condemnation of the way in which Confucian culture suppressed the dignity of the individual, the New Culture Movement heightened the awareness of “enlightened” workers to their dignity. Dignity came with consciousness, and its development was hindered by lack of education, poverty, or banausic work. It was strongly associated with the idea of the basic equality and moral value of all human beings.32 As taken up in the discourse of class, “dignity” was used to castigate the inhumane way in which workers were treated and to justify their claim to radical improvement not only in their working conditions but especially in the way that they were treated by their superiors. A worker from Hunan wrote to Labor World to call on workers to become “conscious of their dignity, conscious of their treatment, conscious of education and conscious of organization.” 33

Labor as Sacred On May Day 1920 Chen Duxiu gave a peroration on the theme of “who is most useful to society?” He took as his text Mencius’s apothegm that “some work with their minds, others with their bodies. Those who work with their minds rule, while those who work with their bodies are ruled. Those who are ruled produce food; those who rule are fed.” At the climax of his speech he urged his audience to turn the axiom upside down.34 For centuries Confucian culture had seen manual labor as “low” and “useless,” valuing only the work of the mind. This attitude had shaped the consciousness of workers themselves, to the extent that they distinguished manual jobs in terms of their lowliness. The architects of the discourse of class had thus to combat the low esteem in which manual work was held. We have seen that anarchists used the notion of laborism to invest work with qualities of dignity and utility, positing labor as the basis of a free and equal society and emphasizing the obligation of all to work. “Labor is the greatest obligation of human life and the source of civilization” and “the means to

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avoid moral degeneration and help moral growth . . . a means to forge spiritual will-power.” 35 In fact, the theme of laborism was less pronounced in Shanghai than in Beijing and Guangzhou, with propagandists tending to talk more about the “sacredness of labor” (laogong shensheng). This idea, too, had an anarchist pedigree, although it had also been promoted by the Socialist Party. During the New Culture Movement it became a veritable rallying cry. The well-known reformer and quondam anarchist Cai Yuanpei, chancellor of Beijing University, explained in an article in New Youth: “A peasant does the work of planting, a merchant does the work of transporting, administrators, teachers, writers and inventors do the work of education. We must all recognize the value of labor, the sacredness of labor.” 36 The idea of the sacredness of labor was used during the May Fourth Movement to encourage workers to set aside class interests for the sake of the nation: “Now the workers’ section of society is not resisting the capitalists since, in view of the sacredness of labor, we do not wish in any way to demean its value, still less to belittle the great sacrifice which has been made by student and merchants circles.” 37 Yet at the same time, the idea was susceptible to class-based appropriation. With a nice sense of irony, a worker at the Hunan arsenal reported how the director sought to acquire this talisman: “We bowed to him and he began his speech, which was long and impossible to summarize. What puzzled us workers was his statement that ‘the sacredness of labor applies to those who have knowledge, morality and skill, and does not apply to those who have only skill. All are laborers who work with their hands, but those who work with their brains—who use a pen and ink—are superior laborers.’ . . . We wish we had asked him to explain these sage words. . . . Isn’t that the exact opposite of the principle that ‘labor is sacred’?” 38 This suggests that the theme of sacredness of labor was, to some degree, a stake in an ideological struggle, wherein an inclusive, pan-class interpretation vied with a more class-exclusive interpretation. By the 1920s workers had largely succeeded in taking possession of the slogan. On 26 May 1924, for example, the union of Zhejiang workers in Shanghai proclaimed: “The sacredness of labor is an eternal principle, and if we wish truly to achieve this objective, we must strive by our own efforts and unite as one in a common struggle against social oppression.” 39 A meeting of silk weavers on 26 March 1927, following the uprising by the ccp against the warlord forces who controlled Shanghai, declared: “At last we really know that labor is sacred.” 40

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Morality and Innate Goodness Workers were routinely described in the press and elsewhere as uneducated and immoral. In an article in Shanghai Shopclerk, titled “Why Are the Workers Immoral?” a worker wrote: “I saw an article in the newspaper about how the employees of a certain shop had set fire to it. Afterwards an inquiry established that the cause was the ill-treatment of the employees by the owner. Why are the workers lacking in morality [daode]? I venture to say that it is because they lack knowledge.” 41 It was taken for granted that moral sensibility was a function of a level of education. Traditionally, moral cultivation had been the prerogative of the junzi, the gentleman official, and the laboring classes were presumed not to have the leisure or capacity for self-reflection necessary to become autonomous moral agents. The idea that labor unions should seek to inculcate morality was prominent during the May Fourth Movement. Shen Xuanlu, coeditor of the Weekly Review and leading light in the gmd, defined the three purposes of labor organization as being morality, truth (gongli), and justice (gongyi).42 In fact, the guilds had long emphasized moral training as an indispensable element of apprenticeship, so to some degree the emphasis of the new labor movement on moral education reflected its proximity to the guild tradition. In 1912, for example, workers in the railway workshops at Wusong set up the Association to Promote Morality, and typesetters formed an organization to “uphold the morality of the trade.” 43 In the same year the Labor Party’s Common Progress Society defined the duties of its members as being to “propagate social habits, investigate the material world, explain the difference between good and evil, observe civilized behavior, work together with one heart, be of responsible disposition and, above all, be morally upstanding and not disturb public order.” 44 Here behaving morally was linked to upholding social stability, and during the 1920s the right wing of the gmd pushed this conservative angle, advocating moral education as a prophylactic against class warfare. But the assumption that knowledge alone was insufficient for revolution, that moral transformation was at its heart, was shared by many whose politics were more subversive. Anarchists saw education as the means to create a morality that would liberate individuals from selfishness and restore their instinctive sociability. Underlying this was a belief in the essential goodness of humankind. We saw in the previous chapter that liangxin was invoked by workers to jus-

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tify their participation in the nationalist movement. It connoted morally responsible behavior in accordance with conscience, and became pivotal to the discourse of class as well as of nation. The Communists also appealed to the idea of conscience. An article titled “Who Are the Enemies of the People?” began: “Anyone who stifles their conscience, who seeks selfinterest in defiance of the public good is our sworn enemy.” 45 In addition to behaving in accordance with conscience, the architects of the discourse of class also emphasized mutual aid—another anarchist panacea—as a way not only to create solidarity among workers but also to improve morality. Mutual aid continued to be one of the most widely cited objects of labor unions throughout the 1920s. In 1924, for example, the newly formed shop employees’ union declared: “We seek to raise our livelihoods in the spirit of mutual aid, by the method of cooperation and by advocating autonomy.” 46

Unifying Fellow Feeling Virtually all labor organizations defined their purpose as being to “unify emotional sentiment” (lianhe ganqing), which might in this context be better translated as “unify fellow feeling.” This was how the Labor Party defined its objective in 1912, and how printers at the Commercial Press described their aim in January 1917.47 Ganqing was used to characterize the solidarity seen to be desirable among members of the guilds, and its salience within the trade-union movement is another index of ideological continuity with the guild tradition. In modern usage ganqing denotes feeling, affection, or attachment. It is a personal term, whereas renqing (human obligations) is social.48 Historically, however, the term ganqing could be used in the context of relations between people on a different social footing, notably but not exclusively, relations between landlords and peasants.49 In this context it still denoted feelings of warmth and mutual dependence, but was compatible with a recognized degree of exploitation.50 As appropriated by the discourse of class, ganqing meant guanxi, in which affective elements predominated over instrumental ones.51 Ganqing was a finite quality measured by the degree of warmth evident in relationships, and was utilized to help people work together and avoid quarrels.52 It meant that you were willing to do something for the other person, and they for you. If you failed to help them, you would lose face.53 In the context of trade unionism the idea worked well, because it connoted affection and a degree

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of emotional commitment but also an element of mutual advantage and interdependence. Another term taken up by the discourse of class was the idea of “universal love” (boai). Again, this concept had a long genealogy in Chinese political thought, possibly going back to Mozi, a contemporary of Confucius, who extolled jian’ai, “love for everyone” to the disapprobation of Confucians, who placed family loyalties first.54 The term also figured in the discourse of the guilds. The stela at the Lu Ban temple of the Shaoxing and Shanghai bangs of the construction workers’ guild, erected in 1911, declared: “Our spiritual ties will be so strong that we will be inseparable; our fraternal love (boai) will be so intense that it will not dissipate even if we are confronted with frustration and suffering.” 55 Christian missionaries used the term to denote the universal love of Jesus, and Sun Yat-sen and other progressives used it to denote the ideal of “fraternity” that had been inaugurated by the French Revolution.56 In October 1920 the group of progressive entrepreneurs who founded the Shanghai Worker-Merchant Friendly Society (Shanghai gongshang youyi hui) defined its aims as to realize the happiness of shopclerks, and to seek independence and equality, universal love and mutual aid.57 At the inaugural meeting of the society, Shao Zonghui declared: “I say that the two elements of workers and merchants must stand up and govern themselves; they must neither deceive nor flatter one another; they must assist one another and be fraternal.” 58 Here “fraternity” was valued precisely as an antidote to class conflict rather than as a means to foster solidarity among workers alone.

Combating Fatalism Of all the values within traditional culture deemed to be inimical to class solidarity, none was more vilified than fatalism. The manifesto of The Laborer asked: “What is the besetting sin of the Chinese worker? Blindly letting things drift (yiwei fangren).” 59 And in the same journal a worker wrote: “The worst thing about Chinese workers is that they know their place, and say that this place is dictated by fate. Those who are poor, humble and suffer, do not blame either Heaven or Man, they say it’s all due to fate. They say you must bear the suffering that has been assigned to you. . . . All it needs to turn this damned world upside down is for laborers not to accept fate, not to know their place, and not to say any more: ‘It’s my bad luck’ [ fanzheng shi daomei].” 60 Within popular culture fate was seen to consist

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of two elements: yinyuan, or the determination of the present by the past; and mingyuan, the determination of the future by the present.61 Stevan Harrell has observed that fatalism seems to conflict with the “entrepreneurial ethic” that is ubiquitous in Chinese culture, which prescribes that one invest one’s resources in a long-term quest to improve the well-being and security of one’s group. He reconciles the paradox by suggesting that fate is invoked mainly as a kind of post-hoc rationalization once things have failed.62 The later record of Chinese workers in the 1920s suggests that Harrell is correct to maintain that fatalism was not an insuperable block to action. Yet it is undoubtedly the case that fatalism could paralyze initiative. Propagandists of class were acutely concerned about the apathy of Chinese workers, which they contrasted to the supposed activism and determination of workers in the West.63 The manifesto of The Laborer declared: “Although foreign workers suffer a painful life, they nevertheless are continually thinking of ways to relieve their sufferings, ways to put their upside-down society on an even footing, not like us who blindly let things drift and allow ourselves to be trampled on. . . . We Chinese are especially unfortunate, and so crushed by our misfortunes that we cannot help ourselves. We must invent ways of helping ourselves; and the more we do this, the more we shall overcome our suffering.” 64

The Nomenclature of Class By the early years of the twentieth century, the dominant idiom for talking about social distinctions was that of jie. The facility with which this idiom took hold probably is derived from the fact that it was based on the traditional idea of the four vocations, the principal jie being those of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. Following the abolition of the examination system in 1905, “scholars” (shi) disappeared and were replaced by “students” (xue); and around the same time, the jie tag was adopted by emergent professional groups, such as doctors (yijie), journalists (baojie), and lawyers ( fajie). Henrietta Harrison has suggested that the jie paradigm facilitated acceptance of the idea that the “people” could best be represented through its constituent occupational and functional groups.65 That the vocabulary of jie was less a socio-occupational taxonomy and more a claim for social recognition and political rights is suggested by the fact that women organized themselves as the nüjie during the 1911 Revolution to

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promote their campaign for equal rights with men.66 The vocabulary of jie—a good instance of the reworking of a traditional idiom—was perfectly compatible with social hierarchy in principle, but since historically the four vocations had been distinguished from the guan, or officials, the collectivity of different jie came increasingly to be synonymous with the “people”; that is, those from whom the state should derive its authority.67 And because it was forged in the struggle by the “people” for political rights, it tended to be used in ways that authorized the idea of the basic equality of citizens, regardless of social position, and that rejected classridden notions of social precedence (mendi guandian). The word used to denote “class” ( jieji) is found in the Chinese classics, but it took on its modern meaning only after being reabsorbed from Japanese.68 In classical Chinese the term denoted hierarchical degrees on a continuum, and the sense of jie as rungs on a ladder was still palpable when Liang Qichao reintroduced the term jieji from Japanese (kaikyu) to indicate the differentials between capitalists and workers and men and women.69 In the last decade of the Qing dynasty the terms “capitalist” (zibenjia) and “proletariat” (wuchanjieji) were deployed by anarchists and Alliance Society writers, but were not widely understood. During the May Fourth Movement the radical press felt it necessary to explain these neologisms, using parentheses such as “that is, those without money” or “that is, the factory owners.” 70 As Myron Cohen has remarked of the term for “peasantry” (nongmin), which the ccp later substituted for the traditional word, nongfu, the advantage of such neologisms is that they are “inherently abstract and readily available for the assignment of new meaning.” 71 It was not until the May Thirtieth Movement of 1925 that these class terms began to gain currency. As we have seen, the term “workers’ section of society” could refer to all who worked in industry and who were economically self-supporting, and could thus in principle encompass employers as well as employees. This is reflected in the constitution of the Labor Party, which stated that the party was open to all “comrades of the working circles,” “whether rich or poor.” 72 Yet it is clear from the usages cited in chapter 5, that by the time of the May Fourth Movement the term was used more or less exclusively of and by workers. Interestingly, the early Communists chose the term laodongjie, the “laborers’ section of society,” rather than the more widely used term gongjie, as the title of their first journal. The term “labor” (lao-

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dong) was another classical term that had migrated to Japanese, where it had acquired the modern sense of labor (ro¯do¯ ), before being reintroduced into Chinese.73 The Communist preference for the term laodong may have had something to do with its populist resonance, its construal of the working people in a broad and inclusive fashion.74 But by the mid-1920s, the ccp tended to talk of gongren (workers) rather than laodong. The term gongren, too, had a long genealogy, but it was already used by the Alliance Society newspaper, People’s Stand, to denote workers in the modern sense.75 Skilled workers appear to have preferred the term gongren to laodongzhe, to judge from a protest in 1920 by gardeners employed by the Municipal Council who objected to being called “common laborers.” 76 Artisans tended to describe themselves as gongjiang or by terms that characterized their trade, such as mujiang (carpenter), tongjiang (coppersmith), tiejiang (ironsmith), and so forth.77 In the guild sector an older repertory of address was still current: in carpentry workshops, for example, apprentices referred to one another as xianggong (equal).78 What is noteworthy is that workers regularly referred to themselves by terms that had no class connotations, such as tongren (colleagues) or tongbao (people born of the same womb). Tongbao, as we have seen, was early used to authorize an ethno-national version of national identity, one that implicitly alluded to the filiation of sons to fathers and of the nation to its ancestral lineage. But as used by the discourse of class, the term stressed horizontal rather than vertical social relations, and it was much closer in meaning to the term “comrade” (tongzhi) which was also used by the nationalist movement.79 Tongzhi, literally meaning “united in purpose,” and tongzhishe, literally “comrades association,” became standard terms in the labor movement (the term “comrades association” being used to denote a friendly society). Another term widely used among male workers was xiongdi (brothers), or shouzu, both terms central to the ethos of the secret societies. Xiongdi, with its deep resonance of all men as brothers, continued to be a popular form of address within the gmd throughout the 1920s.80 Feminist history has sensitized us to the ways in which the voice of the labor movement is coded in masculine ways. And even in China, where the early discourse of class is remarkable for the link it made between working-class and women’s emancipation, labor organizers often addressed their audiences as “brothers” (xiongdi), with only occasional obeisance to “sisters” ( jiemeimen), despite the fact that women formed the majority of workers in the modern sector.81

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Conclusion The early discourse of class was ambivalent on the critical question of class conflict. Anarchists, who did so much to shape this discourse, believed that power was at the root of society’s problems and saw social revolution rather than class struggle as the modality of change. Spokespersons for the gmd recognized the division between workers and capitalists but urged cooperation in the interests of national liberation. Only the early Communists, who often talked much more like syndicalists, were unabashed in promoting class conflict, painting the workers’ enemies in lurid colors that broke sharply with the traditional valorization of social harmony. Labor World likened capitalists to tigers: “Fierce and cruel, (they) seek to harm people and disturb order. . . . There are people more terrible than tigers, who practice cannibalism. Who are they? They are the bosses or the capitalists who hire workers to make their fortunes for them.” 82 Such extreme imagery was as yet confined to a minority of labor-movement activists. The discourse of class forged in the May Fourth Movement, therefore, would be appropriated in diametrically opposed ways by the ccp and the gmd during the 1920s, and terms such as sacredness of labor, fraternity, and mutual aid, intrinsically fluid in meaning, would be used to promote both class cooperation and class conflict. Moreover, resistance to an antagonistic conception of class relations would prove to be deep-seated, at least until the May Thirtieth Movement. In 1924, for example, the newly formed shop employees’ union would insist that “we emphasize unity between shop owners and employees and we jointly strive for our common interests.” 83 Only in 1925 –1927 would class conflict be extolled, and then mainly in relation to foreign rather than native capitalists.84 The foregoing discussion has sought to map a discursive field: to show how key terms—some old, some new—were harnessed to forge a discourse of class, and to show how these terms, still protean, were capable of performing a range of functions from the sociological to the political to the ethical, from the descriptive to the metaphorical to the polemical. At this stage only a small minority of workers were touched by this discourse. For the majority, beliefs and values continued to be shaped by Confucian culture, and social identities continued to be defined in terms of native place, secret-society affiliation, guild membership, or guanxi with foremen and labor contractors. The Shanghai Shopclerk frankly admitted that most workers were not interested in the journal: “They do not just say they do not

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want to buy it, they say they do not need it. Even worse, they think we are conmen [huatou] or hoodlums, and show mistrust towards us, as though they do not wish to be seen talking to us.” 85 A contributor to the Shanghai Shopclerk said that among shop employees no more than one-fifth could be considered conscious, and these he subdivided between the truly enlightened—those with “broad awareness” ( guangyi pai)—and a larger group who were willing to defend themselves (zishou pai). This enlightened fifth was surrounded by the befuddled masses (hunchen pai) “who wag their tails ingratiatingly, curry favor with the powerful, gang up with the bosses to obstruct the common good, and think no further than the next bowl of rice.” 86 Yet for a minority, the discourse of class provided categories with which they could make sense of the bewildering experiences of urban-industrial life and acquire a new identity as workers. As a result of the May Fourth Movement, workers began to recognize themselves in a publicly available discourse that legitimated their right to speak. This was to have far-reaching implications because, as Sartre once observed, “words wreak havoc, when they find a name for what has up to then been lived namelessly.” 87

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7

The Communist Attempt to Organize Labor, 1920 –1923

Organizing Labor In March 1920 the Comintern sent a delegation to China led by twentyseven-year-old Grigorii Voitinskii, which arrived in Shanghai in late April. Chen Duxiu introduced the Russian comrades to the leading lights in the city’s radical milieu, and Voitinskii soon set up a Marxist Research Society, which met at Chen’s home. This became the embryo of a Communist “small group” founded in August, which presented itself as the leader of a nationwide Communist movement.1 From the first, it sought to build a militant labor movement by launching a workers’ journal, Labor World, in August 1920 and helping to create a mechanics’ union and a short-lived printers’ union. The Shanghai “small group” fell into disarray at the beginning of 1921, but it was revived as a result of the First Congress of the ccp, which was held in the city in July. Immediately following the conference, on 11 August 1921, a national center for the labor movement, known as the Chinese Labor Organization Secretariat, was established in Shanghai.2 1920 proved to be an ideal moment for the Communists to seek to build a labor movement in Shanghai. That year saw China’s greatest-ever trade boom, and the onset of world depression in the second half of the year gave native industry a further respite by delaying the return of foreign businessmen to China. Between 1919 and 1922 the number of cotton mills in Shanghai grew from twenty-six to fifty-one, about a dozen of which were Japanese mills. Japanese companies overcame their reluctance to set up cotton mills on Chinese soil because of cheaper labor costs in China, increased Chinese tariffs on imports, increased production costs at home, and the Japanese government’s prohibition of night work for women workers in 1916.3 The number of Chinese-owned mills grew even faster, from eleven to twenty-four, although the expansion of the native silk industry was more

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sluggish.4 In 1923 the boom finally came to an end owing to an adverse shift in currency values, the return of western traders, and a depression in the Japanese yarn industry.5 If these were boom years for capital, however, they brought untold hardship for workers. In 1919 the price of one picul of rice was $7.48; in 1920 it rose to $10.26; in 1921 to $10.43; in 1922 to $12; and in 1923 to $12.52.6 These averages conceal huge monthly fluctuations, which meant that the purchasing power of wages was extremely unstable. Moreover, the relentless pressure on housing caused by massive immigration meant that rent levels soared to unprecedented heights.7 Finally, from 1921 the depreciation of the copper currency accelerated, playing havoc with wages. In May of that year the Mexican silver dollar exchanged for 149.52 coppers; in August 1923 it exchanged for 179.1.8 The result was a rash of strikes and rice riots—what historians in the PRC call the “first strike high tide.” There were thirty-three strikes in 1920, nineteen in 1921, and twenty-nine in 1922.9 Another source gives a higher figure, stating that in the thirteen months between January 1922 and February 1923 there were no fewer than fifty-four strikes affecting more than eighty-five thousand workers, of which sixteen involved one thousand workers or more, and five lasted more than twenty days.10 The Communists distinguished themselves from the gmd and other forces active in the labor movement by their rejection of the orientation in place since 1912 that advocated labor organization as a means to facilitate nation building. At this stage, they were committed to a proletarian revolution in China following the trail blazed by the Bolsheviks in Russia, and they viewed the organization of workers as a means to promote class politics in China. The basic message of early Communist propaganda was threefold: Workers must organize; they must organize along pure class lines; and they must be educated. At the First Congress of the ccp in July 1921 the organization of labor was declared to be “the chief aim of the party.” Where there were industrial workers, the congress resolution declared, they should be organized into industrial unions; where there were handicraft workers or workers in small enterprises, they should be organized into appropriate trade unions. All labor organizations must be imbued with the spirit of class struggle.11 At a preliminary meeting to form a mechanics’ union on 3 October 1920, Li Zhong (Li Shengxie; 1897–1951), a graduate of the First Normal School in Changsha where he had studied with Mao Zedong, declared that workers needed pure class organizations that were not regionally based, not under the control of employers, not of mixed

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The Communist Attempt to Organize Labor 135

class composition, not under the control of political opportunists or secretsociety bosses, and not purely “signboard” (zhaopai) unions.12 This list of “five nots” was embodied in the union’s constitution. Yet in spite of this, the Communists were careful not to push the message of class conflict too aggressively. Speaking to the preliminary meeting, Li Zhong did lambaste the capitalists and call for struggle against them, yet the aims of the mechanics’ union were formulated in a language that was closer to the guild tradition and to anarchism than to Leninism. These aims were: “To promote common ideals, training and morality; to advance knowledge; to develop mutual aid of a class type; to join forces in an effective manner to reform our situation; to raise our standard of living and lessen our sufferings; to seek mutual peace and happiness and support one another in our common endeavor; to study the conditions of the labor market; to demand that the employers increase our pay, reduce our working hours, pay sickness and injury benefits and improve health and safety at work.” 13 The heterogeneous character of these aims partly reflects the ideological incoherence of the Shanghai “small group,” since it took some time for leninism to implant itself in the nascent party. It also reflects the fact that the Communists were forced to deal with other activists, and with rankand-file workers, who were not comfortable with an unbridled rhetoric of class struggle. It is noteworthy that the Communists quickly lost influence in the mechanics’ unions, which turned for leadership to the mechanics’ union in Guangzhou, a bulwark of the gmd.14 However, despite numbering fewer than fifty, Communists in the Shanghai regional organization mobilized effectively to exploit the labor unrest that swept the city in 1921–1922.15 The Shanghai office of the Labor Organization Secretariat worked feverishly to create a city-wide federation of labor unions under its control. Yet, it soon discovered that although workers might display great militancy in disputes, incipient class solidarity was constantly threatened by particularistic social identities.

Dealing with the Secret Societies The secret societies were the major obstacle facing the Labor Organization Secretariat, and the tiny and inexperienced band of Communists was uncertain how to deal with them. Should they conciliate or confront the foremen and contractors who ruled the roost among rank-and-file workers? A majority were inclined to the view that the subaltern traditions of

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the secret societies—as sworn brotherhoods of the “rivers and lakes” fighting for justice for the common people—meant that they could be won over to the side of the working class. Some, however, including a worker writing in the secretariat journal in November 1921, clamored for the expulsion of the Green and Red gangs from labor ranks, believing that their clientelism, corruption, opportunism, and hierarchy made them dubious allies.16 Given its puny forces, however, confrontations with the societies was never a realistic option for the ccp, so it chose to “drink cock’s blood wine” and “set up an incense altar” with the bosses of the Green Gang. Li Qihan, the most able of the early Communist labor leaders, led the way. Early in 1921, while running a night school in Xiaoshadu, Li met a textile worker who was a gang member, and through her he became the disciple of a high-ranking master of tong generational status.17 It was not long before the difficulties of cooperating with the secret societies became apparent. On 20 July 1921 two hundred workers walked out in protest at the conduct of a foreign supervisor at the machine shop of the old bat plant in Pudong.18 Zhang Tao and other workers put up a respectful notice, calling on workers at the new bat plant to support them: “Today when rice is as precious as pearls and firewood as costly as cassia, our wages have not increased, even though the rule is that they should be raised each year. This year that rule has been suspended, so our colleagues [tongren] at the old plant have come out on strike. We know that it will have no effect if only the workers at the old plant join forces, and so we hope that our compatriots will lend us their support. We must be sure to stand firm to the end.” 19 The chief inspector at bat, a Green Gang boss, initially dissuaded the workers at the new plant from going on strike, but the mood of the meeting changed when Wang Youcai crept up behind him and tipped a melon full of excrement over his head.20 The police were called in and Zhang Tao, Wang Youcai, and several others were arrested. It was this action that brought out the entire workforce of nearly eight thousand on 26 July. Some headed straight for the Liugong temple to make offerings to Buddha to pray for a favorable outcome. Li Qihan used his new gang connections to bring together ten worker leaders to organize the strike, but gang bosses at bat, all of whom were compradors, inspectors, or foremen, kept aloof, and Wang Fengshan actually began to recruit strikebreakers.21 At a meeting on 1 August comprador Wang Weizhen and the police chief urged workers to accept an offer from the company, but they were howled

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down with cries of “we won’t go back to work on those terms.” One of the workers’ leaders said: “Gentlemen, the proposals you offer are little short of comical, completely without substance. They are just a way of deceiving and seducing us ignorant workers. All of us can see through your ruse.” 22 On 3 August a scuffle broke out when pickets tried to stop scabs from coming into the factory.23 Slogans raised at a demonstration two days later reflected elements of the new discourse of class, comprising “worker self-determination” (gongren zijue); “give us back our sweat and blood”; “increase our wages”; “reduce our hours”; “labor is sacred”; “let no one dare insult us”; and “fight to give the workers back their dignity.” 24 After twenty-one days, the workers won a modest victory, with Li Qihan apparently having to persuade some of the more intransigent workers to accept the settlement.25 Following the strike, a tobacco workers’ union was set up in late August in the secretariat’s premises in Zhabei, a long way from Pudong where the bat plants were situated. Its charter, like that of the mechanics’ union ten months earlier, used fairly moderate language, defining the aims of the union as being “to unify fellow-feeling, implement mutual aid, improve our position, and increase our standard of living in order to achieve common happiness.” 26 The union managed to recruit four hundred members, but these fell away after the management sacked Zhang Zigen, the union’s vice-president, along with a mechanic. The president of the union, Liu Fengchen, then turned to the secretariat for guidance, and it was agreed to call a new strike from 26 September.27 This time Li Qihan appealed to the Green Gang bosses at bat to back the workers: “Most foremen are in the Green Gang, and they have taken the oath of brotherhood. But are not most workers also in the Green Gang? Bullying workers, who are brothers and nephews according to the same oath, is not something to boast about. Can you treat your own fellows in ways that go against the rules of the society? Foremen you are all bosses in the gang. Can you tolerate behavior that goes against the code of brotherhood?” 28 This did the trick, for over one hundred foremen, mechanics, and machinists met in secret and pledged to support the strikers, electing two delegates to liaise with the strike committee. Wang Fengshan, the Green Gang boss who had earlier organized strikebreakers, was publicly congratulated for lining up behind the strikers.29 After two days the company agreed to reinstate the two sacked activists, but still refused to recognize the union. In spite of this qualified victory it was clear that the ccp, in cooperating with the secret soci-

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eties, was supping with the devil. Li Qihan’s success in winning the backing of senior foremen raised the prestige of the secretariat in the eyes of many workers, but it also revealed the limitations of its influence. Ultimately, the interests of the Green Gang were different from those of the secretariat, and the following year gang bosses would lose patience with Li Qihan and betray him to the police.30

Shanghai and the Hong Kong Seamen’s Strike Native-place bangs were the other impediment to the Communists’ drive to organize workers. The first practical test of the secretariat’s belief that “all workers under Heaven are one family” came with the seamen’s strike early in 1922.31 There may have been as many as thirty thousand seamen in Shanghai, if one includes inland, coastal, and ocean-going crews. The largest contingent belonged to the Ningbo bang, which included natives of Shanghai; the next largest to the Guangdong bang, which was the biggest bang nationally; and last were the smaller bangs from Tianjin and Hankou.32 Overlapping but not coinciding with regional divisions were occupational divisions such as that between cabin and engine-room staff and more lowly deckhands and cooks.33 Seafarers in Shanghai had begun to organize in the early years of the republic. In 1914 Qian Xiaoyu formed the Jun’an guild (whose name suggests a safe return from a voyage), which consisted of a northern and a southern bang. The northern bang, which was the bigger of the two, was affiliated to the Ningbo regional guild and, in practice, the Jun’an guild operated like a native-place association for Ningbo seamen.34 It proved to be a great success, paying members unemployment and death benefits and running a school for their children. By 1921 it had accumulated funds of more than fourteen thousand dollars and planned to build a new headquarters.35 1914 also saw the formation of another seamen’s organization, the Yanying (“Full-of-Flame”) Society, which catered mainly to ships’ stokers. It, too, consisted of a northern and a southern bang, but was also dominated by men from Ningbo.36 In addition, there were two organizations that catered exclusively to Cantonese—the Group Ties (Qunyi) Society and the Unity (Lianyi) Society, the latter open only to cooks, stewards, and “boys.” Both groups resembled secret societies and had connections to the Triad lodges of the Guandihui and the Tongxinhui.37 Seamen were the first group of workers to organize on a national basis, thanks to the efforts of the gmd in Guangzhou. On 6 April 1921 a national

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seamen’s union was formed in Hong Kong under the presidency of Chen Bingsheng, a gmd labor organizer, and Xie Yingbo, also a leading figure in the gmd but formerly an anarchist and member of the Socialist Party in the United States.38 On 13 January 1922, against a background of rocketing prices, the union launched a well-organized strike aimed at improving wages and ending the “squeeze” extracted by labor contractors. By February over 30,000 men had stopped work, and trade in Hong Kong had come to a standstill. On 26 February the entire workforce of Hong Kong came out in sympathy, boosting the total number of strikers to about 120,000.39 After a record fifty-six days on strike the workers achieved a victory on 2 March, gaining a wage increase of 15 percent to 30 percent and improvements in the system of recruitment. Following the success of the strike, the Jun’an guild and the secretariat endeavored to form a branch of the seamen’s union in Shanghai. Zhu Baoting, a member of the Jun’an guild, went to the First National Labor Congress in Guangzhou held under gmd auspices in May 1922, where he met two leaders of the Hong Kong seamen, Su Zhaozheng and Lin Weimin, both of whom would later join the ccp. Zhu, himself poised to join the party, persuaded Lin to come to Shanghai to set up a branch of the union.40 On 28 August the branch was formally launched: Lin Weimin was elected president, Zhong Xiaopeng vice-president, and Zhu Baoting a member of the committee. Within a few weeks, 2,700 seamen, including members of the Ningbo, Guangdong, and Tianjin bangs, had joined the union.41 The new union sent three letters to the China merchant steam navigation company (cmsnc) asking it to raise rates to the same level as in foreign companies, but its director, Fu Xiaoan, allegedly retorted that “it is hard to find 100 dogs in Shanghai, but easy to find 1,000 men.” 42 The Shanghai union thereupon called a strike, involving 1,500 seamen on thirty-seven ships, which lasted from 5 to 26 August.43 Unlike the Hong Kong strike, the Shanghai strike was directed solely against Chinese companies, principally the cmsnc. It was well organized, with each ship electing two delegates to a strike committee. Two men guarded each striking ship and two sampans bearing the flag of the union sailed the river continuously. The union failed, however, to win the support of the secret societies. Several times Zhu Baoting was beaten up, prompting the union to form a “dog-beating squad” (dagou dui) to protect strikers against the mobsters.44 Fu Xiaoan, a distant relative of the warlord Sun Chuanfang, urged the authorities to crush the strike, and local police broke up the head-

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quarters of the strike committee at a teahouse on the Sixteen Shops docks in Nanshi. This prompted the committee to send an open letter to the garrison commissioner explaining that the seamen had been forced to strike by the intransigence and contempt shown by the cmsnc, and this action helped to rally public opinion in favor of the strikers.45 Because the shipping companies at the heart of the dispute were all owned by Ningbo businessmen, the latter endeavored to get the Ningbo regional guild (Siming gongsuo) to persuade the strikers, a majority of whom were fellow countrymen, to abandon their stoppage. Ningbo and Cantonese seamen had struck as one, yet the shipping companies were aware that unity was tenuous. The Ningbo native-place association (tongxianghui) accused the seamen’s union of being a Cantonese plot.46 In fact, although its president, Lin Weimin, was Cantonese, the strike committee was carefully constructed to reflect the preponderance of Ningbo seamen. Of twelve members, three were from the Jun’an guild, three from Yanying guild, and only one was from the Cantonese Unity Society. A photograph of the committee shows a collection of eminently respectable-looking men, all wearing western suits and ties.47 The Ningbo native-place association offered to mediate in the dispute, but because it made it a condition that the Jun’an guild and three branches of the Yanying guild (presumably those consisting of Ningbo men) leave the seamen’s union, the offer was spurned.48 Fu Xiaoan meanwhile prevailed on Zhu Baosan, president of the Ningbo guild, to use his extensive influence. During the May Fourth Movement, Zhu had been temporarily removed as chair of the gcc for his pro-Japanese sympathies, but it was said that “the daotai’s stamp counts for less than a letter from Zhu Baosan.” Zhu was a distant cousin of strike leader Zhu Baoting, although the two had never met, and he offered him a well-paid job with the cmsnc. Zhu Baoting, however, was not impressed by the job offer, telling his cousin that native-place ties could not override class interest.49 In the end, the director of the Ningbo native-place association, Li Weiwu, did mediate in the strike, although his attempt to deal with the Ningbo and Cantonese guilds separately was rejected. The final settlement gave most seamen a 20 percent increase, backdated to 1 May, and thus it was a significant victory. The employers refused to recognize the right of the union to be consulted about dismissals, but it did agree to a right of appeal.50 Once the strike was over, Ningbo seamen began quickly to leave the union, causing it to become an enclave of the Cantonese minority. The

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union was further weakened as the shipping companies began to recruit Indian, Japanese, and Filipino seamen at nonunion rates.51 Moreover, the reputation of the union soon became tarnished: first, when Zhu Rucai of the Unity Society resigned after a brief term as union president, apparently over personal differences; and second, and more seriously, when Chen Bingsheng, formerly president of the national union, became president of the Shanghai branch. According to the International Settlement police, Chen had been jailed for twelve years in March 1922 for murdering his wife, killing a policeman, and wounding several others while resisting arrest. To general dismay, however, Sun Yat-sen ordered Chen’s release in May, whereupon he moved to Shanghai.52 Under his presidency the Shanghai union increasingly attached itself to the right wing of the gmd.

The Pudong Millworkers’ Strike Neither secret-society nor native-place solidarities prevented united action by workers, but they made such unity precarious. Three stoppages occurred in Pudong in 1922 that provide further evidence both of workers’ willingness to unite in support of a trade union and even to strike in solidarity with workers in another industry, and of the underlying weakness of labor organization and class identity. In these stoppages the organizing efforts of the secretariat were thwarted not only by the employers but by non-Communist labor organizers determined not to let the Communists have the field to themselves. The thirty-eight hundred workers at the Nikko mills in Pudong were mainly women, around two thousand of whom came from Shandong province and were Roman Catholics.53 On 19 March 1922 the secretariat called a meeting in Pudong—attended by three hundred workers and addressed by Li Qihan, Chen Duxiu, and Shao Lizi—to set up a Pudong weavers union.54 On 6 April the union put forward a demand for a 20 percent wage increase to the Nikko company, which promptly turned it down. Ten days later, it launched a well-organized strike that ended nine days later with the Nikko workers getting raises of between 10 percent and 15 percent. Membership of the union grew to five hundred as a consequence, although most of the members were male weavers and machine setters rather than the mass of female spinners.55 Following the company’s delay in implementing the settlement, women in the fine-spinning room struck on 20 May in protest at the fact that new workers were not being

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paid by piece rate. The company called in the police, who arrested president of the union Zhang Yizhang, along with Wang Chunxin and the worker who had instigated the strike, Li Xiaomao. This action provoked the entire workforce to walk out.56 The police warned that if the strikers so much as mentioned the union they would be arrested for breaching article 22 of the Public Order Act.57 Ignoring the threat, the strikers demanded Zhang’s release, recognition of the union, the upholding of the agreement reached at the end of the April strike, the removal of certain Japanese supervisors, and the implementation of piece rates in the finespinning room.58 Activists from the secretariat worked with members of the patriotic public to garner support for the strikers. Because this was the first time that women workers had fought for the right to belong to a labor union, the Young Women’s Association sent out speaker teams in their support: “The trade union is something with which we workers seek happiness and protection of our lives. All workers must support the union no matter what. The factory owners know that the union is harmful to their interests and will use any means to destroy it.” 59 With covert backing from the company, a group of workers tried to undermine the strike, declaring: “Because the present union has not registered with the authorities, according to law, the police have banned it from holding meetings. The criminal-in-chief, Zhang Yizhang, who maneuvered Xiaomao into instigating the strike, is being detained at the police station. If workers continue to act against the law then the authorities will arrest them too. The mass of workers should not be afraid. Since you wish to work, heed our advice and return at once.” 60 The company refused to negotiate with the union, but expressed readiness to deal with the foremen, whom it considered to be the natural representatives of the workers. The foremen brokered a settlement by which the company agreed to abide by the terms of the previous strike settlement and to pay piece rates to women in the fine-spinning department, subject to one year’s satisfactory work. On the crucial issue of union recognition, however, it would not budge. Zhang’s dismissal was confirmed, and his successor as union president, Guo Shengshan, was ordered to resign or lose his job. After sixteen days on strike the workers went back on 5 June, not defeated but having failed to achieve their key aim.61 The strike received support from the Executive Committee of Shanghai Syndicates which had been formed in November 1921 by non-Communist labor leaders anxious to block the growing influence of the secre-

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tariat. Following the first strike, the committee mobilized to expand its influence in the new Pudong weavers’ union.62 By early June, the International Settlement police reported that Executive member Xu Xilin, a postal worker from Hunan with close ties to the Green Gang, had become the leading light in the union.63 Following the second stoppage the Nikko company confidently expected the union to collapse, but when it failed to do so the company called on the police to step in. On 28 September police shut down the union along with the free school which it ran for two hundred employees’ children. The Executive Committee petitioned the Jiangsu military governor to lift the ban, but he chose not to respond. After waiting several weeks, the weavers’ union announced that it would call a strike starting on 1 November, to which both the Executive Committee and the Communist secretariat gave their backing.64 The strikers called for the reopening of the union, the dismissal of two Japanese interpreters, the reinstatement of all those who had been fired after the previous strike, strike pay, a company subsidy of two hundred silver taels (liang) per month to the workers’ school, women to be allowed to feed their babies on the premises, and an end to the practice of holding over fractions of a dollar to the next pay packet.65 In response the company called on the military governor to intervene in the strike, and he ordered the arrest of the two union leaders, Zhang Yizhang and Guo Shengshan.66 What happened next was momentous. On 4 November, in the first instance of cross-industry solidarity, seven thousand workers at the neighboring bat plants came out in support of their comrades at Nikko. They called for the reopening of the Pudong weavers’ union and for a package of wage increases that would have reduced pay differentials within the workforce. On 9 November strikers’ representatives met the bat management, who offered a modest wage raise, payment in “big money,” and paid holidays (except Sundays). It also agreed to recognize an employees’ association—although not a trade union— on condition that it was located in the bat compound and that membership was confined to bat employees.67 In retrospect the strikers might have been wise to accept this offer, but they deemed it unacceptable because it did not address the issue at the heart of the stoppage—namely, the fate of the Nikko union. Consequently on 13 November the bat company announced that all employees who did not return within two days would be assumed to have quit their jobs. When workers failed to return the company implemented a lockout, the first example of a tactic that would become standard during the next

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five years. On 18 November it announced that it had recruited 320 “hands,” 100 engine-room workers, and 80 printers.68 In addition, it cultivated a rival to the tobacco workers’ union in the shape of the Pudong Society for the Advancement of Morality. Led by Shao Bingsheng—almost certainly a gang leader—it took as its motto “a promise of rice for each bowl and oppression for no one” and claimed to have three hundred to four hundred members. It besought the strikers to return to work.69 Meanwhile the Nikko management resorted to similar tactics, bribing male workers in the packing department to go back to work and bringing in Catholic priests to persuade the women to end the strike.70 The Socialist Youth League, the youth wing of the ccp, put out a leaflet stating: “The crafty expropriators deliberately use the churches and priests to oppress the workers. And the churches deliberately and shamelessly act as base henchmen of the Japanese capitalists.” 71 Here was a foretaste of Communist rhetoric to come: a ratcheting up of class antagonism but within an anti-imperialist framework. Foremen, acting on behalf of the night shift, approached management with a slimmed-down set of demands, including the release of Zhang Yizhang, permission for the union to remove money and property from its sealed headquarters, and two days strike pay. On the afternoon of 18 November, the company announced that it was willing to grant strike pay and to seek to persuade the police to allow the union to recover property from its premises. The night shift settled for these minimal concessions, to the dismay of the day-shift workers who protested that Zhang Yizhang was still in custody.72 Pudong now witnessed scenes of extraordinary violence. Cut off from the rest of the city on the other bank of the Huangpu River, it formed a relatively cohesive community consisting of twenty thousand to thirty thousand workers, most of whom worked in docks or factories belonging to foreign companies.73 On the morning of 18 November, as four thousand strikers marched to the police station to demand the release of Zhang Yizhang, a small band wrecked the house of an interpreter at the Nikko mills. That evening, as the night shift resumed work, angry bat workers picketed the gates. In the course of the next two days, the houses of three bat employees—those of the comprador Wang Weizhou and two brasssmiths—were ransacked. Forty police and one hundred troops were sent in by the military governor to reinforce the local constabulary. By 21 November, seven hundred workers at bat and four hundred at Nikko had returned to work, but violence deterred others from joining them. That day

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three women and two men were stabbed in a scuffle with strikebreakers, and four more dwellings were wrecked.74 After three weeks on strike, in debt and facing starvation, it was clear that the workers were going down in defeat. The weavers’ union could do little more than try to ensure that there was no victimization. However, neither the Nikko nor the bat company was in a mood for compromise. When work resumed at bat on 23 November, two hundred employees were fired and the club was shut down. The following day the Nikko management dismissed forty-eight “agitators” and warned those still on strike to return unconditionally. Returning workers were carefully vetted and required to sign a statement agreeing to resume work on the old terms of employment. By 26 November the month-long struggle for trade-union recognition had collapsed.75 This defeat proved to be the turning point in the fortunes of the secretariat in Shanghai.

Noncommunist Labor Organizations in Shanghai The Pudong dispute exposed the weakness of the non-Communist as well as the Communist unions. On paper, however, the former were far more influential. If one includes Wusong, some ten miles north of the Shanghai, there were as many as fifty unions in the city, although most were small and fragile.76 They included organizations brought into being by gmd members, such as the All-China Association for the Progress of the Workers’ Section of Society; employer-backed associations, such as the WorkerMerchant Friendly Society; native-place associations of workers; and genuine trade unions, such as the electricians’ union and the Nanyang tobacco employees’ friendly society. The Shanghai Women’s Industrial Progress Union, which was formed in March 1922 by two members of the Jiangsu provincial assembly eager to extend their influence among the silk women from Subei, nicely illustrates some of the inconsistencies of the non-Communist unions. The union was led by Mu Zhiying and Liu Hongdao, both of whom came from Yancheng. Mu, who was often described as a “social worker,” was a supporter of the gmd and a gang member.77 The aims of her union included the “promotion and improvement of female virtue and customs” and were clearly designed not to alarm the silk and cocoon guild. The rules of the union forbade members to strike without cause or damage the industry; to cause a fuss in the workshops or disrupt factory order; to steal cocoons or silk or to undermine morality; to march into the

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accountant’s office looking for trouble; and to row with supervisors. Moreover, the rules enjoined members to remain polite even when their feelings were hurt.78 The silk guild, however, was not impressed by this display of moderation and prevailed on the police to deny it a license.79 They appear to have had the measure of the union, for in practice it was far more militant than its aims and rules would suggest. On 5 August 1922 it launched a strike across some forty filatures in Zhabei and Xinzha, involving almost twenty thousand women. The strikers demanded union recognition, a reduction in working hours from thirteen and a half to ten, a pay increase from forty to forty-five cents a day, and one day’s holiday every two weeks.80 Women bearing white flags with slogans such as “equality of the sexes,” “protect human rights” (baozhang renquan), and “Make the World Know of our Harsh Conditions” toured the filatures in support. A crowd of over one thousand women marched into the International Settlement but were dispersed by police who made two arrests.81 On 7 August police dispersed a meeting of five hundred women at the union’s premises in Zhabei, and arrested six strike leaders, including Mu Zhiying. The directors of the silk guild demanded their “severe punishment.” 82 On 9 August the authorities closed down the union, thereby bringing the strike to an end.83 Warned of the dire consequences of infringing martial law, the women returned to work.84 The only concession made by the silk guild was to close the filatures half an hour early for the summer season. However, when the six strike leaders were brought to court the guild did stand bail on their behalf.85 In the eyes of the Communist secretariat, the Women’s Industrial Progress Union was a “signboard” union; that is, a facade behind which politicians and capitalists manipulated workers for their own ends. It poured scorn on the claims of its leaders to be genuine defenders of the working class, dubbing them gongfa (“labor barons”), a word analogous to the term for “warlord” ( junfa).86 Yet despite its zhengke paternity, the union did defend the interests of its members and stand up to the silk guild. Obviously, it rejected class conflict as a principle, yet it could not be dismissed as a “yellow,” or bosses’, union, as the secretariat claimed, at least at this stage of its development. Moreover, in spite of its appeal to traditional ideals of morality, politeness, and “female virtue and customs,” it served, to some extent, as a conduit through which silk workers were exposed to new notions of women’s and workers’ rights. This fact was not lost on the North China Herald, which observed: “That a number of women of the poorer

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and most ignorant class should challenge the power of such an extremely wealthy organization as the silk guild indicates a consciousness of their own importance and a determination to assert their rights, which is new in China.” 87 On 9 June 1922, the International Settlement police charged Li Qihan with “inciting strikes” and with publishing articles likely to cause a breach of the peace. His subsequent imprisonment deprived the secretariat of its finest leader, and the collapse of the Pudong strikes in November 1922 pushed it into terminal decline. After two years of hard work the Communists had achieved little more in organizational terms than the Labor Party and gmd before them. Nevertheless the young party had learned some valuable lessons. It now knew that the secret societies were generally unreliable but might be relied on where workers were in battle with foreign companies. It knew that regional divisions could be transcended, but that such coalitions were extremely tenuous. What it had not yet come to realize was the potential of nationalism to spur the organization of a militant labor movement. In neither the bat strike of 1921 nor the strikes at Nikko and bat in 1922 did the party play the anti-imperialist card. Appeals to workers were framed exclusively in the language of class, and appeals to the public centered on the justice of the workers’ cause. Except for the aforementioned statement from the Socialist Youth League, no attempt was made to portray the Japanese and British companies as exploiting China or to project workers as the defenders of China’s national honor. This was because until 1923 the party clung to the hope of a dictatorship of the proletariat in China and looked askance at nationalism as a “bourgeois” force. Only when it broke with “pure” class politics would the ccp begin to make inroads among Shanghai’s workers.

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8

Workers and the Nation: Left versus Right, 1923 –1925

Hendricus Sneevliet, the Comintern’s agent in China, first proposed that the ccp ally with the gmd at the end of March 1922, but the ccp would have none of it, seeing the gmd as a party scrambling for power and profit.1 In a report to the Executive Committee of the Comintern on 11 July 1922 Sneevliet rejected the view of the gmd as a “bourgeois” party, playing up its revolutionary character and suggesting that it was an alliance of different popular classes. Claiming that the formation of a Communist Party in China had been premature, he proposed that the Communists join the gmd on an individual basis, a tactic that became known as a “bloc within.” 2 After some hesitation the Executive Committee of the Comintern came around to Sneevliet’s view, although the Chinese Communists remained distinctly lukewarm. However, following the assault by the northern warlord Wu Peifu on the Beijing-Hankou railway union on 7 February 1923 Sneevliet insisted that the ccp make work inside the gmd its priority, and he went so far as to propose that it recruit workers directly into the latter.3 Reluctantly, the Third Congress of the ccp agreed in June 1923 that because the proletariat was not yet capable of acting as a strong, independent social force, the ccp should join the gmd while maintaining its own organization, with a view to drawing workers and left-wing elements into the latter.4 Subsequently, M. M. Borodin was sent by the Soviet government to work with the gmd government, arriving in Guangzhou on 6 October. Under his stewardship, the military, political, and ideological reorganization of the gmd proceeded apace, and his success did much to silence Communist doubts about the wisdom of the “bloc within.” His efforts to transform the gmd into a revolutionary nationalist party appeared vindicated when in January 1924 its First National Congress committed the party to lead the struggle against imperialism and warlordism and to carry out far-reaching economic, social, and political reforms.

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Left versus Right, 1923 –1925 149

The fortunes of the Communists in the Shanghai labor movement, which had begun to ebb in autumn 1922, slumped disastrously following the 7 February massacre. By the time of the May 1924 plenum of the party’s Central Executive Committee, the Shanghai district reported gloomily: “The labor movement we have organized up to now did not penetrate the mass of workers, it remained on the surface. Therefore we failed every time. Up to now the results have been nil.” 5 To some extent, the Communists’ failure merely reflected the fact that the labor movement as a whole was in the doldrums during these years. The level of strike activity in the city fell well below that of the years 1918 to 1922. And labor organization remained much less developed than in the south, where 210 unions were recorded for Hong Kong and 104 for Guangzhou in 1923.6 Deng Zhongxia reckoned that in 1923 no more than a few dozen labor organizations were active in Shanghai, of which the Nanyang tobacco employee’s friendly society, the mechanics’ union, the mechanics’ club, and the Cantonese workers’ federation were the largest. He calculated that 16,300 workers were members of these organizations— of whom 5,000 were industrial workers— compared with 32,300 in the Wuhan labor movement and 50,000 in the Guangzhou and Hong Kong labor movements.7 Nevertheless, the number of labor unions in Shanghai actually increased in these years, with the modest growth due in part to the fact that many labor organizers from the provinces fled to the safety of the city’s foreign settlements in the wake of Wu Peifu’s repression. Few of the organizers were Communists, most being anarchists or supporters of the antiCommunist wing of the gmd, which rapidly crystallized following Sun Yat-sen’s endorsement of the united front with the ccp. Before exploring the activities of these non-Communist labor organizers, however, it is necessary to outline the changing place of labor within nationalist discourse in the early 1920s. Until 1919 youth held a privileged role as bearer of national salvation. Following the May Fourth Movement, that role was increasingly assigned to the common people, whose honest toil and public-spiritedness were counterposed to the parasitism and selfishness of the elites.8 Whereas in 1919 middle-class patriots had generally argued that the ignorance and proclivity for disorder of workers ruled them out of participation in the nation, by the early 1920s such elitism was increasingly challenged, not least by workers themselves. The accent on sovereignty of the people, a category that in the late Qing period had been assumed generally to exclude

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the common people, was now taken to its logical conclusion, so that the nation was seen to embrace the mass of the laboring classes. On 8 January 1922, Li Zhenying of the Labor Organization Secretariat told the Diplomatic Conference of the Workers’ Section of Society (Gongjie waijiao dahui) that “China belongs to the Chinese people. It is not the property of a handful of powerful and influential men.” 9 The twelve labor organizations who signed the “Shanghai Labor Manifesto” in October 1921 to denounce the plan to deprive workers with less than three years of education of the right to vote in elections to the promised national assembly, declared: They, the class which does not produce but rather consumes the fruits of production, the class which constantly restrains and insults us, the laboring class . . . have excluded us workers from participation in the national assembly. . . . Their selfishness [sixin] is quite overt. . . . We laborers may have a low level of education but we still have our consciences. . . . The nation is sustained by us. We laborers have consistently offered the nation our service and have done it no crime. Only we, the laborers, deserve to say what the qualifications for the national assembly should be. It is we who should be ashamed of you, the intellectuals and politicians, with your shady deals.10 Here labor portrayed itself as the true bearer of the national interest because it was the creator of the nation’s wealth, impugning the integrity of those who claimed to represent it by virtue of education or wealth. After the pact between the gmd and ccp was sealed in January 1924, the tendency for the nation to be identified with the common people became ever stronger. Nevertheless this more populist construction of the nation merely papered over cracks concerning the place of class within the nation. The secretariat, for example, set the nationalism of workers and peasants squarely against that of merchants and teachers, urging true patriots to struggle against the “vicious” capitalists.11 Militant workers, meanwhile, annexed the rhetoric of nation to justify class-based claims. The printer Bo Bin told his fellow workers: “Friends, you are citizens of the nation. You have all heard about the republic and about equality. If there is equality in the nation, then we workers are in fact equal to the capitalists and to the Number Ones, so why should we feel afraid?” 12 Here the rhetoric of citizenship, with its assumption of equal rights of political participation, was

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deployed to challenge the unequal power relations in industry. Pulling in the opposite direction were those who believed that only the widest social unity could ensure victory against imperialism and the internal forces of reaction. They defined the people inclusively as the vast majority who made a useful contribution to society, and placed only a narrow, selfish, and privileged minority beyond the pale of the national community. Cai Yuanpei, for example, lauded as sacred the labor of merchants, administrators, teachers, writers, and inventors, as well as peasants and workers, and counterposed the productive majority to “the man who wears silk trousers and lives off an inheritance, the official who betrays his country for private gain, the officer who deducts money from the soldiers’ pay and the merchant who manipulates prices.” 13 Therefore, in spite of the advance of a conception of the nation rooted in the common people, class proved to be a fault line that was to run through nationalist politics at least until the revolution triumphed under Chiang Kai-shek in 1927.

The Labor Strategy of the GMD Despite Borodin’s apparent success in revamping the ideology of Sun Yatsen’s party, the acceptability of class conflict was an issue that from the first threatened the alliance between the gmd and the ccp. Borodin failed to dent Sun Yat-sen’s conviction that class conflict was inimical to the social unity on which the national revolution depended. In this respect, Sun stood very much within the Confucian tradition that deprecated large disparities of wealth and believed that everyone should have enough to support themselves and to live peacefully, yet at the same time abhorred class conflict. From a Confucian perspective, righteousness (yi) was a relevant criterion in judging social relations, but it had to be reconciled with harmony (he).14 According to Sun, class divisions had always been narrow in Chinese society, and because her modern economic development was as yet still limited it was possible to ensure that she developed in a way that avoided the strains and cleavages that accompanied capitalist development in the West. He believed that capital had a vital role to play in developing the productive forces of the nation, but he advocated its “restriction” in order to minimize class polarization.15 By “uniting the middle against the two extremes,” China could avoid becoming a society of antagonistic classes.16 Other gmd ideologues, such as Hu Hanmin, argued that class divisions were minimal in China since she was in effect proletarian, a weak

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and poor country exploited by imperialism: “Society as a whole is revolutionary and only a few people are counter-revolutionary.” 17 Sun Yat-sen had long recognized the potential of China’s workers as a force in the struggle for national liberation, but until 1917 his party (then the Revolutionary Party) did not have a labor policy. In that year, Ma Chaojun, at Sun’s instigation, worked out a program consisting of eight elements, including legalization of trade unions; a limitation on working hours with a view to an eventual eight-hour day; improved wages and conditions, including social insurance, workers’ savings banks, and protection of women and children at work; the development of workers’ education, including technical training and schools for the children of employees; political education; the encouragement of committees and elections within the labor movement; cooperation of capital and labor in the advancement of Chinese industry; and arbitration in strikes.18 This policy changed little following the formation of the united front, but the gmd now made greater efforts to implement it by setting up peasant and worker sections at every level of the party organization.19 In accordance with the new program ratified by the First gmd Congress, Sun paid far more attention to the labor question than he had done hitherto. Opening the Guangdong conference of labor organizations on May Day 1924, he set forth his vision of the role of labor in the struggle for national liberation. In a vivid but rambling oration, peppered with rhetorical questions, he explained how May Day had originated thirty-nine years earlier in the United States. He told how American workers had won a victory over the capitalists by gaining a reduction in the working day. Claiming that China had not yet undergone an industrial revolution and had no large class of capitalists, Sun suddenly switched his frame of reference from the capitalist system to the international state system. Describing how China had become the victim of the Big Powers, he inveighed against the Manchus for contracting large foreign debts and surrendering sovereignty in the unequal treaties, but he made no reference to the concept of imperialism. He explained that the 1911 Revolution had failed to cancel these indentures, so that China was now in a worse position than other colonies, compelled to serve ten masters. Chinese workers, he averred, were exploited by foreign capitalists because foreign control of the customs service allowed imports to flood the country, bringing loss of livelihood and discriminating against native industry. He thus shifted the locus of exploitation from the sphere of production to that of circulation.

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Informing his audience that the balance-of-trade deficit now stood at five hundred million dollars, Sun declared: “Each year Chinese workers are losing $500 million.” The rest of his speech was devoted to the benefits of labor organization. In the advanced countries, he explained, workers had organized in the face of oppression by big capital and forced their governments to protect them. In contrast to “civilized” countries, such as Britain or Russia (and throughout the speech Britain was placed before Russia), political power in China had not yet been brought under the control of the workers. Yet workers were the best-organized group in Chinese society after the intelligentsia—“more organized than the merchants”—so the task of overthrowing the unequal treaties fell to them: “Workers, you are all citizens, if you wish to raise the position of labor, you must first raise the position of the nation.” Sun thus neatly turned what had begun as a speech about the rights of labor into one about its patriotic duties.20 In a further speech in November 1924, delivered to mark the publication of a law on labor organization, Sun Yat-sen spoke more specifically about trade unionism.21 He began by saying that it was as important for employers to organize as it was for workers; but he accepted that there was inequality of power between the two sides of industry and that this was a root cause of industrial conflict. He thus commended labor organization as a way of overcoming this imbalance. Unions should have the right to bargain collectively and to be consulted by the employers; and laws should codify labor rights, including the right to strike. Arbitration, however, was a far better method than strike action of resolving industrial disputes, and Sun reminded local authorities that they had a duty both to arbitrate fairly in disputes and to ensure that transport and public utilities were not disrupted by strike action.22 These two speeches neatly encapsulate the main themes of gmd labor discourse and exemplify the distance that existed between the class analysis of the ccp and the reformist nationalism of the gmd. At the same time, there was sufficient ambivalence in Sun’s approach to labor issues to allow plenty of scope for dispute between the left and right wings of the gmd itself. The First Congress declared mass organization to be at the heart of the national revolution, singling out five groups—peasants, workers, merchants, youth, and women—as targets for mass mobilization. Those on the Left believed that mass mobilization was essential if the gmd was to become a popular party capable of eradicating the social roots of warlordism and imperialism, whereas the more conservative elements opposed what

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they considered to be the “socialization” of the national revolution, maintaining the traditional stance of the Alliance Society that saw the party and the army as the key instruments of revolution.23 Similarly, left and right argued over the relative importance of Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles, especially over the place of the “people’s livelihood” in the national revolution and over the extent to which social reform could be carried out prior to national unification.24 Finally, they argued as to how far the improvement of the position of labor entailed a “restriction” of the power of capital. These issues apart, however, the key bone of contention among gmd members remained the united front with the Communists.

The Shanghai Federation of Syndicates The Shanghai Federation of Syndicates (Shanghai gongtuan lianhehui) was officially launched on 8 March 1924 but had been in gestation for several months. Labor leaders who had taken refuge in Shanghai following the 7 February massacre were instrumental in bringing the federation into being. Wang Guanghui, Xiao Tongzi, and Xie Zuozhou were former leaders of the Hunan Labor Association, and Wang and Xie had anarchist backgrounds.25 Yang Defu, Chen Tian, and Guo Jisheng were former leaders of the Hubei provincial federation of syndicates, with Chen and Guo having been expelled from the ccp in November 1923.26 Other founders included militants from the Beijing-Hankou railway workers’ union and the Xujiapeng branch of the Guangdong-Hankou railway union.27 Yu Rizhang, secretary general of the ymca, was also a supporter.28 Some twenty-four unions were founder members of the federation, including the Nanyang tobacco employees’ friendly society, the Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association, the mechanics’ union, the federation of workers in warehouse and shipping companies, and the Worker-Merchant Friendly Society.29 Tong Lizhang of the latter organization, who had early distinguished himself by his animosity toward the Communists, was made president of the federation.30 Soon the number of affiliated organizations rose to thirtytwo, with Chen Guoliang of the Chinese Labor Union bringing into the federation the bookbinders’ union; Li Henglin bringing the electricians’ union; and Chen Guanghai the butchers’ union.31 According to the British acting-consul, these events boosted the number of unionized workers in Shanghai to eighty-four thousand.32 By 1925 thirty-seven organizations were affiliated.33 As it grew, the federation acquired a more sharply defined

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political orientation, falling under the sway of those in the gmd who were opposed to the united front with the Communists, particularly Wang Guanghui, Xie Zuozhou, Kuang Gongyao of the Nanyang friendly society, and the scandal-dogged Chen Bingsheng, leader of the seamen’s union, who was soon to be put on trial once again, this time for fraud.34 In origin the federation had a vaguely anarchist complexion, as the term “syndicate” in its title suggests. It was, in fact, Shifu who had first proposed a federation of this name ten years earlier.35 According to Deng Zhongxia, it “asked only for bread and not for political power,” and it was hostile to political parties and to “long gowns” (that is, intellectuals).36 It categorically rejected class struggle while believing that workers should improve their lot through their own efforts. Soon its political orientation came to be defined mainly by its opposition to the ccp and to the pro-Soviet orientation of Sun Yat-sen. Xu Xilin, leader of the Pudong weavers’ union, was typical in arguing that Communism was unsuited to the national temperament (guoqing). Vigorously opposed to the foreign powers, he saw the Soviet Union as just another imperialist power seeking to exploit China’s weakness. In spite of its opposition to the official policy of the gmd, however, the federation did not lack support within leading circles of the party. On May Day 1924, for example, Wang Jingwei, Ye Chucang, and Shao Lizi all attended its celebration.37 The federation encouraged the formation of unions mainly among workers in the traditional sector. It was instrumental in helping to unionize barbers, foreign-style marquetry makers, cane and rattan workers, workers at the electric-lamp factory, and railway workers at Wusong. It also helped to create a Union of Laboring Youth.38 Many of the unions that affiliated, including the construction workers’ union, the western-style carpenters’ union, the tailors’ union, the shoemakers’ union, the catering workers’ union, and the barbers’ union, broke away completely from their respective guilds, with the result that some soon collapsed because of lack of funds or effective leadership.39 Others failed because workers were reluctant to publicize themselves for fear of retaliation from the guild directors.40 Some of the unions scarcely differed from guilds. The bookbinders’ union, for example, founded in spring 1924, had two thousand members and was open to master bookbinders as well as to workers and apprentices. According to the International Settlement authorities, “the organization, though an advance from the workers’ point of view, is weak and largely controlled by the masters and officials.” 41 The heterogeneity of

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its affiliated unions was one of the causes of the organizational weakness of the federation.42 The three most vibrant affiliated unions were the mechanics’ union, the silk women’s association,43 and the Nanyang friendly society. The latter was the largest labor organization in Shanghai, although its claim to have seven thousand members is doubtful because the majority of workers at the Nanyang company were not on permanent contracts and thus were not required to join the society. It had started life as a proper trade union, but after a strike in late 1922 it was reorganized by the company into a friendly society, and Kuang Gongyao and Li Yuan, senior employees and principal officers in the company’s gmd branch, were placed in charge. In February 1924 Kuang and Li were ousted and a majority of workers, rather than staff, was elected to the committee. In April, in what may have been an attempt to provoke a strike, Kuang sacked ten workers, an action that elicited no response. Several months later, however, when two female members of the committee were sacked, the entire workforce walked out. From 8 to 14 September 1924 a strike took place in pursuit of a wage increase, an end to harsh regulations, the dismissal of Kuang and Li, and the reinstatement of all who had been fired.44 The strike was an acute embarrassment to the gmd because the company’s owners, the Jian brothers, were not only China’s biggest national capitalists but also substantial financial backers of the Guangzhou government. They were, moreover, known to be unhappy with the party’s pro-Soviet orientation.45 The Communist press made much of the fact that neither the Shanghai executive bureau of the gmd nor the Republican Daily offered support to the strikers. It claimed that the company hired one hundred thugs from Shandong and fifty Green Gang mobsters to force the strikers back to work. After six days, only two thousand remained on strike, of whom as many as seventeen hundred may subsequently have lost their jobs.46 Even though the friendly society was affiliated with the federation, the latter also refused all support to the strikers and offered only to mediate, in part, it seems, out of embarrassment at the fact that the Communists were capitalizing on the strike, and in part because the strike affected China’s leading national capitalists. The strikers thus went down to crushing defeat, and on 25 September the society was once again reorganized by the company. Wang Guanghui and Guo Jisheng, both founding members of the federation, were appointed secretaries at a salary of eighty dollars a month.47 The federation emerged from the strike with its reputation in tatters. It

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had little stomach for industrial conflict, especially when directed against national capitalists, although it did not oppose it outright. It gave assistance, for example, to the Anhui inkmakers in their acrimonious two-month stoppage in May 1924 and to strikers at the Chinese-owned Sanxing towel company in Zhabei, who formed the union of towel makers, frillers, and embroiderers in February 1925. But the federation clung to the belief that in the national revolution the interests of workers and employers were fundamentally in harmony.48 The problem was that although many workers might not care for the message of class struggle purveyed by the Communists, they had few qualms in doing battle with Chinese employers when their backs were against the wall. Mu Zhiying recognized this, which was why she twice revoked her promise not to allow the silk women’s association to go on strike. The lesson was clear: if labor leaders failed to listen to the sentiment of rank-and-file workers, as the federation did in relation to the Nanyang tobacco workers’ strike, they would lose credibility among their members. The federation kept the torch of trade unionism alight during a period when the labor movement nationally was in crisis, and it succeeded in creating the first trade-union federation in Shanghai, something the Labor Organization Secretariat had failed to do. The federation encouraged the formation of unions, especially in the handicraft and retail sectors, and campaigned to improve working conditions and educational provision for workers, in particular by campaigning for the legalization of the eighthour day.49 In contrast to the gmd activists who set up nonspecific, allembracing labor associations in the May Fourth period, the federation encouraged workers to organize by trade. Indeed it preferred trade unions to the industrial unions advocated by the Communists.50 The Shanghai mechanics’ union, for example, sought to unite all mechanics regardless of the industry in which they worked not in order to promote class combativity but to raise the skill and educational level of its members.51 And although many of its unions, such as the silk women’s association and the Nanyang tobacco workers’ friendly society enjoyed rather cozy relations with the employers, the federation promoted trade unions that were led by workers rather than dominated by politicians and intellectuals. To some extent, it could claim to be a more genuinely working-class body than the secretariat because most of its leaders were themselves workers. Indeed part of its animus toward the Communists derived from the fact that they were intellectuals claiming to speak on behalf of labor.52

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Perhaps the most lasting legacy of the federation lay not so much in the arena of labor organization as in its popularization of a particular discursive configuration of class and nation that was at odds with the militant classbased anti-imperialism that the ccp was soon to put into circulation. Its fundamental premise was that all classes in China had a common interest in working together for the benefit of the nation. Notions such as that labor and capital should work in harmony rather than be divided (qiang fen bilie); that all should stick together through thick and thin (xiu-qi xiangguan) so as to promote native industry and a better life for all; and that Chinese capitalists were mild (wenhe) whereas foreign capitalists were stubborn (wangu) sedimented deep among certain groups of workers and proved to be resilient through the turbulent years of 1925 to 1927.53 The federation represented the nation as rooted in the laboring people but defined the latter broadly to include the great majority who made a contribution to the country’s wealth. The nationalism of the federation was civic rather than ethnic in character, although it drew on the latter idiom when it suited. It spoke the language of civil rights, placing particular emphasis on the need for government legislation to codify workers’ rights. When denouncing the Reds as unpatriotic, it accused them not of betraying the zuguo or of setting “younger brothers and sons against elder brothers and fathers,” but of being dupes of Red imperialism.54 The federation condemned marxism for being unsuited to the national temperament, yet espoused a lukewarm internationalism, calling on May Day 1924 for China’s workers to form a “great united front” with the workers of the world.55 Such a construal of the nationalist project evoked a resonance among certain groups of workers in the handicraft and retail sectors, such as bookbinders; among a few groups of factory workers, such as the Pudong cotton workers and silk women; and among certain groups of employees, such as postal and telegraph workers, who would remain largely untouched by the endeavors of the Communist-led General Labor Union.

Native Place and Class In contrast to the General Labor Union, which supplanted it following the May Thirtieth Incident in 1925, the federation tolerated organization by native place. Some of its affiliates were native-place organizations by default, such as the mechanics’ union chaired by Zhang Weichuan, head of the machine shop at the Nanyang tobacco works, which had quickly grav-

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itated into the orbit of the gmd and the Green Gang. This union’s three thousand members were Cantonese, but this reflected the native-place composition of the workforce.56 There were other organizations in the federation, however, which consciously chose native place as the basis on which to build a labor union. There had, of course, always been informal native-place organizations in the form of bangs, but from the early 1920s formal unions were created by workers from different regions. In part this may have been inspired by the federalist ideal of building the nation from the province upward. The Anhui workers’ autonomy society (zizhihui), for example, set up in October 1921 after an Anhui worker at nwk was killed by another worker, chose a name that evoked contemporary federalist demands for provincial autonomy.57 There is no evidence, however, that the federation espoused federalism; it seems to have subscribed to the centralized model of the nation-state endorsed by both the gmd and ccp. More significant in motivating the creation of native-place labor unions was the build-up of class tension within sojourner communities. Following the creation of the republic, rising groups of intellectuals and businessmen had challenged the dominance of wealthy merchants within the regional guilds by forming more democratic, less socially exclusive, native-place organizations known as tongxianghui. Whereas there had been only a handful of these prior to 1911, by 1925 there were thirty-one in Shanghai, plus three that were open only to merchants. From the workers’ point of view, these native-place associations were also elitist bodies because they excluded indigent fellow countrymen from membership by requiring letters of introduction and annual fees.58 Even the secret-society chiefs of the Jiangbei tongxianghui, whose members consisted mainly of rickshaw pullers, evinced elitism during the rickshaw puller’s strike of March 1919, for although they offered grudging support to their fellow countrymen, they described the workers as “ignorant and stupid country folk.” 59 Convinced that they would gain little support from the regional guilds and the native-place associations, workers began in the early 1920s to form native-place labor unions. Such unions were formed by sojourners from Zhejiang, Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Wentai, Jiangsu, Wuxi, Subei, and Guangdong.60 There was a certain practical sense to this because language barriers impeded the creation of trade unions that cut across native-place divisions. Subei migrants, for example, spoke variants of the Yangzhou dialect that were quite unrelated to the Shanghai dialect, which was a cog-

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nate of the Wu dialect spoken throughout Jiangnan. By the 1930s, one particular Subei dialect established itself as the lingua franca on the Shanghai docks, but nothing similar occurred in any other trade or district of the city.61 The Communists were no strangers to the problems posed by such language barriers. When Li Qihan, for example, pleaded with Shanghai seamen not to act as strikebreakers in the Hong Kong strike, he spoke in his native Hunan dialect and his words were translated into Ningbo dialect.62 Later, another Hunanese Communist, Li Lisan, could barely be understood even when speaking Shanghai dialect—although his tubthumping style of oratory went down well with the audience.63 It is not clear how much native-place labor unions affiliated with the federation because they sympathized with its anti-Communism, or because it was tolerant of regionally based organization. Certainly, the union of Anhui laborers had robust anti-Communist views, criticizing strikehappy workers who “as soon as they cannot make do with food and clothing, stop work and shut down production, not only seizing their rice bowl, but throwing it in a life-threatening manner. . . . The two characters which spell ‘strike’ are not ones we wish to see and not ones that will be heard from us.” 64 Similarly, the union of Wuxi laborers, which was led by gmd activist Wu Gongwang, expressed support for the strike in the Japanese mills in February 1925, but warned that there was “a party” that was seeking to use innocent workers to make money.65 As against this, the Lingnan union of the workers’ section of society, whose name refers to the Cantonese coast and its hinterland and whose ninety-seven members in the summer of 1925 were mainly dockers from Guangdong and Guangxi, was shut down by the warlord authorities in July 1925 on the grounds, according to the North China Herald, that it was “a branch notorious for the number of radical Bolsheviks in its membership.” In fact, the reason for its closure was that its leaders were unfairly accused of embezzling the proceeds of a concert in support of the general strike. Nevertheless the union played a militant part in the May Thirtieth Movement, and it appears that it was only its native-place character—it encouraged other Cantonese unions, such as the Huachun sock factory union of women workers, to amalgamate with it—that prevented it from affiliating with the General Labor Union until August 1925.66 There also were native-place organizations whose radicalism deterred them from affiliating with the federation. One was the Shaoxing workers’ association, which roundly condemned the Shaoxing guild for withdraw-

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ing its subsidy to a women’s normal school.67 Similarly, when one of Sichuan’s most illustrious sons, the Communist labor leader Liu Hua, was executed by Sun Chuanfang’s military administration in late 1925, the Sichuan labor union demanded vengeance and called for the overthrow of imperialism and its vile running dogs, the warlords.68 The ccp disapproved of workers organizing by native place, but was not averse to sending its members into these organizations. Xu Meikun, a printer at the Commercial Press who claimed to be the first worker to join the party in Shanghai, was sent to work in the Zhejiang workers’ tongxianghui and may have become its leader. There he met Zheng Futa, born in Zhuji county in 1904, who subsequently became his deputy in the Shanghai printers’ federation. In May 1924 Zheng helped to create a union of Zhejiang workers in Shanghai, which he subsequently brought into the printers’ federation.69 Yang Peisheng, who became vice-chair of the glu in March 1927, was also active in the Ningbo native-place association, although mainly before he joined the ccp in 1925.70 Regionalist labor unions never appealed to more than a minority of workers. In 1924 the Cantonese workers’ union (Yueqiao gongjie lianhehui) was said to be the best-organized of them, yet it had only eight hundred members.71 The generally small numbers who joined these organizations must, in part at least, have reflected the fact that many recognized the limitations of native place as a basis for labor organization. Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Liu Xinyong have observed that regional organizations functioned in a more divisive way among workers than among students, suggesting that this was because university life forced students to participate in what was essentially a national culture.72 The point is an astute one, yet workers, like students, had little difficulty in principle in reconciling native-place sentiment with loyalty to the nation. A more important reason why regionalism proved more divisive among workers than among students lay in the realities of the job market where workers from different regions competed for jobs, making native-place sentiment a basis for social closure. Even leaders of the regionalist labor organizations were aware of this limitation, otherwise they would not have bothered to affiliate to the federation. Furthermore, it is likely that some saw labor organization by native-place simply as a stepping-stone to a more ecumenical organization of workers. In fact, most native-place labor unions in Shanghai did not survive the May Thirtieth Movement: those such as the Cantonese carpenters’ union, which was still thriving in 1927, were exceptions.73

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Nation and Class in the Japanese Mill Strike, February 1925 The Fourth Congress of the ccp met in Shanghai from 11 to 22 January 1925. It agreed to raise the profile of labor movement work within the perspective of struggling for national liberation. Communists were told that they should no longer conduct labor movement work under the banner of the united front, but rather preserve the “class independence” of the labor unions and establish an autonomous base for the ccp in the working class. The strategic objective was for the working class to gain leadership of the national liberation movement, a perspective known as achieving “proletarian hegemony.” 74 Considerable discussion was devoted to organizational matters—particularly to the need to create cells (xiaozu) in industrial enterprises as nuclei around which labor unions could form—but there was little sense in congress resolutions as to what “proletarian hegemony” meant in concrete terms. In any event, the Communists in Shanghai almost stumbled on a winning formula when they decided to intervene in the strike that broke out in the Japanese mills of western Shanghai in February 1925.75 It was this intervention that was to demonstrate the political potential of linking class issues to an anti-imperialist version of nationalism. In autumn 1924 the Communists set up the West Shanghai Workers’ Club in Xiaoshadu district. With a core of seventy to eighty activists, it formed “cells” in nineteen cotton mills, the main ones being at the nwk Nos. 3, 4, and 9 mills and at the Doko mill, where there were no fewer than forty active members and several dozen less active ones.76 Although the workers’ club went on to play a key role in the strike, it is doubtful that it actually instigated the dispute that broke out in the mills in February 1925. On 2 February a girl of twelve was caught napping at her flyframe on the night shift at nwk No. 8 mill, and she was hit by a Japanese supervisor. The incident incensed the fifty men who worked in the roving shop, in spite of the fact that they were being systematically replaced by girls like the one who had been slapped. When the men protested they were fired en masse for being troublemakers, probably because some were known to have links with the West Shanghai Workers’ Club.77 On 9 February, when six of the sacked men returned to claim their deposit money, they were accused of stirring up a strike and promptly arrested.78 Their average age was twenty-five, four were married, and all came from Subei.79 Their dismissal caused all the workers at the nwk No. 8 mill to walk off

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their jobs. As they trooped out of the mill, men tore off the peaked caps they were required to wear, and shouted “we will no longer wear East Asian hats!” A meeting was held for which placards were made, proclaiming “we resolutely oppose East Asians beating people.” Ten arrests were made.80 The Communists were taken by surprise by this event, but after hesitating for a moment they resolved to play the nationalist card for all it was worth. The leitmotif of its propaganda was that the insults suffered by Chinese workers in the Japanese mills were an offense to the Chinese nation as a whole, and that national honor dictated that all good patriots should support the strike. Li Lisan and Deng Zhongxia, both recently elected to the labor movement commission of the Central Executive Committee, were tasked with coordinating the strike. They helped to set up a strike committee, which formulated a set of demands including no beatings; a 10 percent wage raise and no unjustified deductions from wages; the reinstatement of workers who had lost their jobs and the release of those in detention; prompt payment of wages once every two weeks; strike pay; and no dismissals without due cause. Speaker teams were formed to publicize the strikers’ cause, and handbills containing the strikers’ demands were printed.81 By 18 February, the zenith of the strike, 30,800 workers in twenty-two mills in six different Japanese companies in Xiaoshadu and Yangshupu districts had halted work.82 Without any prompting from the Communists, the workers declared the strike a protest against the Japanese “who call us ‘worthless’ and ‘foreign slaves.’” 83 Commenting on the intensity of patriotic sentiment, Zhang Guotao recalled: “I talked with some of the workers. Most of them indicated that it was absolutely right to oppose the Japanese for beating people, that every Chinese would endorse such action. Even women and child workers with relatively low levels of awareness, on hearing about ‘anti-Japanese’ action, were roused to take a righteous position. I considered that this indicated a new direction to be taken in the labor movement in Shanghai.” 84 The new direction consisted of transmuting antiJapanese sentiment into a politics that linked the discourse of class to an anti-imperialist version of nationalism. In their manifesto, which was presumably written with help from the Communists, the strikers proclaimed: China is being insulted by Japan in every way. We are workers in the Japanese cotton mills and our sufferings are indescribable. The open-

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ing of cotton mills in China by Japanese is a trespass on our national rights. China has not yet been annexed by Japan, but they already treat us worse than slaves. Our people employed in their mills suffer worse than the devils in hell. They work twelve hours a day, yet the Japanese foremen beat them with their fists and sticks. . . . Japanese capitalists treat Chinese laborers like cattle and horses. The quarters they provide are worse than stables. No wonder workers become ill. Yet when they fall sick, their wages are stopped. Brothers, how unfortunate we are to be born Chinese! . . . Save us, and so save yourselves! Rise and fight for the prestige of China! 85 Playing even more directly on national identity, the strike manifesto of the nwk mills proclaimed: “Dearest compatriots we are citizens of the Chinese republic. You are all citizens of the Chinese Republic. Today we are suffering all kinds of ill treatment at the hands of the foreigners and have no alternative but to go on strike. The strike is to uphold the face of the nation and the dignity of our compatriots.” 86 The strike drew an avid response from the public, with even old women coming to the strike headquarters to stick up handbills and to make flags.87 On 12 February the Shanghai Citizens’ Association (Guomin huiyi), a broad umbrella organization founded in December 1924 that represented nearly two hundred student, merchant, women’s, and labor organizations, formed a committee to raise funds for the strikers. Forty-seven organizations pledged their support, including the National Students’ Union and the West Shanghai Federation of Street Unions. The strikers appealed to businessmen for support, saying that the Japanese oppressed not only Chinese workers but Chinese capitalists. According to Deng Zhongxia, the gcc gave a mere one thousand dollars to the strike fund, although millowners and owners of public utilities in Zhabei made additional donations.88 Because there were only four or five Communists, plus some ten members of the Communist Youth League,89 who were involved in the strike in a practical way, the strike relied heavily on sympathetic students and on the natural leaders of the workers, those foremen who commanded allegiance on the basis of clientelist, secret-society, or native-place ties.90 If one looks at those whom the International Settlement police sought to arrest, of eleven named as instigators of the troubles at Toyota, no fewer than eight were foremen (several from Subei) and one was an interpreter. Those wanted for inciting the strike at the Nikko mill in western Shanghai in-

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cluded six foremen, a forewoman, three mill clerks, and an interpreter.91 Among them was forty-five-year-old Zhao Haiqing, a native of Nanjing with a son and two daughters employed at the mills. He had kept a cigarette shop on Macao Road until 1924, and was described by the International Settlement police as a “famous loafer.” 92 This suggests that some at least of the foremen had gang connections. The Communists sought to utilize elements within the culture of the secret societies in order to bolster worker solidarity and make class identity meaningful. Strikers formed a corps of volunteers (yiyongdui), which swore the following oath: “Oppose the Japanese to the end. No return to work unless we maintain face. Defend the labor union and get rid of the scabs. Live or die as one, together in adversity. Heed the orders of the team leaders. If there is any of false heart, may thunder strike him dead.” 93 It is not clear whether the oath emanated from the strikers themselves (the reference to “scabs” suggests the hand of the ccp), but it indicates at least that the culture of the secret societies was one to which workers could relate. Other slogans popular during the strike included: “Chinese must uphold the Chinese code of brotherhood” and “workers must uphold the workers’ code of brotherhood.” 94 That the code of brotherhood meant more to the strikers than any newfangled appeals to class solidarity is suggested by an event in summer 1926, when workers at the old bat plant in Pudong formed a huge character yi (righteousness) out of cigarettes, while their counterparts at the new plant made the character qi, thereby forming the word yiqi, or code of brotherhood. They explained that it was intended as an expression of support for the strikes that were then taking place.95 During the Japanese mill strike the ccp exploited the “code of brotherhood” for all it was worth, harping on simple themes such as “all workers under Heaven— one family,” “protecting the poor,” and “working to make poor people happy.” 96 Later, in the Nikko strike of October 1925, they manipulated the secret-society ideal of the righteous warrior who protected the weak (yixia), with the Shanghai regional committee of the ccp proposing to set up an yixia tuan to protect the strikers from gangster violence.97 All of this indicates that for many rank-and-file workers, probably men more than women, the code of brotherhood of the secret societies, reproduced through initiation ceremonies, tests of fealty, passwords, sworn oaths, amulets of inviolability, and martial arts, proved to be a vitally important ingredient in the construction of class identity. The Shanghai Federation of Syndicates was not well-disposed toward

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the strike, seeing in it the hand of Communist agitators. Yet the Communists’ masterly appropriation of anti-imperialism made it difficult for the federation to condemn the stoppage outright. Whereas the “protect-theparty” faction of the gmd unequivocally deplored the strike, telling the British press that it was subsidized by forty thousand dollars from “Bolshevik sources,” the federation struggled to seize the initiative from the Communists.98 It set up a rival strike support committee that aimed to “draw the workers on to the right track” and avoid “the spread of agitation and act in favor of order.” This had the backing of the Chinese authorities, who approved its efforts to restrain the strikers and bring about a negotiated settlement.99 Federation notables, including Li Henglin and Xu Xilin, wrote to the press to denounce “extremist” students for exploiting labor unrest for political ends, thereby provoking taunts from the Communists that they were scabs who were using union office to feather their own nests.100 After nearly two weeks the strike began to lose momentum. The Communists had no way of bringing it to a close because the employers would not negotiate with representatives of the West Shanghai Workers’ Club. Consequently, on 25 February six workers’ delegates asked the gcc to negotiate on their behalf. They said that if the capitalists showed ganqing in considering their demands, they would return to work.101 According to the terms of the settlement drawn up the following day, the Japanese companies agreed to investigate all cases of ill treatment, and that wages would be paid promptly every two weeks and savings paid out after five years. However, they rejected demands for a wage increase and for strike pay and, crucially, refused to take back those workers whose dismissal had caused the stoppage. Finally, they declined to intervene on behalf of those arrested.102 The International Settlement police observed correctly that this settlement was “nothing more than a reiteration of conditions under which the employees formerly served.” 103 The Communists, however, trumpeted the outcome as a victory for the workers, and, strangely, the strikers themselves returned to work in a mood of elation. Despite their paltry gains, the strike had had a positive psychological effect and trouble continued in the mills over the next months at an abnormally high level. Indeed it was the killing of the worker Gu Zhenghong during a riot at the nwk No. 7 mill on 15 May that triggered the train of events that led to the May Thirtieth Incident. The biggest achievement of the stoppage was the formation

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of a cottonworkers’ union with branches in most of the mills. Indeed the strike may be seen as having given a long-term boost to trade unionism in Shanghai. For the ccp itself, the strike brought home the potential of linking class issues to a militant anti-imperialist agenda, the political dynamics of which are examined in chapter 10.

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9

The May Thirtieth Movement, 1925

At 9 a.m. on Saturday, 30 May, some three thousand students and workers infiltrated the International Settlement, carrying banners, scattering leaflets, and giving speeches. They were protesting on behalf of students arrested for demonstrating in support of strikers in the Japanese cotton mills and against the Municipal Council’s proposals to institute four new bylaws, namely: to prohibit the publication of items lacking the name and address of the publisher, to increase wharfage dues, to register stocks and produce exchanges, and to limit child labor.1 In the course of the morning ten students were arrested, but soon released.2 By the early afternoon Nanjing Road was thronged with angry protesters. Arrests mounted, with those arrested taken to the nearby Laozha police station. By late afternoon a huge crowd had gathered outside the station, shouting “kill the foreigners.” When the police were unable to disperse it using batons, Inspector Everson, the senior officer in charge of the station, ordered them to open fire. Four demonstrators were killed instantly, and nine were rushed to Shandong Road hospital, where five succumbed to their injuries.3 In all, twelve lost their lives and seventeen were injured in shootings on that day.4 Such brutality was by no means unprecedented—indeed it paled in comparison with the routine atrocities of the ongoing Jiangsu-Zhejiang war—yet it proved to be a turning point for the western powers in China. Twenty years of nationalist agitation had had a profound effect on urban public opinion, and the patriotic public immediately rose up against what they saw as the foreign powers’ determination to keep China in subjection. Within hours, the National Students’ Union, the ssu, and the Federation of Street Associations met and agreed to call a meeting for 3 p.m. the following afternoon. CCP leaders agreed to press for a triple strike of workers, students, and businessmen in protest at the shootings.5 They were determined that workers should not be represented by the Shanghai Fed-

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eration of Syndicates, but by a new body, the Shanghai General Labor Union (glu) (Shanghai Zonggonghui), which they had been planning for several weeks. This new body sent a request to the gcc and other organizations to meet the following day.6 On the afternoon of Sunday 31 May, the gcc and the Federation of Street Associations met at the gcc’s headquarters at the Queen of Heaven temple to determine their response to the tragedy. As the businessmen were discussing matters in the council chamber, a large crowd gathered in front of the open-air stage of the temple to press them to support a triple strike. The gcc was unenthusiastic, with its acting chair, Fang Jiaobo, saying that no decision could be taken until Yu Xiaqing returned to Shanghai. As the crowd grew in size, the gcc leaders came under such pressure that they eventually agreed to a triple strike. Fang Jiaobo, however, secretly informed the Municipal Council that he had signed the order under duress.7 At the end of the afternoon the meeting, which now comprised more than fifteen hundred people, passed a resolution calling on the Municipal Council to punish the murderers; pay compensation to the victims; offer an apology; abolish the proposed by-law on printed matter; and return the Mixed Court to Chinese control. It called on Chinese to boycott British and Japanese goods; not to use foreign bank notes; not to travel on trams belonging to the Municipal Council; to oppose foreign-run schools; and not to wear foreign clothes.8 That evening the Shanghai glu was formally inaugurated at a meeting of labor union representatives, including some from unions affiliated to the federation. On the following morning, 1 June, some fifty thousand students declared themselves “on strike,” although the summer vacation had started for many that day.9 The ssu, which until recently had had just ten branches, sprouted organizations in every high school and college in the city. In the course of the day, crowds once again filled Nanjing Road, prompting the Municipal Council to declare a state of emergency; to ban all processions, assemblies, speeches, and leaflets; to impose a curfew; and to summon the Shanghai Volunteer Corps. Sterling Fessenden, the American chairman of the council, asked foreign consuls to arrange for a naval force of two thousand men to guard the public utilities and ensure the continuation of normal work.10 Troops were landed from warships anchored in the Huangpu River, and police used water cannons to disperse groups who were digging up paving stones. When a crowd began to throw stones at a fire engine,

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the troops opened fire. Eighteen were wounded and four died instantly. Similar clashes took place over the following days, further increasing the toll of fatalities.11 Of twenty people killed between 30 May and 9 June whose age is known, the average age was twenty-three. Among twenty-two killed whose occupation is known, there were five students, three textile workers, two “workers” (plus two who were thought to be workers), one bronzesmith, a telephonist, a power-station employee, a tailor, a cook, an employee of a western firm, a driver, a shop employee, a flower grower, and a film company employee. In twenty cases where the killer was known, seventeen were slain by western police or soldiers and three by Japanese police or soldiers.12 Among the twenty-seven wounded whose occupation was known, there were five students, sixteen manual workers, two sales clerks, one telephonist, and one accountant.13 Their average age was twenty-two. The youth of the victims is striking, and it reflects the fact that the May Thirtieth Movement, like the May Fourth Movement, was predominantly a youth movement. In contrast to the May Fourth Movement, however, idealistic students, in the words of historian Vera Schwarcz, had “lost their immunity from violence,” destroying once and for all the illusions that “thought could . . . transcend politics.” 14 Young workers constituted the largest group of victims, among whom students were overrepresented.

The Union of Labor, Commerce, and Education On 1 June the National Students’ Union, ssu, Federation of Street Associations, and glu each sent two representatives to a meeting to discuss establishing a citizens’ assembly. They decided instead to form a Union of Labor, Commerce, and Education (ulce) (Gongshangxue lianhehui) to coordinate resistance to the British.15 Representation in the ulce was to be by jie, with each jie represented by a single organization rather than by a host of different ones. On 6 June the ulce rejected requests from the Guang-Zhao guild, the Ningbo and Shaoxing native-place associations and the teachers’ unions to affiliate.16 This may have reflected a deepening commitment to the idea that the citizenry consisted of four basic groups— big merchants, small merchants, students, and workers—rather than a miscellany of different professional groups and regional interests. On his return from Beijing, however, Yu Xiaqing announced that the gcc would

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not affiliate to the ulce.17 In effect, big business gave up its right to be represented within the ranks of the citizens, but because at least three of the six representatives of the Federation of Street Associations were also members of the gcc, the latter was represented indirectly.18 At its meeting on 6 June the ulce set up a commission to draw up a comprehensive set of demands to put before the government as the basis for negotiation with the foreign powers.19 Two days later, the commission produced a set of seventeen demands (many of which comprised several parts) that became the official demands of the May Thirtieth Movement.20 These consisted of four preliminary demands for the cancellation of the state of emergency by the Municipal Council, the withdrawal of troops, the release of those under arrest, and the reopening of colleges (notably, Shanghai University) that had been occupied by the Volunteer Corps. There followed thirteen formal demands, the most important of which were for handing over to Chinese courts the officer and policemen responsible for the 30 May shootings; indemnities to the families of the deceased and wounded; a formal apology for the incident; freedom of speech, publication, and association in the International Settlement; better treatment of workers in foreign factories; the rights to strike and to form unions; employing Chinese in half of the staff positions of the International Settlement police force; cancellation of the four proposed by-laws; no extension of International Settlement roads into Chinese territory; the rendition of the Mixed Court; the abolition of extraterritoriality; and full Chinese representation on the Municipal Council.21 The demands constituted a full-blooded anti-imperialist program, even though they fell short of calling for the complete abolition of the unequal treaties and the return of all foreign settlements.22 The demands were endorsed by the gmd as well as by the ccp.23 On 8 June the glu held its second session under the chairmanship of Li Lisan. Li hammered away at the anti-imperialist theme, telling the assembled delegates that “the imperialists are the deadly enemies of the working class and oppressed peoples throughout the world. . . . In presentday China the lives of the people count for as little as those of ants, whilst foreigners behave like gods.” He explained that because workers’ sufferings were greater than those of other classes, they must take the lead in the struggle against the “cruel devil” of foreign imperialism, which could only be destroyed if workers organized and went on strike.24 He analyzed the seventeen demands put forward by the ulce, paying attention to those

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that related specifically to workers, and stressed the importance of ensuring that the strike was properly conducted. A speaker from the ssu promised workers the support of students and merchants and announced that at two meetings students had raised a total of $2,480 in support of the workers’ strike.25 In a bid to expedite the unionization drive that was then underway, Li Lisan pledged discipleship to Chang Yuqing, a man of great prestige in Xiaoshadu district where most of the Japanese mills were concentrated. Described variously as chief of the guards at nwk No. 5 mill and the Fengtian mill, as well as owner of a bathhouse close to Xinzha bridge, Chang was said to have opposed the February mill strike.26 Now, however, he supported the glu’s campaign to set up labor unions, although within a matter of weeks the feud between the Green Gang and the glu revived. Under the deft leadership of Yu Xiaqing, the gcc quickly seized the political initiative from the ulce. Yu was in favor, as was the government of Duan Qirui, of keeping the conflict with the Japanese millowners separate from the conflict with the British. He argued that the appropriate response to the May Thirtieth Incident was an independent judicial inquiry, and he argued that the triple strike would merely stir up disorder and antiforeign feeling. On 10 June he announced the establishment of a May Thirtieth Committee to cooperate with the government in putting pressure on the diplomatic body in Beijing to negotiate.27 This committee set about reducing the seventeen demands of the ulce to thirteen, dropping the more radical demands for the permanent withdrawal of British and Japanese gunboats and for the International Settlement police to be under effective Chinese control and for the abolition of extraterritoriality. The campaign thus refocused on demands for the return of the Mixed Court, representation on the Municipal Council, and the abolition of the four by-laws. Moreover, in a particularly blatant display of class partiality, the gcc excised all reference to the rights to strike and to form trade unions, although the calls for there to be no sacking of strikers, for strike pay, and just treatment of workers were retained.28 To be fair, later the gcc did press the Beijing government to legalize trade unions in the hope of persuading the Japanese millowners to recognize them.29 The ulce and glu were incensed by this unilateral action and told the gcc so in no uncertain terms at a joint meeting on 11 June.30 On 13 June more than a hundred glu delegates claimed that they, not the leaders of the gcc, were the true voice of the nation: “The fate of the Chinese na-

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tion depends on the masses. The strength of the masses depends on mutual support, on everyone working as one for success.” 31 Delegates insisted that the demands for the right to strike and form unions were nonnegotiable, and they pointed out that if they lost their jobs they faced starvation, whereas the merchants did not. “Workers must prove themselves the better patriots, not selfish like the merchants.” Delegates banged on the tables, shook their fists, and pledged that they would fight to the bitter end, no matter how half-hearted the other sections of society proved to be.32 Two days later, at the eighth meeting of the ulce, student leader Lin Jun insisted that the gcc represented only one jie, whereas the ulce represented the entire citizenry (shimin) of Shanghai. He added further that there was general agreement that the gcc had “violated the will of the vast majority of citizens.” 33 Two days later, a huge meeting of over thirty thousand citizens in Zhabei, representing more than two hundred student, merchant, worker, women’s, and other organizations, called for no backing down from the full list of seventeen demands and accused the gcc of “destroying the unity of the nation” and of “compromising with imperialism.” 34 Among students there was a revival of the militarism that had been a theme in the discourse of the 1911 Revolution, with the ssu planning to form a student army to be “ready some day to render service on the battlefield and protect the nation.” 35 On 18 June the ulce finally made public its opposition to the gcc, but it was too late. The diplomatic body had already rejected even the gcc’s slimmed-down set of demands as a basis for negotiation.36 By 20 June the glu was forced to accept that the seventeen demands were a dead letter.37 Following the refusal of the diplomatic body to negotiate, gcc leaders pressed the Federation of Street Associations to end the business strike in favor of a boycott on the grounds that the only people who were suffering from the suspension of trade were the Chinese themselves. The Federation of Street Associations, worried by financial losses and a sense that it was a pawn to the radicalism of the workers and students, was inclined to agree. But a secret meeting of seventy-six commercial organizations on 19 June declined to comply with the gcc request that it suspend the strike immediately, agreeing instead that it would recommence business on a date of its own choosing, 26 June.38 To sugarcoat the pill, it promised the ulce that shopkeepers would contribute 1 percent of daily takings from the sale of Chinese goods and 50 percent from the sale of foreign goods to the workers’ strike fund.39

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The Workers’ Strikes Workers were quicker to join the May Thirtieth strike than they had been the May Fourth strike, although they still lagged somewhat behind the small traders, most of whom closed their businesses between 1 and 3 June. Eleven strikes commenced on 1 June; thirty-one on 2 June; eighteen on 3 June; twenty-three on 4 June; twenty-six on 5 June; sixteen on 6 June; and five or six on 7 June. It was therefore not until 4 to 5 June that labor was fully mobilized. One reliable estimate suggests that during the entire May Thirtieth Movement there were 206 strikes in individual enterprises and trades, involving 201,978 workers, more than double the number who took part in the May Fourth stoppage.40 Initially many workers in Chinese-owned enterprises joined the strike, but the glu decided— not without some vacillation—to concentrate the strike on British and Japanese companies, appealing to the former on 9 June to go back to work and thus help promote native manufactures.41 Strikers in Chinese-owned enterprises returned to work haphazardly, sometimes agreeing to donate part of their earnings to the strike fund. A breakdown of the strikes by nationality of enterprise shows that forty-six occurred in Japanese concerns; forty-two in British; thirteen in establishments belonging to the Municipal Council; eleven in concerns belonging to other foreign nationalities; thirty-five in Chinese-owned concerns; twenty-one in concerns of mixed foreign and Chinese ownership; and thirty-eight in enterprises whose nationality was unknown. Employees of Chinese firms comprised 18.5 percent of the total of strikers, although some of the 19,087 strikers in enterprises whose ownership was unknown must also have been employees of Chinese firms.42 The strike was thus concentrated overwhelmingly in the foreign sector, with the largest single contingent being employees of Japanese cotton mills. Because the handicraft sector was Chinese-owned, workers in this sector were underrepresented, although many groups, such as brasssmiths, carpenters, butchers, and laundry workers, pursued long and bitter strikes. Likewise, workers in the transportation sector were underrepresented in spite of tenacity shown by the seamen and the more patchy militancy of the longshoremen. Rickshaw pullers, in particular, even those working for British and Japanese companies, failed to strike in a sustained fashion. Although many workers insisted on assurances that they would receive strike pay before walking off their jobs, the general strike was noteworthy

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for the angry spontaneity with which tens of thousands of workers joined it. Of course, foremen and secret-society bosses played a role in bringing workers out in many factories and docks, sometimes against their will.43 Moreover, the glu connived in the use of coercion to prevent strikers from returning to work. On 7 July Li Lisan apparently admitted that there were as many as one hundred strikebreakers being held at the headquarters of the glu, and he added that ten had just been released on payment of a surety of fifty dollars.44 Likewise gangs linked to the secret societies discouraged strikebreaking. On 4 August a gang wielding knives attacked a group of scabs at the Gongdai hosiery factory.45 Nevertheless the overall pattern does not suggest that the strikes were brought about by coercion.46 The two hundred thousand strikers could not have maintained their stoppage without financial contributions from businessmen, the patriotic public, overseas Chinese, and the Soviet Union. Strikers were initially promised two jiao (twenty cents) a day as a strike subsidy, a small sum yet vital if workers were not to starve.47 On 9 June various charitable organizations set up a relief fund ( ji’anhui) with backing from the gcc, to centralize donations and oversee the payment of subsidies.48 It was agreed that the glu (and, apparently, the Federation of Syndicates) should have responsibility for the disbursement of moneys.49 In the first week each striker received one dollar, but this amount proved to be insufficient so it was agreed to pay this sum every five days. On 22 June the ulce announced that it would endeavor to pay every striker five dollars twice a month, but this proved quite unrealistic.50 The success of the strike and boycott depended heavily on the army of workers who toiled on the city’s waterfront. Foreign troops were stationed at the docks and arrested no fewer than 150 dockers between 2 June and 7 July.51 By 8 June most docks were at a standstill, but financial hardship soon forced some dockers to resume work.52 On 17 June the Pudong dockers’ federation wrote to the ulce to say that there was little enthusiasm for continuing the strike.53 Three days later, when the third local of the federation sent a delegation to the Mitsui warehouses to find out why workers were working normally, it was met by a hail of gunfire that left one dead and three injured. The effect of this was to bring the Japanese wharves again to a standstill.54 By 29 June, however, the newly established Federation of Dockers’ Unions was once more warning that its members were close to ending their strike because of financial difficulties, meaning that “we shall not live up to the expectations of our country.” 55 But if the prin-

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cipal reason for the precariousness of the dockers’ strike was financial, it is also clear that the authority of the dockers’ federation was tenuous. The dockers had come out in support of the patriotic movement largely at the behest of the labor contractors, who were members of the “Thirty-Six Sections” of the Green and Red gangs, and they appear to have been persuaded by the gcc that only British, and not Japanese, companies should be targeted.56 Seamen, too, were critical to the success of the strike. As soon as they heard the news of the killings on 30 May, seamen employed by British and Japanese companies began to strike patchily, but it took two weeks for the stoppage to become solid. Seamen demanded that their employers promise strike pay, not dismiss strikers and recognize the rights of association, of assembly, and to strike.57 By 9 June foreign steamship companies were paralyzed, and the strike gradually spread to small launches, barges, and lighters. By 23 June it was reckoned that 7,950 seamen were on strike— mainly, but not exclusively, those employed by foreign companies.58 In a statement of protest the Shanghai branch of the seamen’s union, which on 15 May had severed its link to the Federation of Syndicates, proclaimed: “For those of our fellow countrymen who have been killed we feel boundless grief. For those who are still living, surrounded by the knives and guns of the foreigners, we feel deep concern. We live in a lawless, unjust, barbaric condition, fouled with blood, our lives ever at risk, like an egg threatened by a stone. . . . We have been pushed to the limit. If we resist, we may die, but if we do not resist, then death is certain.” 59 A third group strategically vital to the effectiveness of the strike was the public utility workers because the cessation of water and electricity supplies and public transport hit the foreign population directly. In fact, supplies were never cut completely because the International Settlement authorities used troops and strikebreakers to keep them going.60 An intermittent tram service was maintained, which became a favorite target of stone throwers and hijackers; not only was it a public sign that the strike was not 100 percent solid but it served as a reminder of the way in which native forms of transport were being supplanted by foreign ones.61 The struggle to keep the workers of the Shanghai Tramway Company on strike proved acrimonious, and the memory of the role played by the chief inspector, a powerful Green Gang boss, in getting men to cripple the strike lived on, leading to his eventual assassination in January 1927.

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The Explosion of Trade Unionism The glu brilliantly exploited the opportunity offered by the general strike to bring about the mass unionization of Shanghai’s labor force. Within a week of its inauguration 93 unions had affiliated to it.62 By 13 June, 80 of the 115 enterprises that had gone on strike had formed unions; by the end of the month this figure had risen to 129 out of 206 enterprises or trades.63 Unionization took place more rapidly in the foreign sector than in the Chinese sector: by 13 June, of 39 Japanese enterprises on strike 33 had unions; of 26 British enterprises 21 had unions; of 8 enterprises belonging to the Municipal Council 6 had unions; and of 11 Chinese mills 4 had unions.64 At the beginning of August the glu submitted details to the martial law commander of all affiliated unions, including the number of members and the name, age, and birthplace of the chairperson of each union. The figures, which relate to the latter part of July, list 115 unions with a total membership of 217,475.65 On 28 July the glu claimed to have 117 affiliated unions with 218,859 members.66 Of these, 52.7 percent were cotton workers, 14.7 percent dockers, 5.9 percent tobacco workers, 2.8 percent ironworkers, 1.7 percent printers, 1.5 percent seamen, 1.2 percent egg-powder factory workers; and 1.1 percent were in foreign businesses (yangwu).67 There are no precise calculations of the total workforce of the city against which we can assess these figures, but it is clear that cotton workers, especially the majority who worked in foreign-owned mills, were relatively well unionized. This was due in part to the large number of foreign enterprises in the cotton industry, and in part to the fact that they had had a head start in unionization, beginning with the Japanese mills strike of February 1925. On 4 June, for example, Liu Hua was able to summon a meeting of three hundred delegates from the Japanese mills to discuss how to accelerate the unionization drive.68 The apparently high rate of trade unionism among the dockers was more a reflection of the support that foremen, labor contractors, and gang bosses initially gave to the glu, in the belief that unionization would strengthen the patriotic movement. The intimate connection between union growth and the general strike is illustrated negatively by the fact that groups not involved in the strike were barely touched by the glu. The silk workers, who comprised roughly a quarter of the factory workforce, remained faithful to Mrs. Mu’s “yellow” union. On 7 June Gao Yongzhang set up a rival union among silk

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workers in Caojiadu, but it was shut down by the warlord authorities on 24 September.69 And in the handicraft sector, where most businesses were owned by Chinese, unionization made only slow headway, with few trades being involved in the stoppage. The lack of influence of the glu in this sector is shown indirectly by the fact that only 1.5 percent of glu members were located in Nanshi, where much of the handicraft industry was located.70 Those handicraft workers who did form unions were mainly those who had made previous attempts to do so, such as goldsmiths and silversmiths, pharmacy employees, carvers, and laundry workers.71 However, the fact that the Federation of Syndicates had been modestly successful among handicraft workers the previous year may indicate that the classinflected anti-imperialism of the glu was not to the taste of workers in this sector, where many enjoyed relatively close relations with their employers. Similarly, the glu had little success in organizing shop employees, many of whom chose to join the Federation of Street Associations rather than the glu. This may reflect their ambiguous social identity as a group that straddled the border between small traders and wage workers; for instance, many considered themselves as part of the “merchants’” rather than the “workers’” section of society.72 The draft regulations of the glu extolled the principle of industrial unionism—that is, the notion that all workers in the same industry should belong to the same union, regardless of the job they performed. The exception was workers in small enterprises, such as iron workers, mechanics, or laundry workers, who were allowed to form unions on the basis of their particular trade. Even in the factory sector, however, most unions were not real industrial unions, even though they were open to any employee regardless of job, because they were based on a single enterprise. The cotton unions, for example, were organized by individual mill (with the exception of the single union that united all the mills of the nwk company) and functioned largely as separate entities rather than as integral branches of the cotton workers’ federation. Because so many unions were single-enterprise bodies, their average size was not large. If we categorize 104 unions for which we have information, 4 had less than 100 members; 38 had 100 to 500 members; 12 had 500 to 1,000 members; 52 had 1,000 to 5,000 members; 4 had 5,000 to 10,000 members; 3 had 10,000 to 15,000 members; and 1 had more than 15,000 members (this being the nwk mills union, which represented ten mills).73 Industrial unionism thus remained more aspiration than reality. In a note of 19 August 1925 Grigorii Voitinskii, Com-

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intern envoy in Shanghai, wrote: “Industrial unions are not possible; but we can ensure that the boards of the base-level unions, which in effect are strike committees, are transformed into factory committees.” 74 There were other deviations from the principle of industrial unionism. In the print trade, cognizance had to be taken of the strength of craft identities. The printers’ federation, which had been revived on 15 February 1925 by Xu Meikun and Zheng Futa, the only two Communists on the thirteen-person executive, consisted of separate unions of newspaper printers, lithographers, letterpress printers, Japanese printers, bookbinders, and carton makers.75 And within the lithographers’ union there were a further five specialist sections.76 Native-place loyalties underpinned many of these craft divisions. The ninety members of the printers’ federation who attended a meeting on 30 August 1925 were said to be mainly Cantonese.77 Nevertheless, the largest unions in the print trade—at the Commercial Press, the Zhonghua book company, and in the Japanese printing houses — organized workers without regard to craft.78 This was true also of newspaper printers, who organized on an enterprise basis.79 Another curious deviation from the principle of industrial unionism was the union of foreign employees (yangwu gonghui), which was formed on 21 June 1925 with a membership of thirteen hundred.80 It consisted of two unions, the first catering to the staff of foreign companies, banks, restaurants, and hotels, and the second catering to amahs and house “boys.” The chair of the former was Yang Jianhong, a twenty-eight-year-old Cantonese member of the gmd, who was well liked by the Communists.81 Foreign employees were perceived as a distinct occupational category, set apart from workers doing similar jobs for Chinese employers by virtue of the fact that they had close personal contact with foreigners. It may be that such workers were viewed with a certain suspicion, seen as contaminated by their contiguity with foreign culture. In spite of the small numbers involved, the strike by members of the foreign employees’ union in 1925 caused a ripple of anxiety among foreign residents because it threatened to bring the anti-imperialist protest right into their homes. Not surprisingly, on 23 July the International Settlement authorities prevailed on General Xing, the warlord chief then in control of Shanghai, to close down this union.82 For the time being Chinese employers tolerated the unionization drive, but the Communists were well aware that much would need to be done to persuade them to accept unions as a permanent fact of industrial life. The leaders of the glu were careful to condemn excesses perpetrated in its

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name: “No matter whether we are dealing with scabs, traitors to China or traders selling British and Japanese goods, we must treat them all in a civilized fashion and not kidnap or beat them or confiscate their goods.” 83 The ccp leadership played down the rhetoric of class struggle—at least where Chinese entrepreneurs were concerned—and was happy to let the view gain credence that the glu “will do everything to avoid, or at least to mediate in disputes between our nation’s factory owners and workers.” 84

Workers Fight On On 23 June a horrific incident occurred at Shamian in Guangzhou, in which one foreigner and fifty-three Chinese were killed when British troops opened fire, allegedly after themselves coming under attack. This event hardened the resolve of the strikers in Shanghai. In the course of July the number of strikers in the International Settlement rose from eighty thousand to ninety-six thousand, according to the police.85 Nevertheless signs that the strike could not hold out indefinitely were plain to see. By 2 July the relief fund claimed that it had dispensed $450,000 in “big money,” plus a few thousand in “small money.” 86 On 9 July the ulce wrote to the gcc to say that there was little money left in the fund and to ask for support for its request to the Beijing government for $1,000,000.87 By the end of July, according to Liu Shaoqi, no less than $1,700,000 had been disbursed.88 Some of the biggest donations to the relief fund included $250,000 from the Beijing government and $100,000 from the Jian brothers of the Nanyang tobacco company, who had been so unyielding in respect of the strike by their own employees nine months earlier. Their concern, however, was to exploit the difficulties of their strike-bound rival, bat.89 For the same reason the China Merchant Steam Navigation Company—another company with a record of resistance to strikes by its own employees— donated $50,000 a month to the strike fund.90 Ivan Lepse, who led a Soviet trade-union delegation to Shanghai at this time, said that 300,000 rubles (roughly $300,000) had been raised for the May Thirtieth strikers in Russia.91 But by far the greatest portion of donations came in small contributions from members of the public. Over the four months of the strike it is likely that some $3,000,000 were raised altogether.92 The turning point in the strike came when the Municipal Council cut off electricity supplies to “nonessential” bulk users on 6 July, its target being the Chinese-owned cotton mills and tobacco factories that were work-

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ing normally. This led immediately to the lay-off of least forty thousand workers both inside and outside the International Settlement and massively compounded the financial problems of sustaining the strike.93 On 10 July Chinese millowners agreed to pay their employees two dollars for two weeks, but said they could not afford to pay any subsidy thereafter.94 When the two weeks expired the glu pressed the millowners to continue to pay their employees six dollars a month, but they refused.95 The severance of electricity convinced the gcc that the time had finally come to end the strike. In a letter to the glu it opined that the stoppage “has been longdrawn out, has done considerable damage, has left workers with insufficient to live on and has implications for local self-government.” 96 On 13 July, Yu Xiaqing met with representatives of the British and American chambers of commerce and offered to call off the strike and boycott if the two organizations would support recommendations for the rendition of the Mixed Court, for limited Chinese representation on the Municipal Council, and for participation in a benefit subscription for strikers. The foreigners were amenable to the first two demands but adamant in their rejection of the third. It was several more weeks before the British agreed to discuss what they called such “extraneous matters.” 97 Meanwhile Fengtian General Xing Shilian, whose seven thousand soldiers had occupied the city on 22 June, caved into pressure from the British consul and on 22 July closed down the offices of the ulce, the ssu, the seamen’s union, and the foreign employees’ union.98 Xing also suppressed the levy on cargoes unloaded by the dockers’ unions that was going to the relief fund.99 In an interview with the North China Herald he explained that although he admired the patriotism of the people, he was determined to maintain order and control the “undesirables.” 100 In spite of their desire to end the strike gcc leaders Yu Xiaqing and Fu Xiaoan, together with the circuit intendant, criticized General Xing’s action. This, together with a threat from the seamen’s union to extend the strike to Chinese-owned steamers, persuaded the general to back down because he was anxious not to create a situation that his warlord rival, Sun Chuanfang, could turn to his advantage. To the annoyance of the British consul, therefore, the seamen’s union was unsealed on 25 July, and three days later ulce reopened.101 Although the North China Herald had gloated for weeks about the impending collapse of the strike, it noted gloomily on 22 July that “strike pay and benevolent solatiums are being handed out with a regularity which seemed impossible even to the trained observer some weeks ago.” 102 In

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fact, the money was finally running out. Two days before, the glu had cut the dole from four to three dollars for a half-month period (it had once been nearer five dollars).103 Toward the end of July, it proposed that strikers return to their native places, offering them a four dollar travel subsidy.104 On 10 August a despondent meeting of glu representatives was told that twelve million dollars would be needed to continue the strike for a further month. But new ways to fund the strike were disappearing. The intendant failed to persuade Chinese millowners to put up further funds for laid-off employees and a plan to raise funds by selling government bonds, with the armaments factories as collateral, came to nought.105

The End of the General Strike Tension between workers and the glu rose sharply as a result of the failure to pay the strike subsidy, which the federation was swift to exploit.106 On the afternoon of 11 August, two hundred to three hundred wharf coolies gathered at the offices of the relief fund on boulevard des Deux Républiques to demand strike pay. For hours they waited, but no money was forthcoming. Only the presence of a large company of soldiers kept them from wrecking the offices. Eventually they went off and boarded steamers belonging to Yu Xiaqing’s Sanbei shipping company, where they seized food and threw cargo overboard.107 That night five hundred dockers surrounded the headquarters of the glu, where they remained until they were each paid one dollar. The following day two thousand dockers went to the gcc to demand the subsidy. When told that Yu Xiaqing was not there, they insisted that he be brought from home to settle with them. Eventually they dispersed when promised that a subvention of three dollars would be paid the next day.108 That afternoon one thousand coolies, backed by gangsters, turned up at the glu headquarters, where they smashed chairs and tables and shattered windows before being dispersed by Fengtian soldiers. The Communist labor leader Liu Guanzhi rushed to Yu Xiaqing to ask for money.109 However much these workers may have been driven by hunger, there is little doubt that the protests were orchestrated by the secret societies in cahoots with the federation. The next day, 13 August, thousands of wharf coolies assembled at the office of the relief fund to receive the strike pay they had been promised. At 8:30 a.m. they began to attack the building. Chinese police fired shots into the air, but the rioters simply crossed the road into the French Concession from where they stoned the police

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and a passing tramcar. At noon representatives from the gcc finally arrived to pay one dollar each to about two thousand coolies and three dollars each to those in higher categories. This amount was less than had been promised, and in the afternoon nine hundred to twelve hundred wharf coolies stormed the gcc’s headquarters. Later in the afternoon, having obtained a further one hundred thousand dollars, the gcc arranged to pay three dollars each to some four thousand coolies on the Pudong wharves, and four dollars each to five thousand coolies employed on the Japanese wharves near the Jiangnan arsenal.110 Faced with these problems the Central Executive Committee of the ccp decided that it was time to seek an agreement with the Japanese millowners and bring the strike to an orderly end. On 5 August sixty representatives from all thirty-two Japanese mills met with glu leaders to draw up a list of eight conditions for settling the strike. These included demands for trade-union recognition; compensation to those injured as a result of the strikes; the trial of foremen responsible for death and injuries; a 10 percent wage raise; half-pay for the period of the strike; the payment of fractional denominations of wages in “big money”; no weapons to be carried by Japanese factory guards; no dismissals without cause; and reinstatement of those unjustly dismissed.111 On 10 August, to the annoyance of the Communist leadership, a meeting of two hundred union delegates added political demands to the original conditions. Claiming that the “happiness which workers have long sought will only be achieved with the elimination of the unequal treaties,” the delegates demanded as conditions for a return to work the rendition of the Mixed Court; freedom of speech, association, and assembly within the International Settlement; and equal rights for Chinese within the International Settlement.112 Needless to say the Japanese millowners rejected these demands out of hand and curtly informed the glu that they would negotiate only with the gcc, and even then only through the Japanese consul.113 They were in no mood to be conciliatory. They agreed to end payment of fractions of a dollar of the wage in “small money”; that guards would not “normally” carry arms on factory premises; and that there should be no dismissals without just cause. They refused to commit themselves to a pay increase, but agreed to “take pity” (a phrase that stuck in the throat of the glu activists) on “well-intentioned” workers who had suffered because of the strike.114 The glu calculated that about $600,000 was needed to pay the strikers one-third of their wages, but the Japanese companies were prepared to put up no more than $100,000.

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The gcc was persuaded to provide a further $200,000, a sum that it raised to $240,000 under pressure, but this still made up only half the sum required. Nevertheless the glu had no alternative but to recommend acceptance.115 On 25 August those Japanese mills that did not rely on the Municipal Council for their electricity supply resumed operations.116 The glu congratulated the strikers: “We upheld the nation’s code of brotherhood . . . but we have still not regained face [timian].” 117 The next issue to resolve was that of workers laid off in the Chinese mills. On 29 August the glu held a meeting of sixty delegates at which Liu Shaoqi delivered a tirade against the Chinese millowners. Declaring that “Chinese capitalists are truly bad,” Xie Wenjin proposed that the minimum conditions for a return to work should be the recognition of trade unions, the reemployment of all workers, and payment of seven or eight dollars in compensation for wages lost.118 To these, delegates added three more demands: that fractions of dollars of wages be paid in “big money”; that workers receive a 10 percent wage increase in line with what they wrongly assumed to have been agreed by Japanese millowners; and that there be equal pay for men and women.119 Yu Xiaqing agreed to negotiate with the Chinese Millowners’ Association, but deemed the demands inappropriate because the millowners bore no responsibility for the lay-off. On 6 September Liu Shaoqi told over forty representatives that negotiations were deadlocked. The employers were prepared to pay only two dollars in strike funds, to which Yu Xiaqing had persuaded the gcc to pay a further dollar. Liu urged the delegates to accept the three dollars, but called on them to keep up pressure on the millowners regarding the other five demands.120 When the delegates met again on 9 September, he informed them that the millowners had said that they would recognize trade unions only if a law were passed, and that they were not prepared to grant equal pay to women workers. The delegates rejected these terms unanimously, and called on Yu Xiaqing to press for a better deal.121 On 11 September the glu finally convinced them that no better deal was forthcoming, and the strike came to an end.122 On 9 September electricity was restored and a general return to work began. Despite all the problems, the strike had held up remarkably well. According to the International Settlement police, at the end of August 69,582 workers were still on strike in the International Settlement, with a further 13,208 laid off because of the lack of electricity.123 Those who stayed out on strike during September—20,000 by some estimates—were

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principally employees of British firms.124 Initially, the ccp hoped to continue the strike against the British indefinitely. To this end, Li Lisan went to Beijing to ask Duan Qirui’s government for a monthly subsidy of one hundred thousand dollars, which he claimed he was promised.125 Not only did the money never materialize, but on 18 September Duan ordered General Xing to shut down the glu. By that point the British Chamber of Commerce was ready to settle, and on 27 September Yu Xiaqing and Pan Donglin negotiated an end to the strike in British firms along the lines agreed to in the Japanese and Chinese mills.126 On 30 September You Chi, a twenty-year-old from Wuxi, led nineteen hundred workers at the British-owned Oriental cotton-spinning and weaving company back to work. The workers had been on strike for 119 days— one of the longest stoppages in the history of the Shanghai labor movement. They bore the union banner and national flag, were accompanied by a military band, and kept in order by the union picket.127 Along the road, four thousand Ewo workers also marched back to work, accompanied by a huge banner, brass band, and firecrackers. The crowd shouted “abolish the unequal treaties!,” “long live the victory of the workers!,” and “long live the liberation of the Chinese people!” The day shift then led the night shift back through the factory gates where they were greeted by the director and a blare of welcome from the factory horn. In a symbolic repossession of the factory, the workers marched once around the mill compound.128

Assessing the May Thirtieth Movement The May Thirtieth Movement was the most powerful of the nationalist struggles to date in China, yet its concrete achievements were relatively few. In the year following the general strike an agreement was reached that the Mixed Court should return to Chinese control, that three seats on the Municipal Council should go to Chinese appointees, and that seventyfive thousand dollars should be paid to the families of the victims as a “compassionate grant.” It is unlikely that these concessions would have been forthcoming without the general strike. Arguably, too, the subsequent willingness of the tariff conference to grant tariff autonomy and of the diplomatic body to agree to a commission on extraterritoriality were consequences of the nationalist mobilization. Yet most of the seventeen demands of the movement remained unfulfilled and, given the huge sacrifices made by workers, students, businessmen, and small traders, it is the

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paucity of immediate achievement that stands out.129 It was in the longerterm that the May Thirtieth Movement was significant. As Nicholas Clifford succinctly puts it: “Before 1925 . . . the structure of the unequal treaties, built by foreigners in China since 1842, had seemed eternal; after May Thirtieth, the question asked was how fast and in what manner foreign privilege should be surrendered.” 130 The May Thirtieth Movement reconfigured relations between social groups within the national liberation movement. Students played a similar role to that which they had played in the May Fourth Movement. They took the lead in taking the nationalist message to the people, in implementing the boycott, and in raising funds for those on strike. In the words of their historian, they “took to the streets to protest attacks on the dignity of their country and the bodies of their comrades, and . . . saw themselves as fulfilling a moral role as the conscience of the nation.” 131 Yet if their impact on public opinion was large, their ability to shape the course of events was more limited because they had few weapons at their disposal apart from moral ones. Their nonattendance at class, for example, had minimal impact on the foreign powers, not least because most had started their vacation by the time the triple strike commenced, and by the time the new term started the strike was over.132 Moreover, in the course of the movement political divisions within the student body became more pronounced than they had been in 1919, and with the new academic year a moderate group in the ssu mobilized against the Communist Youth League and its sympathizers.133 The role of small traders, organized in the Federation of Street Associations, was vitally important in making the triple stoppage a genuinely popular movement. From 150,000 to 200,000 traders and small businessmen suspended trade—almost the same number as the workers who went on strike—and they did so for twenty-six days, compared with only eight during the May Fourth Movement. Yet the federation deferred more to the gcc than it had done in 1919 and evinced more distrust of radical workers and students. More substantial businessmen, for their part, soon seized the political initiative, thanks to the deft leadership of Yu Xiaqing. The refusal of the gcc to become involved in the ulce stood in contrast to the May Fourth Movement, when the Shanghai Commercial Federation had participated in the Confederation of Labor, Merchants, Students, and Journalists. Instead it bent its efforts to bringing an end to what Fu Xiaoan called the “suicidal policy” of the business strike.134 In relation to the anti-imperialist movement as a whole the gcc was ambiva-

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lent. It broadly supported the goals of the movement because businessmen wanted representation on the Municipal Council, abolition of the new bylaws, the rendition of the Mixed Court, and tariff autonomy. The gcc was willing to support mass action to force the foreign powers to the negotiating table, but preferred to deal by negotiation rather than confrontation and to play on divisions between the foreign powers. And although it seized the opportunity provided by the workers’ strike to steal a march on its foreign rivals, the gcc’s opposition to imperialism was always tempered by an awareness that Chinese business benefited in many respects from the foreign presence. Once Chinese businessmen were hit by the reverberations of the strike, the gcc sought quickly to bring the latter to an end. The relationship of business to the labor movement was one of the most remarkable features of the May Thirtieth Movement, although to judge from the fragmentary minutes of the gcc the significance of the labor questions for Shanghai’s business leaders should not be exaggerated.135 Most, although not all, members of the gcc backed the general strike out of a mixture of patriotism and class interest, both as a way of forcing the foreign powers to make concessions and of weakening foreign business rivals. The gcc supported the relief fund and a few businessmen made substantial contributions to it. Between June 1925 and June 1926 the gcc claimed to have spent no less than $2,360,000 in supporting strikers and in providing strike pay to settle disputes.136 Ironically, by sustaining the strike in this way and by agreeing that only workers who were union members would qualify for strike pay, the gcc helped to promote the process of unionization.137 Yu Xiaqing had clashed with strikers in the past, yet he had also publicly criticized the treatment of textile workers. Although he wished to see an improvement in the lot of China’s workers, his efforts were largely devoted to bringing about a settlement of the strike.138 Initially the gcc saw labor unions as a means of strengthening the national revolution and modernizing China’s industrial relations. On 1 July it called on the government to legalize trade unions in order to bring their activities within the law and to spur the development of industry.139 But the success of the glu led to rising anxiety. Like other sections of the public, businessmen became increasingly concerned at the influence of “extremists” (guohuo, guoji) and at the “reddening” (chihua) of the nationalist movement. In December 1925 the Chinese Millowners’ Association circulated a brochure among millworkers called “Recollections of New Russia,” the blurb for which accused the Communists of “making false charges, engaging in internal strife, vio-

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lating laws and committing crimes, creating famine and depriving the people of their livelihood.” 140 During 1926 the gcc journal carried several articles about the “cruel wave of labor protest,” which alleged that labor unions were benefiting not their members but a politically motivated minority.141 The rather positive attitude toward the labor movement evinced by the gcc in June 1925, therefore, gave way to a belief that labor unions were engines of social dissent antithetical to China’s economic and social progress.142 Richard Rigby has rightly suggested that workers were “in a very real sense the movement’s vanguard and its backbone,” and it was this that most distinguished the May Thirtieth event from the May Fourth Movement.143 Up to two hundred thousand workers displayed extraordinary tenacity during the general strike—the three bat plants, for example, stayed out 124 days—in the face of financial hardship and less than steadfast support from their allies.144 Not only was the number of strikers double that of the May Fourth Movement, the strike lasted for three months compared with a maximum of eight days in 1919. Moreover, a mass labor movement came into being in Shanghai as a result of the May Thirtieth Movement, thereby introducing a major new factor into the national revolution. It is true that the closure of the glu led to a sharp setback: by May 1926 Liu Shaoqi told the Third National Labor Congress that only 79,740 members of the glu were paying dues, which suggests that the effective membership of the glu had fallen to well under half its peak in the May Thirtieth Movement.145 Yet organized labor remained a factor of paramount significance, capable of exerting considerable pressure on domestic power holders and of doing considerable damage to foreign trade and industry. Whether the working class proved a capacity to exercise hegemony in the national revolution, as the Communists claimed, is much more disputable. The Central Executive Committee of the ccp initially claimed that the May Thirtieth Movement had demonstrated such a capacity, but by the time of its plenum in July 1926 it conceded that “backward workers, steeped in patriarchal mentality” had been taken in tow by the gcc.146 As we shall see, labor organization remained fragile and, in part at least, the strike had come about only because of support from foremen and secret-society bosses. Worse atrocities than the May Thirtieth shootings had been committed by the foreign powers, yet what had once been tolerated had now become intolerable. In the colorful words of Deng Zhongxia: “After living for over eighty years under imperialist oppression, the people of Shanghai decided

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that the time had come when they could stand it no longer, and so amid a foul wind and rain of blood they went headlong into battle with imperialism.” 147 It was perhaps this change in psychology that was the most profound consequence of the May Thirtieth Movement. More specifically, it hugely strengthened a rendition of national identity that saw the fate of the nation as intimately tied up with the struggles of the common people. By standing up to the British and Japanese, workers had upheld the nation’s face and forced the foreigners to treat them as dignified human beings. As a result, workers gained confidence and self-esteem and their national identity was firmed up, inflected to varying degrees by class identity. Henceforward, until Chiang Kai-shek’s coup against the glu on 12 April 1927, radical anti-imperialism would be the dominant mode of nationalist consciousness in Shanghai.

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10

National and Class Identities, 1925 –1927

This chapter takes a close look at what is called, in shorthand, “classinflected anti-imperialist nationalism.” Its essence was captured in the statement of aims in August 1925 of the new Shanghai cotton workers’ federation, “To concentrate our forces, resist imperialist oppression, struggle for the sovereignty of the nation (minzu), and seek the emancipation of the working class.” 1 This formula neatly illustrates the inextricability of nationalist and class aspirations following the May Thirtieth Incident. The relationship between nation and class was generally symbiotic, but at times the two could pull apart. This chapter explores the rhetorical and political mechanisms through which interconnections between the discourses of nation and class were made in the years 1925 –1927, a period that can loosely be called the “national revolution.”

Imperialists and Warlords The formation of the united front between the ccp and the gmd entailed a thorough overhaul of the political program of the gmd to make it more palatable to the Soviet Union. In late 1923, the Executive Committee of the Comintern reworked Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles along marxist-leninist lines. In a resolution of 28 November 1923, it redefined his principle of nationalism as the “struggle of the gmd against world imperialism and its protégés for the independence of China, relying on the broad layers of peasants, workers, intellectuals and commercial-industrial layers of the country . . . [which] must not fall under the yoke of the local bourgeoisie . . . and [which] must cooperate with revolutionary movements of the peoples oppressed by Chinese imperialism . . . recognizing their right to self-determination.” 2 Superficially, it appeared as though this perspective was incarnated in the resolutions of the First Congress of the gmd in January 1924, when responsibility for China’s civil chaos was laid squarely

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National and Class Identities 191

at the door of the foreign powers, whose activities in China were seen as being aimed, inter alia, at the “seizure of economic rights.” Nationalism was defined by the congress as “freedom and independence” for the Chinese people, and was deemed to entail the nullification of the unequal treaties, the return of the foreign concessions, the abolition of extraterritoriality, the regaining of control over customs, and an end to the payment of reparations.3 Yet the extent to which the gmd ever fully embraced the anti-imperialist version of nationalism favored by the Comintern is a moot point. The term “imperialism” (diguo zhuyi) had entered the Chinese language from Japanese (teikoku shugi) at the turn of the century, but it only acquired wide usage in the years 1925 to 1927. Denunciations of territorial expansion, military aggression, and commercial rapacity on the part of the foreign powers had been a staple of nationalism since early in the century, but these phenomena were seen largely as manifestations of power politics (qiangquan) rather than of a politico-economic system. Imperialism was understood within a Social Darwinism context, as aggression by individual nation-states set against the backdrop of overpopulation and the struggle of the white race for global domination.4 It was not until August 1919, with the publication of the manifesto of the Comintern, that an economic interpretation of imperialism—more precisely, Lenin’s concept of imperialism as an outgrowth of monopoly capitalism—began to gain ground.5 Sun Yat-sen had touched on the issue of imperialism in 1904 and 1912, but he conceived of it essentially as the drive by strong powers to conquer overseas territories, and he did not consider it to be the root of China’s problems. Indeed as late as 1922 he was still seeking backing from western governments in his quest to reunify the country.6 Although he catalogued the many ways in which China had been laid low economically, politically, and militarily by foreign powers, he saw the prospect of national extinction as one that arose from the weaknesses of the Chinese themselves. In his view the threat came about because the population of other countries was growing faster than China’s, which he then linked to a deficiency of national spirit.7 In this respect Sun’s vision of history differed radically from that of the Communists, for whom China’s decline could be dated from her defeat by British imperialists in the First Opium War. Strictly speaking, the anti-imperialism of the Communists was not a form of nationalism because it did not uphold the nation as the supreme source of political authority. Even in the late 1930s when Mao Zedong re-

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configured the anti-imperialist narrative around the northern peasantry, infusing into it certain elements from the ethno-national narrative, he remained careful to use the term “patriotism” rather than “nationalism.” Nevertheless insofar as the Communists imagined China as a sovereign political community, they may be said to have articulated a distinctive vision of her as a nation. The key element in this vision was of China as a victim, a people laid low by foreign aggressors, whose redemption would come about through the struggles of the toiling people. Those who constituted the nation were, first and foremost, workers and peasants; the allies of the latter, notably, the petty bourgeoisie, the intelligentsia, and less certainly, the “national bourgeoisie” (whose status was largely a matter of political tactics) also qualified for a place within the nation’s ranks. This was a less inclusive vision of the nation than that of the gmd, for the Communists identified a range of class enemies deemed to stand outside its ranks, whereas for the gmd the “oppressing classes” were a small minority defined largely in political terms. Nevertheless, by casting the Chinese nation in the role of victim of imperialism, it was possible discursively to extend the attributes of the proletariat to the nation as a whole, so that Communist rhetoric could, when required, invoke a broad definition of the nation. This was not a conception to which the gmd ever gave unqualified approval. Immediately following the First gmd Congress, Sun Yat-sen gave lectures in which he continued to define nationalism in terms of racial statism (guozu zhuyi) rather than anti-imperialism. Moreover, unlike the Communists he conceived the Chinese nation as defined principally by its “blood lineage” (xuetong) and, secondarily, by its way of life, language, religion, and customs. “Whatever the blood line of the ancestors, it is inherited for all time, so as to make of the people one race.” 8 After 1911 he appeared to accept that the Chinese republic was made up of “five races”— Han, Manchu, Mongolian, Muslim, and Tibetan—but continued to assume the implicit superiority of the Han race. Neither Sun nor his successors ever took seriously the Comintern view that the four other “races” were “peoples oppressed by Chinese imperialism” who should exercise the right of self-determination. There was another way in which the Communist vision of the nation differed from that of the gmd. As children of the May Fourth Movement, the Communists looked negatively on the Confucian heritage, believing that the norms and values of the Chinese would be fundamentally recast in the course of the struggles for national and class liberation. Sun Yat-sen, by

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contrast, had little time for those who repudiated China’s cultural tradition: “We should preserve what is good in our past, and throw away what is bad.” 9 However, because he assigned a large part of the blame for China’s abjection on the Chinese people themselves, he recognized that there were major defects in her culture, notably the absence of national sentiment. Historically, he suggested, sentiments of unity had stopped short at the level of the lineage without extending to the nation as a whole. The task of the gmd, therefore, was to mobilize the people around the Three People’s Principles in order to build national sentiment on the narrower solidarities of lineage and native place.10 Sun made clear that certain Confucian values, even including loyalty to the emperor, could be used to further this end. A final difference between the two parties of the united front lay in their attitude to warlordism. After 1916 China’s parlous condition was exacerbated by the break-up of centralized state power and by the scramble for territory and resources between rival factions of militarists.11 For the nascent labor movement the dangers of warlordism were dramatized by the execution on 17 January 1922 of the chair of the Hunan Laborers’ Association, Huang Ai, and its secretary, Pang Renquan, by warlord Zhao Hengti. These dangers are made eloquently clear in the words of one worker: Alas, at this time, when the law has ceased to be binding, those groups armed with guns hold power, so if they wish to kill, they kill, and the common people, with only their fists to rely on, dare not utter a murmur. We can only admire the gall of Zhao Hengti for daring to smash the constitution, for daring to resist the 30 million people of Hunan and the surging tide of self-government. . . . Were Messrs Pang and Huang tried before a court or did Zhao Hengti’s military tribunal simply pronounce the words ‘You shall die’? . . . We have had a great education as a result of this. For if we citizens lack consciousness, strength, organization, if we are unable to oversee the government to ensure that it abides by the constitution, then the articles of the constitution, however numerous they may be . . . will count for nothing.12 By 1924 the inhabitants of Shanghai had tasted militarism for themselves when the city became embroiled in the war between the Zhili and Fengtian factions. As Arthur Waldron has shown, the increasing destructiveness of war in this period caused deep disaffection and predisposed many to

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consider radical political solutions.13 This lent credence to the Communist depiction of warlords as inveterate reactionaries, corrupt and exploitative agents of a “feudalism” that impeded the process of national reunification.14 In fact, warlords were never politically monolithic, and some, such as Chen Jiongming, Sun Yat-sen’s bête noire, were nationalists according to their own lights. Yet if the ccp did much to dramatize the issue of warlordism—it was instrumental in popularizing the Chinese term junfa—it viewed it essentially as a by-product of imperialism. In 1924 Deng Zhongxia wrote: “Superficially, China’s weaknesses and disasters appear to be an evil caused by warlords, but in fact they are caused by foreign capitalism and imperialism.” 15 And in May 1925 in Guangzhou the Second National Labor Congress declared: “The enemy responsible for all our various sufferings is international imperialism and its running dogs.” This latter phrase referred to the warlords, and in propaganda aimed at the urban populace, the Communists referred to them as “running dogs,” or the “teeth and claws” of imperialism. However, it is by no means clear that the population at large viewed the warlords simply as auxiliaries of the imperialists— a second-order problem—since many experienced the despoliation of the warlords far more directly than that of the imperialists, even in a city such as Shanghai.16 The gmd did not challenge the ccp’s perspective, but in practice Chiang Kai-shek carried out the national revolution by prioritizing the elimination of warlordism and by tackling the process largely by military means. For this he elicited the gratitude of many ordinary folk in Shanghai.

Disseminating Anti-Imperialist Nationalism The anti-imperialist nationalism that circulated in the years 1925 to 1927 was never absolutely hegemonic. Within nationalist discourse a class-based view of the nation vied with an older ethno-national construal; a definition of the nation in terms of popular sovereignty vied with a definition in terms of economic exploitation; conflicting diagnoses of the nation’s plight—in terms of warlordism or imperialism—vied for influence; and conservative fondness for social unity strained against the rhetoric of class struggle. Yet the tendency was, undoubtedly, for nationalism in its classbased anti-imperialist variant to gain ground rapidly in these years. One index of this gain was that foreign goods, formerly described by the boycott movement as “inferior” goods, had become known by 1926 as “imperial-

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ist” goods.17 Another was that the Hengfeng workers, who struck for three weeks in protest at the May Thirtieth massacre in spite of being a Chineseowned enterprise, proclaimed that their strike had “made the imperialists tremble.” 18 The word “imperialism,” however, was not always used. Seamen, for example, in their many statements tended to refer to “foreign aggression” and “oppression by foreigners,” albeit within the discourse of anti-imperialist nationalism.19 And abstract concepts such as imperialism, sovereignty, exploitation, or unequal exchange can have been grasped only tenuously by an overwhelmingly illiterate populace. A gamut of propaganda techniques was used to popularize the slogans and images of anti-imperialist nationalism. The spoken word as ever remained vital in disseminating basic ideas and frameworks of understanding. On 17 August 1925 the National Students’ Union and ssu formed a Shanghai Anti-Imperialist League, which set up student speaker teams to tour the city and put out leaflets and posters bearing simple slogans such as “abolish the unequal treaties,” “down with imperialism,” and “down with warlords.” 20 Much of the content of this propaganda invoked modern notions of sovereignty, human rights, and international law, but as in the May Fourth Movement speaker teams still played on traditional themes. The idea that the nation faced a stark choice between survival and extinction (cun-wang) figured largely, with audiences being warned, just as they had been in 1905 and 1919, that if they lived “as though we are intoxicated or dreaming,” they would go the way of Vietnam, Korea, India, Egypt, or the Han empire at the time of the Three Kingdoms. On balance, however, the theme of national extinction was less an organizing principle of the discourse than it had been in 1905 or 1919, and was more likely to be echoed in phrases such as “slaves of a foreign power” (wangguo nu) than as a dominant trope.21 Speaker teams also drew on traditional proverbs to convey the urgency of organizing and fighting: “If one falls, the other is in danger” (literally, if the lips go, the teeth will be cold); “With the skin gone, what can the hair hold on to?”; and “When the nest is overturned, no egg stays unbroken.” 22 Propagandists, needless to say, played unashamedly on the emotions of their audiences, and there were many reports of those listening to speeches, or even reading wall posters, bursting into tears. On 6 June 1925 several hundred women from forty hosiery factories wept as they listened to one of their number declare that she would starve to death in support of her compatriots.23 Indeed mass sobbing was deployed as an agitational tactic, with special teams being set up to promote weeping.24

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On 11 June at a meeting organized by the ulce attended by nearly one hundred thousand people at the Public Recreation Ground, Sun Jindong slashed his hand and wrote in blood a six-character slogan: “We do not fear death, we are fighting for our dignity.” 25 Historian Vera Schwarcz points out that with the May Thirtieth Movement, “blood, at once a poetic symbol and a present horror” seized the imagination of progressive intellectuals.26 Of fifty-seven plays put on by street-theater groups, sixteen had the words “blood” or “tears” in their title; and of sixty-seven periodicals, fifteen had the word “blood” in their title. The Shanghai Workers’ Aid Entertainment Association put on skits called “Tears of Blood” and “Sleep on Brushwood and Taste Gall”; the Zhabei Common People’s Workers’ Aid Entertainment Troupe put on plays titled “The Bloody Massacre of Nanjing Road” and the “Bark of the Heartless Dog.” 27 In addition, the bloodstained clothing of the May Thirtieth martyrs was fetishized, both in photographs and through the role it played in memorial ceremonies.28 The Shanghai shop employees’ federation declared that “since the May Thirtieth massacre everyone has hot blood, there is no one who is not angry.” Here hot blood symbolized vigor and patriotic concern, in contrast to the langor and apathy of the “cold-blooded animals” from whom workers at the Chinese-owned Puyi mill were keen to dissociate themselves.29 As these examples suggest, street theater was an important medium in communicating with the populace; and now class as well as nationalist themes figured in these dramas. Labor leaders in Yinxianggang, for example, toured the streets and factories with a play about the worker Gu Zhenghong, whose death at the hands of a Japanese guard triggered the events that led up to the May Thirtieth massacre, and another about capitalist exploitation, called the “Three Inequalities.” 30 Visual imagery, usually in the form of posters, cartoons, or chalk drawings on the street, was also vital in disseminating the anti-imperialist message. Photographs of the corpses of the May Thirtieth victims or of their blood-stained clothes were widely published, sometimes cut out of illustrated magazines and stuck on walls, with the ssu issuing a set of twentyeight postcards of the dead and wounded.31 Wall posters and flyers written in simple language were often accompanied by cartoons. One of the more sophisticated of these showed a corpulent British bobby blasting a tiny, shriveled Chinese figure lying on the ground, with the caption “The Greatest Victory.” 32 Another showed a cowed man, “China,” being deafened by the dissonant strains of a wild, disheveled violinist named “Impe-

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rialism,” whose musical notes were marked “justice,” “goodwill,” “equality,” and “humanity.” 33 Imperialism was frequently represented as a monster, as in a cartoon that shows a beast with a tiger’s head standing on a pedestal of human skulls, strangling a Chinese with one hand and holding a dagger and the bleeding head of a decapitated Sikh in the other.34 Two posters in the headquarters of the seamen’s union depicted a lion in a cage— China—being attacked by the two wolves of Britain and Japan, with the lion smashing down the bars of the cage and chasing the wolves away.35 One technical innovation in visual propaganda was the use of newsreel footage and film. Tongji University students made a newsreel film of the May Thirtieth Movement that was widely shown, and the ssu commissioned a twenty-four-hundred-frame film from the Youlian company titled “May Thirtieth Shanghai Tide,” which showed three times a day.36 Songs remained a potent means of stirring emotion, forging identification with the nation and disseminating new political ideas. Drum songs and ballads, such as the “May Thirtieth Martyrs’ Memorial Song” or the “National Humiliation Day” song, were specially composed during this period. The words of the latter, which was commissioned by the glu, were rather gracelessly rendered by the North China Herald: “What is the significance of May 9th to the Republic of China? / We have already lost a great many of our government rights through yielding to the TwentyOne Demands. / Let us unite, sleep on brushwood and live on gall (wo xin chang dan) as it is our duty to wipe off this humiliation. / Should we remain in lethargy the weak will be swallowed by the strong? / When our country is exterminated it will be too late for regret.” 37 Another innovation of the May Thirtieth Movement was the commercial recording of drum songs, such as the “May Thirtieth Exclamation Song” and the “May Thirtieth Spring Song.” 38 The Communists also used songs to popularize their message of class struggle. One, titled “Sorrows of the Woman Worker,” written in Shanghai dialect, went: “The boss’s heart is hateful, / we are like criminals in his eyes. / The foreman is fierce and brutal and the forewoman is cruel. / If you’re the least bit careless in your work, / you’ll be cursed, fined and shown the door.” 39 In 1926 the party published a Collection of Revolutionary Songs, which included patriotic songs inspired by the May Thirtieth Movement, such as “A Memorial Song for May First,” which was set to a classical qin (seven-stringed zither) tune called “Three Variations on the Theme of Plum Blossom,” as well as scores of Russian songs and the “Internationale,” translated into Chinese by Qu Qiubai in 1923.40

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Although the ccp preferred the stirring marches and rousing choruses that were the approved music of the international Communist movement, they were not afraid to appropriate popular tunes of the day, such as the rather risqué “Eighteen Gropes” and “Mengjiang nü,” to which He Weixin wrote anti-imperialist words.41 Manufacturers put into circulation their own forms of nationalist iconography, less as a form of anti-imperialist propaganda and more as an inducement to buy Chinese goods. Special May Thirtieth wash basins were manufactured, so that patriots would be reminded of the horror every time they performed their ablutions, and there were May Thirtieth bars of soap and national humiliation hand towels and writing paper.42 The Datong tobacco company advertised its Two Tigers brand of cigarettes with a cartoon showing a carnival procession in support of national produce, in which participants carried lanterns and banners saying “never forget the national humiliation,” “Chinese should smoke Chinese cigarettes,” and “Chinese should love Chinese.” 43 Advertising and consumer culture thus began to play a part in disseminating new renditions of national identity. Shenbao ran a regular advertisement in which well-known figures were asked to give their opinion of native products. The deputy chair of the gcc, Fang Jiaobo, wrote: “To advocate national products is to achieve glory in speech; to use national products is to do a glorious deed; to make national products is to serve a moral purpose.” 44 Other forms of symbolic propaganda included wearing black armbands and white clothing and flying flags at half-mast, both of which were often incorporated into more formal rituals. At the end of June 1925, one hundred thousand people attended the martyrs’ memorial meeting at the Public Recreation Ground at the West Gate. A ceremonial gateway was erected, festooned in white and flanked by two ceremonial halls. In the center was an altar, surrounded by elegiac couplets and a long piece of white cloth on which were written the names of thirty-two martyrs. Beside the altar were two pavilions, one of which housed blood-stained clothes and the bullets recovered from the corpses and was inscribed “Tears of Blood”; the other housed portraits of the deceased and was inscribed “Outstanding Heroes.” The memorial ceremony began with the tolling of a bell for five minutes, followed by the chairman’s opening words. Solemn music was played before the officiate stood up, laid flowers, bowed three times, and read the funeral oration. Five minutes of silence followed, after which slogans were shouted. This was followed by a succession of militant

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speeches. The format was largely traditional, but integrated new elements such as slogans and speeches into the ceremony.45 This may be seen as an “invented tradition,” as, in the words of Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, a “set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behavior by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past.” 46 Sun Yat-sen had been alert to the importance of invented tradition, particularly in his concern to popularize the oath of dedication to the Chinese republic as a step in the process of nation building. “If we want to mobilize these 400 million grains of loose sand and make them into an organic, united country. . . . we must begin with the oath, which serves as the starting point for making the ‘heart straight’ and the ‘mind sincere.’” 47 Following Sun’s death in March 1925, the gmd was quick to build a cult around him, which also had many characteristics of the invented tradition. In May 1925 the third plenum of the Central Executive Committee of the gmd instituted a weekly memorial service for party organizations, possibly in imitation of Confucian lineage sacrifices.48 In January 1926 the Second gmd Congress voted to regard Sun as its “president and director for all time to come,” and party branches were called on to hold weekly memorial meetings. These meetings began with a triple bow before Sun’s portrait, a reading of his will, and three minutes of silence. Sometimes a patriotic address or a nationalist song would follow.49 As a result of the gmdinspired cult, Sun came to be regarded by ordinary folk as the “father of the nation” (guofu). Sun had been popular in Shanghai even before his death: When he arrived in the city on 14 August 1922, fifty-four organizations, most of them representing labor, had gone to the quayside to greet him. The International Settlement police broke up the meeting and confiscated banners, saying that “the political intrigue woven about his person will not be tolerated here.” 50 On the first anniversary of his death, 12 March 1926, Shanghai workers took part in a memorial meeting and strikes flared up at the nwk No. 4 mill and the British-owned Ewo mill when management refused to let workers attend. In the spinning room at the nwk No. 4 mill, workers sent a message to the glu and the Shanghai gmd: “Mr. Sun Yatsen was the guide and teacher of the national revolution. There is not one among the oppressed people who does not wish to pay their respects.” 51 With the onset of the Northern Expedition in July 1926, the propaganda

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teams that accompanied the National Revolutionary Army worked feverishly to propagate a mythologized account of Sun’s life and a simple explication of the Three People’s Principles.52 When the Shanghai municipal government was inaugurated on 29 March 1927, its members swore to “abide by the testament of the premier, stand by the will of the masses and work hard for revolutionary construction.” 53 From being someone who was considered a failure in his lifetime, Sun had been transformed into a symbol of hope for the nation. The rituals associated with his cult, especially the reading of the testament and the bowing to his portrait, bear the hallmarks of invented traditions, in that they used old forms to legitimate new institutions and values. Of course, the cult was not used exclusively to propagate anti-imperialist nationalism—anti-Communist nationalists were as eager as their left-wing rivals to tap into the intense emotional identification with the “father of the nation.”

Nation and Class in Anti-Imperialist Discourse If one accepts that participation in collective action had compelling consequences for the formation of new social identities, then perhaps the best “school” of anti-imperialist sentiment was the strike wave of the summer of 1926. June saw the highest number of economic strikes ever recorded in a single month in Shanghai, affecting around 57,000 workers.54 In July the number rose still further, with the Communist Guide Weekly counting no fewer than fifty-four joint or single stoppages affecting 70,494 workers.55 In August the strike wave started to break, but the number of strikers in the International Settlement remained high at around 32,000.56 The principal causes of these stoppages were the massive rise in rice prices and the fact that the exchange rate of the silver dollar against the copper cent stood at an all-time high of about 260 cents.57 Added to these problems was the fact that it was one of the hottest summers on record, with temperatures well over 100°F.58 Because the market for textiles was depressed manufacturers were in no mood to make concessions, so after a relatively bright start the number of strikes ending in defeat rapidly increased.59 The strike wave was rooted in economic grievances, but because it was concentrated in the Japanese and British cotton mills it quickly acquired a powerful anti-imperialist dimension. According to Zhao Shiyan, head of the organization bureau of the Shanghai regional committee of the ccp, the rallying point for all the strikes was the slogan: “We can’t take any more

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inhuman treatment.” And although the strikers’ demands were overwhelmingly about wages and conditions, the demands can legitimately be read as elements of a larger demand to be treated as human beings.60 This demand for humane treatment, moreover, touched directly on matters of justice, dignity, rights, and equality, which were pertinent not only to workers but to the Chinese nation as a whole.61 A curse or a cuff directed at a Chinese worker by a Japanese supervisor, for example, could symbolize the violence inflicted on the Chinese people by foreign imperialists, and could generate a passion and anger out of all proportion to the scale of the provocation. The issue of humane treatment could thus be elaborated within the discourses of nationalism, class, or both, and, to effect this, particular tropes were used that vested acts or events with meaning and related them to wider frames of political signification. Slavery was one trope widely used to articulate the experience of both workers and the Chinese people. When workers described the harshness of their lives they regularly turned to the imagery of slavery. The Shanghai Shopclerk asked: “Are not shop clerks and apprentices individuals too, do they not have five organs and four limbs? . . . Why is it that clerks are only there to be bossed around and apprentices to be treated like slaves?” 62 Strikers at the Commercial Press in August 1925 proclaimed: “Our rights and liberties have been despised and stolen from us. We are in danger of losing our jobs at any minute . . . [and] our bosses treat us as beasts of burden and slaves.” 63 In both these cases the bosses were Chinese, which illustrates that the metaphor of slavery could be used in a purely class context. However, it was more commonly used in a nationalist context. According to Sun Yat-sen, “China is not a slave of one country but of all countries.” In addition, the “slave” could represent the “other” against which the patriotic Chinese was defined. During the May Thirtieth Movement the ccp harped on this theme: “Anyone who continues to cooperate with the foreigners is not worthy to be called a Chinese citizen, he is simply a slave. Anyone who refuses to help the patriots who have risen up in struggle is also a slave. There is no middle way, you are either a patriot or a slave.” 64 To become nationally conscious was thus to cease to be a slave, or as the “March of the Volunteers,” written in 1935 and soon to become China’s national anthem, put it: “Arise all those who will not be enslaved / Use our own bodies / To build a new and strong Great Wall.” Another favored trope likened the factory to a prison. In the novel Schoolmaster Ni Huan-chih by Ye Shengtao, the factory is represented by the

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metonymy of the “black iron shutters over the window.” 65 This image was associated particularly with women workers. A writer in the Weekly Review spoke of the “black prison” of the silk filatures, where women were deprived of their liberty.66 And a work song sung by the women ran: “Today will I once again be too late? / Will the mill already have barred its gate? / No, the doors of this prison are still open to me.” 67 For workers the physical restriction, the controls on movement, and the harsh discipline of the factory were vividly captured in the image of the prison, which represented spiritual as well as corporeal confinement. The prison metaphor was not used in nationalist discourse, but its implied opposite—breaking out of bondage— did appear as an image. Another trope, which is encountered many times in the context of nation as well as class, was that of being treated like beasts. A worker wrote to Labor World: “Recently I said: ‘Laborers are the cattle and horses of the capitalists!’ But someone overheard me and said: ‘That’s not true. Laborers are not as well off as horses and cattle. Just imagine the typical day of a horse or cow. In the morning and evening someone leads it to the open fields where it can graze, rest or breathe the fresh air. But we workers toil from dawn to dusk for over ten hours a day. Do we have time to rest or play?’” 68 In May 1925 the Second National Labor Congress passed a resolution that declared: “In Europe and America the capitalists outwardly respect the independence of the workers’ personality and the freedom of contract, whereas in China they treat the workers worse than cattle and horses; they regularly and wantonly thump and kick, beat and flog, even kill, with impunity.” 69 When in June 1925 weavers at the Shanghai cotton manufacturing company beat up a foreman who subsequently died of his injuries, they justified their action as follows: “The mill is owned by Japanese who look upon us as cattle and horses and treat us as pigs and dogs. They feel free to assault us whenever they please.” 70 What is striking about this image is that it interpellates workers in terms of their suffering and their oppression, rather than in terms of their potential strength. In and of itself, the metaphor, like that of slavery, is not empowering, and this is paralleled by the general representation of the nation in anti-imperialist discourse, which placed it in a subject-position of victim—that is, as prey to the foreign powers. That these metaphors were nevertheless capable of rousing workers (and the nation) to action was because they played on a powerfully felt sense of dignity. The dignity of the worker was a theme that had been widely taken up since the May Fourth Movement. Strikers at the Commercial Press in

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August 1925 complained: “It is maddening to see a notice posted about our dismissal as though the execution of a brigand were being publicized. How they spurn the dignity of the worker.” 71 In December 1926 the French tramway employees demanded an end to the practice of taking fingerprints when a worker was hired, saying that they refused to be treated like felons.72 Thomas Smith has suggested that Japanese workers tended to talk more easily in terms of dignity ( jinkaku) than of rights (kenri); but Chinese workers seemed to switch easily between the two registers.73 Nevertheless the theme of dignity resonated strongly with the traditional concern for “face,” a notion close to “honor” that was woven into the texture of social relationships and measured in terms of prestige, wealth, trust, or personal integrity. Face could be gained or lost in any encounter involving two or more parties.74 Both the labor and nationalist movements were impelled by anxiety that Chinese—as citizens and as workers—were losing face. The most striking instance of this was the obsession with “national humiliation.” But questions of “face” were also at the heart of the differential relationship of workers to foreign and Chinese managements. In June 1918, for example, beancurd makers in Nanshi said that they would lose face if they did not tell the owners that they intended to go on strike.75 In this instance the rules of face were understood by both sides. In foreign companies, by contrast, management neither understood nor respected the rules of face, and workers interpreted this as an affront to their dignity. In the February 1925 mill strikes, the nwk strike committee put out a leaflet to the strikers, stating: “If we win, then the Japanese will not dare to hit or curse us, and everyone will maintain face. If we lose, then the Japanese will treat us even less like human beings and even more like cattle and horses, and we shall completely lose face.” 76 In February 1926 the cotton workers’ union called on its members not to steal yarn: “Before the Japanese we must not lose face.” 77 In foreign companies, upholding face was less about workers gaining or losing subtle gradations of prestige, as in interactions with Chinese employers, than about asserting dignity against those who seemed bent on denying it. Chinese workers assumed that the behavior of Japanese management was motivated by racial contempt, but this may not have been the case; Andrew Gordon notes that skilled male workers in Japan made similar complaints about the humiliation to which they were subject by their employers.78 Chinese who cooperated with foreigners were treated with contempt, seen as no better than “foreign slaves” (yangnu) or “running dogs” (zougou).

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A “running dog” could be anyone from a warlord, a comprador, a police spy, or a factory foreman. On 3 June 1925 posters appeared accusing Chinese bankers of being dogs and advising them to remove their businesses to England, where they would be safer.79 Such collaborators were perceived as dogs because by their behavior they had forfeited any claim to humanity.80 Among workers those Chinese employed in foreign enterprises as lower-level supervisors elicited similar odium. Charges of “bullying others on the strength of one’s powerful connections” (zhang shi qi ren) and of being “foxes borrowing the tiger’s terror” (hu jia hu wei) were widely leveled against them. Moreover, as lackeys of a foreign power they were perceived not only as agents of capital but as traitors to China (hanjian), a particularly pejorative term.81 Originating in Ming times, the term denoted a person so irredeemably subhuman as to have foregone all claim to be Chinese. During the nineteenth century it was used for those who had “lived too long ‘in intimacy’ with the barbarians.” 82 Another widely used category of opprobrium was that of “scab” (gongzei) or “labor brigand,” as the British press of the time literally, but rather quaintly, translated the term. At the time of the First National Labor Congress in 1922 the term had not been invented. Such people were referred to as huchang, literally the “ghost of one who is eaten by a tiger,” a coinage that referred to the legend of the ghost of a man eaten by a tiger who caught another man for the tiger to eat so that he could be restored to life.83 The term captured the idea that certain labor leaders preyed on workers for their own advantage. By the time of the Second National Labor Congress in May 1925, leaders of antiCommunist labor organizations—many of them associated with the Shanghai Federation of Syndicates—were denounced as “scabs” by name, accused of being unprincipled self-seekers and traitors.84 The term gongzei could apply to foreigners—in the February 1925 mill strike women at the Tongxing No. 1 mill described two Japanese overseers in this way—but it was usually reserved for Chinese.85 It was not a charge to be taken lightly. Like the insults “dog” and “national traitor,” gongzei carried the implication that the person in question had placed themselves on a par with beasts. Like other such terms it could switch easily between the registers of nationalism and class; during the Hong Kong-Guangzhou strike-boycott of 1925 –1926, the labor press published the names of strikebreakers in a column headed “list of national traitors” (hanjian lu), yet referred to them interchangeably as gongzei.86 The language of anti-imperialism was not only utilized by workers em-

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ployed in the foreign sector. In the postal and telegraph service, where the unequal treaties had curtailed Chinese sovereignty, strikers frequently linked demands for improvements in working conditions to demands for an end to foreign control. In a short strike in August 1925 postal workers likened the foreigners who ran the postal service to “presumptuous guests usurping the host’s role” (xuan bin duo zhu), saying that they monopolized “top posts, easy jobs and big pay,” squandered national assets, and made the Chinese people’s blood boil. They justified their strike, which was essentially about wages, by projecting it as a struggle to regain control of the postal administration.87 The Shanghai branch of the telegraphists’ union opposed the extension of the Telegraph Agreement, “one of the unequal treaties, made under the yoke of imperialism to the detriment of Chinese telegraphs.” 88 Similarly, workers employed in those few sectors where foreigners were also employed tended, naturally, to compare their position to that of the foreigners. The seamen’s leader, Lin Weimin, complained bitterly about the preferential treatment given to foreign seamen, declaring that foreign shipowners looked down on the Chinese as a “lower race” (liedeng minzu) and a “barbaric race.” He insisted that Chinese workers were not jealous of foreign crew members, but merely desirous of equal treatment: “We are opposed not to foreign crew, but to foreign capitalists. ‘Equality of nationalities’ should be our slogan.” 89 Similarly, at the Chinese-owned Jiangnan shipyard, where about a dozen foreign technicians were employed, the union issued a list of twenty demands, mainly relating to wages and conditions, which called for an end to the “autocracy of the foreigners” and the removal of “useless foreign technicians.” 90 Not all labor unions linked class and national interest together through the anti-imperialist nationalism favored by the glu. Some still played on the link between labor organization and the promotion of national wealth and power that originated in 1912. Workers at the Chinese-owned Puyi mill, having gone on strike for a week against the May Thirtieth massacre, declared on their return: “We think the boycott is a lasting means of expanding revenue and resisting foreign aggression; and the study of manufacture and the increase in national produce will not brook the slightest delay.” 91 The bookbinders’ union posed as its first aim “to develop the trade”; while the postal workers’ union aspired to “strengthen the postal service.” 92 In its first issue published on 5 September 1925, the newspaper of the national seamen’s union defined its objective as being “to unify seamen in fellowship, promote national produce and develop shipping.” 93

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Likewise the national telegraphists’ union pledged “to unify sentiments among colleagues, regulate their treatment and promote the development of national telegraphs.” 94 As these examples suggest, the tendency to associate labor unions with the economic development of the nation was still strong, particularly in unions where the influence of the gmd was stronger than that of the ccp. Anti-imperialist nationalism was suffused by elements drawn from the discourse of class that had been forged at the time of the May Fourth Movement. In March 1927, for example, the union of school manual workers declared: Because our knowledge has always been shallow and because we have no organized unity, we were subject in society to all kinds of oppression from capitalists and the running dogs of the imperialists. The darkness and bitterness of our lives was too great to recount, the corruption too hard to describe. In the past few years, however, there have been great changes in the world. We workers have looked into our adverse conditions and gradually woken up. Everyone is striving excitedly for liberation, freedom and equality, striving to run along the bright path. Recently many workers, rolling forth with full force, have united to resist the capitalists and running dogs of imperialism.95 Here themes of awakening and liberation were synthesized with the standard rhetoric of anti-imperialism. Similarly, the mainly Cantonese employees of foreign firms, who met on 4 June 1925 at the Xiangshan nativeplace association, resolved to go on strike rather than “drag out an ignoble existence in the houses of foreigners who have the face of men and the hearts of beasts.” They declared that the May Thirtieth massacre “annihilates justice, destroys our human rights, insults national prestige,” and added that “to continue to cooperate with the westerners would be a denial of dignity; not to show our sympathy with the workers and merchants would be a denial of conscience.” 96 Here themes central to the discourse of class—the importance of uniting to demonstrate the strength of the masses, human rights, dignity—were all mobilized. In general, the gendered marking of nationalist discourse was not especially prominent. This may be because nationalists, continuing a tradition that predated the 1911 Revolution, aspired to erase gender by calling on women to stand up alongside men in defense of the nation. However, as feminist historians have pointed out, nationalist discourse creates subject-

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positions for men—by empowering them to defend the nation—but not for women, who remain adjuncts of their menfolk.97 And where anti-imperialist nationalism did attend to gender issues or draw on gendered imagery, it subtly inscribed male agency. During the stoppage of cotton operatives in February 1925 the strike committee proclaimed: “The abuse of women workers by the Japanese is particularly terrible. . . . Mothers are not allowed to breast-feed their babies, or to bring their children into the mills. They curse the ugly ones and take liberties with those who are pretty. Women are relatively weak, and the misfortunes to which they are subject are so much greater [than those of men].” 98 Here mothers symbolized the motherland, and women’s vulnerability at the hands of the Japanese supervisors stood for China’s vulnerability at the hands of the imperialists. Women workers themselves sometimes projected their vulnerability as a metaphor of the nation’s plight. At the nwk mills in Qingdao they declared: “What is most pitiful is the searching of women workers. We have to take off our shoes and even the bandages from our feet so that they can search us. Some even insist that we be searched stark naked. Some newly arrived Japanese who have never seen anything like bound feet before call on Chinese women workers to take off their foot bandages specially so that they can have a look.” 99 In talking about how they as “Chinese women workers” are forced to expose the intimate secrets of their bodies to the crass gaze of the Japanese, these women implicitly call on patriotic men to rise up in defense of their womenfolk/motherland against the sexual/ national predators. In general, anti-imperialist nationalism, by representing the nation as a passive victim of imperialism, cast it implicitly in a “female” subject-position. Yet the gendered meanings of this discourse were never straightforward. In the first editorial of Hot-Blooded Daily, Qu Qiubai wrote: “World civilization is the creation of hot blood and cold steel. The powers who control the world today have cold steel; we, the weak, have only our hot blood. Since there is hot blood in our hearts we do not worry that we have not cold steel in our hands. Soon hot blood will overcome cold steel and put an end to the activities of the strong.” 100 Here the tacit assumption was that men’s “hot blood” would triumph; yet in casting the nation as “weak,” Qu was paradoxically suggesting that feminized ‘hot blood’ would triumph over masculine “cold iron.” Notwithstanding these examples, however, nationalist discourse in China drew less on gendered imagery than did that of many other countries. Commentators of different political persuasions agreed that by the time

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of the May Thirtieth Movement the nationalism to which the urban populace subscribed was qualitatively different from the xenophobia evident at the time of the Boxer rebellion.101 Hu Shi, the outstanding representative of liberal opinion, wrote: “The nationalist movement in China is quite different from the blind reaction against foreign aggression in the closing years of the last century. Instead of that blind reaction we now have conscious advocacy of nationalism.” 102 In a similar, but marxist, vein, the Communist Youth League declared: “Foreigners accuse us falsely of being anti-foreign [paiwai]. We are indeed anti-foreign, but the foreigners we oppose are those who are agents of political, economic and cultural aggression, oppression and deception against the Chinese people and against the working classes of their own countries.” 103 Other commentators were less certain that the distinction between nationalism and xenophobia was so watertight. Ma Chaojun reckoned that beneath the talk of imperialism, citizenship, and rights lurked a visceral hatred of foreigners.104 Zhang Weizhen, a worker who moved from Changsha to Shanghai in April 1925, echoed this in his memoir: “My ideological consciousness was still very low. . . . I only knew that that to oppose imperialism meant to oppose foreigners.” 105 The very fact that the term for nation (minzu) represented it as a community of common ancestral descent, lent itself to racialized understandings of imperialism as a simple struggle for supremacy between the races. Of course, use of the term minzu was perfectly compatible with a civic nationalism, as when seamen in June 1925 pledged their willingness “to die so that the Chinese nation may achieve freedom and so that the Chinese republic may achieve autonomy” 106 Yet the continuing vigor of an iconographic tradition that represented foreigners as monsters, devils, dogs, turtles, and reptiles, suggests that “foreign devils” were still very much alive in the cultural imaginary.107And one does not have to delve deep beneath the abstractions of anti-imperialist nationalism to find a seething fear and dislike of foreigners. In September 1926 uproar broke out at the Jiangnan arsenal when a British engineer struck a foundry worker. An angry crowd surrounded the engineer, chanting “foreign devils go home” and “down with imperialism,” before breaking into his apartment and throwing his bedstead and bedding out of the window.108 In January 1927 a strike erupted at the Shanghai tramway company after a worker called the manager, Mr. Hunt, a “foreign pig.” 109 Even among Communists there was little inhibition in expressing extravagant hatred of foreigners. Liu Guanzhi tells of how in 1925, having been arrested for incitement

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to strike, he was kept in custody by the International Settlement police for five days and then sent to jail because he could not pay the fine of five hundred dollars. On arriving at the jail he was beaten by a guard with a truncheon. He tells us: “How I itched to kill this running dog, and then break out of jail and kill every foreign jackal and wolf in Shanghai.” 110

National or Class Struggle? The question of whether the labor movement in the years of the national revolution was driven more by nationalist or class sentiment is hard to avoid, although the interpretation presented here stresses the difficulty of separating the two elements. The draft resolution on the labor movement of the Second gmd Congress in January 1926 had little doubt as to the answer, declaring that most labor struggles were nationalist in essence and that only a minority had a class-struggle character.111 By contrast, the Communists approved the role played by nationalist sentiment, but played up the elements of class consciousness in workers’ struggles.112 The pattern of strikes appears to confirm the importance of nationalism in generating worker militancy. Between 1918 and 1927, 58.2 percent of strikes and lockouts in Shanghai took place in Chinese-owned companies, along with 20.5 percent in Japanese companies and 13.2 percent in British companies. Although there are no reliable statistics on the distribution of the Shanghai workforce by nationality of enterprise, these figures suggest that there was a higher incidence of strikes in foreign-owned enterprises than in Chinese.113 Statistics do exist for the cotton industry. In 1925, 37.8 percent of cotton workers were employed in Chinese-owned mills, along with 48.4 percent in Japanese mills and 13.9 percent in British mills.114 In 1926 —when there were no distorting political strikes similar to those in 1925 and 1927— eighty-five strikes occurred in the city’s cotton mills, for seventy-five of which the approximate number of strikers is known. Out of a total of 112,342 strikers, 60.5 percent worked in Japanese mills, with 21.8 percent in Chinese mills and 17.7 percent in British mills.115 This indicates a significantly greater strike propensity on the part of workers in the foreign sector, even discounting political strikes where such workers were under pressure to defend the honor of the nation. One might object that the higher strike propensity could be the result of some factor other than resentment at foreign ownership, such as workers’ belief that foreign companies were better able to afford wage increases

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than their Chinese counterparts or the stricter regime of labor discipline in foreign factories. In fact, neither factor appears to explain the differential strike propensity. There are huge problems in determining average earnings in foreign and Chinese enterprises because even within each sector there were big variations in wage rates between individual factories, as well as variations in rates for different jobs and in rates for men and women doing the same job. Moreover, earnings deviated significantly from wage rates owing to productivity bonuses, deductions for compulsory savings and deposit schemes, and subsidized rents for company housing. In the cotton industry it was often claimed that wages were higher in foreign mills than in Chinese mills, although this was disputed by the cottonworkers’ union.116 Certainly, the Japanese aspired to a high-wage, high-productivity regime, even if they had difficulty implementing it.117 Yet statistics for 1925 on daily earnings of five different categories of worker in nine mills, including four Japanese, four Chinese, and one British, show no consistent differential in earnings, with some Chinese mills paying approximately the same as Japanese and some Japanese mills paying considerably more than others.118 Similarly, although it is true that discipline was stricter in the Japanese mills, British mills were closer to Chinese mills in having a rather slack work regime.119 Neither factor, in other words, seems sufficient to explain the variation in strike propensity, suggesting that it was nationalism that made workers more likely to strike against foreign than Chinese employers. The fact that Chinese enterprises were relatively less strike-prone, however, did not mean that they were strangers to industrial militancy. In 1926 no fewer than 139 strikes took place in Chinese enterprises, some of them extremely bitter.120 Chinese employers, moreover, could be every bit as tough as their foreign counterparts in crushing labor unrest. In 1926, two hundred wooden-trunk makers stayed out on strike in the Chinese City for eighty days because the owners would make no concessions.121 In March 1927 the Shenxin mill imposed a lockout for forty-five days after workers beat up a foreman from Henan and threatened a deputy manager.122 In the same month management at the Yongan mill imposed an eighteen-day lockout, after the day shift stayed away from work following rumors that gangsters were intending to attack the mill.123 Yet in spite of this, contemporaries argued that the psychological and cultural dynamics of industrial disputes in the Chinese sector were fundamentally different from those in the foreign sector. The China Year Book noted that “workers

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do not feel the same moral obligations towards foreigners as they feel towards Chinese.” 124 And Ma Chaojun argued that Chinese workers were bound by a patriarchal ethos ( jiazu jingshen), which meant that they judged their employers by traditional standards of morality and justice.125 An examination of disputes in Chinese firms shows that it was not particularly uncommon for workers to draw on the discourse of class when justifying strike action. The ready-made clothing workers, having listed their sufferings, declared that “the masters [yezhu] do not understand; and at a time when the cost of living is soaring, they continue to increase their profits regardless and to intensify exploitation. How can we workers endure this? Workers of all kinds are now organizing in their own interest to resist the aggressor class [qinlüe jieji].” 126 Such robust class language was the exception rather than the rule. Printers, for example, who struck during the May Thirtieth Movement, notwithstanding the glu’s injunction to work normally, reacted angrily to a threat from the printshop owners to fire any striker who did not return to work by 10 June: Although we belong to the lowest and meanest ranks of workers, content to serve and not to rise up en masse, we have gone on strike as an expression of conscience, in order to be the back-up for other sections of society. But not only are the masters not supporting the actions being carried out by all, they are also using the opportunity to impose coercive methods. Many workers have been treated most harshly and, having no alternative, have been forced to quit or swallow insults. . . . Are we not human beings? Are not the masters human beings too? You are all citizens, but instead of putting the salvation of the country first, instead of following your consciences, instead of discharging your sacred duties, you dare to disregard humanitarianism by treating us cruelly, you are willing to trade with foreigners in your greed for profit and have proved beyond doubt that you are willing to act as slaves of a foreign power.127 What is noteworthy here is that despite their anger at the “capitalists”—a word used in the declaration—printers depict themselves as subordinate to their masters (as well as a “back-up” to other sections of society, one of the few instances when this May Fourth term is used). This apparent acceptance of their subordination is undercut by the appeal to common humanity and to citizenship, with its implication of equal political rights for all.

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Moreover, the printers do not demand better treatment on the basis of a traditional ethical code—by invoking norms such as righteousness, selfishness, or indifference to the way of heaven—but by appeal to new ideals of humanitarianism, conscience, and citizenship. Similar ambivalence can be seen in an incident that took place immediately after the arrival of the National Revolutionary Army in Shanghai on 22 March 1927. Over one thousand pharmacy employees smashed up the Tonghanchun pharmacy, whose owner, Tong Guangfu, had allegedly sacked employees who tried to form a branch of the Pharmacists’ Friendly Society in 1926. Claiming that Tong made four hundred thousand dollars a year yet oppressed his staff severely, the workers justified their action as follows: “It is not intended to make difficulties for the capitalists, but arises from the fact that Tong Guangfu’s counterrevolutionary behavior has aroused public anger. He has only himself to blame. It has nothing to do with ordinary pharmacy owners.” 128 Again, the fact that the employees describe the pharmacy owners as “capitalists” suggests that the discourse of class was taking hold in the Chinese-owned sector. Yet the rioters justified their action by presenting Tong as untypical of pharmacy employers in general, as a “counterrevolutionary.” The vengeance wreaked against him, therefore, suggests that he has breached the reciprocity presumed to regulate relations between Chinese employers and employees. In light of these examples one must question Ma Chaojun’s assertion that industrial relations were still regulated by norms of filial piety (xiao) and loyalty to one’s superiors (zhong), at least in Shanghai. Yet he is surely correct to suggest that workers judged Chinese employers by a standard different from foreign employers, and assumed that industrial relations would be governed by a certain framework of shared values. In the traditional sector, for example, ganqing still obliged Chinese employers to go on lodging and feeding their employees during a strike.129 The owners of eighteen large silver and gold shops allowed their employees to continue living on the premises and provided them with meals during a bitter strike for union recognition in October 1922. However, after three weeks they threatened to withdraw the concession in an effort to bring the strike to an end.130 In July 1927 strikers at the Zhonghua book company said they were “speaking from a sense of justice” (zhang yi zhi yan) and appealed to the public to help them “uphold justice.” And even though they complained bitterly about their employer’s behavior, they assumed he understood the moral basis of their protest.131

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Scored by class tension as they were, industrial relations in the Chinese sector were not yet played out in a context where each side assumed that its interests were incompatible with those of the other. This is confirmed, from a different angle, by the fact that workers considered it entirely appropriate to ask employers’ leaders to settle their disputes. Yu Xiaqing came to the rescue of strikers on numerous occasions by negotiating face-saving settlements. Pan Donglin, an influential figure in both the Federation of Street Associations and the gcc who also had ties with secret societies, likewise brought many disputes to a close. Even the unpopular Fu Xiaoan, the pro-Japanese chair of the gcc from June 1926 to April 1927, mediated in strikes by workers in the big department stores, by International Settlement tramworkers, and by cake makers and sweetmeat makers in January 1927. On several occasions, no less a person than Du Yuesheng, one of the triumvirate of Green Gang bosses, brokered strike settlements (notably, an end to the three-month long dispute at cmsnc).132 And when the Yongan workers asked the Commercial Association—a body of businessmen sympathetic to the gmd—to settle their strike in February 1927, they did so knowing that it had assured the Yongan management that it would not seek the reinstatement of the two dismissed employees at the center of the strike, “since they are troublemakers opposed to the principle of compromise.” 133 All of which suggests ambivalence in workers’ attitude toward Chinese capitalists. They were not afraid to do fierce battle with particular employers over particular grievances, yet this did not translate into antagonism toward Chinese capitalists in general. Hostility to employers could erupt spectacularly, yet it was mercurial in character and not necessarily rooted in a perception of the social order as polarized by class division. The idea of employers as “tigers” who exploited the workers mercilessly made sense in respect to foreign companies, and may have gained limited ground in respect to native capitalists. But such a lurid representation was in tension with deeper social norms that valorized harmony, stability, and hierarchy. New ideals of worker collectivism and class combativity gained ground in this period, yet they strained against shared values, against the ingrained tactics of “face,” against the culture of deference, and against the elaborate mediation of social relations by rituals, gifts, and bribes that governed industrial relations in Chinese enterprises. Elements of class identity had lodged themselves in the mentality of many workers but at a relatively superficial level. At a deeper level older representations and values persisted.

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11

The Surge in Labor Organization, 1927

On 9 July 1926 the gmd launched the Northern Expedition of the National Revolutionary Army from its base in Guangdong, which aimed to reunify the country under one government by subduing the warlord armies and, in the longer term, to regain sovereignty from the foreign powers. The army fought effectively, its rapid success due in part to the fact that many warlords threw in their lot with it. By late November the gmd had set up a national government in Wuhan in central China, and by midDecember the National Revolutionary Army controlled the major towns of central and southeast China. The ccp and left wing of the gmd used the Northern Expedition to carry out a remarkable mobilization of the rural and urban masses, which created widespread popular support for the gmd. The Left dominated the new government in Wuhan, but military power remained firmly in the hands of Chiang Kai-shek, supreme commander of the army and standard-bearer for the party’s more conservative elements. By the end of 1926, the Left was uneasily aware of its vulnerability to a backlash from those who deplored the fact that the national revolution was stirring up social strife, and it searched for ways to preserve unity in the nationalist camp. The first months of 1927 saw a spectacular resurgence of labor unions in Shanghai. According to the figures of the glu, which are probably exaggerated, between January and March the number of labor unions increased from 187 to 502, and membership rose from 76,245 to 821,280 (see tables 1 and 2).1 For the first time, the glu made inroads into the retail and handicraft sectors, from which it had hitherto been excluded. There were two factors behind the boom in labor organization. The first of these was the surge in strikes provoked by the chronic and rapid rise in prices. By February 1927 rice prices were at an all-time high—at just over $18 per picul (200 lbs.)—while the exchange rate of the silver dollar had stabilized at just over 260 cents—its peak level for 1926.2 This led to forty-three stoppages

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The Surge in Labor Organization 215 table 1 Number of labor unions affiliated to the glu. Number of unions recorded at each date Industry Food Handicraft Foreign employees Tobacco Transport Municipal employees Railways Textiles Printing Chemicals Metals Arts Shop employees Seamen Construction total

6/1926

9/1926

1/1927

3/1927

4/1927

— 7 — — 6 3 — 46 7 — 2 — 3 — 1 75

— 8 2 — 6 4 — 46 8 — 2 — 16 1 1 94

— 24 4 4 6 8 1 89 11 — 6 1 28 1 4 187

13 54 17 9 8 46 1 184 24 12 40 8 72 1 13 502

2 29 10 4 6 38 1 135 22 4 23 5 34 1 5 319

Source: Shanghai zonggonghui baogao, 13.

over wages and conditions in the first quarter of 1927, in the course of which many strikers formed unions.3 The second, more decisive, factor in unionization came from the Northern Expedition itself. As the National Revolutionary Army moved toward Shanghai, the ccp made two attempts —unsuccessfully on 22 –23 February 1927 and then successfully on 21– 22 March—to overthrow the northern warlord troops who controlled the city, in order to prepare for the arrival of the army. In the general strikes that accompanied the two uprisings, workers rushed to join unions as a way of expressing solidarity with the national revolution, a revolution of which they saw themselves as principal beneficiaries. Typical were the 250 restaurant workers who on 24 March promised to obey the national government, the glu, and the newly formed Shanghai municipal government; to send gifts to the National Revolutionary Army; and to serve notice on employers that they expected radical improvement in their working conditions.4

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216 Like Cattle and Horses table 2 Membership of labor unions affiliated to the glu. Number of union members recorded at each date Industry

6/1926 9/1926

1/1927

2/1927

3/1927

4/1927

Food Handicraft Foreign employees Tobacco Transport Municipal employees Railways Textiles Printing Chemical Metals Arts Shop employees Seamen Construction total

— 2,247 — — 2,000 1,910 — 29,280 5,880 — 420 — 314 — 350 42,401

— 6,230 2,000 4,120 4,250 9,256 1,500 25,640 4,793 — 2,406 — 11,050 4,500 500 76,245

— 5,000 2,000 14,000 30,300 12,660 1,500 74,440 4,783 — 15,300 — 79,956 5,000 1,200 246,139

72,596 166,900 37,117 19,600 43,000 119,484 3,500 175,280 36,445 6,260 21,100 21,300 81,070 6,800 10,830 821,282

700 13,270 5,800 12,800 1,760 42,160 3,500 133,960 25,550 1,110 8,680 2,800 29,410 5,000 1,000 287,500

— 2,240 600 500 2,898 2,100 1,500 30,468 5,990 — 420 — 4,155 1,200 150 52,221

Source: Shanghai zonggonghui baogao, 12. Note that these figures differ somewhat from those reproduced in Di yici Zhongguo laodong nianjian, part 2, 70. This earlier source states that the first column relates to June, not August, 1926.

On 27 March a meeting of 1,600 workers at the Meiya silk-weaving factory agreed to form a union and to send a welcoming party to the army headquarters and a representative to the municipal government.5 At the Jiangnan arsenal, where efforts to create a union went back to 1912, a speaker from the gmd told a mass meeting on 1 April: “Today we have thrown off the oppression of the dark forces. From now on, we are joining in the work of revolution.” 6 Workers tended to form a union in the first flush of enthusiasm as they went on strike. The decision was usually a collective one, made when passions were high and when the pressure of the collective was at its most intense. This explains why many unions claimed to have 100 percent membership among the workforce. Not least of the reasons why workers joined

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The Surge in Labor Organization 217

a union was the expectation that it might provide them with some financial support during a stoppage; but this was not a factor, as it had been during the May Thirtieth Movement, in either of the massive strikes of 19 – 23 February and 21–23 March 1927 because the glu did not provide strike pay. Once a strike was over or ran into difficulties, however, it proved difficult to sustain union membership, in part because initial enthusiasm had subsided and in part because members could not afford to pay dues. What Chen Duxiu called the besetting sin of the Chinese—“taking without working”—would then reassert itself.7 Of course, there was nothing peculiarly Chinese about this pattern, it being a complaint of trade-union organizers the world over.8 By the time the National Revolutionary Army arrived in Shanghai on 22 March, the prestige of the glu was at its apogee. The Republican Daily opined: “If we wish to work for basic freedom and liberation, we must organize labor unions; if we wish to concentrate our strength, we must unite all labor unions into a general federation of labor.” 9 According to its new constitution of 11 March, the aims of the glu were to “unite workers and work for their well-being”; to “raise the level of knowledge of workers and the sentiment of mutual dependence [xianghu zhi ganqing]”; to “promote effective mutual aid between unions”; and to “uphold workers’ interests and establish ways of bringing relief to those in need, helping them find jobs etc.” This was an uncontroversial, even “traditional,” formulation of union goals, with the emphasis on ganqing and mutual aid (although the latter was posited not as an abstract ideal, but as something to be realized between unions). Rather low down the list of aims came a call for unions to support one another in “class struggle.” The public acknowledgment of this central Communist tenet was new, yet its position in the list suggests that the leadership was not eager to draw attention to it.10 Nevertheless through its propaganda the glu did endeavor to promote the rudiments of class consciousness. Simple slogans, such as “listen to the union” and “be of one mind” (qixin), were put into circulation, as were simple explanations, such as: “The strike is the workers’ weapon in the struggle against the capitalists. Without weapons the soldier cannot fight the enemy. The labor union is the workers’ weapon.” 11 The glu also put out the GLU News, which carried reports about political and labor affairs, short articles about the necessity of labor organization and about workers’ conditions, and brief pieces with a sharp or witty edge (called either sanyan liangyu or wufen zhong tanhua).12

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The glu drew up an ambitious set of economic demands for the workers of Shanghai, which included substantial wage raises and a minimum wage, equal pay for women workers, an eight-hour working day, paid Sunday and national holidays, no beatings or excessive fines, union recognition, union control over hiring and firing, social and medical insurance, compensation to those suffering injury at work, limits on child labor, and so forth.13 Unions in almost every sector took up these demands during February and March 1927. Typical were the 650 employees of the China electrical power company (a native-owned enterprise), who on 13 March 1927 demanded union representation, union consultation over dismissals, a 20 percent wage raise, an eight-hour day, equal distribution of bonuses, a Sunday holiday, and various other demands specific to the company (such as that bus conductors’ jobs be reserved for adults). Permeating all of these economic demands was a desire for better treatment of staff, which was evinced in demands such as those to abolish harsh fines and to treat union representatives with special consideration. Interestingly, the employees demanded that they be provided three times a year with a “Sun Yat-sen suit,” the civic uniform of the national revolution, as work clothes.14 This serves to remind us that although workers were raising economic demands, these were seen not only as a way of improving their material situation but of enhancing their dignity and demonstrating their status as full and equal members of the nation.

Labor Union Activists A list of the chairs of the individual unions affiliated to the glu, which dates from late July 1925, allows us to draw a social profile of the emergent layer of working-class activists. Of the 111 leaders for whom we have information, the average age was 32.4, which made them older than the average worker. Of the 109 for whom we have information on region of origin, 31 came from Zhejiang, including 13 from Ningbo; 17 from Jiangnan, including 3 from Nanjing; 14 from Subei; 12 from Shanghai and its immediate environs; 9 from Anhui; 7 from Hubei; and 6 from Guangdong.15 Subei migrants were thus underrepresented among labor leaders, whereas those from Jiangnan and Zhejiang were overrepresented. Strangely, tradeunion leaders born in Shanghai and its environs may also have been underrepresented.16 Given the domination of the glu by the ccp, the higher one went up the labor-union hierarchy, the more Communists were in

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evidence. In 1925 Li Lisan was chair of the glu, Liu Shaoqi head of administration, and Wang Shouhua head of the propaganda department.17 A few non-Communists held important offices, such as Yang Jianhong, chair of the union of foreign employees, who was in charge of the public relations section, and Wu Min, who headed the organization section.18 The proportion of Communists was much lower in second-rank leadership positions. Of the 131 office holders in summer 1925, only about 20 can be positively identified as party members.19 Over the next two years, the proportion of activists in the glu who were also members of the ccp increased. On the evening of Sunday, 20 March 1927 when the glu held an emergency meeting, it was reckoned that about half of the 300 delegates from 158 labor unions were Communists.20 The consolidation of labor unions depended on the painstaking dedication of a small number of activists at shop-floor and city-district levels. Though workers might join a union in the heat of a dispute, activists had to work hard to convince them of the long-term advantages of trade union membership. George Sokolsky described how such an activist (whom he calls a “cell”) operated: He is in a little better position than the average because he has extra funds. He is good-natured and kind-hearted. Whenever a worker gets into trouble with the foreman, it is the “cell” who helps him. This “cell” does not preach doctrines which workers cannot understand, but he talks about “running dogs of imperialism” and he generally describes the hardships of the working class. . . . At a crucial moment, something happens . . . the “cell” grows indignant, shame has been heaped on a fellow worker. The workers like him, they know that he has endangered his position, and will rally to him.21 Victimization, dismissal, and blacklisting by employers were the lot of many activists. At the Zhonghua book company only one out of nineteen leaders of a strike in August 1925 was involved in a second strike a year later. Presumably, the rest had been fired or lapsed into inactivity.22 This meant that there was little continuity of personnel at the grass roots. The great majority of labor-union leaders—whether Communists or not— were inexperienced, and this had consequences for the way unions operated. In its report of May 1926 the labor department of the Central Executive Committee of the ccp castigated chairs of union branches for failing to educate their members in trade unionism and failing to involve them in

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union affairs, being content simply to collect dues and distribute propaganda.23 This may have been a harsh judgment in view of the evident valor of many grass-roots militants, but it reflected the low participation in union affairs by the mass of workers. The lack of rank-and-file participation meant that union activists tended to become cut off from those they claimed to represent. The Fifth Congress of the ccp declared in May 1927: “At present, the bureaucratization of workers’ leaders is a serious problem. This is because the broad working masses lack sound organization and ample training, because cadres are too few and because the development of our party lags behind that of the labor movement. There are too many unions where a small core of leaders runs the whole show, becomes cut off from the control of the masses and turns into a bureaucracy.” 24 It is tempting to add that not the least of the causes of “bureaucratization” was the Communist leadership’s own blatant interference in the affairs of the glu, but that is an issue that goes beyond the scope of the present discussion.25 Clearly, the party was correct in its diagnosis of the problem, yet political conditions were hardly conducive to participatory trade unionism. It was extremely difficult for unions to hold regular meetings or to publicize and discuss decisions, and it was virtually impossible for them to elect representatives at enterprise, district, or city level. Occasionally during the May Thirtieth Movement and again in March 1927, unions did manage to call open-air meetings that were not immediately dispersed by police. On 9 July 1925, for example, 1,100 workers from the Shenxin No. 5 mill (about half of the total workforce) met on wasteland and elected twelve members of the labor union committee.26 But this was a rare occurrence. In any organization with a permanent paid stratum of officials, there is a danger that they will become comfortable in office and begin to confuse their own needs with those of the organization. The glu had a surprisingly large cadre of paid employees. In late summer 1926 it employed no fewer than sixty-six “activists” and twenty-two technical personnel, although by November those numbers had declined to forty-one and eleven, respectively.27 Most of these employees were paid very little. Zhang Weizhen earned sixteen coppers a day as secretary of the Xiaoshadu district office of the glu, which meant that he lived off rice gruel and steamed buns.28 However, there were numerous complaints—many, admittedly, emanating from the Federation of Syndicates—about the high living of certain glu leaders, above all, Li Lisan.29 Li drove around in a car, as did Guo Jing-

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sheng of the printers’ union, but the wilder stories about his gambling and whoring seem to be based on malice and hearsay.30 More reliably, a police spy reported that Liu Guanzhi, who had lost his job at the Doko mill after the February 1925 mill strike and had become head of the glu’s propaganda department, visited a hotel in Fuzhou Road where he played cards with junior officers of the Fengtian army and entertained girls in his room.31 In its May 1926 report the cec labor department deplored the fact that leaders of the glu entertained gang members and employers to lavish feasts.32 Yet such hospitality may have been the only way to neutralize potential opponents. Zhang Weizhen suggests that Li Lisan, who spent considerable time courting Yu Xiaqing, had no alternative but to “engage in diplomatic work among the upper strata.” 33 Nevertheless in a report of December 1926, Liu Shaoqi made no bones of the fact that corruption was rife in the labor unions. He lambasted leaders who used their office as a means of feathering their own nests, who drank and gambled, pointing out that they were living off the hard-earned contributions of their members. He proposed that no glu official should be paid more than the average wage—at most thirty dollars—and that those found guilty of embezzlement should be handed over to the courts.34 At the same time Liu hammered home the necessity for labor unions to hold money in bank accounts and keep proper accounts to be audited by disinterested parties and published annually.35 This may imply that corruption was as much a consequence of financial incompetence as of malfeasance.

Social Networks and the Labor Movement The May Thirtieth Movement dramatically revealed to the glu the difficulties of securing the support of foremen, contractors, and secret-society bosses for the new labor unions.36 The Green Gang had shown that if its cooperation could be secured by the glu, it could just as easily be secured by the federation and by company bosses. During the revival of the glu in early 1927, the Communists followed the standard policy of pledging discipleship to secret-society bosses where they had no choice; but with a cadre of several thousand worker Communists, they determined to take a tougher stance toward labor contractors, foremen, and secret-society bosses who stood in the way of the unions at the grass roots. Some sense of the complexity—and viciousness— of the triangular struggle between the glu, foremen, and contractors with loyalties to the secret societies and a

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foreign company can be gleaned from events at the Ewo cotton company. The company, which was owned by Jardine Matheson, consisted of four mills in the Yangshupu district. During the May Thirtieth Movement two unions were established— one for the Ewo No. 1 and No. 2 mills and the other for the Yangshupu and Gongyi (Kung Yik) mills. The first of the unions, chaired by Wang Genying, seems to have been securely under the control of the glu. Circumstantial evidence suggests that the chair of the second union, Pan Yunqing, a thirty-three-year-old native of Shanghai, was a gang member because he later became one of the company’s labor contractors, a job normally reserved by the secret societies for their own.37 The company fired militants in the wake of the May Thirtieth strike, but the glu continued to infiltrate its activists into key jobs in the company with the assistance of sympathetic foremen. In late 1926, for example, Zhang Weizhen, until recently secretary of the Xiaoshadu cotton workers’ federation, was taken on.38 In March 1926 management at the No. 1 mill complained that the foremen “were allowing the union to replace discharged union men with other union men, [and] so making it impossible to weed out agitators.” 39 On 26 July 1926, 1,360 day workers at the No. 1 mill, employed in baling yarn, went on strike after they were put under a new foreman. The strike may have been a spontaneous and typical expression of worker particularism, but when a small group of workers came out in support of the new foreman, they were attacked from the power house by fifty to sixty workers armed with bars, and five suffered serious injuries.40 It is not clear whether they were sympathizers of the glu or gang members or both.41 In retaliation the Ewo management declared a lock-out at the No. 1 mill, which lasted more than three months. During this bitter conflict, the union systematically intimidated foremen who opposed the workers. On 11 August a forewoman was badly beaten up and a labor contractor received a letter from the union “which properly put the wind up him.” On 20 August the manager reported that the “labor contractor still wishes to resign and the Number Ones we had hoped might arrange to get entirely fresh operatives are too scared to do anything.” 42 On 25 August a gang of five or six broke into the house of a Number One and assaulted him and his wife with axes.43 On 1 September, in the worst incident, Chen Maomao, foreman of the fly-frame room at the Ewo No. 2 mill, was shot dead because of his part in recruiting scabs for the No. 1 mill.44 According to the manager, the “labor contractor and his Number Two came to this office terrified. I have arranged that each be

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given an armed guard.” 45 The murder caused all the foremen and female Number Ones at the Ewo No. 2 mill to resign their posts. In a vain attempt to persuade them to withdraw their resignations, “Quin Sun,” labor contractor at the No. 2 mill, held several banquets for them. This caused the workers at the No. 2 mill to strike in protest at Quin Sun’s remaining as contractor on 10 September.46 The company responded by locking out both mills until 28 October, and by refusing to take back twenty-five “known agitators.” 47 Many details in this bitter dispute remain enigmatic, but central to the conflict seems to have been the determination of the glu to assert its control over all the foremen and contractors in the Ewo company. The assassination of Chen Maomao was not an isolated occurrence. Following the suppression of the glu in September 1925, the Shanghai regional committee of the ccp authorized at least one, and possibly two, “dog-beating squads” at the nwk mills.48 In the course of 1926, these groups carried out several assassinations. With the revival of the labor movement at the start of 1927, the glu decided to launch an assault on the Green Gang bosses who blocked its path. The strongest base of the glu was in the cotton mills of the western district of Xiaoshadu, which were mainly Japanese, where seventy thousand cotton workers were organized into twenty-two enterprise-based unions. In January 1927 Yang Fulin and Xie Dejin, two factotums of the ccp’s Red Terror unit, shot Liu Jinrong, a Green Gang boss who ruled the roost in the district.49 Some of the most vicious conflict took place at the International Settlement and French Concession tram companies, where the inspectors were all members of the Green Gang and known to be hostile to the unions.50 On 12 January 1927 Ni Tiansheng, chief inspector in the British China general omnibus company and a former bathhouse masseur, who had numerous disciples among the drivers and conductors from Subei, was assassinated by workers in the machine department.51 On 17 March two men smashed into the house of the new chief inspector, and murdered his wife and wounded his five-yearold son.52 Later in the year on 20 September, Yang Jiamo (nicknamed “Two-Legged Horse”), the chief inspector of the Compagnie française de tramways et d’eclairage electrique, was shot by four assassins in an act believed to be a reprisal for Yang’s role in breaking the strike of December 1926.53 It is against this background of a battle for control over rank-andfile workers that the Green Gang’s decision to help Chiang Kai-shek liquidate the glu on 12 April 1927 must be seen.

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One of the biggest obstacles to the glu extending its influence on the shop floor was the power of labor contractors. In May 1925 the Second National Labor Congress had called for the abolition of the contract labor system (baogongzhi): “There are many factory owners who are very crafty. They have erected a line of defense between themselves and the workers, namely, the contract labor system. They make use of their most trusted running dog as a contractor and contract out work through him. The workers must go through the contractor to get a job. In this way, the exploitation of the contractor is added to the exploitation of the worker by the capitalist, which makes the worker’s life still more bitter.” 54 And in a manifesto of the same month, the “whole body of the exploited and oppressed Chinese seamen” explained not only how they had to pay agents, contractors, or guarantors commissions in order to get a job, but also how they were forced to pay them two to three dollars per month thereafter.55 Not surprisingly, one of the foremost demands of the seamen’s union in March 1927 was for the abolition of the shemasha (a pidgin form of “shipmaster”) system, whereby seamen had to register at a lodging house, to which they paid up to half a month’s wages, in order to get work via the “shipmaster” in charge of the house.56 In 1927 the glu launched an attack on the system of contract labor—with unions as diverse as those of printers, dockers, hosiery workers, journalists, and ironworkers taking up the cudgels against contractors.57 Inevitably, this brought the glu into confrontation with the secret societies, for whom the system was a major source of revenue. Despite the fact that workers relied on the patronage of contractors and foremen, the campaign was popular because they also resented exploitation at their hands. A call by the dockers’ federation to abolish contract labor in March 1927 sparked an explosive growth of unions in the transportation sector. The ccp urged caution regarding the call, warning that dockers would interpret it to mean that they should beat up their contractors.58 Yet there is evidence that dockers felt uncertain as to whether the new unions could provide the same level of protection as the labor contractors and the secret societies. On 2 March 1927 Zhang Shuping, the Communist organizer of the dockers, reported: “The dockers still want Chen Lianghui to summon all the leaders of the secret societies to arrange regular meetings to ensure effective organization.” 59 And when the handful of Communists at the head of the dockers’ federation was liquidated by Chiang Kai-shek on 12 April, the Green Gang had little difficulty reestablishing its control of the waterfront. Even so, the abuses of the

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contractors continued to rankle, and eventually led to a rebellion by dockers in April 1928.60 By contrast, the problems posed for the glu by native-place loyalties appear to have receded but not to have vanished. On 24 June 1926 a strike commenced at the nwk company after a woman from Anhui province was appointed assistant forewoman in the carding room of the No. 4 mill. The day shift, which consisted of women from Subei, walked out in protest. Just prior to this incident, a fight between the Subei and Shandong bangs at the No. 5E and No. 5W mills had led to a three-day strike by 1,260 workers. Together with the men workers, the Subei women set fire to cotton on the machines, and when police arrived, turned fire hoses on them and showered them with missiles “varying from ‘Irish confetti’ up to big steel cylinders.” It was claimed that workers from other regions had “entered into some sort of alliance” against the Subei majority.61 On 5 March 1927 at the Chinese-owned Shenxin No. 5 mill, Hang Weizhi, a twentyfive-year-old activist from Wuxi, beat up the foreman of the fly-frame room who was preventing workers from joining a strike. The foreman, who was Hunanese, appealed to workers from Hunan to back him, saying that the slogan of the strikers was “beat those from Hunan, but not those from your own province.” 62 The extent of such regionalist conflict should not, however, be exaggerated. The record of industrial disputes shows that such animosities rarely led to stoppages. Of the 1,121 strikes and lockouts in Shanghai between 1 January 1918 and the end of 1932, only 62 — including the 2 aforementioned strikes—fell into the broad category of “disputes among workers; disputes within management; disputes between workers or management and a third party.” 63 At the Hengfeng mill Zhang Shuping and Zhang Weizhen successfully persuaded workers from Hunan and Hubei to ignore orders from their native-place association not to join a strike in March 1926.64 And the general progress of labor unions does not suggest that native-place networks functioned in a divisive function. It is likely that in this period the differences between “us,” the Chinese, and “them,” the foreigners, came to seem more significant than the differences between workers from different regions. Some of the strongest advances in unionization in the first quarter of 1927 came in the handicraft and retail sectors, hitherto largely outside the orbit of the glu. On 10 December 1926 a federation of handicraft unions was established, which soon embraced fifty-four different unions with a membership of nearly 160,000.65 Its program demanded, in addition to

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wage raises and an eight-hour day, union recognition by the employers, union consent to any dismissal of a worker, and the abolition of contract labor.66 Yet it should not be inferred that the tens of thousands who joined these handicraft and retail unions had come to espouse unambiguously a class view of industrial relations. One of the most militant groups of strikers during the May Thirtieth Movement was the five thousand laundry workers, yet they formed their union on the traditional decimal basis with ten workers forming a cell which then elected one of their number to the next level of the decimally based hierarchy.67 Some of the most vigorous unions in this sector were those that comprised Cantonese workers, such as the union of makers of southern delicacies or the union of makers of Macao food, which exulted to see the southern army unifying the country.68 In fact, examination of the federation of handicraft workers suggests that particularisms of native place and craft were still very much a factor to be reckoned with. Many of its affiliated unions were tiny craft unions, such as those of the ship tally-clerks, the Nanshi herbalists, or the Pudong peddlers.69 Others, such as the Guangdong carpenters’ union, the Shanghai, Ningbo, and Shaoxing construction union, or the Lingnan refreshment workers’ union, retained regionalist characteristics that breached the glu constitution. One group of Guangdong carpenters, for example, expressed a desire to unite with the union of employees of western-style restaurants on the grounds that they were Cantonese like themselves. But the glu would have none of this.70 At the same time there were countervailing forces promoting unity. The union at the abc underwear factory explained to the handicraft workers’ federation that the reason why it consisted mainly of Cantonese was because the great majority of workers at the factory were Cantonese, with many recent arrivals in Shanghai. The union declared that all workers should organize to take part in the great events that were taking place, and its members complained that their boss was obstructing the union.71 Similarly, there is evidence that workers in the handicraft sector sought to overcome regional differences. When the makers of cakes and sweetmeats, divided between the Shanghai, Nanjing, and Suzhou bangs, held a delegate meeting of 250 on 16 January, they rejected a proposal to form a city-wide federation on the basis of regional bangs, opting instead to form it on the basis of geographical district.72 Likewise, the seamen’s union acted along broadly class lines even though its constituent elements continued to be the seamen’s guild (shuishou gonghui), the north-

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ern and southern bangs of the Junan guild, the northern and southern bangs of the Yanying society, and other regional and occupational groupings.73 The association of shop employees was refounded on 5 December 1926, mainly at the instigation of employees at the Commercial Press bookstore, who included the young Chen Yun, soon to begin his meteoric rise through the ccp. By April 1927 the association claimed a membership of sixteen thousand with its strongholds being the Xianshi, Xinxin, and Yongan department stores, which had been involved in abrasive strike action at the start of the year.74 Like the federation of handicraft unions, the association espoused a class program that required all affiliated unions to press for a minimum wage of ten dollars; a maximum working day of twelve hours; one day off per week; and no interference by owners in the lives of employees.75 Yet it is clear that many of the affiliated unions were merely revamped guilds. Among shop employees the line between owners and wage workers was blurred, the three-hundred-strong barbers’ union, for example, being set up by a shopowner.76 Moreover, the longest-lived of all Shanghai’s labor organizations, the Worker-Merchant Friendly Society founded in 1920, which campaigned for low rents, curbs on prices of subsistence items, and arbitration of strikes was still a force to be reckoned with among shop employees.77 The Shanghai regional committee of the ccp complained about the cozy relations that existed between many unions affiliated to the association and the employers, and Zhou Enlai was scathing about the glu’s tolerance of “feudal” elements within the association.78 In light of this, it is not surprising that the Fifth ccp Congress concluded: “Many ostensible labor unions are little more than guilds under a new name. We must make every effort to combat such traditional forms of organization and, in particular, to restrict the number of workshop owners, shopkeepers and labor contractors who have entered the unions.” 79

Gender and the Labor Movement The dominance of women and children in the factory sector posed a different set of problems for the glu. Membership figures suggest that women were not reluctant to join unions. Indeed if the figures in table 2 are correct, they suggest that in industries with high proportions of female workers, such as textiles and tobacco, trade-union membership was close to

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100 percent. The silk industry was the significant exception to this pattern. The glu succeeded in wrecking Mu Zhiying’s union in June 1926, but the Communist woman worker Zhu Yingru made little progress in forming a union of silk women affiliated to the glu. It is true that on 26 March 1927 three thousand silk workers attended a meeting called by the glu, which set up a labor-union preparatory committee of thirty-five, of whom twenty were women. But the unionization drive faltered once the glu was smashed in the 12 April coup.80 Yet if women in the cotton and tobacco industries were willing to join a glu-sponsored union, they were reluctant to get involved in the union. In spite of the fact that up to three-quarters of the cotton workforce was female the great majority of cotton unions were chaired by men. This situation was replicated in other industrial sectors: in August 1925 out of 114 chairs of affiliated labor unions, only 14 can be positively identified as female.81 Similarly, of nearly 30 delegates from Shanghai to the Third National Labor Congress in May 1926 only 4 were women.82 There was, however, a tiny group of unions run by and for women, of which perhaps the most dynamic was that at the Shanghai telephone exchange. There the largely female and relatively well-educated workforce made sure that its creation of a union in March 1927 received wide publicity: We women compatriots have suffered oppression for thousands of years. There has never been any satisfactory resolution of our sufferings. Now, however, women’s rights are being promoted and the clamor for women’s liberation grows louder every day. We women have woken up and joined the social struggle. We are seeking both to overthrow imperialism and to liberate ourselves from our fetters, by striving to achieve equal rights between men and women in education, employment and politics. The life of women comrades in the Shanghai telephone exchange is still oppressed, but the soldiers of the revolutionary masses have arrived and we will rise up as one to join their struggle.83 The agenda of this union is noteworthy because it was feminist rather than class-based in character, and it linked women’s liberation to the antiimperialist struggle but not to the struggle to emancipate the working class. In this, it was untypical of other female-dominated labor unions affiliated with the glu. Feminist organizations had long oriented to the labor

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movement and had not been without influence on the consciousness of women workers (as we saw from the silk women’s strike of 1922), but it was rare to see the case for women’s trade unionism couched in such resolutely feminist terms. The ccp did much to encourage the unionization of women workers, but it did so through the discourses of class and, to a lesser extent, of nation. It regularly castigated the glu for paying insufficient attention to the needs of women workers. In May 1926 its labor department accused the glu of failing to recognize the central place of women and children in industry, of failing to train women and young people for positions of leadership in the labor unions, and of failing to forge links between the unions, the Communist Youth League, and the ccp women’s bureaus.84 It called on all union executives to set up women’s committees and to train women for positions of responsibility, and it reminded its members that they had an obligation to promote women’s equality within the working class and to combat male chauvinism.85 Yet the frequency of the party’s subsequent complaints suggests these measures were never effectively implemented. In the case of the cotton union federation, this was because it lacked organizers capable of working with women and youth.86 The Fifth ccp Congress excoriated the National General Labor Union for inaction: “All levels of the labor unions pay scant attention to the interests of women and children and fail to involve them in trade-union work, so that they barely understand the significance of labor organization and either fail to support the unions or else form their own organizations which resemble trade unions.” 87 In fact, the National General Labor Union had a comprehensive program relating to women workers, and in Shanghai the glu was not completely inactive in trying to implement it. The resolution on women and child workers passed by the Third National Labor Congress in May 1926 called for an eight-hour day for women and children, a paid twenty-fourhour rest period each week (a demand replicated in respect of men), plus equal pay for women and children doing the same jobs as men.88 These were radical demands and the glu campaigned around them. At the end of the May Thirtieth stoppage, it pressed the Chinese millowners to grant equal pay for women, and there was much dissatisfaction— on the part of men as well as women—when the demand was imperiously rejected.89 The Third National Labor Congress also called for three days continuous rest per month for women and eight weeks maternity leave, paid at normal

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rates.90 To this, the Fourth National Labor Congress in June 1927 added a demand that nurseries be set up at workplaces where women were in the majority.91 Women workers also sometimes took up these demands in their strikes. Claims for maternity leave and maternity bonuses were fairly popular, to judge by the strikes by silk women in 1926 and at the Yongan cotton mill.92 Finally, the glu also helped to air the culturally sensitive issue of sexual harassment. Although festering beneath the surface of industrial relations, the issue was seldom made explicit: in only one strike—at the Japanese Tongxing No. 1 mill in February 1925 — do women appear to have raised it.93 Yet at the third delegate conference of the glu on 11 July 1926, 132 activists condemned the fact that “in the silk filatures and cotton mills it is common for supervisors and guards to make fun of women workers, and to subject them to shameful insults. Women driven into the factories by the need to live have no option but swallow insults.” 94 As in other countries, the glu found it hard to resolve the tension between its commitment to sexual equality and its recognition of sexual difference. This was evident in respect to demands for protective legislation. In May 1926 the Third National Labor Congress demanded a ban on dangerous and physically harmful work for women and children; a ban on night work for children, pregnant women, and women breast-feeding babies; and a law protecting women and child workers.95 There is no evidence that ordinary working women opposed demands for protective legislation; yet had they been implemented, employers might have thought twice about employing them. More pertinently, the discursive pairing of women and children, characteristic of labor-movement discourse everywhere, reinforced the idea that they were the weaker sex who needed special protection. The May 1926 report of the ccp’s labor department insisted that the thrust of party policy should be to demand that women workers receive equal treatment with men; yet in the next breath it stated that the conditions of women workers could never really be the same as those of men “because of women workers’ physique and family responsibilities.” 96 Similarly, in the preamble to its resolution on working women and children, the Third National Labor Congress deplored the fact that the wages and conditions of women workers were much worse than those of men, yet stated that this was because women and child workers were “weak and easily deceived” (that is, psychologically as well as physically weaker than men) and thus vulnerable to “super-exploitation” by the capitalists.97 That said, one does not find the same imagery as that used by the labor

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movement in Japan, which likened women to fragile flowers or tiny birds, thus reinforcing the connection between femininity and vulnerability and passivity.98 The same tension between commitment to sexual equality and awareness of sexual difference beset efforts to involve women in union affairs. The Third National Labor Congress called on unions to ensure that women and young workers had equal rights to participate in union affairs; to set up special committees for women and for young workers; to encourage the formation of groups for workers’ children; and to arrange educational meetings, free night schools, and recreation centers for women and young workers.99 This was a bold vision, but it was compromised by the Communists’ reluctance to contemplate the one measure that might have forged a core of female activists—namely, separate organization for women workers. One reason why women may have been reluctant to participate in the life of unions—apart from the obvious burdens they bore as housewives or mothers—is that there was a strong taboo against women associating with men. In bringing together male and female workers, therefore, labor unions offended against conventional gender proprieties. The censure that female activists risked is conveyed by the female Communist Yang Zhihua in her account of the silk women’s strike of 1926: Those brave and ardent young women workers who energetically supported the strike want to extricate themselves from the bonds of the family and march forward. But in the end they have to go home. I heard that some who returned home after the strike were beaten and humiliated by parents, brothers and sisters-in-law. They were refused food. One family said: “You haven’t been back for several days. You must have a lover. For all we care, you can die.” The parents of another woman gave her a rope and knife and told her to choose. Poor women workers. They don’t sleep or eat well during the strike and then they have to go onto a tragic stage.100 Yet as early as 1920, the issue of separate organization for women had been raised. Chen Qin’ai, a woman worker from one of the Yangshupu mills, joined the Shanghai Worker-Merchant Friendly Society and wrote to its journal: “Women fear men, believing that they are without morals. I think you are all upstanding men, the backbone of society. I have seen nothing immoral. I hope you will proclaim true equality between the sexes for the sake of Chinese society.” 101 But there were few women willing to follow

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her example. Blaming this situation on the “rotten” legacy of Confucianism, one of the founders wondered aloud if it was sensible to try to bring the sexes together, and another suggested that the solution might be to create separate sections for women. Chen Duxiu, however, opposed this proposal, saying that separate organization of women would divide the working class.102 This opposition to “institutions dividing the proletariat” became a cardinal principle of the ccp.103 So although the glu encouraged labor unions to form special women’s committees and to promote women as leaders, it resisted separate sections for women.104 There is, of course, no way of knowing whether a separatist policy would have been a solution to the problem of women’s passivity in the union movement, but it is noteworthy that where women were forced to rely on themselves, as in Mu Zhiying’s Shanghai Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association or in the Shanghai telephonists’ union, female leaders did emerge. The coexistence of men and women in the same union seems to have reinforced conventional gender roles. Fundamentally, women’s dependency was a result of rank discrimination against them. The Third Congress of the ccp in June 1923 observed that even in labor unions women suffered insults and oppression, a state of affairs that it blamed on the habits and prejudices bred in men by Confucian society.105 But the marginalization of women in the labor movement had other causes than overt male chauvinism. Often the unconscious rhetoric and practice of trade-unionism reinforced the idea that the union was a male sphere. An article in the short-lived journal of the glu in 1927 began: “How can a worker live on 19 dollars a month—particularly if he is not single? A worker cannot live forever without a wife.” 106 Here the “worker,” for whose interests the labor movement stood, was explicitly male and the fact that most workers in modern industry were women was forgotten. Similarly, where unions developed more complex and permanent organization, men tended “naturally” to take charge. The strike record shows that women workers had aptitude for organization, but it was organization of an ad hoc, informal, and temporary character. As labor unions developed more bureaucratic structures of organization, few women felt able to make the commitment that leadership required, either because of social disapproval, family pressure, lack of education, or the practical demands of being housewives and mothers. Moreover, as labor unions spawned a more complex and hierarchical division of labor, fitness for leadership tended to become associated with models of authority and decision-making that were implicitly masculine.107

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The Cultural Inscription of Trade Unionism Trade unions presuppose a culture in which individuals choose membership, pay dues as a sign of commitment, and observe the rules and procedures of the organization. Few of these elements were securely implanted in the culture of the Shanghai labor movement. What the ccp called “bureaucratization” was to some degree the product of a culture saturated by habits of deference, dependency, and nepotism. Despite their own irresistible proclivity to control everything they became involved in, the Communists did try to encourage an active and participatory, even democratic, mode of collective association. In a pamphlet Liu Shaoqi patiently explained the practice of majority voting, the notion of a quorum, the taking of minutes at meetings, the basics of committee procedure, and proper record keeping. He urged chairs of meetings not to allow individuals to speak more than three times in any one meeting; not to permit members to make noise while others were speaking, and to require speakers to stand when they addressed the meeting.108 In practice, however, the operation of labor unions was much more shaped by preexisting beliefs and dispositions, ingrained ways of forming social bonds and taken-for-granted orientations toward social action. Foremen, contractors, and secret-society bosses were often crucial in bringing workers into unions, so membership did not necessarily mark a breach with a culture of clientelism and dependency. There is some evidence that workers tended to look on trade-union leaders in the same way that they looked on foremen or gang bosses. The prodigal hospitality shown to employers and secret-society bosses, deprecated by the ccp’s labor department in May 1926, may have been a way in which labor leaders secured the respect of union members by demonstrating that they had influence in the right quarters.109 In his study of jute workers in Calcutta, Dipesh Chakrabarty suggests that “in the eyes of the mill workers being a master was a condition of being a representative. Only masters could represent. . . . At issue is the worker’s shrewd realization that under the circumstances he could best exercise his power by choosing to serve.” 110 Conversely, glu officials complained that “among the workers there is a hateful and pitiable phenomenon. . . . They reckon that since [leaders] are only workers like themselves they have no right to represent them.” 111 In other words, securing the loyalty of members may have required that one behave in the manner of the traditional boss. Moreover, because one of the

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most influential models of a popular defense organization was that of the secret society, it was not surprising that many workers saw labor unions as akin to them. A printer wrote the following story intended to be a parable about the need for labor unions: A San was a worker. Because he was not part of an organized group he was often bullied. Among his companions there was no code of brotherhood. Every day they were oppressed by the capitalist, insulted and ill-treated by the foremen, but all they could do was swallow their anger. One day A San and Xiao Mao were larking about when, for some reason, Xiao Mao suddenly lost his temper and flew at A San. A San then got angry, too, but Xiao Mao was not his match and ran away. Xiao Mao was a member of an organized group, however, and after he had been beaten by A San, he told his brothers about it. They immediately came to his support. Since the strength of an organization is naturally greater than that of a single individual, how could A San win? Since Xiao Mao hit A San first, he was surely in the wrong, but A San alone could not stand up to a hostile crowd, so he apologized to Xiao Mao. A San was livid and went off to tell his mates, to try to get the craft to help him. But because the craft was not organized, it was every man for himself, and there was no response.112 Here the good worker, who was outside the orbit of the gang, was encouraged to join the union in order to withstand harassment. It is interesting that the topos in this story is not one of subordinates locked in conflict with superordinates, but of subordinates at odds with one another, and the case for organization is made in terms of might rather than right. This theme presumably played on the intuitions of those familiar with secret societies, which operated less as champions of the underdog than as structures of defense against predators of all kinds. In seeking to impose unity on fragile coalitions of particularistic interest, labor unions were not afraid to resort to force or the threat of force. The constitution of the union of the Yongan department store warned its members that “anyone obstructing the work of the union will be dealt with by the masses.” 113 “Mass” punishment usually took a ritualized form. In September 1914 the xiaohong of the cloth printers and dyers guild went on strike in protest at the alleged embezzlement by the guild director. Those who refused to support the strike were led with ropes around their necks along the river bank as a mark of disgrace.114 During the May Thir-

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tieth strike A Hong was seized by the laundry workers’ union after he was caught taking in washing at night; for this he was tied to the wall of the Shanghai garrison headquarters and left for several days as the butt of public scorn.115 During the postal workers strike in August 1925 a postman who had delivered mail in civilian clothes was brought before the strike committee with his hands tied and was made to stand on a high stool with a sign giving his name, position, and a description of his offense. In response there were cries of “Beat Him!” and much jeering and hand clapping, and after a speech of denunciation he was required to make a public act of contrition.116 Such rituals of humiliation were well-entrenched in popular culture and served as an antidote to the fissiparous tendencies that threatened labor unity. These rituals were not principally about punishing errant individuals but rather about enforcing conformity to group norms. They tapped into the deepest wellspring of China’s “honor culture”— namely, the fear of losing face.117

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12

The Climax of the National Revolution, March–April, 1927

On 7 December 1926 Chiang Kai-shek held a conference at Lushan, attended by Borodin, where it was agreed that the next priority of the National Revolutionary Army was to eliminate Sun Chuanfang, the Zhejiang militarist who controlled Shanghai. The army was divided into three route armies, and advance units of the eastern army under Bai Chongxi were charged with concentrating in western Zhejiang and taking Hangzhou.1 Early in February, Bai’s units penetrated the rear of the forces guarding the approaches to Hangzhou, and by 17 February Bai had captured that city.2 On 16 February an emergency meeting of the Central Executive Committee of the ccp decided that if the army reached Songjiang, thirty kilometers from Shanghai along the Shanghai-Hangzhou railway, they would call a “second” armed uprising to liberate Shanghai from Sun Chuanfang’s troops.3 On the evening of 18 February the glu held a secret meeting, attended by several hundred delegates, in the course of which news arrived that the eastern route army had reached Jiaxing.4 This news prompted the delegates to call a general strike to prepare the city for the entry of the army, to create a revolutionary-democratic government in Shanghai, and to press for a national assembly.5 They resolved to commence the strike the following day, a decision that was taken without authorization from the Central Executive Committee, which had pledged not to call a general strike until the National Revolutionary Army reached Songjiang. Nothing was said by the glu about the strike being a prelude to an armed uprising. As the strike commenced the next day, the glu published a program of seventeen demands that called for the continuation of the anti-imperialist struggle; the destruction of the “dark forces” of the warlords; the elimination of all reactionary forces in Shanghai; the creation of a government that would protect popular interests; and the institution of a variety of labor reforms, such as improved safety at work and equal pay for women.6 The glu took pains to assure the middle classes that the aim was a democratic citi-

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zens’ government rather than a workers’ government, but they argued that this could only be achieved through revolutionary mobilization by the working class.7 The glu issued strict guidelines concerning discipline, which laid down that there was to be no destruction of factories or shops, no violence against foreigners, no extortion of money, absolute obedience to glu directives, and no action unless authorized by the glu.8 In attaching itself to the cause of national reunification, the glu acquired great moral authority. Workers showed no hesitation in responding to the strike call, the general strike proving to be the largest ever witnessed in the city. One calculation, based on a detailed analysis of press reports, reckoned that 420,970 employees, consisting of 324,970 men, 90,000 women, and 6,000 children, halted work in nearly 6,000 workplaces.9 The glu reckoned that 150,000 struck on Saturday, 19 February; 275,000 on the 20th; 350,000 on the 21st; and 360,000 on the 22nd, and it ridiculed the figures published in the British press for underestimating the number of strikers by a factor of six.10 In contrast to the May Fourth and May Thirtieth Movements, the strike was directed not against the foreign powers but against the warlords and in support of the National Revolutionary Army. Indeed the imperialists were temporarily demoted from their position as public enemy number one, causing the North China Herald to quip, à propos a leaflet denouncing Sun Chuanfang: “It is interesting to learn that any individual, and a Chinese at that, could possibly be more wicked and cruel than the hated British.” 11 This did not mean that foreign enterprises were any less affected by the stoppage than in previous general strikes. What distinguished the stoppage was the high proportion of strikers in Chinese-owned enterprises, such as the silk filatures, and the vigorous involvement of handicraft workers and shop employees.12 Also noteworthy in comparison with the triple strikes of the May Fourth and the May Thirtieth movements, as well as with the third armed uprising of March 1927, was the relatively limited response from small traders and shopkeepers. The Shanghai Commercial Association, the new political mouthpiece of Shanghai’s nationalist businessmen, and the Federation of Street Associations did call a one-day protest on 21 February against the White Terror, which was then being waged by Sun Chuanfang’s henchman in the city, “to show our sympathy and support for the workers.” 13 But the commercial sector did not mobilize on the same scale as in 1919 and 1925, which must have been connected to the fact that Green Gang potentate Du Yuesheng specifically ordered merchants in the

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French Concession to continue business as usual.14 Faced with a general strike on an unprecedented scale, the ccp leadership hesitated for two fateful days before finally giving the go-ahead for an armed uprising on 22 February. By the following day, the uprising had fizzled out.15 Sun Chuanfang’s survival now depended on the support of the northern warlord Zhang Zongchang, once his mortal enemy. During the first days of March, Zhili-Shandong forces completely replaced Sun’s garrison in Shanghai, which proved to be a boon to the Left because the citizens of Shanghai heartily detested these northern interlopers.16 The Communists now put all of their energies into planning a third armed uprising, to be synchronized with a triple stoppage by workers, students, and merchants. By early March, the Greater Shanghai bureau of the gmd had formed 154 speaker teams comprising 1,270 students, plus 205 additional teams, each comprising 3 to 5 members, to explain the aims of the triple strike to the populace.17 The glu also advertised the aims through leaflets, posters, and an illegal newspaper, the Common People. On 16 March it resurrected the seventeen demands raised at the time of the February general strike, to which it added a further five. These demands were a mix of political and economic issues, which included calls to continue the anti-imperialist movement; destroy the warlords; support the Wuhan government and the Shanghai citizens’ assembly and implement popular democratic government; uphold rights of assembly, association, free speech, a free press, and the right to strike; institute workers’ armed defense; implement protective legislation; and improve working conditions. This list of demands was supplemented by a set of fourteen economic demands to be raised by workers in their workplaces.18 On Monday, 21 March, the Communists launched the third armed uprising to rid the city of the Zhili-Shandong forces. The triple strike began promptly at midday, and within hours Shanghai was at a standstill. The labor unions sent teams to all parts of the city to announce that the National Revolutionary Army had arrived at the city limits, a fact that the newspapers had been forbidden to report, and gmd flags and slogans appeared everywhere. Shops closed to honor the arrival of the army; students in some twenty colleges walked out of classes; and student speaker teams busily urged traders and workers to join the stoppage.19 The glu reckoned that 200,000 workers obeyed the strike summons.20 The Municipal Council responded by declaring a state of emergency, and troops disembarked from the thirty to forty foreign warships anchored along the Huangpu

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River. The next day, still more workers joined the strike.21 The total number who participated is predictably contentious. The International Settlement police estimated that at its peak there were 161,000 strikers, but also admitted that this figure did not include employees in thousands of small workshops and retail outlets; Shenbao reckoned that 800,000 people stopped work, closed their businesses, or walked out of school to demonstrate support for the National Revolutionary Army.22 A later gmd source calculated that around 300,000 workers went on strike and around 4,000 enterprises closed down, which is probably a reliable estimate.23 From 21 to 22 March 2,000 to 3,000 armed pickets under the authority of the glu fought courageously against the northern forces, gaining control of the city just as the first contingent of the eastern route army entered Shanghai late on the afternoon of 22 March. The ccp and glu had pulled off an impressive victory, albeit at not inconsiderable cost, especially in Zhabei where fatalities numbered at least 80.24 Estimates of the numbers who died vary. One reckons that over 200 insurgents were killed and 1,000 wounded, not counting casualties among the northern forces.25 Another source suggests that on both sides a total of 322 were killed and 2,000 wounded.26 The Communists immediately set up a provisional municipal government with the aim of seizing the political initiative for the Left and tipping the balance of power away from Chiang Kai-shek. This government at once declared its support for the national government in Wuhan, with which Chiang Kai-shek had now locked horns. Four days later on 26 March Chiang arrived in the city and made clear his determination to bypass the new government and curb the armed pickets of the glu. In seeking support for a broad-based government of the Left, the Communists appealed energetically to the citizens (shimin) of Shanghai. The term shimin connoted the people of the city, rather like the Latin root of the English word “citizen,” whereas the alternative word for “citizen,” guomin, connoted the people of the nation as a whole. The term shimin had originated in the eighteenth century when it was used to indicate merchants who lay claim to an urban market, but it did not become current in Shanghai until the 1840s. William Rowe suggests that over time it acquired the sense of an “urban class.” 27 By the early twentieth century, the term xiao shimin had come to mean those between the wealthy and educated elites and the lower classes, such as “small merchants, clerks, secretaries, high-school students, housewives and other modestly educated, marginally well-off urbanites.” 28 The word shimin did not yet carry connotations of

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modern citizenship, and only slowly became infused with the idea of political participation.29 By the time of the May Fourth Movement it carried a resonance that was both popular and progressive, and it was much used, for example, by the new Federation of Street Associations in its campaign against “no taxation without representation” and for “citizen power” (shimin quan).30 The appeal to shimin also played on the growing sense of Shanghai civic identity that developed during the 1920s. A leaflet put out by the Shanghai regional committee of the ccp, for example, declared that “Shanghai is one of the world’s great cities, the first of China’s cities and the most commercially, industrially and culturally developed city in the country. Its population of more than two million is bigger than that of many small European countries, and exceeds the population of the thirteen American states at the time of the War of Independence [a doubtful claim]. Why should not Shanghai be responsible for its own actions?” 31 The Communists depicted the city as an enclave at the mercy of imperialists and warlords, who looked on it as a fiefdom to be milked of its resources. Artisans, traders, and the citizenry were urged to participate in the triple strike in order to create “a new Shanghai, free and independent, and to wash away the disgrace suffered by its citizens for eighty years.” 32 The Communists were not certain who exactly comprised the citizenry. This issue reflected internal disagreements about whether or not the “national capitalists” had a progressive role to play in the national revolution and, more important, about the respective roles of the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie. These in turn reflected more fundamental disputes about how far the national revolution could go beyond the “bourgeois” stage and how far a democratic municipal government in Shanghai could be transformed into something akin to a soviet government.33 Sometimes the Communists assumed medium-size and small merchants were part of the shimin, and sometimes they equated the latter exclusively with more plebeian strata.34 This rather arcane issue in fact had consequences for the way that the Communists tried to influence the composition and functioning of the democratic municipal government which they set up together with their gmd allies. The Shanghai regional committee wished to see the government chosen by a popularly elected citizens’ assembly; but the gmd insisted—and got its way—that it must be chosen by and accountable to the Greater Shanghai and Jiangsu provincial bureaus of the gmd.35 Moreover, both parties agreed that a citizens’ assembly was desirable but disagreed as to how it should be formed. The Communists wished to see representa-

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tives of the different sections of society ( jie)—namely, the workers, merchants, students, soldiers, and liberal professions— elected on a territorial basis.36 They also wished to ensure that workers had the lion’s share of the representatives. By contrast, the gmd preferred an assembly consisting of representatives from public organizations of all kinds and opposed disproportionate representation of workers. On 6 March twenty street associations backed the gmd plan, saying that they preferred to see the assembly comprise delegates from the existing organizations of the different jie rather than ones elected from the grass roots on a territorial basis. This is in fact what happened.37 The arrival of the eastern route army under General Bai Chongxi caused elation among the citizenry of Shanghai. On the morning of 22 March, an exultant citizens’ assembly attended by more than two thousand people met at the Xinwutai theater, among whom worker representatives were in a minority.38 Chaired by Lin Jun, the Communist leader of the National Students’ Union, by glu leader Wang Shouhua, and by Commercial Association leader Wang Xiaolai, who was also chair of the Zhabei Chamber of Commerce, the assembly hailed the victory of the nationalist forces and pledged loyalty to the national government and to the Shanghai party bureau of the gmd. That afternoon the gmd, ccp, glu, and ssu called a mass meeting at the Public Recreation Ground near the West Gate to welcome the army and to inaugurate the Nanshi citizens’ assembly. The rally was decked with red flags, bunting, and balloons. Red, the principal color of the national flag, symbolized the color of life, and was associated with abundance, prosperity, festivity, and good luck.39 It does not seem to have borne an association with socialism, in spite of the “anti-red” propaganda that had been conducted since 1924. Later, a procession led by pickets and accompanied by students handing out leaflets wove its way through the streets. Apart from tailors’ shops, which busied themselves making republican flags, all other shops were closed, their shutters adorned with bunting and their door posts marked with slogans.40 The following day in Zhabei—where the fighting between the glu pickets and the northern troops had been most fierce—more than fifty thousand people gathered on wasteland to convene a district citizens’ assembly. Surrounded by the destruction caused by two days of fighting, the jubilant crowd listened to music and firecrackers and then observed a minute of silence for the martyrs of the revolution. Speakers declared that the “northern expeditionary army is our own army; it will cast off our fetters; it will help us achieve lib-

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erty.” A representative of the gmd denounced imperialism and counterrevolution and summoned the crowd to establish a government of the whole people and build a new Shanghai.41 Later that day, fifty thousand people met at the Public Recreation Ground to welcome the army. According to the North China Herald, the soldiers were seen not just as liberators of the Chinese people but also as “defenders of the working mass.” 42 Over the next few days, some twenty thousand troops passed through the city.43 Merchants, workers, students, and women’s organizations formed welcoming parties to present to the troops gifts of cigarettes, matches, biscuits, braised mutton, and pork.44 As General Bai was giving an interview to foreign journalists on 24 March, a delegation of eighteen hundred factory workers, three hundred of them women, arrived at the Longhua garrison with kettles, teapots, boxes, baskets, and cloth for his soldiers.45 Bai’s political views offer an interesting insight into the peculiar mix of nationalist and class themes that characterized the ideology of the more conservative elements in the gmd. As a militarist from Guangxi province who had only recently thrown in his lot with the National Revolutionary Army Bai stoutly affirmed that Communism had no place in China and sought to assure the foreign press that he had no plans to attack the International Settlement or French Concession.46 Nevertheless in an interview with the Chinese press he declared that the aims of the Northern Expedition were to fight the “imperialists and capitalists” (by which he appears to have meant foreign capitalists) and that the final object of the revolution was to end “capitalist aggression” and achieve freedom and equality.47 Coming from one of such decidedly conservative temper this reflects how widely nationalism in an anti-imperialist form had become disseminated, because even if Bai did not sincerely embrace these aims he was aware that his statements were what the newspaper-reading public wished to hear.

The Discourse of the National Revolution Although the populace saw the National Revolutionary Army and the gmd as its liberators, sympathy for the glu, the ccp, and the pickets also ran high. Membership of the Shanghai city organization of the gmd grew from 2,700 in January to 16,000 by the beginning of April, while membership of the Shanghai city organization of the ccp rose from 3,075 on 10 January to 8,374 on 4 April.48 On 31 March a Mr. Xu addressed a meet-

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ing of 500 seamen on the principles of Communism and was greeted with thunderous applause. After the meeting one hundred applied to join the party.49 The ccp had long insisted that warlordism was an epiphenomenon of imperialism, but was now forced to recognize that for the time being imperialism was not at the top of the nationalist agenda. When Peng Shuzhi addressed the Zhabei citizens’ assembly on 23 March he placed the “imperialists” at the bottom of a list of “enemies of the people.” 50 The following evening, however, came news that in Nanjing British and U.S. warships had that afternoon bombarded the city after gmd troops rampaged through the foreign concession. The Communists determined to exploit the widespread anger to mount a new anti-imperialist offensive. The Shanghai regional committee discussed calling a general strike aimed at seizing control of the foreign settlements, with a view to embroiling Chiang Kai-shek in conflict with the foreign powers and thus prevent him from disarming the glu pickets.51 On 25 March, probably without authorization from the ccp, the glu wrote to International Settlement and French Concession authorities to say that it would call a general strike unless workers were allowed into the settlements to resume work.52 On 27 March, however, having consulted with the Soviet Politburo, the party leadership retracted the plan for a strike and decided instead to lobby the Wuhan government to start negotiations with the foreign powers about the return of the concessions.53 On 31 March five hundred seamen attended a meeting that called for the return of the foreign concessions through the peaceful application of popular pressure.54 The paramount concern of the gmd—and one that struck a chord in the populace—was to consolidate a broad front of the different social groups in support of the national revolution. At the mass meeting in Zhabei on 23 March, speakers from each of the different jie, including Long Dadao, the representative of the glu, called on the assembled throng to forge a grand alliance of workers, peasants, soldiers, merchants, and students (gongnong-bing-shang-xue dalianhehui).55 At the ceremonial reopening of the glu at the Huzhou guild on 27 March the crowd chanted “long live the Shanghai glu,” “long live the successful revolution of every section of society under the leadership of Shanghai’s workers,” and “long live the grand alliance of workers, merchants, students and soldiers.” 56 Among broad layers, then, the central meaning of the revolution was bound up with the idea of a union of all sections of society taking control of the nation’s destiny. What this meant to an ordinary worker can be seen in an account

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written by Zhu Zhiliang, a delegate from Shanghai to the Third National Labor Congress in 1926, which described life in revolutionary Guangzhou: “All five sections of society—workers, peasants, merchants, students and soldiers—are united. They are all revolutionary in spirit. Outside one sees pickets from the Hong Kong strike committee, alongside National Revolutionary Army soldiers and armed members of the peasant associations, patrolling the streets. Surely, this is a bit of paradise! Such happiness has come about through revolution, paid for with the lives and blood of the people.” 57 The “happiness” that Zhu Ziliang saw being realized in Guangzhou in 1926 was much talked about once the eastern-route army entered Shanghai. A speaker from the ssu proclaimed: “As the republican flag becomes visible through the haze, the object for which we have fought for so many years, the modest enjoyment of liberty and happiness, is now achieved.” 58 “Happiness” and “liberty,” rather than socialism, were the watchwords of the speeches, posters, and leaflets of the movement. A resolution passed in support of the municipal government declared that its task was to “eliminate warlord forces, achieve the return of the International Settlement, and ensure that the whole of Shanghai and its government cooperates in the struggle to eradicate the misfortunes of its citizens and to promote happiness and liberty.” 59 “Happiness” had long been a leitmotif of Sun Yat-sen’s political philosophy; indeed the object of the Three People’s Principles was said to be to “seek happiness” for China.60 It was particularly associated with the third of his principles, that of the people’s livelihood, and in essence it meant the leisure for self-development and freedom from material care.61 In May 1912 Sun had declared: “Unless we carry out a social revolution, the great majority of people will continue to be unable to achieve joy and happiness in their lives. Now so-called happiness is only enjoyed by a small minority of capitalists.” 62 Perhaps he was inspired by the American Revolution, although he drew on the long tradition, going back to Aristotle, that saw happiness as the true end of politics. “Liberty” (ziyou) was the other much-vaunted aspiration of the national revolution. When Long Dadao addressed the Zhabei citizens’ assembly he proclaimed: “We fought for liberty, and we must now uphold that which was won through our hot blood. In the past none of us had freedom, now it has been paid for with our hot blood.” 63 The centrality of “liberty” is curious because neither the ccp nor the gmd had much time for the concept. According to Sun Yat-sen, the gmd “does not advocate liberty and equality, but the

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Three People’s Principles.” 64 He was caustic about the European obsession with liberty, symbolized in the slogan “liberty or death” (bu ziyou, wuning si), explaining it as a reaction to centuries of despotism. By contrast, he argued that the Chinese had had a surfeit of liberty, which they understood only as unrestrained or unconventional behavior ( fangdang buji).65 Freeing the nation required that such liberty be sacrificed in the interests of unifying the social body.66 Communists, of course, did speak of liberty, particularly of civil and political rights, but essentially they saw the latter as “bourgeois” in character and believed that their exercise ultimately was dependent on the exigencies of the socialist revolution. A further ideal invoked at this time was that of the “people’s will” (minyi). Earlier it was shown that this notion entered nationalist discourse around the turn of the century to justify the view that government should act in accordance with the wishes of the people. The genealogy of the concept can be traced back via the Russian Narodnik tradition to Rousseau’s “general will,” but it was not without antecedents in Chinese political thought. The “people’s will” could be invoked at any turn. The Green Gang body that liquidated the glu pickets, for example, claimed to be “consolidating the people’s will” (gonggu minyi). At the same juncture, a mass meeting at the West Gate appealed to Bai Chongxi to “respect the people’s will,” after his forces joined in the bloody suppression of the pickets, and the district citizens’ assemblies accused him of trampling on the people’s will.67 The fact that both sides could appeal to the people’s will in this way illustrates the essential vapidity of the concept. Left and Right fought to control the meaning of this and other terms in the revolutionary lexicon. The term “reactionary” ( fandong fenzi), for example, was one over which the two sides tussled. For conservative nationalists, Communists and “red imperialists” were self-evidently “reactionaries” because they disrupted the social unity on which the success of the national revolution depended. Zhou Fengqi, commander of the 26th army, which carried out the elimination of the pickets on 12 April, claimed that “reactionaries acting in the name of the union” and “reactionary Communist elements” had provoked clashes with his troops.68 For radicals, by contrast, “reactionary elements” were those who opposed the far-reaching social and economic reforms that alone could ensure that the masses benefited from the revolution. The discourse of both Right and Left played on the distinction between “revolutionaries” and “counterrevolutionaries,” terms whose indetermi-

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nacy allowed politicians scope for political flexibility, but which tapped into deeply rooted politico-moral dichotomies in popular culture. Like other tropes, the revolutionary/reactionary couplet switched easily between the registers of nationalism and class. The enemies of the nation could be “reactionaries,” such as “local tyrants and evil gentry” (tuhao lieshen), compradors and corrupt officials (tanguan wushi), whose treacherous, venal, or selfish behavior placed beyond them the pale of national community; or they could be “reactionaries,” by reason of their class position, such as employers and landlords who opposed the just demands of workers and peasants. When deciding who was eligible to take part in elections to the citizens’ assembly, the Communists drew up a list of those they considered “reactionaries,” which included agents of imperialists and warlords; those deprived of civil rights for criminal offenses; those who had opposed the revolution; and those who were foreign slaves, scabs, local tyrants and evil gentry, corrupt officials, scholar-tyrants (xuefa), and land speculators (tufan).69 Peng Shuzhi offered a slightly amended list when he addressed the mass meeting in Zhabei on 23 March: his “enemies of the people” included the Western Hills faction of the gmd, the warlords, corrupt officials, local tyrants and evil gentry, and imperialists. Tactfully, he made no mention of Chiang Kai-shek (or the “new warlords,” as the ccp discreetly referred to his faction).70 Such promiscuous lists of enemies, devoid of sociological specificity, reflect the way in which an ideology as putatively scientific as marxism-leninism took on the coloration of the cultural environment into which it was transplanted.71 For a few days after the armed pickets seized control of the city, Shanghai witnessed events that adumbrated those of the Land Reform Campaign (1948 –53) and the Cultural Revolution. A hunt for “scabs” and “running dogs” got underway, in which stooges of management or the police were subjected to show trials and summary execution, ritual humiliation, and “speak bitterness” campaigns. Given that thousands of workers had lost their jobs and scores had lost their lives as a result of the actions of management and police spies, it is hardly surprising that enmity welled up, although the intensity of the violence is perhaps shocking in a culture that prized social harmony so highly. On 21 March in Nanshi, as pickets were seizing the headquarters of the Wusong-Shanghai constabulary, one of Li Baozhang’s infamous swordsmen and a well-known spy nicknamed “Little Dishevelled One” (Xiao Pengtou) was grabbed and a trial was improvised. Witnesses said that his hands were dripping with workers’ blood, and he

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was summarily executed.72 Crowds in Pudong were particularly zealous. On 22 March Zou Xuebao, a female Number One at the Nikko mill, was put on trial before hundreds of her former charges. They were invited to the platform to “speak bitterness” (suku) and proceeded to denounce her for pandering to the “Japanese devils” and for driving a woman worker to her death. She was then executed at the behest of the mob.73 On the same day the newly formed picket at bat paraded two scabs around the district, bound and gagged, while a crowd bore cartoon images of counterrevolutionaries and chanted slogans, including an unlikely one that ran “the more we are oppressed, the sooner we shall awaken.” 74 On 26 March at the Nanyang tobacco company a manager and three supervisors, including one woman, were beaten, bound, and paraded through the streets wearing conical hats and bearing placards saying that they were capitalists and running dogs. This event culminated in a trial where they confessed their guilt, although in this instance their lives were spared, possibly because they were employees of “national capital.” 75 Three days later in the western district Gao Xiangzeng, a clerk at the Nikko mill, was kidnapped and taken to the glu office in Zhabei. The following day representatives from the mill came to demand that he face a workers’ trial because he had betrayed the union to management. His friend Yang asked management to secure his release, so he, too, was arrested by the pickets and taken to glu headquarters. The western district office of the glu forced both the clerk and his friend to parade around Zhabei with placards saying “I am a running dog,” but their lives were spared.76 These incidents suggest that once cultural inhibitions on the use of force were breached, it became virtually impossible to maintain any distinction between symbolic and physical violence.77 There was a good deal of spontaneity to these actions, spontaneity enabled by the fact that rituals of “speaking bitterness” and of public shaming were practices that existed in popular culture. Mao Zedong observed such practices at this time in the villages of Hunan: “They tether the evil gentry with ropes, crown them with tall paper hats and parade them through the villages. In Xiangtan and Xiangxiang they call this ‘parading through the township’ [youtuan] and in Liling ‘parading through the fields’ [youlong].” 78 These were not only rites of punishment but also rites of unmasking, in which the true nature of foremen, spies, and provocateurs was exposed to the public. They played on a powerful cultural archetype that distinguished the world of appearances, assumed to be intrinsically deceptive, from the real but hidden world, that which was seen as dark, selfish,

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and cruel.79 Li Lisan played on this archetype in a speech to the Third National Labor Congress: “The new labor brigands wear attractive masks but have daggers concealed in their hearts, and are ever ready to help the capitalists find ways of killing us.” 80 Although rooted in popular culture, actions such as public trials and “speaking bitterness” were whipped up by the Communists. As early as 20 September 1926 the Central Executive Committee called for a “speak bitterness” campaign as the cotton workers faced defeat in the strike at the nwk mills, but nothing came of the call at the time.81 As anthropologist Ann Anagnost has shown, by giving voice to the subaltern class the ccp authenticated its claim to represent those constituencies that its own discourse brought into being. “Speaking bitterness” served to make manifest the larger historical forces of capitalism and imperialism that were bearing down on the nation, with the individuals named in the narrative being made to stand for the conflict of classes.82 In terms of breadth and depth, the popular movement in spring 1927 surpassed the May Thirtieth Movement, although it proved to be far more short-lived. Through the general strike, the traders’ strike, and the mass rallies, the citizenry gave enthusiastic support to the elimination of the warlord presence and to the efforts to establish a popular municipal government supportive of the gmd. Insofar as the principal target was the warlords, the movement differed from that of 1919 and 1925. It revealed that China’s broken unity was just as much a concern to the populace of Shanghai as was the threat of foreign aggression. Moreover, the movement was inspired by a more positive representation of the nation than that which was current in the discourse of anti-imperialist nationalism. No longer represented simply as the passive victim of the foreign powers or as a sheet of loose sand, the nation was now represented as being on the offensive, an unstoppable force united behind the revolutionary army. Similarly, although themes such as happiness, liberty, and the people’s rights went back to the beginnings of the nationalist movement, they acquired a heightened resonance and a greater specificity as they became linked to the achievement of democratic government and civil and political rights. Moreover, some of the more negative themes of the past—notably that of national extinction—began to fade. However, the demotion of anti-imperialism as the principal focus of nationalist concern, in favor of anti-warlordism and national reunification, was a temporary phenomenon rather than one that inaugurated a decisive shift. It was hardly possible to forget the reality of foreign power in a city dominated by two foreign concessions. The dis-

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course of national reunification was still articulated within the larger frame of class-inflected anti-imperialism, and the latter, as we saw in chapter 8, had never denied the consequential nature of warlordism, but had merely seen it as secondary to imperialism. Moreover, in workers’ struggles class issues remained vital, though they legitimized their struggles in terms of the national revolution. As we have seen, even conservatives had difficulty articulating nationalist concerns without resorting to the language of class, with even Bai Chongxi falling back on terms such as “imperialists” and “capitalists.” Nevertheless at the peak of the ccp’s influence, the revolution in Shanghai remained fundamentally a national and not a class revolution, and if class marked nationalist discourse ineradicably, it was also the case that deep impulses to social unity were evident, which ultimately would work in favor of the gmd.

Class in the National Revolution The language of class was now more entrenched in public discourse than it had been in 1919. Newspapers, for example, reported strikes as conflicts between capital (ziben) and labor (laodong), although they were also likely to use more concrete terms such as “factory owners” (changfang) and “workers” (gongyou).83 The term “capitalist” was widely used—much more so than its paired term “proletarian”—although its use could still mark the speaker as someone of radical persuasion. In the Mixed Court, for example, use of the term was said to be enough to secure the conviction of anyone accused of labor agitation.84 In the handicraft sector, workers were still more likely to refer to their employers as “masters” (laoban, dianzhu, or yezhu). In oral propaganda the Communists tended to designate the employers by some emotive and easily understood epithet, such as “devil” or “running dog,” rather than “capitalist.” 85 They even drew on stock characters in popular opera to make their point: “the ugly face [of the capitalists and managers], like that of the Ghost King, presses down on our bodies, with its heartless and unreasonable reproach.” 86 In a Hongkou theater decked out in the style of the palace of Yama, King of Hell, the silk weavers’ union performed an updated version of a regional opera, in which capitalists were substituted for traditional villains.87 Industrialists themselves tended to avoid the term “capitalist.” Yu Xiaqing had been known occasionally to use it, yet complained at a meeting of the Commercial Association on 2 April 1927 that the growth of labor unions was forcing factory

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and store owners to behave like “capitalists.” 88 When a delegation of twenty-nine businessmen met Chiang Kai-shek to discuss the troubled state of industrial relations, he addressed them as laoban, a term originally drawn from Shanghai dialect and evidently to their liking.89 The term “working class” (gongren jieji) was still fairly rare. The manifesto of the telephone operatives’ union of 11 March 1927 began: “The emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class itself,” but it went on to summon the “workers’ section of society” to unify its “class sympathy” ( jieji tongqing).90 As this implies, the terms gongjie and gongren (workers) were still generally used as substitutes for the term “working class.” The glu also used the term gongyou (fellow workers), which seems to have been the preferred term of the gmd conservatives.91 In the February 1925 mill strikes the support committee of the Federation of Syndicates put the term gongyou in its title, whereas the support committee created by the Communists referred to gongren. And the Federated Association of Labor Unions (Shanghai gonghui lianhe zonghui), set up by rightists on 2 April 1927 to combat the glu, defined its aim as being to “seek the welfare of fellow workers.” 92 After its rupture with the Communists, the gmd government tended to use the term gongren, rather than gongjie, but sought to limit its range of application. The Law of Arbitration and Conciliation of June 1928, for instance, decreed that store employees, clerks, and office staff were not gongren and were thus exempt from the provisions of the law.93 The most common vocabulary of social description remained that of jie. Down to his death, Sun Yat-sen spoke about Chinese society in these terms.94 The multiplication of jie continued in the 1920s with newly prominent social groups, such as military ( junjie), police ( jingjie), and politicians (zhengjie), seeking public recognition on the basis of their political or military authority.95 By this time women were less likely to represent themselves as the “women’s section of society,” although the Shanghai Association of Women of all Sections of Society (Shanghai gejie funü lianhehui) provides a nice example of the slippage that could occur between jie and jieji. At its inaugural meeting on 5 June 1925, Zhong Fuguang told the eighty delegates: “Increasingly, we feel the need for the women’s section of society to unite . . . so this organization, which has arisen partly to back the [protests at] the massacre and partly to promote the interests of the female class [nü jieji] . . . must become permanent.” 96 The labor movement largely followed the trend in representing the social order as consisting of jie. In 1925 the strikers at nwk called on the pub-

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lic for support: “We hope that the military, police, merchants, students, workers and peasants and all sections of our fellow countrymen will consider . . . the nation’s face and rise up in our support.” 97 Similarly, the glu on 11 April 1927 said that it wished to cooperate with the military ( junjie) and merchants (shangjie) to help the government to reach a diplomatic solution to the problem of foreign settlements and to maintain public order.98 As these examples suggest, the vocabulary of jie could substitute for the language of class, which is why the ccp continued to use it even after 1949.99 Yet it is also true that the vocabulary of jie was rooted in an ideological paradigm that was resistant to reconfiguration by class ideology. Since the turn of the century this vocabulary had been used to legitimate the efforts of social groups to claim a place within the broad alliance of forces seeking national unity. Therefore, when Dai Jitao developed his Confucian interpretation of Sun Yat-sen’s thought, he argued that the conscious elements of the “four vocations,” inspired by benevolent love (ren), must collaborate to develop the country’s economy along socialist lines.100 It was in this spirit that the association of shop employees vowed “to exert ourselves as one for the common good of the mass of shop employees in Shanghai and to follow other sections of society in resolving the sufferings of the nation.” 101 Implicit in this was a representation of society much closer to the gmd model of a corporate social order than to the ccp’s model of class society. Rooted as it was in the paradigm of the “four vocations,” the terminology of jie would be recuperated during the Nanjing decade by a politics that championed the Confucian ideal of social harmony based on hierarchical difference.

The Destruction of the GLU It is often claimed that Chinese capitalists financed Chiang Kai-shek in order to be rid of militant labor, but this claim is too reductionist. The discussions of the Commercial Association, a body formalized by Yu Xiaqing on 22 March to lend political and financial support to Chiang, suggest that its members saw insurgent labor as a serious nuisance, but not as the overriding cause of their problems. The association’s manifesto blamed the problems of business first on civil war, which was disrupting supplies and communications, and second on turmoil in the monetary system. Only then did it condemn the Communists for exploiting the situation to wreak havoc: “They claim to share property, but in practice destroy property; in

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the name of sharing, they grab things for themselves; low types [xiaoren] come out at night to do their worst, whilst good men go far away.” 102 The minutes of the meetings of the Commercial Association suggest that businessmen were discomfited by militant labor, but not in mortal dread of it. They detested the armed pickets and were barely more enthusiastic about labor unions, yet when on 31 March Wang Shouhua, chair of the glu, approached Yu Xiaqing to discuss ways of financing the labor unions, Yu agreed to talk to him, although he told Wang that he thought the glu was getting too big for its boots.103 On 2 April Wang Xiaolai, chair of the Shanghai Merchants’ Association (Hushang xiehui) of the gmd and the only businessman of note to take his seat on the executive of the Shanghai municipal government, proposed to the Commercial Association that it invite Wang Shouhua to talk to them. Xu Jingren, general manager of the Puyi cotton mill, said that he did not believe that the policy of the glu was to create violence and disorder, but expressed concern that the situation was getting out of hand. He claimed that 90 percent of the workers were wellmeaning, but dared not stand up to the minority of troublemakers. Pan Xusheng was less sanguine, saying that in the dyeing trade a situation had been reached where workers felt no qualms about raising extravagant demands such as the doubling of wages.104 On 3 April Wang Shouhua duly came to speak to the association, and although the employers listened politely to his arguments about the need for labor unions and a more fair deal for workers they made it clear that they would not tolerate the armed pickets. The gcc took a more uncompromising stance toward the glu. On 23 March Rong Zongjing, chairman of the Chinese Cotton Millowners’ Association, who was at that moment implementing a lockout at the Shenxin No. 5 mill, told the gcc: “The labor tide is unceasing, disputes are endless. The solution is to call on commander Bai Chongxi to declare an end to the labor tide and a return to work. We are disheartened that the workers have weapons in their hands and we call on him to disarm them and restore order.” 105 Fu Xiaoan, the chair of the gcc, who had refused to give Chiang Kai-shek any financial support, endorsed the proposal. In the end, however, moderate counsels prevailed and it was agreed to meet with the glu.106 On 12 April 1927 the Common Progress Society, an outfit cobbled together by the senior bosses of the Green Gang, launched an assault on the glu pickets in conjunction with the troops of Bai Chongxi.107 Scores were killed that night, and casualties rose rapidly during the following days and

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weeks. By the end of 1927, up to two thousand Communists and labor activists had been slaughtered. Considering that Communists had come out publicly against Chiang Kai-shek only recently, the response to their call for a protest strike was impressive. Despite the wave of terror, some estimated that as many as two hundred-forty thousand workers heeded the glu’s call to halt work on Wednesday, 13 April.108 Most strikers apparently understood that the strike was to defend the glu and the pickets against Chiang Kai-shek, but some were confused about the role of the army.109 In Xiaoshadu and Zhabei it was reported that strikers were still positively disposed to the army as well as to the Green Gang.110 Fu Xiaoan, chair of the gcc, came out immediately in support of the coup, but Yu Xiaqing wavered a few days before committing himself to Chiang Kai-shek.111 The Commercial Association rallied to Chiang because it felt he offered them the best chance of a return to economic and political normality, rather than because they saw in him a savior from insurgent labor. Of course, there was a palpable dimension of class anxiety in this calculation, but members of the association saw order as desirable for nationalist as much as for class reasons. This alone can explain why they were willing to give loans to and to buy military bonds from Chiang Kai-shek; that is, to participate in schemes that were of dubious value or even harmful to their commercial interests. A replacement for the glu was waiting in the wings. On 2 April veteran anti-Communist labor leaders, including Tong Lizhang, leader of the Worker-Merchant Friendly Society, and Ma Chaojun, set up the Federated Association of Labor Unions (Shanghai gonghui lianhe zonghui) in anticipation of the forthcoming liquidation of the glu. Its aim was to “unite the working class, imbuing it with the Three People’s Principles, and to defend its welfare.” 112 It condemned the glu, saying that the organization had fallen under the control of a handful of Communists who coerced the workers; that it led strikes that caused unemployment; that it condemned its members to poverty and death; and that its pickets oppressed the workers.113 Following the coup, the association took over the headquarters of the glu at the Huzhou guild on 13 April. An official statement declared: “The policy of the government is to conduct labor work in harmony with the revolutionary army and government, but when labor leaders become a disturbing element, when they arrogate to themselves tasks that are detrimental to the movement and disruptive of law and order, labor must be disciplined.114 In the event, the political bureau of the eastern route army was not enamored of the Federated Association of Labor Unions and

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quickly decided that a full-scale reorganization of the labor movement was necessary. On 16 April the association was replaced by a Labor Union Unification Committee (Gonghui zuzhi tongyi weiyuanhui), whose thirteen members, led by Chen Qun, were dominated by Green Gang elements and members of Bai Chongxi’s Guangxi clique.115 Its manifesto said that its aims were “to guide and educate Chinese workers so that they may become good citizens and true servants of the Republic; to settle disputes among workers; to work for the improvement of workers’ living conditions and to suppress disorders instigated by unscrupulous characters, Communists and counter-revolutionaries.” 116 It stated that Communism was not feasible in China because there was no substantial modern industry to socialize. And, in a conscious parody of Lenin, it dubbed Communism “an acute infantile disorder,” saying that the absence of the necessary material conditions meant that Communists resorted to terror to realize their ends.117 It thus reprised that alternative configuration of nation and class that had been put into circulation by the Federation of Syndicates in 1924, which argued that all classes in China had a common interest in working together for the benefit of the nation and abhorred the divisive message of class struggle propounded by the Communists. The anti-Communist message was put out in visual as well as written propaganda. One poster showed a wild-eyed runt in seven-league boots [based on a fairytale in which the boot-wearer can take a seven-league stride]—“a Communist”— cutting down a bust of Sun Yat-sen. Another showed members of the public kowtowing to a Communist jackboot. And another showed two men fighting over the gmd flag and accused the Communists of “advertising for the sale of dog’s meat under the sign of a sheep’s head.” 118 There was, undoubtedly, a constituency of workers to whom this conservative vision of the nation appealed. But it is worth stressing here the extent to which a class-inflected nationalism persisted long after the crushing of the glu and the bloody rupture of the first united front. On 15 June 1927 members of the Labor Union Unification Committee told the Commercial Association that whenever they proposed arbitration in an industrial dispute, “the workers often say that we are a tool of the capitalists.” 119 As late as 1929, the Shanghai Bureau of Social Affairs complained that the Communists had “taught the workers the necessity of class struggle and the position of the employer as their natural enemy. These influences cannot be entirely obliterated from their mind.” 120 That ideas of class antagonism continued to be fairly widespread even in the 1930s is suggested by a vol-

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ume of autobiographical accounts, published in 1939, in which workers talked about their lives. Typical is a comment by A Liang, a worker in a silk-weaving factory, that “under this unjust system, we the poor laboring masses are one great tool for capitalist exploitation.” 121 Similarly, Jin Wei, a woman who worked in a lightbulb factory, wrote: “China’s fledgling light industry, although it is always chasing after the latest imperialist models without ever catching up, has nevertheless learnt well the most advanced ‘magic weapons’ which capitalists use to exploit workers.” 122 These accounts do not, of course, necessarily reflect the average workers’ view of life, but they suggest that notions such as “capitalist” and “exploitation”— even when used of Chinese employers—were not eliminated from the labor discourse with the elimination of the glu. In fact, the glu collapsed as a result of the 12 April coup, but was not entirely eliminated. Between the end of March and the end of April 1927, the number of affiliated unions fell from 502 to 319, but the fall in membership was more drastic—from 821,282 to 287,500.123 This was still a substantial figure, however, and in certain sectors, such as the Commercial Press union, the postal union, and the textile mills, the glu was able to retain a significant, if damaged, base. It was in these sectors that reformist gmd unions later took off.124 Levels of unionization remained quite high into 1928. In late 1927, 14,793 dockers were members of the union compared with 11,035 who were not; and in twenty cotton mills, 6,337 men were members of the union compared to 204 who were not; 17,646 women were members of the union compared to 2,148 who were not; and 1,706 youngsters were members compared to 112 who were not.125 Nor did the 12 April coup bring an end to strike militancy. Between 14 April and 31 December 1927, the gmd reckoned that there were ninety-six strikes in Shanghai involving 141,500 workers.126 This caused the International Settlement police in December 1927 to comment that “there is no doubt that the strength of the ccp has increased considerably in recent months.” 127 Nevertheless although the “red unions” struggled on into the 1930s, April 1927 marked the end of their glory days.


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CONC LUSION

This book has charted the ways in which the discourse of nationalism was disseminated among the workers of Shanghai. This discourse, conceived around 1895 in response to China’s defeat by Japan, was initially the creation of a narrow elite struggling to make sense of the disturbing world of competing nation-states in which China found herself. Although divided politically between constitutionalists and revolutionaries, these early nationalists agreed that China had to establish a polity that would represent and belong to the “Chinese nation.” From the first, different renditions of national identity and different visions of the nation circulated and, to some degree, competed with one another within nationalist discourse; and over the thirty-year period covered in this volume the character of the discourse changed significantly. The change in discourse has been characterized as one of transition from what Joseph Levenson called “culturalism” to nationalism. James Townsend and others have criticized this formulation on the grounds that the culturalist idiom was never hegemonic among the populace at large, for whom an ethnically defined idiom of protonational identity was always more influential.1 It was the latter idiom that nationalists utilized during the final decade of the Qing dynasty to construct a vision of the nation that linked the “people” to their “ancestral line” (minzu), playing on customary idioms of family and lineage, but they relocated it within a new intellectual framework of racial competition and evolutionary hierarchy.2 Anti-Manchuism disappeared as the dominant form of nationalist politics with the overthrow of the dynasty in 1911, but the ethnic idiom of national identity proved to be remarkably robust in ensuing years. This is evident, for example, in the spontaneity with which workers addressed each other as compatriots (tongbao) or in the popularity of racist iconography. Following the stillbirth of the republic, however, many turned to a more civic rendition of national identity, often under the influence of socialism or anarchism, which envisaged the people integrated

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into the nation through citizenship. Nationalist ideologues searched for ways to bring about national salvation by tapping the latent potential of the “people.” This civic idiom reached its maximum influence during the May Fourth Movement, when a demotic conception of the nation, grounded in popular sovereignty, became entrenched, with nationalists tying the fate of the nation to the “people’s will,” the “people’s rights,” and the “politics of the common people” (pingmin zhuyi). One consequence of this demotic orientation was that in 1919 the nationalist movement ceased to be an elite movement, expanding to embrace students, merchants, small traders, and workers. The triple stoppage—a tactic that would be used again in 1925 and 1927—testified to the emergence in Shanghai of nationalism as a mass movement. With the May Thirtieth Movement the ethnic and civic idioms of national identity were overlaid by a new idiom of class-inflected antiimperialism. Following the establishment of the united front between the ccp and the gmd in 1923, Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles were reworked along Leninist lines, with nationalism being redefined as the struggle against imperialism by the broad layers of peasants, workers, intellectuals, and the commercial-industrial strata. The term “imperialism,” which had figured in nationalist discourse since the turn of the century, was now reconfigured in economic rather than social Darwinist terms. Moreover, the overthrow of imperialism was now seen as the panacea that would cure all of China’s ills. In this idiom the Chinese nation was cast in the role of the victim of imperialism, whose liberation would come about through the struggles of her workers and peasants. As retailed by the ccp, anti-imperialist nationalism tended to downplay the importance of warlordism, seeing it as an epiphenomenon of imperialism. This led the party to underestimate the strength of popular antipathy to the warlords, which welled up in Shanghai after the Zhejiang-Jiangsu war of 1924, as some within the ccp were forced to recognize. According to a Brief History, written on the eve of the Northern Expedition, of the party’s two slogans “‘down with militarism!’ was understood and adopted with greater speed because it strikes at an oppressive burden borne directly by the masses. . . . It was a great deal more difficult for the masses to understand, let alone accept, the slogan ‘Down with imperialism!’” 3 Nevertheless in Shanghai the mass mobilization set in motion by the May Thirtieth Movement did succeed in popularizing anti-imperialism, even though the climax of the national revolution in spring 1927 saw workers mobilized principally in sup-

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Conclusion 259

port of the National Revolutionary Army, the symbol of China resurgent, rather than against the foreign powers. If the transition in nationalist discourse may be represented schematically in terms of a shift from an ethnic to a civic to an anti-imperialist idiom, the operation of that discourse in practice was far more complex. Not only did the anti-imperialist idiom continue to compete between 1925 and 1927 with an ethnic vision of the nation, but it also could be appropriated in more or less ethnic, more or less civic ways. Moreover, if this idiom presupposed a centralist conception of the nation, consolidated under the aegis of the party-state, there also existed a decentralized vision of a confederal nation-state, especially popular among the native-place labor organizations in the city. The triumph of the National Revolutionary Army in 1927 marginalized this vision, but never eliminated it, and it was to resurface in the People’s Republic of China toward the end of the twentieth century.4 Similarly, the schematic representation of a three-stage transition in nationalist discourse fails to capture the fact that at different stages the political focus of the movement oscillated between a concern with domestic problems (an alien dynasty, national traitors, warlords) and a concern with the foreign threat (U.S. discrimination against Chinese immigrants, “national humiliation” by the Japanese, imperialism as the root of all evil). Yet this distinction between internal and external threats is itself overly schematic. The May Fourth Movement, for example, was ostensibly directed against Japan’s forward policy and the duplicity of the western Allies, yet the “other” against which the nation defined itself was the “national traitors” in Beijing. Conversely, in spring 1927 the people of Shanghai were stirred by the prospect of national reunification and exultant at the success of the National Revolutionary Army, yet their desire to see the city rid of the International Settlement and the French Concession simmered beneath the surface. The repertoire of techniques used by literate elites to propagate the nationalist message among the common people remained broadly consistent across the period. Fundamental in communicating with a largely illiterate populace was the spoken word, with speaker teams, public fund-raising teams, street-theater groups, slogans, and songs being vital in taking the message of the day to the workers and traders of the city. Vital, too, were visual media, such as cartoons and posters. The importance of the written word, in the form of handbills, leaflets, banners, inscriptions, and flags, was considerable, not least because it allowed for the fixing of meaning in a way

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that was not possible with the spoken word or visual image. Much propaganda reworked protonational idioms, rejigging legends about historical figures, battles, and locales for new political ends. Up to and during 1919, the rhetoric of national extinction was widely utilized to dramatize fears that patriotism was waning, that military ardor was ebbing away and that China’s statesmen were corrupt and selfish. But nationalist propaganda introduced many novel themes, including ideas of citizenship, “national humiliation,” and anti-imperialism, as well as the notion that it was the object of government to reflect the “people’s will.” Propaganda by itself could only do so much. It was, above all, participation in collective action that did the most to firm up national identity among the workers and traders of Shanghai, whether this took the form of supporting a boycott, going on strike, taking to the streets in a demonstration, or attending a funeral service for a revolutionary martyr. With the May Thirtieth Movement, techniques of propaganda began to modernize, as advertising, newsreel film, and gramophone records became more widespread. The fact that popular national identity was overwhelmingly the creation of the spoken word, the simple text, and the striking visual image, suggests that “print capitalism” was not as crucial to the development of popular nationalism as has been supposed. 1927 is an appropriate point at which to halt the account, since by that date Shanghai conforms to David Strand’s observation that “by the end of the twenties, a substantial proportion of city people in China had reached a level of political consciousness commensurate with their formal status as citizens of a republic . . . and were poised for eventual integration into nationwide systems.” 5 The strike by four hundred thousand workers in February 1927 in support of the National Revolutionary Army was particularly notable testimony to the fact that a majority now saw themselves as participants in the historic struggle to liberate China from warlordism and imperialism and create a polity that would uphold their interests. At the same time, one should not infer from Strand’s formulation that the process of constructing national identity had reached completion. In the ensuing decade up to the outbreak of war with Japan, the process continued to expand as tens of thousands of migrants entered Shanghai each year, and also to mutate as “awoken” patriots came to terms with the reality of a nationalist government. Nevertheless, in an important sense 1927 did mark the end of an era, for this was the moment when the influence of classinflected anti-imperialist nationalism temporarily peaked. Under Chiang

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Kai-shek’s regime class conflict was vigorously discouraged and anti-imperialism faded as a theme in nationalist discourse, even though it was never repudiated.6 With the outbreak of the war in 1937, anti-imperialist nationalism erupted once again, but not in quite the same form as in the 1920s. The discourse of Yan’an was altogether more isolationist and inwardlooking than its 1920s prototype and was more centered on the northern peasants, whose frugality and self-sacrifice were contrasted to the cosmopolitanism and commercialism of urban, littoral China.7 In this period, moreover, the ccp explicitly recuperated elements of the ethnic idiom of national identity, integrating them into its class-marked anti-imperialism.8 Nevertheless if nationalist discourse continued to evolve after 1927, by that date the constituent elements of Chinese nationalism were in place for the rest of the twentieth century.9 It was largely through the discourse of nationalism that workers were empowered to defend their interests as workers. Within this modulating discourse, they were variously positioned as creators of the nation’s wealth, as the key to its economic modernization, as repositories of the people’s will, and as selfless fighters against imperialism. Moreover, in spite of its intrinsically unitarian nature, nationalist discourse, through its recourse to a representation of the nation as an ensemble of distinct jie, allowed for the limited articulation of class interest. As early as 1903, the issue of the relationship of the “workers’ section of society” to the nation was posed, and during the anti-American boycott particular attention was paid to the plight of labor. The involvement of workers in the 1905 boycott and the 1911 Revolution, however, was limited. Only with the founding of the republic did the figure of the worker enter decisively into nationalist discourse. Radical intellectuals highlighted the poverty and oppression of workers, but interpellated them as members of the Chinese nation rather than of a working class, urging them to organize in order to make their distinctive contribution to nation-building. Workers were exhorted to take advantage of the new rights of association offered by the republic so that they could assist in China’s industrial development. Labor organization, however, was advocated precisely in order to discourage rather than encourage class conflict; for while many nationalists now espoused a form of state socialism, they continued to uphold the traditional norm of social harmony. The deteriorating economic situation in the years following the inauguration of the republic brought more and more workers into conflict with their employers, and in the process identification with the new cate-

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gory of “workers’ section of society” was strengthened. Only with the May Fourth Movement, as workers insisted that they too had a conscience, did radical students and intellectuals become aware of the potentiality of the strike as a weapon in the nationalist arsenal. Up to the mid-1920s nationalist discourse tended to blame the country’s weakness on her rulers or on the “slave mentality” of the Chinese people themselves. One of the paradoxes of anti-imperialist nationalism was that although it cast China in the role of victim of the foreign powers, it empowered workers to act in her defense by representing their struggle to improve their condition as workers as the backbone of the larger struggle against imperialism. The May Thirtieth Movement thus saw workers move from the margin to the center of the nationalist movement for the next two years, in a way that they would never do again. The explosion of mass labor unions introduced a dynamic element into the national revolution and hugely strengthened a rendition of national identity that aligned the fate of the nation with the struggles of its workers and peasants. The Shanghai General Labor Union convinced tens of thousands of workers that through organization and militant defense of their class interests they could rid China of the imperialists and their “running dogs.” By standing up to the British and Japanese in the punishing three-month strike of the summer of 1925, workers upheld the nation’s “face” and demanded that foreign companies treat them with respect. Yet within the anti-imperialist rendition of nationalism, there were potent differences in the way the gmd and ccp conjoined the themes of nation and class. Anxious above all that China should avoid the social tensions that had accompanied capitalist development in the West, the gmd construed the nation in a broad, inclusive fashion, perceiving the “oppressing classes” as a small minority defined in largely political terms. For the more conservative elements in the party, the drive to reunify the country militarily and politically took clear precedence over the struggle against imperialism and the struggle of workers and peasants to improve their living standards (minsheng). For the gmd left-wingers, revolutionary mobilization of the masses was imperative if imperialism and warlordism were to be eradicated and minsheng realized, but they too repudiated class warfare. To judge by their response to calls in March 1927 for a grand alliance of workers, peasants, soldiers, merchants, and students united in the common struggle for liberty and happiness, Shanghai workers welcomed the gmd’s appeal to national unity. Yet this was also the moment when industrial conflict in the city reached its apogee, as workers

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clashed with Chinese as well as foreign employers, as the armed pickets of the glu displayed unprecedented assertiveness, and as show trials of “running dogs” were staged. In other words, as the national revolution reached its zenith the contradictory pressures to social unity and class conflict became unsustainable. Moreover, the language of jie, which continued to be the most widely used way of categorizing the social world, proved ultimately to be more compatible with the gmd’s corporatist vision of society than with the Communists’ dichotomous one. National identity never displaced the particularistic social identities that were so firmly entrenched among Shanghai’s workers. Given this, one might expect such identities, structured according to the hierarchical and patriarchal principles of family and lineage, to have impeded identification with the nation, because national identity, like class identity, presupposes an understanding of the social group as a set of equivalent persons. Yet this did not happen. Particularistic attachments to native place, occupation, foremen or forewomen, or secret-society bosses generally served to reinforce rather than undermine emergent national identity. Native-place sentiment, for example, as an embryonic form of ethnicity, had a potential to fracture the unity of the Han people, but it never seriously jeopardized the national project. For workers, as for the merchants and professionals studied by Bryna Goodman, native-place loyalties fed into the growth of national sentiment, becoming constituted as the local form of a centralized national identity.10 This contrasts with India where the growth of the nationalist movement served to exacerbate communal, regional, caste, and class tensions.11 In China, in spite of the scourge of warlordism, regionalism never threatened national reunification to a serious extent, a reflection perhaps of the nation’s much longer history of political and administrative unity and her relatively greater cultural unity compared with that of India or Indonesia.12 Grounded as they were in an understanding of the group as a web of relationships or a hierarchy of positions, particularistic social identities proved to be far more of an obstacle to the construction of class identity, not least because the principles of difference they embodied served as a basis for social closure, as ways of defending access to jobs or tenuous privileges against fellow workers. Native-place networks, for example, set up vertical divisions within trades that militated against the development of that horizontal solidarity presupposed by a labor movement. However, this did not mean, as Elizabeth Perry has shown, that collective action could

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not be generated out of parochial solidarities where groups of workers considered it in their common interest to unite against a third party. One of the most striking hallmarks of this period of Shanghai’s history is the steadily rising “strike tide,” and in many stoppages workers displayed impressive organizational capacity and determination. Yet as the product of a tenuous coalition of interests, such “class” action could easily fracture under stress, with nascent class identity soon dissolving into the more securely established identities of craft or native place.13 Much labor protest, moreover, was initiated not by workers themselves but by patrons such as foremen and labor contractors. This study, in contrast to several recent commentaries, highlights the double-edged nature of this relationship. If foremen and labor contractors acted as patrons by providing workers with jobs and a modicum of protection, they also served as their exploiters, so that there was plenty of scope for conflict between them. Even in Japaneseowned cotton mills, for example, where disputes overwhelmingly pitted Chinese workers against Japanese foremen, workers would occasionally turn against a Chinese supervisor.14 The ambivalence of the relationship between foremen and workers was further underlined during the May Fourth Movement when workers went on strike sometimes at the behest of foremen and secret-society bosses, sometimes in spite of their exhortations to continue to work normally. Particularistic identities, then, proved to be a severe headache to labor organizers, but their significance should not be absolutized. A comparative perspective suggests that although social divisions in the Shanghai labor force were deeper than those among the workers of Tokyo, they were never as deep as those between Hindu and Muslim, or Hindi and Bengali speakers, in the jute mills of Calcutta.15 There was nothing in Shanghai comparable to the way in which the massive strike by textile workers in Bombay between April and October 1928 gave way to ferocious bloodletting against the Pathans who had broken the strike.16 If the salience of particularist identities were to be lessened, a discourse of class, backed by organizations to promote it, was necessary so that workers would come to identify with and value their role as workers. Such a discourse was molded during the first decade of the republic by Labor Party members, anarchists, and members of the gmd—several years before the foundation of the ccp in August 1920. This was a hybrid discourse that, in addition to importing the organization, tactics, and language of western labor movements into China, drew on elements in popular culture, such as

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guild-based ideas of ganqing and the morality of the trade or the representation of the rich as robbers and tricksters. The discourse was one stream within the larger New Culture Movement, and it drew also on elements of that movement’s critique of Confucianism, challenging, for instance, the low status ascribed traditionally to manual work by promoting new conceptions of dignity and the sacredness of labor. However, given the profound divisions in the labor force, it seems unlikely that this discourse would have gained much ground beyond the small layers of skilled, educated male workers had it not been harnessed to nationalism. The genius of the anti-imperialist idiom of national identity was that it incorporated elements of the discourse of class in order to represent the sufferings of workers as metonymic of those of semicolonial China and to promote the militant working class as a model for the nation as a whole. It not only legitimized participation in strikes by linking work-related demands to the defense of the nation, it also sensitized workers to the fact that they were people, not “cattle and horses,” thereby allowing their expectations in the workplace and in society to soar. This was true for workers in Chinese as well as foreign firms, because the definition of the nation as one rooted in the laboring people legitimized claims for higher wages and better treatment regardless of the nationality of one’s employer. If Shanghai’s workers were mobilized at the height of the national revolution, they were never truly organized.17 The glu carried out a hugely successful unionization drive, yet its unions were weak and vulnerable. Of course, the mass labor movement was too short-lived a phenomenon to predict confidently how it might have developed had it not been for the 12 April coup. Because unions were regularly suppressed by the foreign and Chinese authorities prior to March 1927, most had been in existence for only a few weeks when they were crushed by Chiang Kai-shek. Generally, it seems fair to conclude that although workers displayed considerable flair for short-term collective action, they had little aptitude for sustained, long-term organization. This was true even in a sector such as cotton, which maintained a substantial union presence from 1925 to 1927 in spite of police repression and a series of doomed strikes. Activists in the glu were never able to gain a secure hold over the unions because this necessitated challenging their members’ loyalties to foremen, secret-society bosses, native-place networks, and guilds. Workers were ready to join unions, not least as a sign of identification with the national revolution, but they continued to look to secret societies for protection—indeed there

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were far more workers in the secret societies at the end of the period examined than at the beginning—and many viewed unions as little different from the societies, expecting protection in return for loyalty. From late 1926 to March 1927, the glu went on the offensive against secret-society bosses, and this was a key cause of the 12 April coup. Jean Chesneaux has suggested that with the rise of the glu the anticlass-struggle reformism of the Shanghai Federation of Syndicates went into decline.18 Certainly, the federation lost its bitter battle with the glu during the May Thirtieth Movement, yet its brand of laborism retained support in some quarters and was to revive after April 1927. The glu made few inroads among such groups as mechanics, the women at the Nikko mills, or women in the silk filatures, and it is tempting to seek a sociological explanation for this. The fact that the mechanics’ union, for example, turned toward the semisyndicalist national mechanics union in Guangzhou may be connected to the fact that they were among the best-paid workers in Shanghai, that many worked in artisanal settings, and that many were Cantonese and thus drawn toward the southern government. Nevertheless it is doubtful that one can generalize to the point of saying, as does Elizabeth Perry, that “different workers engage in different politics.” She suggests that social networks, such as sisterhoods, brotherhoods, mutual aid societies, guilds, and gangs, aligned groups of workers with rival political tendencies.19 She posits “an affinity of the guild-based Jiangnan artisan for the Communists [and] of the gang-based North China machine operator for the Guomindang.” But this was an affinity of only the loosest kind, since in practice the political orientation of different types of worker was remarkably labile. Cotton workers, for example, who in Perry’s typology are “North China proletarians”—fundamentally apolitical but capable of defensive militancy—were at the heart of the labor movement from 1925 to 1927 and formed the bulk of the ccp’s membership, although—and this is where her accent on social composition is crucial—it was the male minority of cotton workers, rather than the female majority, who were most active.20 Yet during the strikes of late 1927 to 1931, these same cotton workers were relatively quiescent.21 Factors such as skill and gender—and work culture more generally—shaped predispositions toward politics, but political orientations of different groups of workers were rarely fixed or monolithic. This study suggests that politics was essentially a contingent process of mobilization rather than one rooted in the social, and that labor politics are best understood as the result of competing political forces,

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overdetermined by the wider conjuncture. At a day-to-day level the Hubei docker in Pudong, the Subei mill woman in Xiaoshadu, or the Cantonese artisan in Hongkou had little in common. Yet when mobilized politically on the terrain of the nation, they could be constituted by the rhetoric of anti-imperialism as oppressed workers and oppressed Chinese. Through such ideological positioning they were inspired to save the nation and to struggle to better their lot as workers. Up to 1919 there were few signs that the dynamics of disputes in Chinese and foreign firms were essentially different, but this ceased to be true thereafter. Even if one leaves aside the political strikes associated with the May Fourth and May Thirtieth movements, which deliberately targeted foreign firms, workers in foreign enterprises were more likely to strike during the 1920s than were their counterparts in Chinese enterprises. There was, of course, no shortage of unrest in Chinese firms. What was missing from industrial relations in the Chinese sector was an entrenched sense among broad layers of workers that the interests of labor and capital were structurally opposed. Outbursts of antagonism toward Chinese employers, although sometimes spectacular, were passing moods rather than expressions of a deeper perception of the social order as indelibly riven by class division. Indeed, to judge from the way that the ccp fine-tuned its propaganda, the animosity of “backward” workers may have been more easily aroused by “running dogs” and “labor brigands”—usually traitors within the workers’ own ranks—than by the behavior of capitalists as such. Workers’ attitudes were ambivalent: on the one hand, they were ready to do battle with a particular employer; on the other, they felt little animus toward Chinese capital in general. This is partly explained by the fact that within the native sector, norms of social harmony, stability, and loyalty competed with appeals to collectivism, combativity, and class antagonism. More crucially, it is explained by the fact that class conflict was overdetermined by the struggle for national liberation, with the best example being the May Thirtieth Movement when the gcc coordinated the financing of the general strike. This dramatic, although essentially unique, expression of support for workers helped to sustain the view that workers and employers shared a common interest in ridding the country of foreign imperialism, and that class differences were essentially secondary. Nevertheless class did prove to be the significant fault line around which competing conceptions of the nation crystallized.22 Class could not be smoothed away, as many in the gmd wished, but neither could it be secured as a social and

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political identity as the Communists hoped. That class interest could threaten the coalition fighting for national salvation had been evident as early as 1905, when merchants’ enthusiasm for the boycott quickly cooled once it began to hit their pockets. The May Thirtieth Movement bolstered the idea that workers and capitalists had a common interest in defeating the foreigners who were impairing China’s sovereignty and plundering her resources, but it also opened the eyes of businessmen to the fact that they would have to mobilize politically if militant labor were to be prevented from high-jacking the national revolution. In the last analysis, however, class did not become the central core around which worker identities jelled. Elements of class lodged themselves in the consciousness of large numbers, but at a relatively superficial level; while at a deeper level, traditional norms persisted. The identification with class was largely conjunctural—something generated in the heat of revolutionary struggle—rather than a reflection of long-term shifts in consciousness corresponding to structural transformations of the socioeconomic order. The discursive link between national and class identities was forged, above all, around the issue of humane treatment. Workers’ refusal to be treated “like cattle and horses” derived from a new but powerfully felt sense of dignity, albeit one that resonated with traditional notions of “face.” Humane treatment was an especially acute issue in foreign enterprises, where the system of management was seen to be a microcosm of imperialist power; but in Chinese-owned enterprises, too, more stringent criteria of what was acceptable treatment were brought to bear after 1925. In recent years certain social theorists, building on insights from Hegel and Weber, have been concerned with issues of treatment, criticizing theories of oppression and emancipation that focus narrowly on economic inequality. Nancy Fraser, for instance, distinguishes between injustices of distribution and injustices of recognition: “To be misrecognized . . . is not simply to be thought ill of, looked down upon, or devalued in others’ conscious attitudes or mental beliefs. It is rather to be . . . prevented from participating as a peer in social life, not as a consequence of a distributive inequity . . . but as a consequence of institutionalized patterns of interpretation and evaluation that constitute one as comparatively unworthy of respect or esteem.” 23 Writing in a more ethical register, Axel Honneth expands on this, arguing that the denial of recognition hurts people “not simply because it harms subjects or restricts their freedom to act . . . but also because it injures them with regard to the positive understanding of

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themselves that they have acquired inter-subjectively.” 24 The implications of this perspective for understanding identity formation are clear when one recalls that Erik Erikson many years ago argued that it is “value in the eyes of others” that is the crucial determinant of identity.25 Injustices of recognition were at the heart of the national revolution of 1925 –1927. Chinese of all classes united to demand treatment as “people” and “citizens” rather than as “animals” or “slaves.” How else can one explain the fury generated by the sign at the gateway to the public park that supposedly banned “dogs and Chinese”? This was a flagrant affront to the dignity of the Chinese as human beings and was felt as such by all patriots. However, the political implications of such injustices of recognition were not straightforward. Angry determination to rectify the injustice could cement a broad coalition of social interests; yet finding a precise solution to it tended to expose the conflicts of interest immanent within the nationalist movement. In 1928 all parks in Shanghai were opened to Chinese, but at the same time an entrance fee was introduced which, in effect, meant that the lower classes continued to be barred.26 For certain members of the bourgeoisie this was a satisfactory solution to this particular injustice of recognition, but for poor people an ethnically based injustice had merely been replaced by a class-based one. In other words, injustices of recognition could briefly unify the nationalist movement, but they could rarely do so in a permanent way. Arguments over the nature of the misrecognition were always likely to prove divisive. So far as workers were concerned, their struggles continued overwhelmingly to be about issues of distribution. Yet at the height of the national revolution even strikes for wages or shorter hours also took on the aspect of struggles for recognition, especially where they occurred in foreign enterprises, for the discourse of antiimperialist nationalism enabled workers to see their poverty, their exploitation, and their lowly status in political terms, to make a connection between their condition as workers and their condition as members of an oppressed nation. By refusing to be treated “like cattle and horses,” Shanghai’s workers for a brief moment were empowered to fight on their own behalf and on behalf of China, thereby transcending the realities of fragmentation and particularism that otherwise structured their lives.


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NOTES

Note: All translations are mine unless indicated otherwise.

Introduction 1 Honig, Sisters and Strangers; Perry, Shanghai on Strike; Roux, Le Shanghai ouvrier des anneés trente; Roux, Grèves et politique à Shanghai: Les désillusions (1927–1932). 2 Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919 –1927. 3 Although historians in the PRC have paid attention to the role of workers in nationalist protests, they too keep the narratives of the labor movement and the nationalist movement separate. See Shen Yixing, Jiang Peinan, and Zheng Qingsheng, Shanghai gongren yundong shi, vol. 1. For a good introduction in English to PRC writing on the labor movement, see Perry and Wasserstrom, eds., “Shanghai Social Movements.” 4 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism. 5 Gamewell, The Gateway to China, 106 –7. 6 Tongjibiao zhong zhi Shanghai, table 76. 7 Yeh, The Alienated Academy; Wasserstrom, Student Protests in Twentieth-Century China. 8 Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication. 9 Wang, “The 1905 Anti-American Boycott,” 100. 10 Anderson, Imagined Communities. 11 Johnson, Nathan, and Rawski, eds., Popular Culture in Late-Imperial China, x. 12 Jindai Shanghai chengshi yanjiu, 931. 13 Barbara Mittler argues in her forthcoming book that the press had relatively little influence on popular nationalism and that the loosely nationalist newspaper Shenbao took pains to distance itself from the xenophobia and radicalism that it associated with the populace. Mittler, A Newspaper for China?, forthcoming. I am grateful to Dr. Mittler for the loan of her manuscript chapter on nationalism. 14 Tilly, ed., The Formation of National States in Western Europe; Mann, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 2. 15 Breuilly, “Approaches to Nationalism,” 154.

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272 Notes to Pages 1– 8 16 Kuhn, Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China; Duara, Culture, Power, and the State; Wakeman, Policing Shanghai, 1927–1937. 17 Strauss, “The Evolution of Republican Government,” 329 –51. 18 Zhou Guangyuan, “Diguozhuyi ruqin dui jindai Zhongguo jingji fazhan de yingxiang,” 66 –78. 19 Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World, 2. 20 Kedourie, ed., Nationalism in Africa and Asia, 27–28. 21 Fewsmith, Party, State, and Local Elites in Republican China; Bergère, The Golden Age of the Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1917–1937. 22 Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 211–39. 23 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism; Anderson, Imagined Communities; Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780. 24 Smith, National Identity, 14; Smith “Nationalism and the Historians,” 191. 25 Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, 14, 46, 47. 26 Smith, Nationalism and Modernism, 190. 27 Spillman, Nation and Commemoration, 10. 28 Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 216. 29 Duara, “Deconstructing the Chinese Nation,” 44. 30 Verdery, “Whither ‘Nation’ and ‘Nationalism’?” 230. 31 Waldron, From War to Nationalism, 267. Waldron contends that what took place during the national revolution was a process of state building rather than of nation building. Yet the relationship between changes in institutions and changes in identity was more dialectical than this counterposition suggests. New institutions (such as the gmd or the ccp) put into circulation new identities that were, in turn, institutionalized in organizations such as labor unions, federations of street unions, or mass rallies. 32 Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 15. 33 The classic study arguing that the peasants acquired a national identity only after 1937 is Johnson’s Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power. 34 Typifying the elite-centered approach to nationalism is the otherwise admirable volume of Unger, ed., Chinese Nationalism. 35 Goodman, Native Place, City, and Nation; Fitzgerald, Awakening China; Harrison, The Making of the Republican Citizen. 36 Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 21; Swidler, “Culture in Action,” 273 – 86. 37 Comaroff, “Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Politics of Difference in an Age of Revolution,” 250. For a similar view that stresses culture as a field of conflict, see Perry, “Introduction,” 5 – 6. 38 Billig, Banal Nationalism, 8. 39 Ibid., 24. This formulation is not dissimilar from that offered by Dittmer and Kim, “In Search of a Theory of National Identity,” 1–31. It is also close to Brubaker’s conception of the nation as a category of practice rather than a community of consciousness. To think of both nation and class as categories of practice is enlighten-

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Notes to Pages 8 –13 273

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

48

49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

ing, although Brubaker construes these categories in an overly institutional fashion. Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed. Dauenhauer, “Taylor and Ricoeur on the Self,” 211–25. Foweraker, Theorizing Social Movements, 4. Cohen, “Strategy and Identity,” 663 –716. Gamson, “Political Discourse and Collective Action,” 219 –44; Touraine, “An Introduction to the Study of Social Movements,” 749 – 87. Best and Kellner, Postmodern Theory, 26; Schöttler, “Historians and Discourse Analysis,” 37– 65. Eley, “Is All the World a Text?” 218 –21. Mann, The Sources of Social Power, 215; Nairn, The Break-up of Britain, 340. Vogler, The Nation State, xii. In France, where the revolution had set in place a conception of the nation as constituted by the people, socialists presented themselves as its true defenders, against the fake patriotism of the bourgeoisie. Schwarzmantel, “Nationalism and the French Working-Class Movement, 1905 – 14,” 65 – 80. Jeffrey Wasserstrom and Sin-kiong Wong have written a pioneering essay on the use of animal imagery in the political culture of modern China mainly with respect to its use as a weapon to dehumanize opponents, although they also make some astute observations about its use as a weapon to condemn the treatment of the weak by the powerful. Wasserstrom and Wong, “Taunting the Turtles and Damning the Dogs.” The title was not chosen because the simile is exotic or peculiarly Chinese. For a complaint from 1905 that Russian workers are treated as cattle not as people, see Smith, “Workers against Foremen in St. Petersburg, 1905 –17,” 120; for a complaint from 1904 that the Mexican worker is not considered a “rational being but a beast of burden,” see Diaz, “The Satiric Penny Press for Workers in Mexico, 1900 –1910,” 508. Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 377, 386. Shaffer, Mao and the Workers; Hershatter, The Workers of Tianjin, 1900 – 49; Strand, Rickshaw Beijing; Chan, “Labor and Empire.” Honig, Sisters and Strangers, 246. Ibid., 8, 248 –49. Perry, Shanghai on Strike. Roux, Le Shanghai ouvrier, 301. Ibid., 248. Gail Hershatter also stresses the situational and transient character of class identity. Hershatter, Workers of Tianjin, 240. In 1932 a survey of 13,953 people in fifteen villages in eight rural districts of Greater Shanghai showed that 16.3 percent of villagers could read (Shanghai shi tongji, part 10, 5). A survey of workers in a Japanese-owned cotton mill showed that 40 percent of men could read their name, but only half of them could write it. Among women only 15 percent could read their name and a mere 3 percent

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274 Notes to Pages 13 –18 could write it (Diyici Zhongguo laodong nianjian, part 1, 385). A survey of 230 cotton-worker families in 1927–1928 showed that 58 percent of males and 98 percent of females had never been to school, and that only 15.3 percent of boys and 2 percent of girls were actually attending school at the time of the survey (Yang and Tao, A Study of the Standard of Living of Working Families in Shanghai, 71–72). There were trades such as printing or engineering where the literacy rate was much higher: almost 90 percent of the 4,000 workers at the Commercial Press in late 1920s were literate, the exception being some women in the bindery and unskilled male laborers (Shanghai shangwu yinshuguan zhigong yundongshi, 16; Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye yu Shanghai zhigong, 107). 58 The occasion is recounted in Bao’s “Blue Blood Curtain” (Bixue mo), discussed in Wang, “The 1905 Anti-American Boycott,” 157. 59 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 150 –51.

1

Traditional Social Networks and Identities

1 Zou Yiren, Jiu Shanghai bianqian de yanjiu, 90. 2 Ibid., 90 –91. A more widely cited figure for the population of all areas in 1910 was 1,185,859. See Wang Jingyu, ed., Zhongguo jindai jingji shi cankao ziliao congkan, 1173; Tongjibiao zhong zhi Shanghai, table 29. 3 Zou Yiren, Jiu Shanghai, 90 –91; Tongjibiao zhong zhi Shanghai, table 29, gives a figure of 3,112,250 for the population in 1930. 4 Zou Yiren, Jiu Shanghai, 45. This percentage, however, was subject to fluctuation. 5 Ibid., 112. For a general discussion of Shanghai as a city of sojourners, see Wakeman and Yeh, eds., Shanghai Sojourners. 6 North China Herald (hereafter given as NCH ), 12 Dec. 1925, 490. 7 Myers, The Chinese Economy, 173 – 82. 8 Kostiaeva, Narodnye dvizheniia v Kitae v 1901–1911 gg., 21. 9 Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, vol. 9, 107. 10 Fang, “Shanghai Labor,” 870. 11 Rowe, “Modern Chinese Social History in Comparative Perspective,” 247. 12 Nepomnin, Ekonomicheskaia istoriia Kitaia, 1864 –94, 58; Hong Anqi and He Bufeng, Zhongguo gongren yundong jianshi, 20 –21. 13 Chen Baoliang, Zhongguo liumang shi, 1–40; Wakeman, Policing Shanghai, 86 – 89. 14 Sun Yutang, ed., Zhongguo jindai jingji shi cankao ziliao congkan, 1200 –1. 15 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1184 – 85, 1190. 16 Li Cishan, “Shanghai laodong zhuangkuang,” 1– 83. Almost two-thirds of factory workers were said to be in enterprises of five hundred or more workers. Shen Yixing, Gongyun shi ming-bian lu, 61. 17 Shanghai shi tongji, Laodong, Table 1. In fact, these data do not include some foreign factories, and it was not until 1929 that the Factory Act defined a “factory”

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18 19 20 21

22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35

36 37 38

as an enterprise employing no fewer than thirty people and having power-driven machinery. Diyici Zhongguo laodong nianjian, part 2, 70; Feetham, Report to the Shanghai Municipal Council, vol. 1, 267. Diyici Zhongguo laodong nianjian, part 2, 70. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, eds., Shanghai gongyun zhi, 89. A recent source estimates there were 560,000 workers in Shanghai in 1927. See Zhongguo gongchandang Shanghai shi zuzhishi ziliao, 1920.8 –1987.10, 34; Diyici laodong nianjian, part 1, 626; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong wenti, 89. Roux, “Le mouvement ouvrier à Shanghai de 1928 à 1930,” 11, 45. A 1936 survey suggested that the total number of workers and employees was no less than 1,117,000, of whom 464,000 were in industry, 209,000 in handicrafts, 140,000 were coolies, 262,000 were in commerce and banking, and 42,000 were professionals in science, medicine, education, et cetera. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 82. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1181. Shanghai shi tongji, Laodong, table 1. Shanghai zhi gongye, appendix; Quanguo gongren shenghuo ji gongye shengchan diaocha tongji baogao shu, vol. 1, 2. “Strikes in Shanghai,” 343 –47; Chang, “Chinese Cotton Mills in Shanghai,” 907. “Shanghai Silk Filatures,” 597. Roux, “Le mouvement ouvrier,” 178. The only global data on skill are from 1946, when a survey of 92,971 workers in forty different trades showed that 29.9 percent were skilled, 40.7 percent semiskilled, 27.7 percent unskilled, and 1.7 percent apprenticed. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 87. Roux, “Le mouvement ouvrier,” 46. Wang Jingyu and Nie Baozhang, “Guanyu Zhongguo diyi chanye gongren de douzheng ziliao,” 43 –51; Sun Yutang, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1224. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laodong wenti, 13. China Year Book, 1925, 544. For a trenchant analysis of the position of these craftsmen, see Perry, Shanghai on Strike, ch. 2. For an illuminating account of the social meaning of native-place ties, see Goodman, Native Place, 4 –46. For an interpretation that lays more emphasis on the practical value of native-place ties, see Naquin and Rawski, Chinese Society in the Eighteenth Century, 48 –50. Wang Jingyu, ed., Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1267. See the remarks by Zhang Zhidong in 1895 in Sun Yutang, ed., Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1217. Honig, “Migrant Culture in Shanghai,” 239 – 65. Wakeman and Yeh, “Introduction,” 5; Goodman, Native Place, 5.

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276 Notes to Pages 20 –24 39 Yang and Tao, A Study of the Standard of Living of Working Families in Shanghai, 26. 40 King, “Kuan-hsi and Network Building,” 69 –70. 41 Jacobs, “A Preliminary Model of Particularistic Ties in Chinese Political Alliances,” 257. 42 The tongxianghui, which I translate as “native-place organizations,” were less socially exclusive than the huiguan, which I translate as “regional guilds.” 43 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, chs. 2 and 3. 44 Compare the role of the sardar, or jobber, who controlled access to jobs in the jute mills of Calcutta on the basis of caste, kinship, and region. Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History. See also the interesting analysis of the recruitment and disciplinary roles of different types of jobbers in the industries of Bombay. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India, 99 –110. 45 Shanghai shangwu yinshuguan zhigong yundongshi, 15. 46 Shanghai di sanshiyi mianfangzhi chang gongren yundong shi, 19 –20. 47 This was the first piece written on the labor question by Chen Duxiu and was published in the May Day 1920 issue of New Youth. “Shanghai Housheng shachang Hunan nügong wenti,” 453 –550. 48 Mao, “The Unemployment Problem of the Municipality of Greater Shanghai,” 922. 49 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1174. 50 Mao, “The Unemployment Problem,” 907. 51 Liu Mingkui, Zhongguo gongren jieji lishi zhuangkuang, 1840 –1949, vol. 1, 182 – 85. 52 Honig, “Native-Place Hierarchy and Labor Market Segmentation,” 274 –75, 291. This is not, however, to say that there were no women from Subei in skilled jobs. See the breakdown of workers by occupation and region in a Japanese textile mill in Liu Mingkui, Zhongguo gongren, 182 – 83. 53 “Shanghai shi renli chefu shenghuo zhuangkuang diaocha baogao shu,” 105. 54 Shanghai zilaishui gongren yundong shi, 15. 55 Chen Zhen, ed., Zhongguo jindai gongye shi ziliao, vol. 4, 614. 56 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1267. 57 Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, vol. 23, 98. 58 Quan Hansheng, Zhongguo hanghui zhidu shi, 187– 89. 59 Quan Hansheng, “Zhongguo kuli bang zhi shi de kaocha,” 1–3. 60 Sun Yutang, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1235. 61 Shibao, 19 Nov. 1915. 62 Gongchandang, 6, 7 July 1921, 58. 63 Roux, Le Shanghai ouvrier, 39. 64 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 231. 65 Deng Tai, Shenghuo sumiao, 49. 66 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 221. 67 Kenny, “Patterns of Patronage in Spain,” 14 –23; Schmidt et al., eds., Friends, Followers, and Factions. Jacobs points out that the anthropological literature empha-

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68 69

70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

sizes the dyadic character of patron-client relations, whereas in China these relations were used as a way of putting groups together. Jacobs, “A Preliminary Model,” 257. Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, Clients, and Friends, 26. For a penetrating account of the management structure in cotton mills, see Roux, Le Shanghai ouvrier, 56 –57. For a fuller discussion of relations with foremen, see Smith, “Workers and Supervisors,” 131–77. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 221. Yingmei yangongsi zai Hua qiye ziliao huibian, 1117. Rongjia qiye shiliao, vol. 1, 138. This may be an instance of what Pierre Bourdieu calls “collective misrecognition.” In his critique of objectivist accounts of the equivalent exchange inherent in acts of gift giving, he argues that “gift exchange is one of the social games that cannot be played unless the players refuse to acknowledge the objective truth of the game . . . and unless they are prepared to contribute, with their efforts, their marks of care and attention, and their time, to the production of collective misrecognition.” Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice, 105. Nanyang xiongdi yancao gongsi shiliao, 312. Laodongjie, 1, 15 Aug. 1920, 14. Yingmei yangongsi, 1117. Ibid., 1116. Jiangnan zaochuanchang changshi, 1865 –1949.5, 154 –55. Deng Tai, Shenghuo sumiao, 78. Topley, “Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung,” 67– 88. But compare the role of the Buddhist vegetarian sisterhoods in the tax protests in Chuanhua and Nanhui counties—both adjacent to Shanghai—in 1911. Prazniak, Of Camel Kings and Other Things, ch. 6. Honig, Sisters and Strangers, 139. Shanghai fengtu zaji, 53. Fried, Fabric of Chinese Society, 64. Cf. Silber, “From Daughter to Daughter-in-Law in the Women’s Script of Southern Hunan,” 49. Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, Jindai Shanghai hei shehui yanjiu, 120. Honig, Sisters and Strangers, 209 –17. This was always the case where the sisterhoods were formed by prostitutes. See Martin, The Shanghai Green Gang, 42. Shanghai di sanshiyi mianfangzhi chang, 54. Shanghai xuesheng yundong shi, 95; “Zhang Weizhen tongzhi tan Shanghai ‘Wusa’ yundong,” 308. Martin, Green Gang, 9 –18; Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo banghui shi, 257– 64; Li Shiyu, “Qingbang zaoqi zuzhi kaolü,” 29 –50. Martin, Green Gang, 18 –20. Ibid., 24. Faure, “Secret Societies, Heretic Sects, and Peasant Rebellions in Nineteenth Century China,” 202.

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278 Notes to Pages 29 –32 92 Martin, “Warlords and Gangsters,” 60 – 61. 93 Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, Jindai Shanghai, 69; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 201. 94 Jiang Hao, “Hongmen lishi chu tan,” 68 – 86; Wang Yangqing and Xu Yinghu, “Shanghai Qinghongbang gaishu,” 64 – 65. 95 Wang Yangqing and Xu Yinghu, “Shanghai Qinghongbang,” 63. 96 Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo banghui, 392; Jiang Hao, “Hongmen lishi chu,” 81; Xue Gengxin, “Wo jiechuguo de Shanghai banghui renwu,” 87; Jiang Hao, “Qingbang de yuanliu ji yanbian,” 60 – 61. 97 Jiang Hao, “Qingbang de yuanliu ji yanbian,” 61; Wang Yangqing and Xu Yinghu, “Shanghai Qinghongbang,” 64; Lao Shanghai, ming ren, ming shi, ming wu daguan, 100. 98 Wang Delin, “Gu Zhuxuan zai Zhabei faji he kaishe Tianchan wutai,” 357–58; Gu Shuping, “Wo liyong Gu Zhuxian de yanhu jinxing geming huodong,” 360; Xue Gengxin, “Wo jiechuguo,” 95. 99 Cheng Xiwen, “Wo dang Huang Jinrong guanjia de jianwen,” 150 –51. 100 Zhang Tiejun, “Quxiao baogongzhi de zhipiao zenyang duixian,” part 1, 23 –24; Neigang chunqiu, 5. 101 Zhang Tiejun, “Quxiao baogongzhi,” 27–28. Another study of the contract system on the Shanghai docks found that 70 percent to 80 percent of the money paid by companies for loading and unloading of cargoes ended up in the pockets of the contractors, leading the author to conclude that both labor and capital were “exploited” by the system. Zhan Ran, “Zhongguo de baogong zhi,” 14 –17. 102 Liu Hongsheng qiye shiliao, vol. 1, 315; Zhang Tiejun, “Quxiao baogongzhi,” part 1, 27; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 92; Shanghai gangshi hua, 290. 103 Zhang Tiejun, “Quxiao baogongzhi,” part 2, 44. 104 Shanghai fangzhi gongren yundong shi, 59 – 60. 105 Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye yu Shanghai zhigong, 112. 106 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong yundong shi, 77; Shanghai fangzhi gongren, 53. 107 Zhu Xuefan, “Shanghai gongren yundong yu banghui er-san shi,” 1, 4; Cai Shaoqing, “Secret Societies and Labor Organizations in the Early History of the Chinese Communist Party,” 6. 108 Chen Duxiu, “Si lun Shanghai shehui,” 597. 109 Hua Gang, Yijiuerwu nian zhi yijiuerqi nian de Zhongguo da geming shi, 72. 110 Martin, “‘The Pact with the Devil,’” 267. 111 Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, Jindai Shanghai, 22. 112 Martin, “The Pact with the Devil,” 271. 113 Jindai Shanghai chengshi yanjiu, 510 –22. 114 A recent writer casts doubt on the extent to which the occupational guilds monopolized or limited entry to the trade, suggesting that their principal functions were collecting tariffs, providing brokerage services and mutual-aid insurance, and setting quality standards. See Johnson, Shanghai, 144.

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Notes to Pages 32 –37 279 115 Burgess, The Guilds of Peking, 209, 195; Bradstock, “Craft Guilds in Ch’ing Dynasty China,” ch. 1. 116 Morse, The Gilds of China, 17. 117 Negishi Tadashi, Shanhai no girudo, 7–14. 118 Peng Zeyi, “Shijiu shiji houqi zhongguo chengshi shougongye shangye hanghui de chongjian he zuoyong,” 73. 119 Shanghai zhinan, 20 –23. 120 Shibao, 16 May 1918, 19 May 1918. 121 Shibao, 24 Sept. 1918, 30 Sept. 1918. Lynda Cooke Johnson points out that the distinction between those inside the Chinese City, who considered themselves “locals,” and those outside the walls, “outsiders,” was significant as early as the Jiaxing reign. Johnson, Shanghai, 130. 122 Shibao, 29 June 1918. 123 Peng Zeyi, “Shijiu shiji houqi,” 76 –77. 124 Bradstock, “Craft Guilds,” 197; Burgess, Guilds of Peking, 184. 125 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 33; Shishi xinbao, 18 May 1918. 126 Negishi Tadashi, Shanhai, 8. 127 Bradstock, “Craft Guilds,” 217. 128 Laodongjie 14, 14 Nov. 1920, 11. 129 Bradstock, “Craft Guilds,” 73. 130 Shibao, 7 May 1915, 1 Aug. 1915, 20 Aug. 1915. 131 Rowe, Hankow, 54 –55. 132 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 24; Shibao, 6 Oct. 1914, 10 April 1917. 133 Geertz, “The Integrative Revolution,” 105 –57. 134 These observations are influenced by Tertitskii, Kitaitsy; and Wang Ze, “Chuantong wenhua de jiazhi quxiang zhuti jiazhi wenti,” 85 –94. 135 Calhoun, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” 230. 136 Crossley, “Thinking about Ethnicity in Early Modern China,” 15; Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity, 15. 137 Lary, Region and Nation, 18 –19. 138 Duara, Rescuing History from the Nation, ch. 5. 139 Parkin, Marxism and Class Theory. Parkin built on Max Weber’s theory of status groups, understood as communities constituted through forms of “closure” on social intercourse, based on such factors as residence or marriage. Weber did not envisage that status groups could use the labor market to practice social closure, because in his definition it was class, not status, that was defined in respect of the different markets in property, skills, or education. He argued that the plurality of markets could lead to workers occupying different class situations, but he does not appear to have envisaged the rather widespread phenomenon of labor markets segregated by gender, ethnicity, or, as in the case in Shanghai, by region of origin. 140 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 29.

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280 Notes to Pages 38 –40 2

Nationalist and Labor Protest at the End of the Qing Dynasty

1 Chu, “China’s Attitude towards Japan at the Time of the Sino-Japanese War,” 74 –95. 2 Sha Jiansun, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang tongshi, vol. 1, 28. 3 Hevia, “Making China ‘Perfectly Equal,’” 394; Judge, Print and Politics, 58. 4 Furth, “The Sage as Rebel,” 131. This was a kanji term (minzoku; that is, one using Chinese characters) that had been coined by the Japanese to denote the European concept of the nation. Like so many other neologisms imported into China from Japan, the collocation can be found in earlier Chinese thought, in this case in the fifth century a.d. Kriukov et al., Etnicheskaia istoriia, 256. 5 Dikötter, The Discourse of Race in Modern China, 75, 101. 6 Dow, “The Confucian Concept of a Nation and Its Historical Practice,” 350; Levenson, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Mind of Modern China, 109 –22. 7 Duara, “Deconstructing the Chinese Nation,” 36; Townsend, “Chinese Nationalism,” 1–30. Zhongguo is conventionally translated as “Middle Kingdom,” although Michael Ng-Quinn suggests that it meant the “cultural area of the zhong yuan (central plain) in the midst of a greater tianxia (all-under-heaven).” NgQuinn, “National Identity in Premodern China,” 43. 8 Wu, “The Construction of Chinese and Non-Chinese Identities,” 166; Duara, “Deconstructing the Chinese Nation,” 6; Dow, “The Confucian Concept of a Nation,” 353. 9 Kriukov et al., Etnicheskaia istoriia, 257–59. 10 In her study of reform journalism, Joan Judge argues that the line between reformers and revolutionaries was blurred and that both cast themselves as members of a “middle level of society” (zhongdeng shehui), which sought to shift the locus of authority downward and channel the abilities of the people upward. Judge, Print and Politics, 6 –7. 11 Duara, “Deconstructing the Chinese Nation,” 11; Huang, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and Modern Chinese Liberalism, 81. 12 Hao, Liang Ch’i-ch’ao and the Intellectual Transition in China, 1890 –1907, 95, 154. Citations from Liang in Gasster, “The Republican Revolutionary Movement,” 476. For a wide-ranging discussion of citizenship in this period, see Zarrow, “Introduction,” 3 –38. For a subtle exploration of the tension between the concepts of state, nation, and society, see Tsin, “Imagining ‘Society’ in Early TwentiethCentury China,” 212 –31. 13 Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 1, 284. 14 Spence, The Search for Modern China, 300 –1; Crossley, “Thinking about Ethnicity,” 12. 15 Sha Jiansun, Zhongguo gongchandang, 5; Wang, “The 1905 Anti-American Boycott,” 19.

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Notes to Pages 40 –46 281 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33

34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Yu Danchu, “Zhongguo jindai aiguo zhuyi de ‘wangguo shijian’ chukao,” 23 –31. Sha Jiansun, Zhongguo gongchandang, 34, 33. Wei et al., eds., Prescriptions for Saving China, 225, 216. Judge, Print and Politics, 64 – 65. A Ying, ed., Fan Mei huagong jinyue wenxue ji, 524. Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 31–32. Yu Danchu, “Xinhai geming shiqi de minzu yingxiong renwu shi jian chukao,” 1004 –21. “Ju yue qi tan,” in A Ying, Fan Mei, 245. Price, “The Ancestral Nation and China’s Political Culture”: cited in Zarrow, “Introduction,” 14. Cohen, History in Three Keys, 162. Ye, “Shanghai before Nationalism,” 36 –33. Bickers, “Shanghailanders,” 186 –93; Lorimer, Colour, Class, and the Victorians, 16. On the British in Shanghai, see the fine study by Bickers, Britain in China. If the testimony of Li Da, one of the founders of the ccp, is trustworthy, educated youngsters in the modern schools in these years continued to talk about “foreign devils” (yang guizi). Sha Jiansun, Zhongguo gongchandang, 22. Ju E yundong, 10 –16. Shanghai jindai shi, vol. 1, 297–99. Ju E yundong, 65 – 68, 72. Xiong Yuezhi, “Shanghai ju E yundong shulun,” 238 –52. Liu, Translingual Practice, 308. In 1873 Fukuzawa Yukichi observed that the Japanese had no sense of themselves as kokumin, which he defined to mean “nation” in a marginal notation, but this was no longer true by the early twentieth century. Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy in Prewar Japan, 17. Judge, Print and Politics, 82, 88. There was no single term to denote the “citizen.” Kang Youwei used the term gongmin to denote an elite group, defined in terms of “enlightened knowledge” and commitment to public duty. Min, National Polity and Local Power, 139. Wu Ruonan, “Gao younian zhu zimei,” Zhongguo baihua bao, 12, 1903: cited in Tang Zhenchang, ed., Shanghai shi, 397. Wang, “1905 Boycott,” 124. Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, 101. This organization altered its name in 1912 to Shanghai zongshanghui, so throughout the book I refer to it as the General Chamber of Commerce (gcc). Wang, “1905 Boycott,” 256. Goodman, Native Place, 181– 83; Shanghai jindai shi, 309. Shanghai jindai shi, 311–12. Zhang Cunwu, Guangxu sayinian Zhong-Mei gongyue fengchao, 44. Ibid., 91; Pan Junxiang, “Xinhai geming yu Shanghai guohuo yundong de fasheng fazhan,” 924.

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282 Notes to Pages 46 –50 44 Pan Junxiang, “Xinhai geming,” 926. A boycott was not a new phenomenon in China. It had been used by merchants in Hankou as a routine means of enforcing more favorable terms in the marketplace. Rowe, Hankow, 212. One might note that the Boxers banned trade in foreign goods and even forbade shopkeepers from using the character “foreign” (yang) in their shop signs. Cohen, History in Three Keys, 203. 45 (Yijiulingwu) 1905 nian Shanghai renmin de fan-Mei aiguo yundong, 12 –14. 46 Zhang Cunwu, Guangxu sayi nian, 94. 47 Goodman, Native Place, 186; Wong, “The Genesis of Popular Movements in Modern China,” 9. 48 Field, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905,” 78. 49 Wong, “The Genesis of Popular Movements,” 152. 50 Wang, “1905 Boycott,” 189. 51 Wong, “Geming Gequ,” 116. 52 Ju E yundong, 67. The influential pamphlet “About Face!” by the Hunanese revolutionary Chen Tianhua included simple verses to be read aloud to the accompaniment of drums or castanets. Chen Tianhua, “Meng xiangtou,” 30 –56. 53 A Ying, Fan Mei, 677. 54 Cited in Liu, Translingual Practice, 32. 55 A Ying, Fan Mei, 669; (Yijiulingwu) 1905 nian Shanghai, 15. 56 Field, “Chinese Boycott,” 71; Wong, “The Genesis of Popular Movements,” 158, 54; Yingmei yangongsi, 1300. 57 See the eulogies to Feng in A Ying, Fan Mei, 696 –99; Wong, “The Genesis of Popular Movements,” 9. 58 (Yijiulingwu) 1905 nian Shanghai, 15. 59 Peng Zeyi, ed., Zhongguo jindai shougongye shi ziliao,1840 –1949, vol. 2, 499. 60 Field, “Chinese Boycott,” 74. 61 Zhang Cunwu, Guangxu sayi nian, 100. 62 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1285. 63 (Yijiulingwu) 1905 nian Shanghai, 20. 64 Shanghai jindai shi, 316 –17. 65 Public Record Office (hereafter given as pro), China Consular Correspondence, fo 228/2510/48, Sir Ernest Satow to Sir Edward Grey, 14 Dec. 1905. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid.; pro, fo 228/2512/7, Sir John Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, 8 Jan. 1907. 68 pro, fo 228/2510/48. 69 Ibid.; pro, fo 228/2510, Further Report on the Mixed Court Disturbance, 22 Dec. 1905, states that there were six thousand people at the Ningbo guild meeting on 12 December. The British consul said that the daotai’s son was active in the protest in spite of its antidynastic character; he believed it had semiofficial approval. fo 228/2511, Sir Percy Warren to Sir John Jordan, 15 Jan. 1906. 70 pro, fo 228/2511, International Settlement Police Report, 13 Dec. 1905; pro, fo 228/2510/48.

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Notes to Pages 50 –56 283 71 pro, fo 228/2510/48. 72 pro, fo 228/2510, International Settlement Police Report, 16 Dec. 1905. 73 pro, fo 228/2511, International Settlement Police Report, 1 March 1906; Shanghai jindai shi, 321. 74 pro, fo 228/2511, Sir Percy Warren to Sir John Jordan, 27 Feb. 1906. 75 pro, fo 228/2511. International Settlement Police Reports, 19 Dec. 1905, 1 March 1906. 76 NCH, 22 Dec. 1905, 637, 672; 12 Jan. 1906, 69. 77 pro, fo 228/2510/48. 78 Kotenev, Shanghai, 155 –56. 79 Sun Zhongshan, “San min zhuyi,” 643. 80 Around 1918 the future anarchist Shifu deplored the use of jie terminology as an example of the debasement of Chinese by Japanese-influenced neologisms. Krebs, Shifu, 54. 81 A Ying, Fan Mei, 552. 82 E shi jingwen, 10 Jan. 1904: cited in Ju E yundong, 204 –5. 83 Ebrey, ed., Chinese Civilization and Society, 260. This was, in fact, an empty boast, because the construction workers’ guild had actually closed down in the late 1890s and was resuscitated only in 1908. 84 Esherick, Reform and Revolution in China, 106. 85 China Year Book 1938, 216 –17; Kotenev, Shanghai, 13. 86 Kostiaeva, Narodnye dvizheniia, 21. 87 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1245; Peng Zeyi, Zhongguo jindai shougongye, vol. 2, 728. 88 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1299 –1301; Peng Zeyi, Zhongguo jindai shougongye, vol. 2, 615 –17. 89 This is my calculation based on Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1299 –1301; Peng Zeyi, Zhongguo Jindai shougongye, vol. 2, 615 –17; and contemporary newspaper reports. 90 Shibao, 8 Aug. 1911. 91 Shibao, 7 Aug. 1911. 92 Shibao, 9 Aug. 1911. 93 Shibao, 10 Aug. 1911. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Shibao, 11 Aug. 1911. 97 Ibid. 98 See, for example, Xiangdao 103, 21 Feb. 1925, 859. 99 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1257–58. 100 Note that in contrast to late-nineteenth-century France, violence seems to have come at the beginning rather than at the end of women’s strikes. See Perrot, Les ouvriers en grève; and Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 171. 101 This point is developed at length in Smith, “Gender and Class,” 141– 68. Chinese

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284 Notes to Pages 56 – 60

102 103 104

105 106 107 108

109 110 111 112 113

114 115 116

117 118

women workers appear to have been less docile and obedient than their Japanese sisters. See Hane, “The Textile Factory Workers,” 159. Bernhardt, Rents, Taxes, and Peasant Resistance, 62. Kostiaeva, Narodnye dvizheniia, 96. NCH, 23 Sept. 1911, 749, 16 Sept. 1911, 690 –91. These riots appear to be unconnected to the much larger antitax protests that had taken place in March in the neighboring counties of Chuansha and Nanhui, which were also coordinated by women and organized through Buddhist vegetarian sisterhoods. Prazniak, Of Camel Kings, ch. 6. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1258. Shibao, 9 Oct. 1912. Shibao, 2 Nov. 1912. For examples see Shibao, 8 Aug. 1911, 9 Oct. 1912. Ono Kazuko argues that middle-class women, by contrast, ignored gender difference in this period, representing themselves as “citizens” rather than as women. Ono, Chinese Women in a Century of Revolution, 1850 –1950, 74. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1291. For another case, see Xinhai geming zai Shanghai shiliao xuanji, 693. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1282. For another case, ibid., 1218. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 29. Shibao, 7 Aug. 1911, 12 Aug. 1911. Leung Yuen Sang, “Regional Rivalry in Mid-Nineteenth Century Shanghai,” 40. By the late 1920s, 50 percent of the women came from Subei, 20 percent were natives of Shanghai, 20 percent hailed from Suzhou and Wuxi in Jiangsu province, and 10 percent came from Ningbo and other parts of Zhejiang. See “Shanghai Silk Filatures,” 597; Chinese Economic Journal, no. 6, 1931, 1295. Shenbao, 9 Aug. 1922; Eng, “Luddism and Labor Protest among Silk Artisans and Workers in Jiangnan and Guangdong, 1860 –1930,” 87. Honig, Creating Chinese Ethnicity, 86. Cf. Japan, where the “best planned and organized strike before any in 1920s” took place at the Japan Railway Company in 1899, without any union assistance. Smith, “The Right to Benevolence,” 193. Smith argues that such collective abilities sprang from the rich tradition of agrarian protest in Japan. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1263 – 64. Cf. Smith, “The Right to Benevolence,” 194.

3

The 1911 Revolution in Shanghai

1 Elvin, “The Revolution of 1911 in Shanghai,” 124; Bergère, “The Chinese Bourgeoisie, 1911–37,” 733. 2 Tang Zhenchang, ed., Shanghai shi, 435; Xinhai geming zai Shanghai shiliao xuanji, 1235.

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Notes to Pages 60 – 64 285 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

Shanghai jindai shi, 357; Lin Zengping, “Huidang yu Xinhai geming,” 166 –73. Xinhai geming, 677; Jiangnan zaochuanchang changshi, 1865 –1949.5, 165. Shanghai jindai shi, 359; Rankin, Early Chinese Revolutionaries, 209 –10. Xinhai geming, 1244. Shanghai jindai shi, 358. No attempt has been made to engage the debate, reopened by Pamela Crossley, on the extent to which hatred of the Manchu people permeated the thinking of ordinary Shanghainese, mainly because of an absence of evidence, possibly influenced by the selective or censored nature of the sources. There are, for example, no anti-Manchu cartoons reproduced in the standard history of the political cartoon in China. See Crossley, Orphan Warriors, 226 –27. On the ethnic tension between the Chinese and Manchus in Zhenjiang, see Elliot, “Bannermen and Townsmen,” 36 –74. For the absence of cartoons, see Bi Keguan and Huang Yuanlin, Zhongguo manhua shi. Shanghai jindai shi, 362. Harrison, Making of the Republican Citizen, 38. Municipal Gazette, 15 Feb. 1913, 38 –39, 16 May 1912, 144. Ye Shengtao, “Ni Huanzhi,” 131. Zhongguo gongren yundong de xianqu, vol. 1, 71. Quoted in Chang and Gordon, All Under Heaven, 46. Shanghai jindai shi, 363. Pan Junxiang, “Xinhai geming yu Shanghai guohuo yundong de fasheng fazhan,” 932. Ibid., 923. Xinhai geming, 677. Ibid., 678 –79; Sun Yutang, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1250; Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1289. Li had been an inspector at the Jiangnan arsenal since 1903. Goodman, Native Place, 201. Xinhai geming, 679. Ibid., 680 – 84, 687, 1261. Ibid., 630. Ibid., 680. Ibid., 688, 1246. Ibid., 689, 1260. Strand, Rickshaw Beijing, 256 –57. Shanghai jindai shi, 362 – 63. Ibid., 361. Xinhai geming, 1289. Ibid., 1282, 1290. Ibid., 1243; Elvin, “The Revolution of 1911,” 159. Bergère, “The Chinese Bourgeoisie,” 740. Xinhai geming, 1305.

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286 Notes to Pages 64 – 69 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

44 45 46 47 48 49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59

Spence, Search for Modern China, 280. Chan, “Labor and Empire.” Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong yundong shi, 49. Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, vol. 3, 68 – 69. Shibao, 27 July 1911, 20 Aug. 1911, 24 Aug. 1911. Xinhai geming, 1303. Xinhai geming, 1284. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong, 89. Xinhai geming, 1288. Zhao Qin, “Xinhai geming qianhou de Zhongguo gongren yundong,” 5; Shibao, 22 Sept. 1912; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong, 80 – 81. Suzuki, “The Shanghai Silk-Reeling Industry during the Period of the 1911 Revolution,” 60. Xinhai geming, 357; Guo Yuming, “Xinhai geming qijian de Shanghai qunzhong yundong,” 16. Shibao, 1 July 1912. Xinhai geming, 689. Zhao Qin, “Xinhai geming,” 5. Xinhai geming, 690. This association, set up on 24 December 1911, aimed to increase women’s knowledge of the theory and practice of combat. Xinhai geming, 1264. Xinhai geming, 690 –91. The right to strike was not recognized by the republican constitution. According to article 224 of the provisional criminal code, leaders of strikes faced sentences of imprisonment or up to a $300 fine, while those who participated in strikes were liable to short terms of hard labor or fines of up to $30. The penalties for coercing workers into strikes were even more punitive. See Xinhai geming, 1303. Guo Yuming, “Xinhai geming,” 16; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong, 81. Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming qianhou de Zhongguo gongren yundong he Zhonghua minguo gongdang,” 73. Staburova, Politicheskie partii i soiuzy v Kitae v period Sin’khaiskoi revoliutsii. Bernal, Chinese Socialism to 1907, 5; Li, The Introduction of Socialism into China, 20. Wang Peiwei, Jiang Kanghu yanjiu, 60. Guillermaz, A History of the Chinese Communist Party, 1921– 49, 25. Some western scholars have suggested that Jiang Kanghu came to accept a form of state socialism not dissimilar from that of Sun Yat-sen, but a recent book argues convincingly that he remained far more anarchist in inclination than Sun. See Yang Kuisong and Dong Shiwei, Haishi shenlou yu damou luzhou, 79. Xia Shunkai, “Zhongguo shehui dang de chengli, fenlie he jiesan,” 46 – 65; Xinhai geming, 894 –95; Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 138 –39. Despite a pledge from Sun Yat-sen to support women’s suffrage in December 1911, the Alliance Society backed the provisional constitution of March 1912, which denied women the vote. Ono, Chinese Women, 80 – 82.

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Notes to Pages 69 –74 287 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Bernal, Chinese Socialism, 150; Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, 117. Xinhai geming, 900; Xia Shunkai, “Zhongguo shehui dang,” 52. Yang Kuisong and Dong Shiwei, Haishi shenlou, 65. Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo banghui shi, 446. Wang Peiwei, Jiang Kanghu, 96. Ibid.,138, 96. Ibid., 101, 94. Ibid., 98 –100. Xinhai geming, 1288. Ibid., 903. Wang Peiwei, Jiang Kanghu, 112 –13. Xinhai geming, 1294 –95. Ibid., 1302, 1305; Wang Peiwei, Jiang Kanghu, 140. Bernal, “Chinese Socialism before 1913,” 89 –95; Wakeman, History and Will, 207–10. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong yundong jianshi, 5. Xia Shunkai, “Zhongguo shehui dang,” 58 – 60; Bernal “Chinese Socialism before 1913,” 93. Xinhai geming, 904. Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 84. Ibid., 903. Ibid., 904, 907. Xinhai geming, 903; Bergère et al., “Essai de prosopographie des élites shanghaiëennes à l’époque républicaine, 1911–1949,” 905. Xinhai geming, 906. Ibid., 906 –7. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1272 –74. Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 75. Xinhai geming, 1303. At least one of the trade representatives, Wu Afu of the tailors’ section, appears to have been a member of the Red Gang. Xinhai geming, 905 – 6; Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 85. Zhao Qin, “Xinhai geming,” 5. Shibao, 20 March 1913. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1277; Xinhai geming, 694 –95; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 42. Shibao, 26 Nov. 1911, 30 Nov. 1911; Xinhai geming, 1304; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 42. Shibao, 5 Jan. 1913, 7 Jan. 1913, 10 Jan. 1913, 23 Jan. 1913, 22 Mar. 1913. Shibao, 11 Dec. 1912, 18 Dec. 1912; Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 82; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 42. NCH, 21 Dec. 1912, 797.

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288 Notes to Pages 74 – 80 94 NCH, 14 Dec. 1912, 731. 95 Shibao, 20 Mar. 1913, 22 Mar. 1913, 30 Mar. 1913, 31 Mar. 1913; Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 80. 96 Shibao, 26 May 1916. 97 Tang Zhenchang, Shanghai shi, 490 –91. 98 Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo bangshi hui, 451–52; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 43; Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 83. 99 See the typesetters’ organization formed in June 1912. Xinhai geming, 693. 100 Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1272 –74.

4

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Nationalist and Labor Protest, 1913 –1919

Chow, The May Fourth Movement, 46 –47; Lichnost’ v traditsionnom Kitae, 8. Zou Yiren, Jiu Shanghai, 145; Tongjibiao, Table 31. Zou Yiren, Jiu Shanghai, 142. Peattie, “Japanese Treaty Port Settlements in China, 1895 –1937,” 192. Duus, “Introduction,” xx, 165. Peattie, “Japanese Treaty Port Settlements,” 187. Municipal Gazette, 13 May 1915, 169 –70. See, for instance, the April 1926 bulletin of the Central Executive Committee of the ccp. Zhonggong zhongyang qingnian yundong wenjian xuanbian, vol. 2, 100 –2. Municipal Gazette, 17 June 1915, 200, 15 July 1915, 239. Link, Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies, 174. Wong, “Geming Gequ,” 117. Pan Junxiang, “Xinhai geming,” 932; Remer, A Study of Chinese Boycotts, 46. Meyer, “Splitting Apart,” 284. Waldron, From War to Nationalism, 177. Shibao, 5 April 1915. Shibao, 5 April 1915, 10 April 1915; Zhao Qin, “Xinhai geming,” 14. Shibao, 7 April 1915; NCH, 10 April 1915, 131. Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo banghui shi, 462. Peattie, “Japanese Treaty Port Settlement,” 206. Ibid., 204. Nepomnin, “Razvitie manufakturnogo kapitalizma v Kitae v 1914 –20gg.,” 79. China Year Book 1938, 217–19; Kotenev, Shanghai, 13. Ma Honglin et al., “Diyici shijie dazhan qijian Shanghai gongren jieji de zhuangda he gongren yundong fazhan,” 11. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1269. Chinese Economic Monthly, 2, no. 4 (1925): 22. NCH, 31 Oct. 1914, 346. Because the fractional denominations of the dollar contained a smaller proportion of pure silver, they tended to lose value and were

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Notes to Pages 81– 86 289

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62

known as “small money” (xiaoyang). Full dollar denominations were known as “big money” (dayang). Shibao, 3 Sept. 1916, 25 Sept. 1916. Shibao, 26 Oct. 1914, 28 Oct. 1914, 29 Oct. 1914; Minsheng 21, 2 Aug. 1914. This issue was published later than the date on the cover. Shibao, 10 Nov. 1914, 11 Nov. 1914, 13 Nov. 1914, 19 Nov. 1914. Peng Zeyi, Zhongguo jindai shougongye, vol. 2, 734 –35. NCH, 28 Nov. 1914, 661. Shibao, 23 Nov. 1914. Shibao, 19 Nov. 1914, 23 Nov. 1914; NCH, 21 Nov. 1914, 590. Shibao, 20 Nov. 1914. Shibao, 23 Nov. 1914. Shibao, 26 Nov. 1914. Shibao, 24 Nov. 1914. Shanghai Municipal Police File (hereafter given as smpf), io series, file 561, 618. Shibao, 25 Aug. 1916, 26 Aug. 1916, 27 Aug. 1916, 3 Sept. 1916. Shibao, 17 Sept. 1916. Shibao, 18 Sept. 1916, 25 Sept. 1916. smpf, io file 561. Shibao, 3 Sept. 1916. Papers Respecting Labor Conditions in China, 34. Elizabeth Perry notes the “remarkably precocious language” of artisans in this period. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 47. Shibao, 14 Dec. 1915. Shibao, 12 May 1918, 14 May 1918. Shibao, 15 May 1918. Shishi xinbao, 7 May 1918, 8 May 1918. Shibao, 19 May 1918, 19 Sept. 1918. Municipal Gazette, 12 Nov. 1914, 317. Shibao, 7 May 1915, 9 May 1915, 13 Aug. 1915, 15 May 1915. Shishi xinbao, 14 May 1918. Shibao, 28 April 1919, 29 April 1919, 5 May 1919, 12 May 1919. Shibao, 12 May 1918, 15 May 1918, 16 May 1918. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 182. Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 27. Scalapino and Yu, The Chinese Anarchist Movement, 5. Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 55; Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 88. Dirlik, “Vision and Revolution,” 123. Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 27. Ibid., 11; Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 259. Bernal, Chinese Socialism, 220; Dirlik, “The New Culture Movement Revisited,” 282.

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290 Notes to Pages 86 –91 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88

89 90 91

Krebs, Shifu, 127–32. Ibid., 127, 152; Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 127. Minsheng 21, 2 Aug. 1914. Minsheng 23, 5 May 1915. Krebs, Shifu, 152. Ibid., 165; Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 15. Gongren baojian, 1918. Laodong 1, 20 Mar. 1918. Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 83; Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 87– 89. I have been unable to discover in Tolstoy’s writings any equivalent to the concept of “laborism,” although, of course, he extolled the nobility of work on the land, if not in the factory. See Shchetinina, L. N. Tolstoi kak sotsial’nyi reformator, 21–22. Laodong 1, 20 Mar. 1918; Laodong 2, 20 April 1918. Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 17; Staburova, “Anarkhizm i rabochee dvizhenie v Kitae v nachale XX v,” 192 –218. Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo bangshi hui, 446, 462; Shibao, 29 Mar. 1917. Minguo ribao, 10 Nov. 1916. smpf, io file 745. smpf, io files 561, 566. Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 84; smpf, io file 585. Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 84; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 43. Shibao, 29 Mar. 1917. Shanghai shangwu yinshuguan, 19 –20. Shibao, 28 Mar. 1917, 29 Mar. 1917. Shibao, 29 Mar. 1917. Shibao, 30 Mar. 1917. Shibao, 31 Mar. 1917. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 181. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1299 –1301; Peng Zeyi, Zhongguo jindai shougongye, 615 –17. One source claims that by 1911 there were 116 Chinese-owned enterprises and 40 foreign-owned enterprises employing 500 or more workers, with workforces of 130,985 and 109,410, respectively. Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 25 –31. This total is greatly at variance with an apparently more reliable figure of 77,000 in enterprises employing 500 or more workers. For both sets of figures, however, the proportion of workers in both foreign-owned and Chinese-owned enterprises is exactly the same at 45.5 percent and 54.5 percent, respectively. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 85. Gamewell, The Gateway to China. Shibao, 3 Mar. 1918, 4 Mar. 1918. Wang Jingyu, Zhongguo jindai jingji, 1286.

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Notes to Pages 91–94 291 92 Shibao, 20 Mar. 1913, 22 Mar. 1913, 30 Mar. 1913. 93 Shibao, 26 July 1917.

5

The May Fourth Movement of 1919

1 Chow, The May Fourth Movement, 144; Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 65; Wasserstrom, Student Protest, 67. By contrast, Zhu Hua argues that merchants were the most active element. Zhu Hua, “Shanghai wusi yundong san ti,” 134. 2 There were sporadic worker demonstrations in Beijing, Jinan, Hangzhou, Nanchang, and Guangzhou. Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 152; Chan, “Labor and Empire,” 43. 3 Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, ch. 7; Chan Mingqiu, “Wusi yu gongyun,” 85 – 88. 4 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 67–73. 5 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui shi, 1902 –1929, 231–33; Fewsmith, Party, State, and Local Elites, 52; Bergère, “Chinese Bourgeoisie,” 761, 769 –70. 6 Wusi yundong zai Shanghai, 178 – 81. 7 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 79; pro, fo 228/3526/61, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 6 June 1919. 8 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 83. 9 Wusi aiguo yundong, vol. 2, 245 –46. 10 I owe this point to Jeff Wasserstrom. An article in NCH said that the street associations—which were formed by small traders—had their roots in the baojia system that still, apparently, existed in Pudong. NCH, 6 Sept. 1919, 584. 11 pro, fo 228/3214/93, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 30 Sept. 1919; pro, fo 228/3291, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Dec. 1919. 12 Xiandai Shanghai dashiji, 15. 13 Remer, Chinese Boycotts, 57; Wasserstrom and Liu, “Student Protest and Student Life,” 7. 14 Banno Junji suggests that small traders were hit hard by the boycott, whereas the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, representing more substantial business interests, remained largely untouched. Banno, “Japanese Industrialists and Merchants and the Anti-Japanese Boycotts in China, 1919 –1928,” 315. 15 Zhongguo gongren yundong shiliao (hereafter given as ZGGRYDSL) 1 (1958), 44. 16 Wusi yundong, 229 –30, 225. 17 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 111; Wusi yundong, 278. 18 Wusi yundong, 282 – 86; Chow, The May Fourth Movement, 149 –50. 19 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 112 –14. 20 Municipal Gazette, 27 July 1919, 257.

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292 Notes to Pages 94 –97 21 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 121–22. The confederation met either three or four times. Zhu Hua, “Shanghai wusi yundong san ti,” 134; Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren yu wusi yundong, 281. The Shanghai Confederation of All Sections of Society (Shanghai gejie lianhehui), initiated on 27 September 1919, appears to have been an attempt permanently to institutionalize this body. Xiandai Shanghai dashiji, 36. 22 Whether the idea of a stoppage by students and merchants was inspired by the allIndia hartal (suspension of work), which Gandhi had called on 6 April 1919, is unclear. This entailed stopping business and schools in protest at the punitive Rowlatt Bills, but workers were not encouraged to participate. Masselos, Indian Nationalism, 159 – 60. 23 Wusi aiguo yundong, 7, 11. 24 Dirlik, Origins of Chinese Communism, 151. 25 Wusi aiguo yundong, 328 –29. 26 Wusi yundong, 271; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 77; Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui de xingwang,” 46. 27 Wusi yundong, 643. Workers cast themselves in a back-up role. Cf. the Boyd engineering workers in Pudong or the guild of coppersmiths and ironsmiths. Wusi aiguo yundong, 145, 147. 28 Wasserstrom, Student Protest, 22. Smith, “Workers, the Intelligentsia, and Marxist Parties,” 1–56. 29 Wusi aiguo yundong, 149. 30 Wusi yundong, 321. 31 Ibid., 327. 32 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 49; pro, fo 228/3526/116, Acting-Consul Phillips to Minister Jordan, 21 June 1919; Chan Mingqiu, “Wusi yu gongyun,” 77. 33 Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 257. 34 Li Cishan, “Shanghai laodong zhuangkuang,” 1– 83. 35 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 124. 36 Shen Yixing, “Wusi yundong zhong Shanghai gongren de bagong douzheng,” 2. According to Shen, almost two-thirds of factory workers worked in enterprises of five hundred or more workers. Shen Yixing, Gongyun shi ming-bian lu, 61. 37 Eda Kenji, Goshi jiki no Shanhai ro¯do¯ undo¯, appendix 1. 38 Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 257. 39 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 167. 40 Wusi aiguo yundong, 155 –56. 41 Wusi yundong, 444 –45. 42 Ibid., 628, 447–48. 43 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 23. 44 Wusi yundong, 271, 626 –27. 45 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 44; Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 218.

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Notes to Pages 98 –102 293 46 Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 65; Poshek Fu, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration, 8. 47 pro, fo 228/3291, Political Intelligence Reports Shanghai, Feb. 1921 to Jan. 1927. pro, fo 228/3291/441, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Dec. 1922. 48 NCH, 20 Aug. 1927, 338. 49 Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 256. 50 Municipal Gazette, 14 Feb. 1920, 48. 51 ZGGRYDSL 1 (1958), 44. 52 Wusi yundong, 310. 53 Chen Pingyuan and Xia Xiaohong, eds., Chu mo lishi, 217. 54 Bi Keguan and Huang Yuanlin, Zhongguo manhua shi, 36, illus. 53 and 54. 55 Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 257. 56 Municipal Gazette, 20 Aug. 1919, 326. 57 Wusi yundong, 293. See, for example, Chen,The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 150; Zhang Dewang, “Ruhe pingjia zichanjieji geming minzhu pai zai Wusi yundong zhong de zuoyong,” 71. 58 Chen,The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 159. 59 Zhu Baoting, “Wusi qijian Shanghai haiyuan gongren de bagong,” 634 –35. 60 Wusi yundong, 369. 61 Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 133, 216. 62 Wusi yundong, 370. 63 Goodman, Native Place, 101–2; Wusi aiguo yundong, 152, 157. 64 pro, fo 228/3526/88, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 11 June 1919. 65 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 70 –71. 66 NCH, 21 June 1919, 781. 67 Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 764; Wusi aiguo yundong, 150. 68 Wusi yundong, 370. 69 Wusi aiguo yundong, vol. 2, 145, 151. 70 Wusi yundong, 337. 71 Wusi aiguo yundong ziliao, 496. 72 Xingqi pinglun 2, 15 June 1919. 73 Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 221. 74 Wusi yundong, 325. 75 pro, fo 228/3526/98, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 13 June 1919. 76 Wusi aiguo yundong, 148. 77 Wusi yundong, 345. 78 Wusi aiguo yundong ziliao, 455 –56, 469. 79 Ibid., 465, 469.

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294 Notes to Pages 103 –108 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111

Zhu Hua, “Shanghai wusi yundong,” 134. For a statement by merchants that makes this explicit, see Wusi aiguo yundong, 15. Ye Shengtao, “Ni Huanzhi,” 304. Wusi aiguo yundong, 15. NCH, 14 June 1919, 724. pro, fo 228/3526/88, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 11 June 1919; ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 117. Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 257. Ye Shengtao, “Ni Huanzhi,” 141. Municipal Gazette, 26 July 1919, 258. Wusi yundong, 355 –56. pro, fo 228/3526/88, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 11 June 1919. Cohen, History in Three Keys, 168. Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin, 46. The rumors, circulating within hours of the great Tokyo earthquake of 1923, which charged ethnic Koreans and socialists with arson, rebellion, and well poisoning, seem more readily comprehensible because people’s lives were incomparably more devastated than they were by the political crisis of 1919. Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy, 177. Joseph Chen argues that the two movements were “essentially different.” Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 15. Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 222. Zhu Hua, “Shanghai wusi yundong,” 135. Yu Danchu, “Zhongguo jindai aiguo zhuyi,” 23 –31. Chen,The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 31–32. Sha Jiansun, Zhongguo gongchandang tongshi, vol. 1, 25. Wusi yundong, 308, 310, 337. Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, 17. Cited in Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 226. Gu, “Populistic Themes in May Fourth Radical Thinking,” 99 –126; Yang Kuisong and Dong Shiwei, Haishi shenlou, 132. Wou, “The Military and Nationalism,” 109. Wusi aiguo yundong, 7, 21. See the justification for continuing the strike given by employees of Japanese companies. Wusi yundong, 444 –45. Wusi aiguo yundong, vol. 2, 148; Wusi yundong, 371, 444. NCH, 14 June 1919, 717. Ibid., 721. Wusi yundong, 630 –31. pro fo 228/3526/114, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 17 June 1919; Shanghai xuesheng yundong dashi, 27. Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 5, 68 –71.

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Notes to Pages 108 –112 295 112 113 114 115 116

117 118 119 120 121

122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

131 132

133 134

Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 60. Wusi yundong, 553; Shanghai Yongan gongsi zhigong yundong shi, 634 –35. Chen, The May Fourth Movement in Shanghai, 23. Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 220. Ibid. This work is an important corrective, but it pushes the case for gmd hegemony too far. The author’s thesis has been subject to criticism by colleagues in the PRC. See, for example, Zhao Jinpeng, “Wusi yundong shiqi Guomindang shi bu cunzai de?” 73 –74. pro, fo 228/3526/116. Acting-Consul Phillips to Minister Jordan, 21 June 1919. Chan, “A Turning Point in the Modern Chinese Revolution,” 231. Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 214. Wusi yundong, 97, 634 –35. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 123; pro, fo 228/3214/80, Acting-Consul Phillips to Minister Jordan, 10 July 1919; Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 47. Liu Yongming hints that Chen Jia’nai was a worker who had been in France during the war. Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 214. Wusi yundong, 637. Ibid., 637–38. Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 46; Wusi yundong, 271. Wusi yundong, 628, 447–48; pro, fo 228/3526/108, Capt. Supt. McEuen to Acting-Consul Phillips, 16 June 1919. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1958), 49; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong yundong shi (1942), 97. Chang, The Rise of the Communist Party, 84; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 77. Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 48; Laodong zhoukan 14, 19 Nov. 1921. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 123 –24; pro, fo 228/3214/107, Acting-Consul Phillips to Minister Jordan, 31 Jan. 1920. Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 47; NCH, 6 Feb. 1921, 28; Municipal Gazette, 13 Mar. 1920, 71; Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 184. This appears to be the same organization as the Zhonghua gongjie zhicheng hui, although the press report on the latter organization’s establishment cites Chen Caizhao, a foreman at the Ewo mill, as the initiator. Wusi aiguo yundong, 151. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 122; Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 48. Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 215. Some of my facts about the China Alliance are taken from this source, but Liu regards it as a gmd initiative and may be referring to a different organization. Wusi yundong, 643 –44. Dirlik, “Vision and Revolution,” 142.

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296 Notes to Pages 112 –120 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145

146

ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 122; pro, fo 228/3214/107. Laodongjie 1, 15 Aug. 1920, 6 –7. Shishi xinbao, 25 Sept. 1920. Laodong zhoukan 13, 12 Nov. 1921. Laodongjie 18, 12 Dec. 1920, 12 –13. Laodongjie 11, 23 Oct. 1920, 11; ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 121, 131. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 120, 127; pro, fo 228/3214, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Mar. 1920; Shibao, 20 April 1920. Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 48. Di yici Zhongguo laodong nianjian, part 2, 57. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 14. pro, fo 228/3291/102 –3, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 30 June 1921; Xiandai Shanghai dashiji, 39. Later, owing to political differences, Huo Shouhua led a secession of twenty-four street federations and formed a rival federation. Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 64.

6

The Discourse of Class

1 See the summary of contents of Xingqi pinglun in Wusi shiqi qikan jieshao, vol. 2, 550 –58. 2 Xiandai Shanghai dashiji, 58. 3 Minguo ribao ( Juewu supplement), 15 Jan. 1920. 4 Minguo ribao, 28 April 1920. 5 Ba Jin, “Awakening and Action,” quoted in Fitzgerald, Awakening China, 92. 6 Fitzgerald, Awakening China, 94. In early-twentieth-century Japan political enlightenment was described as “awakening.” Mackie, “Liberation and Light,” 135. 7 Liu, Translingual Practice, 389, 310; Fitzgerald, Awakening China, 34. 8 Shanghai huoyou 2, 17 Oct. 1920. 9 Laodongjie 24, 23 Jan. 1921. 10 pro, fo 228/3527, Police Intelligence Report, 7 Aug. 1922. 11 Liu, Translingual Practice, 317; de Bary et al., Sources of Chinese Tradition, 64 – 65. 12 Cited in Liu Yongming, Guomindang ren, 227. 13 Shanghai huoyou 10, 9 Jan. 1921. 14 ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 219. 15 Shanghai huoyou 8, 26 Dec. 1920. 16 Ibid. 17 Turner, “Betwixt and Between,” 772: cited in Leed, No Man’s Land, 17. 18 Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 192, 187. 19 Laodong zhoukan 15, 26 Nov. 1921. 20 Laodongjie 6, 19 Sept. 1920. 21 Laodong zhoukan 13, 12 Nov. 1921.

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Notes to Pages 121–127 297 22 Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, 114. 23 Xin qingnian 6, 15 Oct. 1918. I have followed the translation in Huang, Li Da-zhao and the Impact of Marxism on Modern Chinese Thinking, 55. 24 ZGGRYDSL 1 (1979), 153. 25 Laodongjie 24, 23 Jan. 1921. 26 Laodongjie 8, 3 Oct. 1920. 27 Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant. 28 Popkin, “The Rational Peasant,” 411–71. 29 Keyes, “Peasant Strategies in Asian Societies,” 758. 30 Laodongjie 24, 23 Jan. 1921. 31 Laodongjie 21, 2 Jan. 1921. 32 Smith, “Right to Benevolence,” 207– 8. 33 Laodongjie 16, 28 Nov. 1920. 34 Wusi yundong, 559 – 60. 35 Laodongyin 1, 7 Nov. 1920; Dirlik, “New Culture Movement,” 286. 36 Xin qingnian 5, 15 Oct. 1918. 37 Wusi yundong, 373. 38 Laodongjie 20, 26 Dec. 1921. 39 Quoted in Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 179. 40 Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye, 148. 41 Shanghai huoyou 3, 24 Oct. 1920, 7– 8. 42 Xingqi pinglun 2, 15 June 1919. 43 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 89; Xinhai geming, 693. 44 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1942), 85. The Common Progress Society had been founded on 10 March 1912 in Hongkou. It functioned principally as a mutual-aid society among dock workers and had strong links with secret societies. 45 Gongchandang 4, 7 May 1921, 9. 46 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 178. 47 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 74; Shibao, 29 Mar. 1917. 48 King, “Kuan-hsi and Network Building,” 74. 49 Bianco, “Peasant Movements,” 279. 50 Fried, Fabric of Chinese Society, 103 –4, 227. Bruce Jacobs reckons that Fried overstates the “recognized degree of exploitation” implied by ganqing, preferring to stress its capacity to tie people together. See Jacobs, “Preliminary Model,” 260 – 62. 51 Mayfair Yang suggests that in contemporary China ganqing is characterized by high emotional content and a low level of instrumental calculation. My impression is that usage in the labor movement in the 1910s and 1920s implied a rather higher degree of instrumentalism. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets, 123. 52 Jacobs, “A Preliminary Model,” 258. 53 Walder, Communist Neotraditionalism, 179 – 81. 54 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of China, 325.

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298 Notes to Pages 127–132 55 Ebrey, Chinese Civilization, 261. 56 Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan xuanji, “San min zhuyi,” vol. 2, 650. Where the context seems to justify it, I have translated boai as “fraternity,” but the Chinese term is not gender specific. 57 Li Hong, “Dang de chuangli shiqi zhongyao de gongren baokan jieshao,” 83. 58 Shanghai huoyou 2, 17 Oct. 1920, 15. 59 Laodongzhe 1, 3 Oct. 1920. 60 Laodongzhe 7, 12 Dec. 1920. 61 Witke, “The Transformation of Attitudes towards Women during the May Fourth Era of Modern China,” 161. 62 Harrell, “The Concept of Fate in Chinese Folk Ideology,” 90 –109. 63 Laodongjie 24, 23 Jan. 1921. 64 Laodongzhe 1, 3 Oct. 1920. 65 Harrison, Making of the Republican Citizen, 119 –22. 66 See, for example, “Fu nüjie gonghe xieji hui han” (1912) in Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 2, 52 –53. 67 Kuhn, “Chinese Views of Social Classification,” 20. 68 Liu, Translingual Practice, 309. 69 Kuhn, “Chinese Views of Social Classification,” 18 –19. 70 For little essays on the etymology of these terms, see Minguo ribao, 13 Sept. 1921, 5; Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. 71 Cohen, “Cultural and Political Inventions in Modern China,” 151–70. 72 Li Shiyue, “Xinhai geming,” 78. 73 Müller, Beiträge zur Gesellschaftstheorie in China, 197; Liu, Translingual Practice, 389. 74 Müller, Beiträge zur Gesellschaftstheorie, 197. 75 Ibid., 198. 76 NCH, 2 June 1920, 663. 77 Xinhai geming, 677– 89. 78 Laodongjie 21, 2 Jan. 1921. 79 Cf. its use by the Committee of Four Vocations in 1903. Ju E yundong, 65 – 66. 80 Fitzgerald, Awakening China, 257. 81 Laodong zhoukan 10, 22 Oct. 1921. 82 Laodongjie 8, 3 Oct. 1920. 83 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 178. 84 Once at a gathering of peasants in Haifeng, Guangdong province, Peng Pai shouted “Tiger! Tiger!” causing the peasants to scatter, but only to reveal that the “tiger” he had seen coming was someone collecting rent on behalf of the landlords. Galbiati, P’eng P’ai and the Hai-lu-feng Soviet, 94. 85 Shanghai huoyou 4, 31 Oct. 1920. 86 Shanghai huoyou 8, 26 Dec. 1920. 87 Quoted in Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 170.

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Notes to Pages 133 –138 299 7

The Communist Attempt to Organize Labor, 1920 –1923

1 For an account of the establishment of the ccp in Shanghai, see Smith, A Road Is Made, ch. 1. 2 Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Zhongguo laodong zuhe shujibu shimo kao,” 108. 3 Chinese Economic Monthly 3, no. 2 (1926): 78 – 80; Duus, “Zaikabo,” 84. 4 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 198. 5 Chinese Economic Monthly 9, no. 4 (1931): 1108 –9; Bergère, “Chinese Bourgeoisie,” 787– 88. 6 Kotenev, Shanghai, 11. 7 NCH, 3 Sept. 1921, 680. 8 China Year Book, 1938, 216 –17; NCH, 14 April 1923, 121; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 130. 9 Strikes and Lockouts in Shanghai since 1918, appendix, 7–11. 10 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 153. 11 Zhongguo gongchandang diyici daibiao dahui dang’an ziliao, 9. 12 Laodongjie 9, 10 Oct. 1920. 13 Laodongjie 9, 10 Oct. 1920. 14 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 52, 136. 15 Smith, A Road Is Made, 33. 16 Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. 17 Chang, Rise of the Communist Party, 172; Bao Huiseng, Bao Huiseng huiyilu, 66 – 67. 18 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 32. 19 Minguo ribao, 28 July 1921. 20 Chang, The Rise of the Communist Party, 174. 21 Ibid., 171, 174; Gongchandang 6, 7 July 1921, 59; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 93; Minguo ribao, 6 Aug. 1921. 22 Minguo ribao, 2 Aug. 1921. 23 Minguo ribao, 6 Aug. 1921. 24 Gongchandang 6, 7 July 1921, 59. 25 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 98; ZGGRYDSL 1 (1958), 58. 26 Gongchandang 6, 7 July 1921, 60 – 61. 27 Shanghai juanyanchang gongren yundong shi, 58; Lin Jianbai and Li Zhining, Li Qihan, 51–52. 28 Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. I have translated yiqi as “code of brotherhood,” but the Chinese term carries no gender connotation. Given the male ethos of the secret societies, however, it seems appropriate. 29 Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. 30 Lin Jianbai and Li Zhining, Li Qihan, 60 – 61; Zhou Yumin and Shao Yong, Zhongguo banghui shi, 497.

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300 Notes to Pages 138 –141 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50

51 52 53

Cai, “Secret Societies,” 7. Chen Da, “Guonei zhongyao gonghui de gaikuang,” 123. Shanghai haiyuan gongren yundong shi, 26. Goodman, Native Place, 37. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 50; Laodong zhoukan 11, 29 Oct. 1921. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 49, 61. This source claims that the Yanying society was Cantonese, but it overlooks the existence of the northern bang. It also credits the Yanying society with leading the strike by ships’ stokers in October 1914, but a contemporary press report (Minsheng 21, 1914), while making no specific mention of the Yanying society, makes it clear that the strikers were from Ningbo and that it was Cantonese seamen who broke the strike. This implies that the Yanying society was predominantly composed of Ningbo men, a view confirmed in Deng Zhongxia, “Women de liliang.” Wusi yundong, 358 –59; Deng Zhongxia, “Women de liliang”; Su Zhiliang and Chen Lifei, Jindai Shanghai, 22. pro, fo 228/3527/139, Acting-Consul Barton to Minister Alston, 8 July 1922. Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 180 – 84. Diyici guonei geming zhanzheng shiqi de gongren yundong, 177; Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, vol. 6, 102. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 137; smpf, io 4652; pro, fo 228/3140/139, Acting-Consul Barton to Minister Alston, 8 July 1922. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 63 – 64. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 138. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 65 – 67. Ibid., 67. The Ningbo tongxianghui was distinct from the Ningbo regional guild. It was created in 1910 to “gather the forces of our fellow countrymen, to implement social construction, to propagate the spirit of self-government and seek the welfare of our fellow countrymen.” It ran a primary and secondary school and various charitable activities, and sought to reform popular customs. Xiong Yuezhi, ed., Lao Shanghai mingren mingshi mingwu daguan, 360. smpf, io 4652. pro, fo 228/3527/143, Police Intelligence Report, 7 Aug. to 10 Aug. 1922; fo 228/3527/144, Acting-Consul Barton to Minister Alston, 14 Aug. 1922. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 68. NCH, 12 Aug. 1922, 457; 26 Aug. 1922, 602 –3; pro, fo, 228/3527/150, ActingConsul Barton to Minister Alston, 28 Aug. 1922; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 218 –19. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1980), 7. smpf, io 4652. Xianqu 8, 5 May 1922, 4. In fact the Roman Catholic population was not entirely congruent with the Shandong population, although they did overlap, because in

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Notes to Pages 141–146 301

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76

77

78 79 80

1900 it was reported that the two thousand employees of the mills of the International cotton manufacturing company, the previous incarnation of the Nikko company, were Roman Catholics from the villages of Pudong, “not converts, but of the sixth or seventh generation.” NCH, 6 June 1900, 1035; Chinese Economic Journal, 9, no. 6 (1931): 1292. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1958), 63; NCH, 22 April 1922, 275. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 387; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 221. Minguo ribao, 24 May 1922. NCH, 27 May 1922, 611. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 390. Minguo ribao, 24 May 1922. Minguo ribao, 26 May 1922. Minguo ribao, 4 June 1922; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 390. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1942), 98; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958) 223. Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 487, n.208. Minguo ribao, 31 Oct. 1922; 4 Nov. 1922. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 391. Ibid., 391. NCH, 18 Nov. 1922, 450. pro, fo 228/3291/430, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Dec. 1922; Yingmei yangongsi, 1168 – 69. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 150; Cochran, Big Business in China, 139. Dong Chuping, “Huiyi Zhongguo laodong zuhe shujibu,” 83. Xianqu 8, 5 May 1922, 4. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 392. Chen Weimin, “Zhongguo Gongchandang chuangli qi de Shanghai gongren yundong pinggu,” 76. NCH, 25 Nov. 1922, 529; pro, fo 228/3291/435, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Dec. 1922; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 150. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 151; pro, fo 228/3291/435; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 392. Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye, 2. Without citing a source, Harold Isaacs states that by the beginning of 1923 there were twenty-four labor unions with a membership of forty thousand. See Isaacs, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution, 65. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 171–72; Mi Bi, “Shanghai sichang nügong de tongmeng bagong,” 64; pro, fo 228/3291/357, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 30 Sept. 1922. Jiang Peinan and Chen Weimin, “Shanghai zhaopai gonghui,” 57. Eng, “Luddism and Labor Protest,” 86. Mi Bi, “Shanghai sichang nügong,” 65; pro, fo 228/3291/357; Eng, “Luddism and Labor Protest,” 86.

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302 Notes to Pages 146 –153 81 Shenbao, 6 Aug. 1922; Eng, “Luddism and Labor Protest,” 87. 82 Shenbao, 7 Aug. 1922, 9 Aug. 1922; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 220. 83 pro, fo 228/3291/358, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 30 Sept. 1922. 84 Shenbao, 13 Aug. 1922; pro, fo 228/3291/357; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 220. 85 NCH, 12 Aug. 1922, 459; Shenbao, 14 Aug. 22, 17 Aug. 1922. 86 Laodong zhoukan 11, 29 Oct. 1921. 87 NCH, 19 Aug. 1922, 504 –5.

8

Workers and the Nation: Left versus Right, 1923 –1925

1 Zhongguo gongchandang tong zhi, vol. 1, 505; Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 1, 31–32. 2 ‘Yida’ qianhou, vol. 1, 422; Saich, The Origins of the First United Front in China, 317–23. 3 Huang Xiurong, Gongchan guoji yu Zhongguo geming guanxi shi, vol. 1, 175 –76. 4 Saich, The Origins of the First United Front, vol. 1, 594 –96. 5 Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 1, 258. Part of this report is translated in Saich, ed., The Rise to Power of the Chinese Communist Party, 126 –29. 6 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laodong wenti, 83 –91. 7 Diyici guonei geming, 11. 8 See, for example, the statements by the Shanghai Students’ Union about the achievements of the common people’s schools in Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 682, 685. 9 Minguo ribao, 9 Jan. 1922. 10 Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. 11 Laodong zhoukan 14, 19 Nov. 1921. 12 Laodong zhoukan 13, 22 Nov. 1921. 13 Xin qingnian 5, 15 Oct. 1918. 14 Yuji Muramatsu, “Some Themes in Chinese Rebel Ideologies,” 257; Sprenkel, Legal Institutions in Manchu China, 114. 15 Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, 103. 16 Yijiuerqi nian de Shanghai shangye lianhehui, 255 –56; Zhongguo guomindang dierci quanguo daibiao dahui geshengqu dangwu baogao mulu, 121–22. 17 Cited in Fewsmith, Party, State, and Local Elites, 92. 18 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 100 –1. 19 Zhongguo guomindang yu laodong, 5. 20 Sun Wen, Zongli guanyu minzhong yundong zhi yijiao, 74 – 83. 21 The full text of the gmd law is in Diyici laodong nianjian, 218 –21. 22 Zhongguo guomindang yu laodong, 34 –35. There are certain similarities between Sun’s ideas and those of Gandhi, although Sun was generally more positive about

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26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

labor organization. Like Sun, Gandhi contrasted the mutuality of interest—the “family relationship”—between workers and employers in India, with the class conflict characteristic of European society. He stressed the importance of justice in industrial relations and the responsibilities of trade unions for education and “moral improvement,” but his philosophy of nonviolence led him to view strikes with distaste. Bhattacharya, “Swaraj and the Kamgar,” 223 –49. Dirlik, “Mass Movements and the Left Kuomintang,” 48, 56; Mamaeva, Gomin’dan v natsional’no-revoliutsionnom dvizhenii Kitaia, 1923 –27, 60. Domes, Vertagte Revolution, 250 –59. Wang had attended the preliminary conference to the Congress of Toilers of the East in Irkutsk in November 1921 and had been shocked by the appalling conditions in Soviet Russia. After the execution of two leaders of the Hunan Labor Association in January 1922, he took refuge in Shanghai. See Shaffer, Mao and the Workers, 45 –46. Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 1, 184. ‘Er qi’ qianhou gonghui yundong lüeshi. Roux, Grèves et politique à Shanghai, 31. ZGGRYDSL 2 (1958), 91. Tong Lizhang, son of a shopkeeper, was a leading light in the teams-of-ten and the Shandong Road street association during the May Fourth Movement. He later became a detective in the International Settlement police, and during the Japanese occupation he was a member of Wang Jingwei’s “peace movement.” Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 81– 82; Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 186. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1942), 98 –99; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 62. Papers Respecting Labour Conditions, 105. Guowen zhoubao 3, 2 May 1926, 13. ZGGRYDSL 2 (1958), 91; smpf, io file 4652; Kosugi Shuji, “Shanghai ko¯dan rengo¯kai to Shanghai no ro¯do¯ undo¯,” 19 –20. Yang Kuisong and Dong Shiwei, Haishi shenlou, 110. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 119. Kosugi Shuji, “Shanghai ko¯dan rengo¯kai,” 14 –17; Chesneaux, Chinese Labor Movement, 225. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 262; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1942), 99. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laodong wenti, 82 – 83; pro, fo 228/3291/516, Shanghai Intelligence Report, quarter ended Mar. 1925. China Year Book 1925, 565. pro, fo 228/3140, Consul-General at Shanghai’s Despatch, 18 Aug. 1924. Chen Da, “Guonei zhongyao gonghui,” 113. In January 1924 Mu Zhiying revived the Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association (Shanghai sisha nügong xiehui), taking care to reassure the silk guild that it

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304 Notes to Pages 156 –161

44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

70

71 72

rejected strikes on principle. In June, however, it led a ten-day stoppage by 10,050 women, which ended in their gaining a 5 percent increase in the daily wage to forty-three cents (they had asked for forty-five cents) and a twelve-hour working day (they had asked for a ten-hour day). Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 173; Dai Xugong, Xiang Jingyu zhuan, 93. Zhongguo gongren 2, Nov. 1924, 58; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 175. Cochran, Big Business, 172. Xiangdao 83, 17 Sept. 1924, 672 –73. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 176. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 471; Kosugi Shuji, “Shanghai ko¯dan rengo¯kai,” 24; NCH, 7 Mar. 1925, 392; Strikes and Lockouts, 16. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 471. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 591. Ibid. Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 44. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 100 –1. Wasserstrom, “The First Chinese Red Scare?,” 32 –51. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 297. Ibid., 594; Tang Chunliang, Li Lisan zhuan, 51. Laodong zhoukan 12, 5 Nov. 1921. Goodman, Native Place, 226, 255; Shanghai zhinan, 19 –26. Shishi xinbao, 10 Mar. 1919; Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 183. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 223, 356. Jindai Shanghai chengshi yanjiu, 731. pro, fo 228/3527/111, Consul-General Fraser to Minister Alston, 10 Feb. 1922. Liu Guanzhi, “Guanyu 1924 –1925 nian Shanghai gongren yundong de huiyu,” 61. Minguo ribao, 27 Feb. 1923. Shenbao, 24 Feb. 1925, 14. NCH, 18 July 1925, 20; Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 77; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 442 –43. Schoppa, Chinese Elites and Political Change, 29. Gongren zhi lu 230, 12 Feb. 1926, 3. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 178 –79; Xu Meikun, “Huiyi Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi de yixie qingkuang,” 91–94; Shanghai shangwu yinshuguan, 153 –54; Shanghai lieshi xiaozhuan, 79 – 80. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 85 – 86. Yang was born near Pudong, so strictly speaking he was from Jiangsu rather than Zhejiang province. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 763. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1980), 8. Wasserstrom and Liu, “Student Protest,” 15.

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Notes to Pages 161–166 305 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

Minguo ribao, 28 Mar. 1927. Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 1, 345 –46. The strike is discussed in detail in Smith, A Road Is Made, ch. 4. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 182; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 277–78, 291; Zhang Quan, “Guangyu Huxi gongyou julebu,” 121. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 298; Shanghai fangzhi gongren, 93. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 298. smpf, io file 6023. Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Jacobs collection, box 2; NCH, 21 Mar. 1925, 496; Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 136 –37; Ono, Chinese Women, 131. The term translated as “East Asian” is Dongyang ren, which was taken from a Japanese term (Toyojin) used by many Japanese to give themselves a pan-Asian rather than narrowly nationalistic identity. It later became a derogatory term for Japanese. See translator’s note, Ono, Chinese Women, 233. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 298. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 16 –17. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 303. Chang, Rise of the Communist Party, 414. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 374. Ke Fang, Yijiuerwu nian Shanghai rishang shachang gongren bagong zhi neimu ji shi-mo ji, 144. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 301. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 138; smpf, io file 6023. At the Fifth Congress of the ccp in January 1925 it was decided to change the Socialist Youth League into the Communist Youth League. Wusa yundong, vol. 1, 6. smpf, io file 6023. For a discussion of the role of foremen as strike leaders, see Frazier, “Mobilizing a Movement,” 1–45. smpf, io file 6023. Zhongguo gongren 4, 1925, 52. The term yiyongdui was used by the student army formed in Shanghai in 1903. See Ju E yundong, 74 –75. Zhongguo gongren 4, 1925, 52. Xiangdao 159, 23 June 1926. Cai Shaoqing, “Secret Societies,” 13. Wusa yundong, vol. 1, 92. Zhongguo gongren 4, 1925, 56; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 392 –96; NCH, 21 Feb. 1925, 302. Shenbao, 20 Feb. 1925; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 395. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 330 –31. Shenbao, 25 Feb. 1925. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 192; Di yici laodong nianjian, part 1, 284. NCH, 21 Mar. 1925, 496.

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306 Notes to Pages 168 –172 9

The May Thirtieth Movement, 1925

1 China Year Book, 1926 –27, 946 –47; Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 33. 2 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 637. 3 pro, fo 228/3141, Consul-General Barton to Acting-Minister Palairet, 30 May 1925, 1 June 1925, 3 June 1925; Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 35 –36; China Year Book 1926 –27, 920; NCH, 6 June 1925, 411; NCH, 8 Aug. 1925, 134. 4 China Year Book. 1926 –27, 950 –51. Others say that there were thirteen victims. See Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 212. 5 Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 19. 6 Chang, Rise of the Communist Party, 427; van de Ven, From Friend to Comrade, 153. 7 NCH, 6 June 1925, 414; Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 38. 8 NCH, 6 June 1925, 414; Rigby says the last demand was subsequently dropped. Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 39. 9 Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an hou de fanying yundong, 214. 10 Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 21–22. 11 NCH, 6 June 1925, 412; Xiangdao 117, 6 June 1925, 1083. 12 Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 59 – 62. 13 Ibid.; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 725 –26. 14 Schwarcz, The Chinese Enlightenment, 148. 15 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 274. 16 Ibid., 923. In fact at the first meeting on 4 June there were two representatives of the Shanghai teachers’ union. Ibid., 275. 17 Ibid., 929, 148. 18 Fewsmith, Party, State, and Local Elites, 68. 19 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 923. 20 Ibid., 278 – 80. 21 Ibid. The translation of these demands in the China Year Book, on which many western historians rely, is imprecise in several particulars. China Year Book, 1926 – 27, 928. 22 Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 27. 23 Domes, Vertagte Revolution, 126. 24 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 963 – 64. 25 Ibid., 964. 26 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 440; Tang Chunliang, Li Lisan zhuan, 52; Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 137. 27 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 335; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 175 –77. 28 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 250 –51; Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 47; Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 30. 29 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 1133. 30 Ibid., 1105 –58.

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Notes to Pages 172 –177 307 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

Rexue ribao, 13 June 1925. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 965 – 67. Ibid., 930, 932. Ibid., 257– 62. Ibid., 140. Ibid., 934; Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 30. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 967– 69. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 235; Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 55. Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 51–52. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 70 – 83. Ibid., 65. Ibid., 70 – 83. The Behr and Mathew women claimed to have been brought on strike against their will. NCH, 15 Aug. 1925, 166. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 287. The police said that ninety-three workers were kidnapped in the course of the strike in the International Settlement: “These selfappointed tribunals imposed fines in some cases and in others forced the victims to sign bonds.” China Press, 20 Aug. 1925. NCH, 8 Aug. 1925, 123. Martin Frazier emphasizes the unwillingness of workers to strike unless brought out by their foremen and forewomen, but concedes that “after the shootings strike leaders probably used considerably less force to persuade workers to walk off the job.” Frazier, “Mobilizing a Movement,” 26. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 168. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 149. Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 351. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 306 –7, 940. Shanghai gangshi hua, 307. Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 454. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 933. Ibid., 60. Ibid., 384. Ibid., 64. Ibid., 53. NCH, 8 Aug. 1925, 135. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 50; Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Jacobs collection, box 2. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 115. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 277. Diyici guonei geming, 72 –79. Ibid.; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 70 – 83. Diyici guonei geming, 72 –79.

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308 Notes to Pages 177–181 65 The usual figure given is 217,804. This is taken from a later source and incorporates some inaccuracies. See Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 63 – 65. The original list is in Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 511–20. 66 Shenbao, 6 Aug. 1925, 13. This figure is probably too high because the figures for membership in individual factories sometimes exceed the number of workers employed there. 67 Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 511–20. 68 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 141. 69 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 89; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 403, 493. 70 Wusa yundong, vol. 1, 212 –13. The glu had no district office in Nanshi. 71 Chen Weimin, “Zhongguo gongchandang,” 72 –79, 74; Laodong zhoukan 14, 19 Nov. 1921; Tang Hai, Zhongguo laogong, 511–20. 72 Wusa yundong, vol. 1, 203. 73 Tang Hai, Zhongguo laogong, 511–20. 74 VKP(b), Komintern i natsional’no-revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Kitae. Dokumenty, vol. 1, 592. 75 Shanghai shangwu yinshuguan, 27; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 406; Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 179. 76 Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 413 –15. 77 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 441. 78 Zhongguo lici laodong dahui wenxian, 195. 79 Chen Da, “Guonei zhongyao gonghui,” 102. 80 Zhongguo gongchandang tong zhi, vol. 3, 2447. 81 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 425, 170; Liu Guanzhi, “Guanyu 1924 –1925 nian,” 68. 82 Liu Guanzhi, “Guanyu 1924 –1925 nian,” 68. 83 Minguo ribao, 15 July 1925. 84 Minguo ribao, 31 Aug. 1925. 85 NCH, 22 Aug. 1925, 218. 86 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 578. 87 Ibid., 494 –95; Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 351. 88 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 365. 89 Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 158; Cochran, Big Business, 178; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 225. 90 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 362. 91 Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford, Jay Calvin Houston archive, box 1, 28. 92 Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 166. 93 NCH, 22 Aug. 1925, 218; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 555; Clifford, Spoilt Children of Empire, 134. Another source says that sixteen enterprises were shut down and sixty thousand workers were laid off. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 238. 94 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 558 –59. 95 Ibid., 561– 63. 96 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 352.

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Notes to Pages 181–187 309 97 Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 48. 98 pro, fo 228/3291/589, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended Sept. 1925; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 424; Gongren zhi lu 18, 12 July 1925, 3. 99 NCH, 25 July 1925, 52; Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 54 –55. 100 NCH, 25 July 1925, 51. 101 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 431–32; NCH, 1 Aug. 1925, 81. 102 NCH, 25 July 1925, 50. 103 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 970. 104 Gongren zhi lu 45, 8 Aug. 1925. 105 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 973. 106 The struggle waged by the federation against the glu, with backing from the secret societies, is discussed in detail in Smith, A Road Is Made, 99 –103. 107 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 624; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 391–92. 108 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 625; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 396. 109 NCH, 15 Aug. 1925, 166 – 67; Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 398. 110 NCH, 15 Aug. 1925, 166 – 67. 111 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 971. 112 Ibid., 972. 113 Ibid., 972 –73. 114 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 641–43; NCH, 15 Aug. 1925, 167. 115 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 976 –77; Xiangdao 126, 22 Aug. 1925; Gongren zhi lu 73, 5 Sept. 1925; NCH, 12 Sept. 1925, 346. 116 NCH, 22 Aug. 1925, 207. 117 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 426. 118 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 977–78. 119 NCH, 5 Sept. 1925, 299. 120 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 979 – 80. 121 Ibid., 663, 985. 122 Ibid., 664 – 65. 123 NCH, 5 Sept. 1925, 299. 124 Laogong rikan 4, 28 Sept. 1925. 125 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 455. 126 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 659. 127 Ibid., 660; NCH, 3 Oct. 1925, 14. 128 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 660 – 61; NCH, 3 Oct. 1925, 14. 129 Clifford, Shanghai 1925, 80. 130 Ibid., x. 131 Wasserstrom, Student Protest, 124. 132 Shanghai xuesheng yundong dashi, 81. 133 Smith, A Road Is Made, 117–19. 134 NCH, 25 July 1925, 53, 54. 135 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 1078 –96.

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310 Notes to Pages 187–193 136 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 351. 137 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 382. It is not certain that the relief fund insisted on proof of union membership; but when disbursing funds, the glu did require proof. 138 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 1091. 139 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 443. 140 Ibid., 357. 141 The gcc was clearly influenced by the furor over whether chihua would save or destroy China. See Wasserstrom, “First Chinese Red Scare?,” 34. 142 Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 358. 143 Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 42. 144 Yingmei yangongsi, 1172 –73. 145 Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 58. 146 Wilbur and How, Missionaries of Revolution, 724. 147 Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 188 – 89.

10

1 2 3 4

5

6

7

8 9 10 11

12

National and Class Identities, 1925 –1927

Gongren zhi lu 88, 20 Sept. 1925, 4. VKP(b), Komintern, vol. 1, 309. Zhongguo guomindang diyi, erci quanguo daibiao dahui huiyi shiliao, vol. 1, 82 – 83, 88. In the influential pamphlet “About Face!,” Hunanese revolutionary Chen Tianhua wrote of 1904: “How should we understand and explain the meaning of ‘national imperialism’? It has emerged because the population of the [imperialist] states is too large and there is insufficient land. And discovering that the people of a particular country are incapable of defending its land, they seize it by force.” Chen Tianhua, “Meng xiangtou,” 42. Schiffrin, Sun Yat-sen, 283 –93; Chang and Gordon, All under Heaven, 99. For a discussion of theories of imperialism, see Cai Zhongxing, Diguozhuyi lilun fazhan shi. In the 1924 version of the “Three People’s Principles,” Sun still speaks of “imperialism” sparingly, mainly in relation to the First World War. See Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan xuanji, “San min zhuyi,” vol. 2, 588 – 838. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan xuanji, “San min zhuyi,” 594, 615. For an argument that Sun came genuinely to embrace anti-imperialism, see Hung-Ting Ku, “The Emergence of Kuomintang Anti-Imperialism,” 87–97. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan xuanji, “San min zhuyi,” 592. Ibid., 649. Ibid., 644. A “warlord” is defined by James Sheridan as “a commander of a personal army, ruling or seeking to rule territory and acting more or less independently.” See Sheridan, China in Disintegration, 57. Gongren zhoukan 29, 12 Feb. 1922; Shaffer, Mao and the Workers, 46 –47.

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Notes to Pages 194 –199 311 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Waldron, From War to Nationalism, 246 –47. Van de Ven, “The Military in the Republic,” 359. Zhongguo gongren 2, Nov. 1924. Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 156, 175. Remer, Chinese Boycotts, 238. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 67. Ibid., 52. Ibid., 745 –49. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 305. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 56. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 64. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 21; Wasserstrom, Student Protest, 113. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 290 –91. Schwarcz, Chinese Enlightenment, 154. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 57–59, 63; Wasserstrom, Student Protest, 113. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 35 –36. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 69, 68. Shanghai disanshiyi mian fangzhi chang, 43. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 36; Dongfang zazhi 22, 10 July 1925. A version of the same cartoon appeared almost simultaneously in Guowen zhoubao, with a caption asking “Who is the Boxer?” See Cohen, History in Three Keys, 255. Dongfang zazhi 22, 10 July 1925. NCH, 23 July 1927, 163. NCH, 8 Aug. 1925, 124. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 36. NCH, 25 June 1926, 584. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 32. This was recorded by the May Thirtieth Recording Company (Wusa changpianhang). In a private communication, Andreas Steen suggests that this may have been an off-shoot of the Dazhonghua changpian chang, the smallest recording company in Shanghai and Chinese-owned, which had started operating in the early 1920s. It supported the Chinese nationalist movement, making two records of speeches of Sun Yat-sen in 1924. Zhonggong dangshi renwu zhuan, vol. 17, 231. Wong, “Geming Gequ,” 121. Zheng Chaolin. An Oppositionist for Life, 90. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 36. Shenbao, 17 Jan. 1927, 5. Li Jianmin, Wusa can’an, 99. Ibid., 43. Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition, 1–2. Sun Yat-sen, “The Doctrine of Sun Yat-sen,” 211. Harrison, Making of the Republican Citizen, 157–58.

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312 Notes to Pages 199 –204 49 L. Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, 315 –16. 50 NCH, 19 Aug. 1922, 505; pro, fo 228/3291/316, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended Sept. 1922. 51 Gongren zhi lu 267, 21 Mar. 1926, 3; NCH, 20 Mar. 1926, 526. 52 Sharman, Sun Yat-sen, 317. 53 NCH, 2 April 1927, 16. 54 Xiangdao 159, 23 June 1926, 1559 – 60; Xiangdao 160, 30 June 1926. 55 Xiangdao 167, 15 Aug. 1926. 56 NCH, 21 Aug. 1926, 366. 57 China Year Book 1938, 216 –17; Kotenev, Shanghai, 13. 58 NCH, 23 April 1927, 170; 25 June 1927, 554. 59 Xiangdao 167, 15 Aug. 1926. 60 Xiangdao 161, 7 July 1926. 61 Andrew Gordon points out that in Japan in 1924 improved treatment became the most common “offensive” demand in Nankatsu in eastern Tokyo, joining old concerns for status with newer concerns for the rights of workers. Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy, 220. 62 Shanghai huoyou 3, 24 Oct. 1920, 15. 63 NCH, 29 Aug. 1925, 252. 64 Rexue ribao, 27 June 1925. 65 Ye Shengtao, Ni Huanzhi, 292, 302. 66 Xingqi pinglun 9, 3 Aug. 1919. 67 Quoted in Ono, Chinese Women, 121. The same image was used in Japan. I have not come across any references to Chinese women workers being likened to caged birds, as they were in Japan. Mackie, “Liberation and Light,” 125. 68 Laodongjie 21, 2 Jan. 1921. 69 Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 16. 70 NCH, 13 Mar. 1926, 475. 71 NCH, 29 Aug. 1925, 252. 72 Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi shi, 86. Cotton workers made the same demand in August 1926. Xiangdao 169, 29 Aug. 1926. 73 Smith, “Right to Benevolence,” 208. 74 Yang, A Chinese Village, 167; Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Italy, 13 –14. 75 Shibao, 30 June 1918. 76 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 331. 77 NCH, 6 June 1926, 237. 78 Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy, 206. 79 pro, fo 228/3143, International Settlement Police Report, 3 June 1925. 80 Wasserstrom and Wong, “Taunting the Turtles.” 81 Zhongguo gongren 2, Nov. 1924, 55.

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Notes to Pages 204 –209 313 82 Wakeman, Strangers at the Gate, 50; Poshek Fu, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration, 82. 83 Deng Zhongxia, Zhongguo zhigong, 74. See the explanation of the four-character phrase weihu-zuochang in Qiu Jiang, ed., Chengyu gushi, 44. 84 Diyici guonei geming, 52. 85 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 316. 86 Gongren zhi lu 23, 17 July 1925. 87 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 477–48. 88 NCH, 16 April 1927, 125. 89 Zhongguo gongren 2, Nov. 1924, 6; Shenbao, 18 Mar. 1927. 90 Jiangnan zaochuanchang, 177. 91 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 67. 92 Zhongguo zhigong yundong wenxian, 66. 93 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 679. 94 Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 493 –502. 95 Minguo ribao (Shanghai), 24 Mar. 1927. 96 Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 40 –41. 97 Liu, “The Female Body and Nationalist Discourse,” 57–58. 98 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 332 –33. 99 Zhong Gong, Qingnian gongren wenti, 24. 100 Rexue ribao 1, 4 June 1925. 101 The trial of those arrested for their part in the demonstrations on 30 May 1925 turned precisely on the question of whether this was a “Bolshevik,” xenophobic movement or a patriotic movement against injustice. pro, fo 228/3145, Mixed Court Proceedings of the Shanghai Incident of May 30, 1925. 102 Cited in Rigby, The May 30 Movement, 101–2. 103 ZGGRYDSL 4 (1980), 6. 104 Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 433. 105 “Zhang Weizhen tan Hunan zaoqi gongyun,” 237. 106 Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 50. 107 NCH, 8 Aug. 1925, 135. 108 Jiangnan zaochuanchang changshi, 171. 109 smpf, io series, file 7587. For another example from 1927, see Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 87. 110 Liu Guanzhi, “Guanyu 1924 –1925 nian,” 62. 111 Zhongguo guomindang dierci quanguo daibiao dahui, 121–22. 112 See the resolutions of the Fourth ccp Congress in January 1925 and of the Second National Labour Congress in May of that year. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1980), 136; Zhongguo gongren 5, May 1925, 51. 113 Strikes and Lockouts, 96. In 1936 there were reckoned to be over 100,000 employees in foreign enterprises, the proportions being highest in public utilities

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114 115

116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

(70 percent), textiles (60 percent), and tobacco (over 50 percent), out of an industrial labor force of 464,000. Chen Huili and Fang Xiaofen, Shanghai gongyun zhi, 85, 82. Chinese Economic Monthly 3, no. 2 (1926): 86, 84, 80 (my recalculation). Any overall increase in foreign ownership between 1925 and 1926 was unlikely. These calculations are based on the tables in Chinese in Strikes and Lockouts, 30 – 51. The figures given for the number of strikers are often approximate, but the broad picture is reliable. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 271; ZGGRYDSL 2 (1981), 177–78. Shibao, 15 Aug. 1918; ZGGRYDSL 2 (1981), 179. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 150 –53. Cf. Diyici laodong nianjian, part 1, 219. Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye, 42. Strikes and Lockouts, 96. NCH, 17 July 1926, 111. ZGGRYDSL 2 (1958), 123. Strikes and Lockouts, 54. China Year Book, 1926 –27, 1004. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 433. Shenbao, 23 Mar. 1927. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 63 – 64. Shenbao, 23 Mar. 1927. Roux, Le Shanghai ouvrier, 307. pro, fo 228/3291, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended 31 Dec. 1922. Shenbao, 19 Aug. 1927. Shanghai haiyuan gongren, 86 – 87. Yijiuerqi nian, 216.

11

The Surge in Labor Organization, 1927

1 This would represent 28 percent to 29 percent of the city’s population, which seems on the high side but is not impossible. A later gmd source suggests a figure of three hundred thousand unionized workers in March 1927, which is probably too low. Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 178. 2 Kotenev, Shanghai, 19. 3 Strikes and Lockouts, 61. 4 Shenbao, 25 Mar. 1927, 12. 5 Shenbao, 29 Mar. 1927, 10. 6 Shenbao, 2 April 1927, 13. 7 Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 46; Xin qingnian 8, no. 1 (1920): 1. 8 In Bombay during the 1920s and 1930s trade unions were often little more than hastily assembled strike committees that collapsed as soon as the strike ended. In Japan workers who were ready to engage in industrial action only joined a union

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Notes to Pages 217–222 315

9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37

38 39

when the dispute began. Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism, 404; Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy, 197. Minguo ribao, 22 Aug. 1925. Shenbao, 7 Mar. 1927, 9; Zhongguo zhigong yundong wenxian, 56 –59. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 194 –95; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 336. Zhongguo gongchandang tong zhi, 2467, 2469. Since its inception, the glu had published a bulletin. Even during 1926, when it was shut down by the warlord authorities, it managed to produce 126 issues of its bulletin. Zhongguo gonghui lishi wenxian, 1921–27, 378 – 89. Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 399 –400. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 511–20. Chang Chufang, “Chinese Cotton,” 922. Smith, A Road Is Made, 97–98. Liu Guanzhi, “Guanyu 1924 –1925 nian,” 66; Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 975. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 8 –11. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi yanjiu, 211. On the worker membership of the ccp, see Smith, A Road Is Made, 111–12, 168 – 69. NCH, 20 Mar. 1926, 552. Mao Qihua, “Da geming chuqi Shanghai Zhonghua shuju zongchang de dang, tuan zuzhi yu gongren yundong,” 3. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 19 –20. ZGGRYDSL 18 (1982), 78. Smith, A Road Is Made, 219. Shanghai di sanshiyi mianfangzhi chang, 45. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 191. “Zhang Weizhen tongzhi tan Shanghai ‘Wusa’ yundong,” 307. pro, fo 228/3291/602, Shanghai Intelligence Report, Quarter Ended Sept. 1925. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 397. Ibid., 366. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 4. “Zhang Weizhen tongzhi,” 307. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 67–70, 74 –75. In fact, $30 was a generous estimate. In 1928 the average monthly earnings of factory workers in Shanghai were $16.27 ($21.89 for men). Yang and Tao, Standard of Living, 15. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1980), 69 –70. Smith, A Road Is Made, 99 –103. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 512. Report of B. D. F. Beith, Manager of Ewo Mills, to Hong Kong, 27 Nov. 1926; Semi-Official Letters from Shanghai to Hong Kong, July to December 1926, Jardine Matheson Archive, University of Cambridge. “Zhang Weizhen tongzhi,” 311. Report on Labour Troubles at Ewo, Semi-Official Letters, July–Dec. 1926.

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316 Notes to Pages 222 –227 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78

NCH, 31 July 1926, 212. “Zhang Weizhen tongzhi,” 311. Reports of Beith to Hong Kong, 12 Aug. and 20 Aug. 1926. NCH, 28 Aug. 1926, 402. Shenbao, 2 Oct. 1926, 13. Report of Beith to Hong Kong, 2 Sept. 1926. Report on Labour Troubles at Ewo; NCH, 18 Sept. 1926, 557. Report on Labour Troubles at Ewo. Jiang Weixin, “Huiyi Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi ji qita,” 99. Minguo ribao, 8 Jan. 1927; Jiang Weixin, “Huiyi Shanghai,” 100. Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 187; Zhongguo gongren 5 (Feb. 1929), 22. The Chinese tramways union was under the thumb of gmd right-wingers. Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 185; NCH, 15 Jan. 1927, 69; Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 218. NCH, 19 Mar. 1927, 464. NCH, 24 Sept. 1927, 526. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 17. NCH, 16 May 1925, 282. Shenbao, 18 Mar. 1927; ZGGRYDSL 1 (1958), 105. Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 405, 409, 418, 421–23, 432. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 260; Shanghai gangshi hua, 316. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 260. Zhang Tiejun, “Quxiao baogongzhi,” part 2, 46. NCH, 26 June 1926, 584. Shanghai disanshiyi mianfangzhi chang, 58. Strikes and Lockouts, 63, 33. Zhonggongdang shi renwu zhuan, vol. 23, 98. Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 432. Ibid., 432. Wusa yundong, vol. 2, 47. Shenbao, 25 Mar. 1927; 1 April 1927. Minguo ribao, 5 Jan. 1927. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 188. Shenbao, 1 Mar. 1927. Shenbao, 17 Jan. 1927, 9, 19 Jan. 1927, 14, 25 Jan. 1927, 9. Shenbao, 11 Mar. 1927; Minguo ribao, 24 Mar. 1927. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 317; Shanghai Yongan gongsi, 18; Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 196. Minguo ribao, 16 Jan. 1927. Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 205. Shenbao, 1 Mar. 1927. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 363, 475.

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Notes to Pages 227–235 317 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100

101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

ZGGRYDSL 18 (1982), 77. Shenbao, 27 Mar. 1927, 11; Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 223. Tang Hai, Zhongguo laodong, 511–20. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 283. Minguo ribao (Shanghai), 26 Mar. 1927. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 5. Ibid., 31. Ibid., 52, 13. ZGGRYDSL 1 (1982), 79. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 111. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 979. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 111. Zhongguo disici quanguo laodong dahui jueyi an, n.p. NCH, 31 July 1926, 212. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 1, 314 –16. Gongren zhi lu 384, 21 July 1926, 3. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 111–12. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 5. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 111. Mackie, “Liberation and Light,” 125. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 111–12. Yang Zhihua, “Yijiu erliu nian Shanghai sichang nügong yundong zhong zhi ganxiang,” Zhongguo funü 16 –17, 30 June 1926, 7: cited in Gilmartin, Engendering the Chinese Revolution, 144. Shanghai huoyou 2, 17 Oct. 1920, 13 –14. Shanghai huoyou 4, 31 Oct. 1920, 2 –3. ‘Erda’ he ‘Sanda,’ 186. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 194. Zhonggong zhongyang wenxian xuanji, vol. 1, 154 –55. Shanghai gongren 27, 2 Nov. 1927. Connell, Gender and Power, 129. ZGGRYDSL 3 (1981), 65. Ibid., 4. Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History, 114. Laodong zhoukan 13, 12 Nov. 1921. Laodong zhoukan 10, 22 Oct. 1921. Shanghai Yongan gongsi, 19. Shibao, 29 Sept. 1914. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 398 –99. NCH, 22 Aug. 1925, 210. Nevertheless such practices were not peculiar to China. During the English Civil War, according to a contemporary, one delinquent soldier was forced to “stand

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318 Notes to Pages 236 –239 in the Market-place . . . with his Faults written in Great Letters on his Breast. These are strange things here, and much gazing at it; ingenuous People both Martial and Civil, are much taken with it.” Cited in Firth, Cromwell’s Army, 289. And in Odessa in July 1917 two soldiers were made to wear dunce’s caps and signs saying “I stole 130 rubles” and were paraded through the streets. Ogonek 24, 27 July 1917, 379.

12

The Climax of the National Revolution, March–April 1927

1 Wilbur and How, Missionaries of Revolution, 374 –75. 2 A.A., “Tri shankhaiskikh vosstaniia,” 69 –70. 3 The “first armed uprising,” launched on 23 –24 October 1926, was a fiasco. Smith, A Road Is Made, 147–52. 4 A.A., “Tri shankhaiskikh vosstaniia,” 72, states that two hundred were in attendance; Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 457, states five hundred; and Minguo ribao (Guangzhou), 12 Feb. 1927, 2, states seven hundred. 5 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 39; Xiangdao 189, 28 Feb. 1927. 6 ZGGRYDSL 4 (1981), 28 –29. 7 Diyici laodong nianjian, part 2, 459. 8 Ibid., 458. 9 Strikes and Lockouts, 52. 10 Zhongguo gongren shiliao 4 (1981), 30; NCH, 19 Mar. 1927, 472. 11 NCH, 26 Feb. 1927, 319. 12 Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 188. 13 Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 98. 14 NCH, 26 Feb. 1927, 320; Roux, Grèves et politique, 50. Brian Martin suggests plausibly that Du played a crucial role in the failure of the February general strike. However, it is less clear that this marked the end of all cooperation between Du and the ccp. Martin, Green Gang, 93. 15 Smith, A Road Is Made, 161– 63. 16 A.A., “Tri shankhaiskikh vosstaniia,” 77; Clifford, Spoilt Children, 200. 17 Liu Ding, “Xuesheng yundong yu sanci wuzhuang qiyi,” 44; Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 140. 18 Zhongguo gonghui lishi wenxian, 378 – 89; ZGGRYDSL 4 (1981), 42 –43. 19 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 66. Merchants’ organizations backed a suspension of trade (xiuye) to mark the arrival of the National Revolutionary Army, but were unwilling to back a strike (bashi). Ren Jianshu, Chen Duxiu zhuan, 354. 20 Shenbao, 22 Mar. 1927, 9. 21 NCH, 26 Mar. 1927, 486. 22 NCH, 23 April 1927, 174; Shenbao, 22 Mar. 1927, 11. 23 Strikes and Lockouts, 29. 24 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 261.

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Notes to Pages 239 –243 319 25 This is the figure given by the glu in a report to the cec of the gmd in Wuhan on 15 April 1927. Minguo ribao, 21 April 1927. 26 Jordan, The Northern Expedition, 116. 27 Rowe, Hankow, 342; Jindai Shanghai chengshi yanjiu, 714. 28 Link, Mandarin Ducks, 5. 29 Zarrow, “Introduction,” 17–18. 30 Xiandai Shanghai dashiji, 32, 42. 31 Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 127. 32 Ibid., 127. 33 Smith, A Road Is Made, 154 –56, 174 –78. 34 In July 1926 the work plan for Shanghai of the Central Committee plenum talked of trying to influence the “small and medium merchants and the ordinary citizens” (zhongxiao shang he putong de yiban shimin). See Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 2, 260. 35 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 305, 128; Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 195. 36 Diyici guonei geming, 467– 69. 37 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 201. 38 Shenbao, 23 Mar. 1927, 9. This is implied by Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, who state that there were four thousand people present. Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 198. 39 Eberhard, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, 248 –49; Link, Mandarin Ducks, 259 – 60. 40 Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 226. 41 Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927, 9; NCH, 26 Mar. 1927, 487. 42 NCH, 26 Mar. 1927, 487. 43 Wilbur and How, Missionaries of Revolution, 399. 44 Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927, 11, 25 Mar. 1927, 11. 45 NCH, 26 Mar. 1927, 486. 46 Ibid. 47 Shenbao, 23 Mar. 1927. 48 Minguo ribao (Guangzhou), 12 Jan. 1927, 4; Henriot, “Municipal Power and Local Elites,” 17; Ren Jianshu, “Chen Duxiu yu Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi,” 76; Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 451. 49 Shenbao, 1 April 1927, 14. 50 Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927, 9. 51 The nature of the pickets and of the responses to them is discussed in Smith, A Road Is Made, 156 –59, 179 – 85. 52 Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 350. 53 Yang Xiaoren, “Shankhaiskie sobytiia vesnoi 1927g.,” 18. 54 Shenbao, 1 April 1927, 14. 55 Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927. 56 Shenbao, 25 Mar. 1927.

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320 Notes to Pages 244 –249 57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

Shanghai wuri kan, 114, 1926: cited in Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 284. Minguo ribao, 23 Mar. 1927. Shenbao, 26 Mar. 1927, 9. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan quanji, “San min zhuyi yu Zhongguo qiantu” (1906), vol. 1, 79. Aside from the American Revolution’s endorsement of the “pursuit of happiness,” in the French Revolution Saint-Just declared that “happiness is a new idea in Europe” and the Declaration of Rights, adopted by the Montagnard Convention of 24 June 1793, described the goal of society as “common happiness.” Jaume, ed., Les déclarations des droits de l’homme, 12. Liang Qichao had also envisaged that the world would progress toward greater civilization and happiness. Luk, The Origins of Chinese Bolshevism, 12. See the explication of the program of the Alliance Society of autumn 1906. Sun Zhongshan xuanji, vol. 1, 297. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan quanji, “Zhongguo geming de shehui zhuyi,” (1912), vol. 2, 325. Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan quanji, “San min zhuyi” (1924), vol. 2, 700. Ibid., 688, 679. Ibid., 690. Shenbao, 8 April 1927; 13 April 1927; Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 330, 339 –40. Minguo ribao, 15 April 1927. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 305. Shenbao, 24 Mar. 1927, 9. The use of sociologically vacuous categories to define political enemies was not peculiar to China. During the Stalin era, similar lists of class enemies—“craftsmen and businessmen,” “white guards,” “scientists,” “alien elements”—were deployed in the Soviet Union. See Davies, “‘Us against Them,’” 70 – 89; and Smith, “Russian Workers and the Politics of Social Identity,” 1–7. Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 172. Zhandou de wushi nian, 84 – 85. Shenbao, 23 Mar. 1927, 11; Zhandou de wushi nian, 85; Shanghai gangshi hua, 315. Nanyang xiongdi yancao, 353; NCH, 9 April 1927, 52. “Shanghai gonggong zujie gongbuju jingwu ribao zhaize,” 47. Dittmer, China’s Continuous Revolution, 85. Mao Zedong, “Hunan nongmin yundong kaocha baogao,” 19. See also Galbiati, P’eng P’ai, 195. Dittmer, China’s Continuous Revolution, 87. Zhongguo lici laodong dahui, 90. Zhonggong zhongyang wenjian xuanji, vol. 2, 356 –57. Anagnost, National Past-Times, 27, 31–32. This was true of reportage of strikes earlier in the 1920s, particularly the stoppage at the Japanese cotton mills in February 1925. See Shenbao 1925 –1927.

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Notes to Pages 249 –253 321 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94

95

96 97 98 99 100 101 102

103 104 105 106 107 108

Shanghai gongren 27, 2 Nov. 1927. Zhongguo gongren yundong de xianqu, vol. 1, 76. Shanghai huoyou 3, 24 Oct. 1920, 2. Zhu Bangxing et al., Shanghai chanye, 148. Wusa yundong shiliao, vol. 2, 1132; Yijiuerqi nian, 222. Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 358. Shenbao, 12 Mar. 1927. Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 94. Shenbao, 4 April 1927. Strikes and Lockouts, 35. See his farewell speech to the Huangpu Military Academy, 3 Nov. 1924, which, incidentally, is suffused with traditional antimerchant sentiment. Sun Zhongshan, Sun Zhongshan quanji, vol. 11, 272. In 1930 when the Shanghai Public Security Bureau tried for the first time to classify the city’s population by socioeconomic category, it used the categories of gong, nong, shang, and xue as the basis of its classification. However, the “four vocations” turned out to embrace less than half the population. The bureau supplemented these with the three new jie that had acquired recognition during the 1920s—namely those of “party,” “government,” and “military.” This still left a majority of the population unclassified, so it resorted to an unscientific miscellany of categories, such as “household service” ( jiating fuwu; which seems to have designated housewives), “servants” (yonggong), “laborers” (laogong), and those without employment (wuye). Tongjibiao zhong zhi Shanghai, 31. Zhongguo funü yundong lishi ziliao, 1921–1927, 390. Minguo ribao, 11 Feb. 1925. Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 135. In the 1950s a journal was published in the PRC called Gongshangjie. Mast and Saywell, “Revolution Out of Tradition,” 92. Shenbao, 6 Dec. 1926. Yijiuerqi nian, 14 –15. In general, if one takes the history of the gcc as a proxy for the history of the formation of a capitalist class in Shanghai, it appears that class formation was determined more by the imperatives of establishing internal solidarities across divisions by regional origin, trade, and wealth and by a concern to establish secure political and economic conditions favorable to business, than by antagonism toward labor. Shanghai gongren qiyi yanjiu, 219. Yijiuerqi nian, 222. Xu Dingxin and Qian Xiaoming, Shanghai zongshanghui, 387. Rongjia qiye, 192. Smith, A Road Is Made, 200 –205. ZGGRYDSL 2 (1958), 126. The International Settlement police offered a much smaller estimate, stating that 104,856 workers struck that day—“not really

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109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

123 124 125

126 127

enough success to be called ‘general’”—although this may refer only to the International Settlement. The NCH confirmed that every major industry was idle. NCH, 21 May 1927, 342. See the various press reports in Shen Yixing et al., Shanghai gongren, 372. Shanghai gongren sanci wuzhuang qiyi (1983), 452 –54. This is my inference from minutes that are highly cryptic. Zhou Shangwen and He Shiyou, Shanghai gongren, 297. Shenbao, 5 April 1927, 14; Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 652. ZGGRYDSL 4 (1981), 97–98. Di yici laodong nianjian, part 2, 472 –73; NCH, 16 April 1927, 102. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong (1958), 568; Xiandai shiliao, vol. 1, 301. Ma Chaojun, Zhongguo laogong, 665. Ibid., 665. NCH, 18 June 1927, 507, 25 June 1927, 553. Yijiuerqi nian, 254 –55. Chinese Economic Journal 8, no. 3 (1931): 129. Deng Tai, Shenghuo sumiao, 75. Ibid., 93. There are many other examples in this volume in which different workers, traders, clerks, and housewives talk about their lives. The volume clearly has a leftist coloration, which must call into question its typicality; nevertheless there is a flavor of authenticity to the accounts. Di yici laodong nianjian, part 2, 70. Hammond, “Organized Labor in Shanghai, 1927–37,” 46. Tongjibiao, tables 165 and 146. The mills surveyed may have been untypical, because an estimate from 1928 reckoned that only about half the cotton workforce belonged to the union. Chinese Economic Journal 3, no. 5 (1928): 908. Shanghai gongren yundong shi, 191. NCH, 4 Feb. 1928, 193.

Conclusion 1 Levenson, Confucian China and Its Modern Fate, vol. 1, 98 –104; Townsend, “Chinese Nationalism”; and Duara, “Deconstructing the Chinese Nation.” 2 Dikötter, Discourse of Race. 3 Wilbur and How, Missionaries of Revolution, 460. 4 Friedman, “Reconstructing China’s National Identity,” 67–91. 5 Strand, Rickshaw Beijing, 284. 6 Fung, “Anti-Imperialism and the Left Guomindang,” 39 –76. Youli Sun stresses the dominance of an economic conception of imperialism into the 1930s (albeit no longer in its leninist variant), pointing to the fact that by 1935 there were no fewer than four different translations of Leonard Woolf ’s Economic Imperialism (1920). Sun, China and the Origins of the Pacific War, 1921–1941.

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Notes to Pages 261–264 323 7 Apter and Saich, Revolutionary Discourse in Mao’s Republic, 115 –30. 8 In its “Public Statement on kmt-ccp Cooperation” of September 1937 at the outbreak of the war with Japan, the ccp proclaimed: “Every single zealous descendant of the Yellow Emperor must determinedly and relentlessly participate in the concerted struggle.” This was a specifically Han formulation. Brandt et al., A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, 245 –47. 9 I was in Beijing when nato bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on 8 May 1999. Tens of thousands of students and others took to the streets mainly to conduct orderly demonstrations, although rocks and paint bombs were hurled at the U.S. and British embassies. Watching the demonstrators I was struck by the extraordinary continuities of this demonstration with nationalist protests of the 1920s. The bombing took place only four days after the eightieth anniversary of the May Fourth Movement, so it was natural that reference should be made to that event. The language of imperialism was well to the fore—the most virulent attacks being reserved for the United States—as was the theme of resistance to foreign aggression. There was much talk of insults to national honor, of national humiliation (guochi)—particularly evident in wall posters on the campus of Beijing University—and of the need to avenge the blood debt (xuezhai). Also apparent was the continuing potency of an ethnic construal of national identity, with demonstrators presenting themselves as brothers (xiongdi) and compatriots (tongbao). Typical was the statement put out by the Beijing Youth Alliance: “The Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu) is a nation that countless times has passed through blood and fire and tribulation. The Chinese nation is a nation that no matter how much blood it sheds and how many sacrifices it has to make, will never lower its head and weep. Later generations of the nation continue to carry the blood of their forefathers in their veins. We love peace passionately and oppose war, but we have never submitted to foreign aggression” (Beijing qingnianbao, 10 May 1999). The technical repertory of the demonstrators also was surprisingly unchanged, with calls for a boycott (not widespread), heart-rending photographs of the three Chinese citizens killed by the bomb, an emotional memorial service for the victims, the singing of the national anthem and the “Internationale” (as well as songs from the Korean war), and the erection of a shrine on the Beijing University campus consisting of photographs of the victims surrounded by black crepe and fronted by candles and offerings of apples. See the accounts in Shenghuo shibao, 10 May 1999. 10 Goodman, Native Place. 11 Brown, Modern India; Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism, 430 –31. 12 The rise of communalist movements alongside nationalism was also evident in Java in the 1920s. Shiraishi, An Age in Motion. 13 Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 47; Strand, Rickshaw Beijing, 157. 14 In June 1926 there was one stoppage in a Japanese mill to demand the removal of a Japanese foreman, one to demand the removal of a Chinese forewoman at the

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26

Nikko mill on 21 June, and two where one native-place group demanded the removal of a foreman who belonged to another group. The latter two stoppages, both at the nwk No. 4 mill, were not, however, typical of industrial conflict at this time. Chinese Economic Journal 3, no. 10 (1926): 463 –71. Gordon, Labor and Imperial Democracy; Chakrabarty, Rethinking Working-Class History. Sarkar, Modern India, 271. Hammond, “Organized Labor.” Chesneaux, The Chinese Labor Movement, 405. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 239. Perry, Shanghai on Strike, 63; Smith, A Road Is Made, 111–12, 169. Roux, Grèves et politique, 339. A comparison with the Dutch East Indies, which experienced similar developments in this period, makes the point. Prior to the abortive uprisings in Java in November 1926 and in West Sumatra in January 1927, the Indies Communist Party acquired considerable influence in the labor movement, but labor protest was articulated “in racial/nationalist terms that were almost entirely unmarked by class consciousness.” There was no Indonesian capitalist class, the modern sector being almost entirely in the hands of Europeans with the rest of the economy in the hands of Chinese. John Ingleson, “Worker Consciousness and Labor Unions in Colonial Java,” 485 –501; Zakaznikova, Rabochii klass i natsional’no-osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie v Indonezii. Fraser, Justice Interruptus. Cited in Alexander and Lina, “Honneth’s New Critical Theory of Recognition,” 130. Erikson, Identity. Bickers and Wasserstrom, “Shanghai’s ‘Dogs and Chinese Not Admitted’ Sign,” 444 – 66.

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BI BLIOG RAPHY

Primary Sources archives Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University Jacobs collection Jay Calvin Houston archive Jardine Matheson Archive, University of Cambridge Public Record Office (pro), London: fo 228 Embassy and Consular Archives, China Correspondence Series 1 228/2510 (Shanghai Mixed Court Incident, 1905 – 06) 228/2511 (Shanghai Mixed Court Incident, 1906) 228/2512 (Shanghai Incident of 1905 and Riot Claims) 228/3140 (Labour and New Chinese Movements, vol. 1, 1922 to May 1925) 228/3141 (Labour and New Chinese Movements, vol. 2, May to June 1925) 228/3143 (Labour and New Chinese Movements, vol. 3, 9 to 27 June 1925) 228/3145 (Shanghai Riots, Mixed Court Proceedings, July 1925) 228/3214 (Minutes of Shanghai Intelligence Bureau, Jan. 1918 to Oct. 1920) 228/3291 (Political and Intelligence Reports, Shanghai, Feb. 1921 to Jan. 1927) 228/3526 (Boycotts and Strikes, vol. 1, May to Aug. 1919) 228/3527 (Boycotts and Strikes, vol. 2, Aug. 1919 to Aug. 1922) Shanghai Municipal Police Files (smpf), 1894 –1949

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I N DEX

All-China Association for the Progress of the Workers’ Section of Society, 110, 145 Alliance Society, 39, 41, 60, 64, 68, 95, 129 Anagnost, Ann, 248 Anarchism, 85 – 88, 106, 112, 116, 129, 135, 149, 155; and concept of “selfishness,” 85, 88, 112, 125, 150, 173, 212; concept of social revolution, 85, 131; impact on labor movement, 86; influence on discourse of class, 88, 116, 119, 123 –26, 264; opposed to nationalism, 111. See also Laborism; Mutual aid Anderson, Benedict, 3, 5, 97 Anderson and Meyer electrical company, 106, 111 Anti-Communist labor unions, 141, 145 –47, 154 –55, 160, 166, 250, 253 – 54; as “signboard” unions, 135, 146; visual depiction of Communists, 254. See also Executive Committee of Shanghai Syndicates; Federation of Syndicates Anti-imperialism, 9, 10, 147, 171, 189, 204 –5, 258 –59; Christianity as depicted in, 144; conservative nationalists support, 242; economic concept of imperialism in, 191, 258, 322 n.6; nation as victim in, 192, 248, 258; Social Darwinist concept of imperialism in,

191, 195, 258, 310 n.4; Soviets as “red imperialists,” in, 155, 158, 245; visual depiction of foreign powers in, 197. See also Class-inflected anti-imperialism; National identity; “People” in nationalist discourse; Sun Yat-sen Anti-Imperialist League, 195 Anti-U.S. boycott (1905), 9, 13, 45 –49, 115, 261 Armed uprisings (1927). See Second armed uprising; Third armed uprising Artisans, 19 –20, 84 – 85; craft identities of, 11, 33, 179; dominate early labor organization, 113; Guangdong, 19, 20, 22, 113; Jiangnan, 20; Labor Party and, 72; Ningbo, 19, 20, 22; strikes in wwi and, 80 – 85; superior wages of, 80. See also Guilds; Handicraft workers Bai Chongxi, 236, 241, 242, 245, 249, 252, 254 Ba Jin, 117 Bangs, 22 –23, 30, 33, 34, 36, 48, 58, 73, 81, 82, 83, 101, 112, 113, 127, 138, 159, 225, 226 Barbers, 155, 227 Billig, Michael, 8, 13 Blood symbolism, 196, 198, 205; “hot blood,” 63, 99, 196, 207, 244 Bo’ai, 127, 131 Bookbinders’ union, 154, 155, 158, 205

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352 Index Borodin, M. M., 148, 151, 236 Bourdieu, Pierre, 277 n.73 Boycotts, 13, 78 –79, 205, 260, 282 n.44; May Fourth Movement and, 93; May Thirtieth Movement and, 169, 173. See also Anti-U.S. boycott (1905); National produce Boyd engineering works and shipyard, 71, 91, 101 Breuilly, John, 3 –4 British-American Tobacco (bat) workers, 13, 25, 26, 91, 95, 101, 180, 188; 1921 strike at, 136 –38, 143 –45 Brotherhoods, 28, 36; language of brotherhood, 62, 84, 130, 138; meaning of sworn brotherhood, 28. See also Bo’ai; Yiqi (code of brotherhood) Cai Yuanpei, 44, 124 Calhoun, Craig, 36 Cao Yabo, 95, 100, 113 Carpenters, 34, 73, 101, 155, 161, 226 “Cattle and horses” trope, 268; Chinese treated like, 203; workers treated like, 10, 52, 67, 202. See also Humane treatment Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 233 Chatterjee, Partha, 4 Chen, Joseph, 96, 108 Chen Bingsheng, 139, 141, 155 Chen Duxiu, 21, 31, 76, 113, 116, 119, 123, 133, 141, 217, 232, 276 n.47 Chen Guoliang, 109, 111, 154 Chen Jia’nai, 109, 111 Chen Qimei, 60 – 67, 70, 74, 83, 88 Chen Yun, 227 Chen Zemin, 51, 114 Chesneaux, Jean, 1, 10 –11, 266 Chiang Kai-shek, 1, 189, 214, 223, 224, 236, 239, 243, 246, 250, 252, 253, 260, 265 Child workers, 18, 229

China Alliance of the Workers’ Section of Society, 111 China Industrial Association, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 107, 110 China Labor Union, 100, 109, 111, 154 China Merchant Steam Navigation Company, 139 –40, 180, 213 China National Alliance of Workers and Peasants, 110 China Workers’ Association, 111 Chinese Communist Party (ccp), 2, 7, 13, 31, 110, 121, 129, 135, 136, 139, 161– 67, 190 –92, 194, 208, 214, 221, 223, 224, 229, 236, 238, 244; advocacy of proletarian revolution, 134; condemned as extreme, 187, 251; congresses of, 133, 134, 148, 162, 220, 227, 229; foundation of, 116, 133; membership of, 242; popular support for, 242 –43. See also Communist Youth League; General Labor Union (glu); Labor Organization Secretariat; Labor unions; May Thirtieth Movement; Proletarian hegemony; Second armed uprising (February 1927); Secret societies; Shanghai municipal government (1927); Third armed uprising (March 1927) Chinese enterprises, in Shanghai: labor discipline in, 210; industrial relations in, 59, 203, 211–13; wages in, 210. See also Class identity; Ganqing Chinese Millowners’ Association, 181, 184, 187, 210, 229, 252 Chinese Workers’ Cooperative Association, 110, 111 Citizens’ government, 237, 238, 240 –41; citizen assemblies in third armed uprising, 238, 241, 245 Citizenship, 40, 47, 62, 129, 193, 211– 12, 258, 259; Citizens’ Association, 44, 93, 100, 164; Citizens’ Patriotic

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Index 353 Society, 77; guomin, 44; shimin, 173, 239 –40, 319 n.34; workers use language of, 62, 106, 150 –51, 164, 211 Civil War of 1924, 193 –94, 258 Civilized Treaty Resistance Society, 50, 52 Class discourse 9, 74, 75, 83, 116, 118, 137, 206, 211, 217, 264 – 65; “autonomy” (zizhi) in, 88, 126, 159; “awakening” and, 116, 117–18; Chinese and foreign capitalists compared in, 59, 158, 203, 212 –13; Chinese and foreign workers compared in, 128, 152, 202, 205; claim that China’s class divisions narrow, 151, 155, 158, 214, 249, 254; class cooperation counterpoised to, 152, 155, 158, 214, 249, 254; Communists and, 134, 135, 162; “enlightenment” and, 116, 119; exploitation in, 120 –22, 135, 137; factory as prison, 201–2; fatalism and, 127–28; labor journals and, 13, 86, 87, 88, 120, 123, 128, 131, 133; manual labor defended in, 123 –24, 265; morality and, 118, 125 –26, 265; native-place divisions in, 23, 86, 158, 161, 226; representation of foreign capitalists, 131, 147, 158, 171, 213; representation of foremen in, 197, 204; representation of national capitalists, 157, 158, 184, 267– 68; songs promote, 197–98; women marginalized by, 130, 230 –31, 232; workers utilize, 116, 117, 132, 265. See also Class-inflected anti-imperialism; Class terminology; Dignity; Ganqing; Jie; Laborism; Labor unions; Liberation; Liberty; “Sacredness of labor”; Secret societies Class identity, 8, 10, 59, 131, 263 – 64, 267– 68; claims for rights and, 47, 59, 66, 106, 205; ephemeral quality of, 12, 58, 213; handicraft workers and, 84 –

85, 130, 210, 211, 212; lasts into 1930s, 254 –55; workers condemn capitalist exploitation, 66, 90, 118, 196, 206, 211, 254 –55; workers oppose Chinese employers, 157, 210 –11, 212, 213, 263; workers’ perceptions of Chinese capitalists, 211–13, 267– 68; workers’ perceptions of foreign capitalists, 163, 207, 267; workers untouched by, 135, 157, 158, 160, 178, 227, 266. See also Class discourse; Class-inflected anti-imperialism; Class terminology Class-inflected anti-imperialism, 158, 162, 171, 184, 190, 191–93, 194 –95, 200 –213, 242, 249, 258 –59, 260, 265; Japanese supervisors in, 142, 162, 163, 164, 201, 202, 247; legitimates workers’ struggles, 265, 267; national and class themes inextricably linked in, 190, 249, 265; national capitalists in, 192, 240; nature of militancy generated by, 209 –13; not strictly a form of nationalism, 190, 191–92; representation of nation in, 192, 245 –46, 248, 258; warlords in, 193 –94, 236, 238, 246, 248; workers utilize, 195, 204 –5, 208. See also Anti-imperialism; Proletarian hegemony Class terminology, 129, 249 –50; capitalist, 119, 120, 127, 131, 211, 212, 242, 249, 255; comrade, 130; employers’ dislike of, 249 –50; gongjie (workers’ section of society), 49, 52, 71, 95, 99, 106, 108, 119, 129, 150, 250, 261; gongren, 130; in Guomindang usage of, 250; handicraft sector, 130, 249; jieji, 129, 211, 250; laodong, 129 –30; proletarian, 119, 127, 249. See also Brotherhoods; Gongzei (scabs); Jie (sections of society); Tongbao (compatriots)

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354 Index Clientelism, in labor relations, 11, 24 – 25, 26, 27, 35. See also Foremen and forewomen Clifford, Nicholas, 186 Cohen, Myron, 129 Cohen, Paul, 42, 104 Comaroff, John, 8 Comintern, 133, 148, 178, 190, 191 Commercial Association, 93, 109, 213, 237, 241, 249, 251, 252, 254 Commercial Press, 21, 85, 89 –90, 97, 126, 161, 179, 202, 227, 255 Common people’s schools 69, 86, 87, 88, 115, 302 n.8 Communist Youth League (originally the Socialist Youth League), 28, 144, 147, 164, 208, 229 Compagnie française de tramways et d’éclairage électrique, 103, 203, 223 Confederation of Labor, Merchant, Student, and Journalist Organizations, 94, 96, 186, 292 n.21 Confucian tradition, 116, 122, 151, 193, 199, 232, 265; loss of confidence in, 4, 76, 192. See also New Culture Movement Conscience (liangxin), 88, 106, 126, 150, 206, 211, 212, 262 Construction workers, 18, 53, 81, 84, 127, 155, 226 Contract labor, 21, 25, 26, 30, 35, 101, 139, 176, 278 n.101; unions demand abolition of, 224, 226 Convention of Workers’ Section of Society, 110 Coolies, 12, 23 Copper currency, 54, 80, 134, 200, 214, 288 n.26 Cotton mills, 133 –34, 180 – 81, 209; Japanese-owned, 133, 162 – 67, 174, 183 – 84, 209, 223. See also Chinese

Millowners’ Association; Nagai Wata Kaisha (nwk) cotton mills; Nikko mills Cottonworkers, 12, 17, 18, 20, 107, 162 – 67, 266; organization among, 177, 255; refuse to participate in 1905 riot, 51; regional origins of, 21–22; secret societies and, 31; skill level of, 19; union of, 166 – 67, 190, 223, 227, 228, 229, 255, 265 Coup (12 April 1927), 189, 232, 224, 228, 252 –53, 255; strike in protest, 253 Crossley, Pamela, 37 Culture, 8 Dai Jitao, 109, 110, 116 Deng Zhongxia, 149, 155, 163, 164, 188, 194 Deutsch, Karl, 2 Dignity, 118, 137, 268; class and, 116, 119, 202 –3, 122 –23, 201, 206, 218; nation and, 196. See also “Face”; Humane treatment Diplomatic Conference of Workers’ Section of Society, 150 Dockers, 48, 79, 94, 96, 175 –76; Dockers’ union, 175, 177, 181, 224, 255. See also Transportation workers “Dog-beating squads,” 139, 223 Doko mill, 162, 221 Duan Qirui, 172, 175 Duara, Prasenjit, 6 Du Yuesheng, 29, 213, 237, 318 n.14 Dyers, 84, 102, 234, 252 Electricians’ union, 112, 145, 154 Erikson, Erik, 269 Esperanto, 86, 112 Executive Committee of Shanghai Syndicates, 142 –43 Ewo mills, 199, 222 –23

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Index 355 “Face,” 34, 36, 164, 184, 189, 203, 235, 268. See also Dignity Fang Jiaobo, 169, 198 Farnham engineering works, 74, 91 Federation of Street Associations, 114, 115, 164, 168 –71, 173, 186, 213, 238, 239, 241 Federation of Syndicates, 154 –58, 165, 168 –9, 176, 178, 182, 204, 220, 250, 254, 266 Feuerwerker, Albert, 4 Fitzgerald, John, 7, 117 Foreign enterprises, in Shanghai: labor discipline in, 210; proportion of workforce in, 290 n.88; wages in, 210. See also Chinese enterprises, in Shanghai; Cotton mills; Nagai Wata Kaisha (nwk) cotton mills; Nikko mills Foreign employees, 103, 177, 179, 181, 206 Foreigners, in Shanghai, 4 –5, 77; attitudes toward Chinese, 42, 205 Foremen and forewomen, 24 –26, 36, 101, 111, 222 –23, 225, 247, 264; bring strikes to end, 142; collude with labor unions, 222; dispense patronage of, 24, 25; in Japanese companies, 142; lead strikes, 57, 101, 164, 175, 176, 264; “Number Ones,” 25, 223, 247; provide protection, 25; recruit to jobs, 21, 24, 224; represent relationship to workers as a moral one, 25; unable to prevent protest, 101, 135 –38; workers attack, 144, 203, 222, 224, 225, 247; workers respect, 25. See also Clientelism, in labor relations; Contract labor Foucault, Michel, 9 Foundry workers, 72, 95; Unity Association of, 72, 74 “Four vocations,” 17, 44, 128 129, 251

Fraser, Nancy, 268 Frazier, Martin, 307 n.46 Furniture makers, 72, 83 Fu Xiaoan, 139, 140, 181, 213, 252, 253 Ganqing, 21, 126 –27, 166, 212, 265, 297 nn.50, 51; aim of labor unions, 34, 64, 89, 110, 126, 137, 205, 217; guild tradition and, 83, 84 Gellner, Ernest, 2, 5 General Chamber of Commerce (gcc), 45, 49 –50, 60, 140, 198, 213, 253; activists in, 79; ambivalence toward foreign capital, 187; anti-U.S. boycott and, 46, 49; asserts political influence, 51; May Fourth Movement and, 93, 109, 114; May Thirtieth Movement and, 169 –73, 181– 84, 186 – 88; opposition to May Fourth strike, 96; significance of labor question for, 187, 251, 252 –53; support for Chiang Kaishek, 253; support for strikers, 164, 175, 267. See also Commercial Association; May Thirtieth Movement; Small traders and merchants General Labor Union (glu), 18, 100, 158, 211, 214 –32, 236, 241, 262; accused of neglecting women, 229; activists of, 218, 219; armed pickets of, 238, 239, 241, 243, 246, 251–52; claim that its officials are corrupt, 221, 233; class struggle and, 217; committee procedures encouraged by, 221, 233; Communist domination of, 218 –19, 220; employers courted by, 221; financial incompetence of, 221; formation of, 169; May Thirtieth Movement and, 171–75, 177– 85, 188; membership of, 188, 214 –16, 255; moral authority of, 237, 242, 253; new constitution of, 217; non-

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356 Index General Labor Union (continued) Communists in, 219; paid officials of, 220 –21; promotes class identity, 217; rejects separate organization of women, 231–32; sacking of activists of, 219, 222; second armed uprising and, 236 –37; secret societies and, 182 – 83, 221, 222 –23; suppression of, 181, 188, 250, 252 –53, 255; tension between workers and, 182; third armed uprising and, 239, 241–43; women’s participation encouraged by, 229 –30, 231, 232; young workers’ participation encouraged by, 231. See also “Dog-beating squads”; Labor unions; Second armed uprising (February 1927); Third armed uprising (March 1927); Women workers Ge Pengyun, 49 –50 Goldsmiths, 74, 212 Gongzei (scabs), 146, 165, 166, 204, 246, 267 Goodman, Bryna, 7, 263 Gordon, Andrew, 203, 312 n.61 Green Gang, 28 –29, 30, 31, 32, 74, 84, 88, 101, 136, 137–38, 143, 156, 159, 176, 221, 223 –24; “Big Three,” 29, 213; control of docks, 30; liquidates armed pickets of glu, 223, 224, 245, 252 –53, 254; opium and, 29; organized on generational lines, 29; “students” in, 29, 36. See also Secret societies Groups of ten, 93, 226 Guanxi, 20 –21, 24, 36 Guilds, 23, 32 –35, 81– 83, 278 n.114; anti-U.S. boycott and, 46, 48, 50, 51; class conflict in, 73, 81– 83, 84; close affinity to regional guilds, 32; corporate solidarity of, 33 –34; morality and, 125, 265; patron deities of, 34, 65; resilience of, 33; rituals of, 32, 34;

separation of xiaohang and dahang, 34 –35, 81, 82, 83, 84, 234; women in, 33; workers seek to split from, 85. See also Artisans; “Face”; Ganqing Guo Jisheng, 154, 156 Guomindang (gmd), 7, 16, 18, 24, 31, 37, 90, 116, 138, 139, 141, 145, 157, 159, 179, 190 –92, 194, 238, 240, 244, 249, 251; advocates arbitration of labor disputes, 152, 153, 227; antiCommunists in, 246; calls for legalization of labor unions, 152; Comintern overhauls program of, 148, 190, 191; conflict between Left and Right within, 153 –54, 166, 200, 214, 239, 262; first congress of, 148, 152, 190; formation of, 64; May Fourth Movement and, 100, 108 –9; May Thirtieth Movement and, 171; membership of, 242; reconstituted as Revolutionary Party, 79, 89, 109, 152; second congress of, 199, 209; Wuhan national government of, 215, 238, 239, 241, 243. See also United Front Guomindang labor unions, 265; Communists claim are “fake,” 114; foundation of, 109, 110 –11, 113 –14, 147; right-wing control of, 135, 141 Gu Zhenghong, 16, 28, 166, 196 Gu Zhuxuan, 29, 30 Handicraft workers, 17, 18, 33, 91, 95, 158, 210, 237; May Thirtieth Movement and, 174; resident in Chinese City, 33, 178; skill level of, 19; unionization of, 155, 157, 178, 225 –26, 227. See also Goldsmiths; Ironsmiths; Pharmacy employees; Silversmiths Han Hui, 79, 83, 88, 89 Happiness, 118, 135, 137, 142, 183, 244, 248, 262, 320 n.60 Harrell, Stevan, 128

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Index 357 Harrison, Henrietta, 7, 128 Hengfeng mill, 22, 93, 195, 225 Hershatter, Gail, 273 n.56 Hobsbawm, Eric, 5, 199 Honig, Emily, 11, 22, 27 Honneth, Axel, 268 Hot-Blooded Daily, 13, 207 Housheng mill, 21, 28 Hua Gang, 31 Huang Ai, 193 Hu Hanmin, 110, 151 Humane treatment, 268 – 69, 312 n.61; demands for, 63, 137,163, 166, 200 – 201, 211, 218. See also “Cattle and horses” trope; Dignity Hu Shi, 118, 208 Identity, 8 –9, 268 – 69 Intelligentsia, 5, 38, 43, 51, 68, 69, 76, 90, 153, 261; constitutionalists, 39, 41, 257; revolutionaries, 39, 41, 257 Ironsmiths, 95, 100, 177, 178, 224 Japanese, in Shanghai, 77; attitude toward Chinese, 77, 80, 203; Chinese attitudes toward, 38, 77, 78, 103; effect of boycotts on, 79, 291 n.14; rumors of poisoning by, 103 –4. See also Japanese mill strike (1925); TwentyOne Demands Japanese mill strike (1925), 160, 162 – 66, 207 Jiang Kanghu, 68, 69, 70, 86, 286 n.57 Jiangnan arsenal and shipyard, 26, 60, 61– 62, 65, 101, 183, 205, 208, 216; Manufacturing Workers’ Alliance Society, 66 – 67 Jie (sections of society), 52, 128 –29, 241, 250 –51, 261, 283 n.80, 321 n.95; a claim for social recognition, 128; compatible with social hierarchy, 129, 251, 263; multiplication of, 250, 251;

strengthened by nationalism, 52, 107, 170, 243, 261. See also Class terminology; “Four vocations” Johnson, Chalmers, 7, 272 n.33 Johnson, Lynda Cooke, 279 n.121 Judge, Joan, 41, 280 n.10 Kang Youwei, 39, 281 n.34 Kedourie, Elie, 5 Kinship, 29, 35 –36; as metaphor for group construction, 26, 27. See also Brotherhoods; Sisterhoods Kuang Gongyao, 155, 156 Labor ( journal), 87, 88 Laborer ( journal), 128 Laborism, 87– 88, 121, 124 Labor movement, in Shanghai,149; byproduct of nationalism, 2; call for syndicates, 87; instituted by 1911 Revolution, 74 –75; new tactics of, 85; number of organized workers, 154, 177; strongest in foreign sector, 177; underdevelopment of, 149; workers mobilized, not organized by, 265. See also Anti-Communist labor unions; Labor unions Labor Organization Secretariat, 133 –47, 150, 157 Labor Party, 68, 70, 71–75, 82, 83, 88 – 89, 90, 95, 100, 101, 109, 110, 129, 147, 265; artisans in, 72; nationalism of, 72; nonworkers may join, 71, 72; represents gongjie, 71; revival of, 79, 88; syndicate influence on, 71, 75; traditionalism of, 75 Labor unions, 177– 80, 214 –35, 265 – 66; aims of, 135, 137, 145, 190, 217; “bureaucratization” of, 220, 233; Chinese employers call for legalization of, 172, 184; Chinese employers harden attitude toward, 143, 187– 88, 219,

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358 Index Labor unions (continued) 252; clientelist culture of, 233 –34; Communist model of, 134 –35, 162, 178; craft-based nature of, 179, 226, 227; demand consultation over dismissals, 218, 226; demand eight-hour working day, 218, 226, 229; demand recognition by employers, 141–44, 171, 172, 173, 176, 183, 218, 226; individual enterprise as basis of, 178; initial domination by artisans, 113; male chauvinism in, 232; male domination of, 228, 233; May Fourth Movement boosts number of, 112 –13; May Thirtieth Movement galvanizes, 167, 172, 177– 80, 188; members unwilling to participate in, 220, 265; membership of, 177; nationality of enterprise and, 177; native-place networks and, 226; particularistic solidarities in, 113, 226; pickets opposed by employers, 251– 52; police repression of, 220, 265; see task as to develop morality 65, 66, 68, 75, 111, 125, 135, 145; see task as to develop nation, 66, 68, 71, 75, 109, 110, 111, 116, 187, 205 – 6; see task as to maintain order, 180; seek to establish industrial unionism, 134, 155, 178 –79, 226 –27; size of, 178; tolerated by employers, 179 – 80, 181; weakness of, 217, 219, 265; women in, 227–32; workers join to identify with national revolution, 215, 262; workers join for strike pay, 217; workers perceive as defense against predators, 234, 265. See also Contract labor; Cottonworkers: union of; Ganqing; General Labor Union (glu); Guomindang labor unions; Mutual aid; NonCommunist labor unions; Shaming rituals Labor World, 13, 120, 123, 131, 133

Laodong zhoukan (Labor weekly), 13, 120 Laozi, 121 Laundry workers, 106, 174, 178, 226, 235 Leather workers, 22, 83, 84 Levenson, Joseph, 257 Liang Qichao, 38, 39, 129 Liberation, 116, 118 –19, 206, 217 Liberty, 116, 118, 241, 244 –45, 248, 262 Li Da, 281 n.28 Li Dazhao, 121 Li Henglin, 106, 111, 154, 166 Li Huangshi, 49 –50; 1905 riot provoked by trial of, 51 Li Lisan, 163, 171, 172, 174, 175, 218, 220, 221, 248 Lin Jun, 173, 241 Lin Weimin, 65, 139, 140 Li Pingshu, 61, 62, 64, 66, 73 Li Qihan, 136, 137, 138, 141, 147, 160 Liu Fubiao, 29, 60, 83 Liu Guanzhi, 182, 208, 221 Liu Hua, 61, 161, 177 Liu Shaoqi, 180, 184, 219, 221 Liu Xinyong, 161 Li Xiehe, 60, 61, 64 Li Zhong, 134, 135 Lockouts, 143, 210, 222, 252 Long Dadao, 243, 244 Lu Xun, 47 Ma Chaojun, 64, 65, 208, 211, 212, 253 Mann, Michael, 3, 10 Mao Zedong, 134, 191, 247 Martin, Brian, 31, 318 n.14 Marxism, 116, 133, 158 Massacre (7 February 1923), 148, 149 May Day, 70, 116, 121, 124, 152, 155, 158, 197 May Fourth Movement, 1, 9, 11, 41, 88, 90, 92 –115, 116, 125, 129, 131, 140,

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Index 359 155, 170, 174, 186, 188, 192, 202, 206, 258, 259, 262, 264, 267; aims of, 94, 102; boycott during, 93 –94, 97, 98; China’s first general strike, 1, 92, 115; guilds in, 100, 101; concentrates strike on Japanese companies, 96 –97; secret societies in, 100 – 01; workers as backup during, 95, 96, 211; workers’ identification with nation, 115, workers’ involvement discouraged during, 94 – 95, 100; workers’ participation in, 92, 93, 95 –96, 100 –102. See also Confederation of Labor, Merchant, Student, and Journalist Organizations May Thirtieth Movement, 9, 10, 13, 24, 51, 100, 102, 168 – 89, 217, 220, 221, 226, 229, 258, 267; achievements of, 185 – 86; Beijing government supports strikers, 180; casualties of, 170; ccp and, 168 – 69, 171, 179 – 80, 182, 183, 188; compared with May Fourth Movement, 170, 174, 186, 188; concentrates strike on foreign enterprises, 174, 211; demands of, 169, 171, 172 – 73; explosion of labor unions during, 177– 80; gcc opposes business strike, 169, 173, 186; gcc seizes initiative in, 171–73, 186; gcc supports strikers, 175, 180, 184, 186 – 87; May Thirtieth Incident (1925), 158, 166, 168, 195; Municipal Council by-laws and, 168, 169, 171, 172; Municipal Councils withdraws electricity, 180 – 81; number of strikers during, 174, 180, 184; public support for strikers, 180; relief fund for strikers, 173, 174, 180, 181– 82, 187; Soviet support for, 175, 180; stoppage in Chinese mills ends, 184; strike in British companies ends, 185; strike in Japanese companies ends, 183 – 84; turning-point for foreign powers, 168, 185, 189; workers’ role

in, 188. See also Boycotts; Communist Party; General Labor Union (glu); Union of Labor, Commerce, and Education Mechanics, 12, 19, 64 – 65, 66, 178; mechanics’ guild, 110; mechanics’ union, 133, 135, 137, 149, 154, 156, 157, 158 Migrants, to Shanghai, 15, 260; causes of migration, 16; Guangdong, 19; Jiangnan, 15 –16, 19, 21, 22, 160, 218; Ningbo, 19, 20; Subei, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21–22, 159, 162, 218, 223, 225 Minsheng, 13, 86 Minzu, 38, 106, 190, 208, 257, 280 n.4 Mutual aid, 86, 88, 111, 126, 131, 135, 137, 217 Mu Zhiying, 145, 146, 157, 177, 228, 232 Nagai Wata Kaisha (nwk) cotton mills, 28, 79, 101, 162, 166, 172, 199, 207, 223, 250 Nairn, Tom, 10 Nanyang tobacco company, 111, 145, 149, 155, 156 –58, 180, 247 National General Labor Union, 229. See also National labor congresses National humiliation, 78, 94, 97, 99, 198, 203, 259, 260, 323 n.9; National Humiliation Days, 78, 93, 99, 197; National Humiliation Society, 78 National identity: absence of, 193; as “imagined community,” 3, 8; particularistic solidarities and, 36; perception of foreigners and, 42, 103, 208; presupposes equivalent persons, 36, 263; rooted in idea of ancestral descent, 36, 38, 42, 192, 208; uneven development of, 104; workers and, 8; xenophobia and, 42, 43, 103 –4, 168, 208 –9, 281 n.28. See also Anti-imperialism; Citizenship, Proto-national identity

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360 Index Nationalism: discursive approach to, 10; ethnicity and, 6; market expansion and, 3; mass nature of, 5, 258; modern communications and, 2 –3; modernity and, 5; neglect of popular contribution to, 5, 7; performative nature of, 7; print capitalism and, 3, 97, 260; state-making and, 3 –4, 7; urbanization and, 3 Nationalist discourse, 38, 257– 60, 323 n.9; alliance of five jie in, 243 –44, 262; anger at Japanese insults in, 163 – 64; animal imagery in, 98, 196, 197, 204, 206, 208, 273 n.48; anti-dynastic nature of, 40; “awakening” as trope in, 99, 117, 206, 247, 260; calls for civil rights in, 171, 183, 195, 238; China seen as comprising “five races,” 39, 190, 192; China seen as proletarian nation, 151, 192; Chinese exclusion from parks as issue in, 50, 269; Chinese likened to “sheet of sand” in, 52, 93, 111, 199, 248; civic idiom of national identity, 62, 115, 158, 164, 208, 257, 258, 259; claim that Communism unsuited to national temperament, 155, 158, 242, 254; class cooperation in, 67, 75, 131, 151, 157, 262; class as fault line within, 49, 151, 214, 249, 254, 263, 267; common humanity as theme of, 46; competing narratives within, 6, 158, 159, 192, 194, 257; counterrevolutionaries in, 212, 245 – 46; demand for representation on municipal council, 50, 51, 114, 171, 172, 181, 185, 187, 238; demand for return of foreign concessions, 243; demand for return of Mixed Court, 169, 171, 172, 181, 185, 187; denial of antiforeign charge, 43, 46, 205, 206; “enemies of the people” in, 246; ethnic idiom of national identity, 192, 194,

208, 257, 258, 259, 261; federalist vision of nation in, 37, 159, 259; Han imperialism and, 190, 192; heterogeneous nature of, 42; internal decay of China in, 41, 105, 191, 193, 259; modern schools and, 2, 40, 44; “national extinction” in, 5, 40, 41, 78, 94, 97, 104, 191, 195, 260; “national salvation” in, 40, 97, 105, 258; perception of Chinese tradition in, 5, 40, 74, 105, 192 –93; perception of foreign threat in, 4, 40, 43, 105, 259; perception of reactionaries in, 245, 246; Social Darwinism in, 40, 47, 53, 75. 191, 257; unequal treaties in, 152, 185, 191, 195, 205; youth as vector of national liberation, 76, 149, 170. See also Anti-imperialism; Blood symbolism; Happiness; Minzu; Nationalist discourse and gender; National humiliation; National identity; “People” in nationalist discourse; Proto-national identity; “Running dogs”; Slavery trope; Students; Tongbao (compatriots); Workers, in the nationalist movement Nationalist discourse and gender, 206 –7; women’s and national liberation, 76, 228; women’s and workers’ liberation, 119, 146 Nationalist discourse and labor, 47, 54, 67, 153, 261; class cooperation as theme of, 152, 155, 158, 214, 249, 254, 261; educational level of workers to be raised, 67, 68, 72, 95, 108, 109, 217; martial training to be encouraged, 72, 75, 173; morality of workers to be improved, 67, 68; skills of workers to be raised, 67, 68, 157 Nationalist propaganda, 97, 168, 195 – 200; cartoons, 48, 99, 196 –97, 247, 259; cult of Sun Yat-sen, 199 –200;

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Index 361 demonstrations, 94, 97, 260; destruction of Japanese goods, 98; flags, 48, 94, 99, 198, 241, 259; invented traditions, 199, 200; mass sobbing, 195, 196; memorial services, 48, 196, 198 – 99, 260; newsreel film, 197, 260; posters, 48, 97; songs, 47, 78, 197–98, 259; “speak bitterness,” 246, 247, 248; speaker teams, 97, 195, 238, 259; street theater, 97, 196, 259; symbolic practices, 98, 198; symbolism of color red, 187, 241; triple stoppage (sanba), 92, 94, 108, 168, 169, 173, 186, 237, 238, 240, 258. See also Boycott; Protonational identity; Shaming rituals; Show trials; Workers, in the nationalist movement National labor congresses: first, 139, 204; second, 194, 202, 204, 224; third, 188, 229, 230, 231, 248; fourth, 230 National produce, 62, 79, 95, 194 –95, 198; advertising and, 198; campaign to promote, 46, 78, 94; Society to Promote National Products, 62, 79. See also Boycotts National revolution (1926 –27), 1, 11, 190, 218, 249 National Revolutionary Army, 1, 7, 200, 212, 214, 217, 236; popularity of, 237, 238, 239, 241–42, 244, 248, 260 National Students’ Union, 108, 164, 168, 170, 195, 241 “National traitors” (maiguo zei), 94, 96, 102, 259; hanjian, 204 Native-place associations (tongxianghui), 21, 30, 159, 225, 276 n.42; Guangdong, 110; Long Life Society, 101; Ningbo, 50, 140, 170, 300 n.46; Shaoxing, 170; Subei, 30, 159; Xiangshan, 206 Native-place identity, 11, 20; constituted as local form of national identity, 37,

225, 263; defined at different levels, 20 –21; divides workers, 37; exploited by employers, 21, 22, 23, 161; potential to disrupt unity of nation, 37, 38 Native-place labor unions, 22, 124, 145, 158 – 61; Anhui workers’ autonomy society, 159, 160; Cantonese union, 149, 161, Lingnan union, 160, 226; Shaoxing union, 160 – 61; Wuxi union, 160; Zhejiang union, 161. See also Class discourse Native-place networks, 20 –23, 179; basis for “social closure,” 37, 161, 263; class tension within, 159; conflicts between, 23, 140 –41, 225; forging unity between, 37, 139 –40, 141, 147, 225; job recruitment and, 21, 161; language barriers between, 159 – 60; new functions in city, 20; restrict entry to trade, 22, 23, 37. See also Bangs; Class discourse; Migrants, to Shanghai; Regional guilds New Culture Movement, 5, 76, 86, 104, 116, 118, 119, 123, 124, 265 New Youth, 76, 124 Nikko mills, 91, 164, 165, 247, 266; strike at, 141–45 Northern Expedition (1926 –29), 199, 214, 215 Painters’ trade union, 81, 82 – 83, 89 Pan Donglin, 185, 213 Parkin, Frank, 37, 279 n.139 “People” in nationalist discourse, 39, 41, 105, 149 –50, 194; nation equated with common people, 149, 158, 172 – 73, 189, 192, 262, 265; people’s duty, 97, 107; people’s morale, 99; people’s rights, 94, 106, 258; people’s will, 100, 106, 245, 258, 260; populist conception of democracy, 106 –7, 258

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362 Index Perry, Elizabeth, 11, 13, 37, 263, 266, 275 n.34, 289 n.44 Pharmacy employees, 112, 113, 178, 212 Police (International Settlement), 51, 96, 99 –100, 102, 117, 147, 164, 166, 171, 172, 199 Popkin, Samuel, 121 Postal workers, 31, 102, 106, 158, 205, 235, 255 Printers, 19, 85, 211; Society for Unity (1911), 65; printers’ union, 133, 177, 179, 221. See also Commercial Press Proletarian hegemony, 162, 188 Proto-national identity, 6; antiManchuism and, 40, 61, 285 n.8; “culturalist” idiom of, 6, 38, 257; ethnic idiom of, 6, 39, 62, 257; Han identity, 37, 61; nationalism reconfigures, 6, 39, 41, 105, 260; perception of non-Han groups, 39 Public Loyalty Oratorical Society (Gongzhong yanshuohui), 48 –49, 52 Public utility workers, 31, 96, 176 Pudong Society for Advancement of Morality, 144 Pudong weavers union, 141–44, 155, 158 Puyi mill, 196, 252 Qiuxin machine works, 71, 99, 103, 105 Railway workers, 65, 79, 96, 100, 125, 154, 155 Ranger, Terence, 199 Red Gang, 29, 30, 31, 32, 83, 176, 287 n.86; looser than Green Gang, 29; mainly Cantonese, 29. See also Secret societies Regional guilds, 21, 101, 159; anti-U.S. boycott and, 46, 51; Guang-Zhao

guild, 49, 50, 101, 110, 170; Ningbo guild (Siming gongsuo), 45, 50, 52, 140; in May Fourth Movement, 92. See also Native-place associations (tongxianghui) “Resist Russia” campaign (1902-04), 43 – 45, 52 Restoration Society, 60 Retail and service workers, 17, 18, 19, 131, 158, 215, 237; department store workers, 17, 19, 111, 213, 227, 234; identity of, 178, 227; shop employees union, 196, 226; unionization, 157, 178 Revolution of 1911, 1, 9, 60 – 68, 115, 261; business elite in, 60, 64; dress reform and, 62; emergence of political parties, 64, 68; legalizes right of association, 65, 66, 286 n.50; popular participation in, 61; promises to improve popular living standards, 63 – 64; queue-cutting, 61– 62; secret societies in, 60; women’s feet unbound following, 61; worker participation in, 62 – 63 Rice prices, 54, 80, 134, 200, 214 Rickshaw pullers, 22, 91, 93, 159, 174 Ricoeur, Paul, 8 Rigby, Richard, 188 Rong Zongjing, 21, 252 Roux, Alain, 12, 18 Rowe, William, 35, 239 Ruili engineering works, 103, 106 Rumors, 103 –4, 294 n.93 “Running dogs,” 13, 203 –4, 206, 208, 224, 246, 247, 262, 263, 267; warlords as, 161, 194. See also “Dog-beating squads” Russian revolution, influence of, 88 “Sacredness of labor,” 69, 88, 97, 98, 117, 123 –24, 131, 137

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Index 363 Schwarcz, Vera, 170, 196 Scott, James, 122 Seamen, 90, 95, 96, 205, 208, 243; Group Ties Society, 138; Jun’an guild, 100, 138, 139,140, 226; May Thirtieth Movement and, 174, 176; national union of, 138 –39; seamen’s strike (1922), 138 –41; seamen’s union, 177, 181, 197, 224, 226; Unity Society, 138, 140, 141; Yanying Society, 138, 140, 226, 300 n.36 Second armed uprising (February 1927), 9, 215, 236; aims of general strike, 236; compared with May Fourth and May Thirtieth Movement, 237; general strike largest ever, 237; hesitation of ccp during, 238; in support of National Revolutionary Army, 237, 260; small traders abstain from, 237–38. See also Citizens’ government “Second Revolution” (1913), 24, 70, 74 Secret societies, 17, 28 –32, 35, 69, 84; attack Communists, 147, 172, 182 – 83; attacked by Communists, 222 –23, 224, 265, 266; bosses of, 5, 28, 30, 137, 223; bosses assassinated, 176, 222, 223; beggars’ guild, 51; Communists pledge discipleship to, 135 –36, 172, 221; connection with elites, 31–32; “Dare-to-Die” corps, 60, 84; definition of membership, 31; disrupt strikes, 156; expand influence in labor force, 31; exploit workers, 32; fraternal tradition of, 32, 135 –36, 165; fraternal tradition used by Communists, 32 165; labor unions colonized by, 110, 172, 221, 233; May Fourth Movement and, 101–2; nationalism and, 5, 101, 164 – 65, 177, 188; riot organized by, 51; strikes and, 30, 84; xia (chivalrous warrior) and, 32, 165.

See also Green Gang; Red Gang; Yiqi (code of brotherhood) Shamian incident (1925), 180 Shaming rituals, 234 –35, 246 –47, 317 n.117. See also “Face” Shanghai: China’s main industrial and commercial center, 1; domination by foreign enclaves, 4; 15, 248; emergent sense of identity, 240; manufacturing in, 80; natives of city, 20; population of, 15 Shanghai municipal government (1927), 215, 239, 240, 248, 251 Shanghai Shopclerk, 118, 119, 125, 131, 201 Shanghai Students’ Union, 93, 94, 108, 168, 169, 170, 172, 181, 186, 195, 241 Shanghai Women’s Industrial Progress Union, 145 –47. See also Silk Filature Women’s Benevolent Society; Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association Shao Lizi, 141, 155 Shen Manyun, 60, 64 Shenxin mills, 21, 25, 210, 220, 225, 252 Shen Xuanlu, 109, 116, 125 Shen Yixing, 96 Shifu (Liu Sifu), 86, 87, 155, 283 n.80 Ship-building and repair workers, 19, 22, 26 Show trials, 13, 246 –47, 263 Silk Filature Women’s Benevolent Society, 65 – 66 Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association, 154, 156, 157, 177, 228, 232, 303 n.43 Silk guild, 35, 56, 62, 65 – 66, 145 –46 Silk workers, 18, 33, 35, 72, 102, 158, 177, 227, 266; divisions among, 58, 284 n.113; skill level of, 19; strikes by 54 –59, 146, 230, 237; weavers, 12, 124, 216, 249. See also Shanghai Women’s Industrial Progress Union;

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364 Index Silk workers (continued) Silk Filature Women’s Benevolent Society; Silk Filatures Working Women’s Association Silversmiths, 72, 73 –74, 178, 212 Sisterhoods, 26 –27, 36, 130; strike instigation, 27 Slavery trope: Chinese as slaves of foreign powers, 163, 201, 211; “slave mentality” of Chinese, 5, 40, 76, 163; unpatriotic Chinese as slaves, 98, 201, 203, 245. See also “Running dogs” Small traders and merchants, 5, 7, 8, 258; in May Fourth Movement, 93, 95, 96, 114; in May Thirtieth Movement, 173, 174, 186; in second armed uprising, 237–38. See also Federation of Street Associations Smith, Anthony, 6 Smith, Thomas, 203 Socialist Party, 68 –71, 75, 124; intelligentsia and socialism, 68; Pure Socialist Party, 70, state socialism, 68, 86, 261 Social movements, 9, 260 Sokolsky, George, 219 Spillman, Lynn, 6 Strand, David, 260 Strikes, 30, 54 –59, 80 – 85, 134, 136 –47, 149, 141–44, 200 –201, 209 –12, 217, 255; artisans in, 80 – 85, 90; ban on, 80, 142; by branch of industry, 54, 174; causes of, 54, 80, 134, 200, 209 – 10; coercion in, 13, 102; demands as reflection of worker attitudes, 13; employers’ support for, 164; factory workers in, 55, 90; foreign and Chinese sectors compared, 54, 90 –91, 96, 174, 209, 210 –11, 237, 267; means of pressurizing government, 115, 262; particularistic solidarities generate, 11, 108, 263; particularistic solidarities transcended in, 58, 83, 140, 264; par-

ticularistic solidarities undermine, 58, 83, 264; settled by employers’ leaders, 213; size of enterprise and, 96; support from other workers, 143 –45; women workers and, 56 –58. See also British and American Tobacco (bat) workers; Foremen and forewomen; Humane treatment; Japanese mill strike (1925); May Thirtieth Movement; Nikko mills; Seamen; Silk workers; Women workers Students, 2, 5, 40, 44, 69, 76, 90, 128, 166, 238, 241, 258, 261; boycotts and, 46, 51, 79; as conscience of nation, 95; May Fourth Movement and, 92, 93, 94, 96, 114; May Thirtieth Movement and, 169 –72, 186; realize potential of labor, 108; workers defer to, 95. See also Intelligentsia; National Students’ Union; Shanghai Students’ Union Sun Chuanfang, 139, 161, 181, 236, 237, 238 Sun Yat-sen, 5, 39, 64, 86, 110, 127, 141, 149, 152, 192 –94, 199, 244, 258; on class division, 151, 152; concessions to Japanese, 79; on dress reform, 62, 218; as father of nation, 199 –200; on five criteria of nationhood, 7; on imperialism, 191–92, 310 n.6, n.7; on labor organization, 64, 65, 152 –53, 302 n.22; on liberty, 244 –45; on restriction of capital, 151, 152; on socialism, 68, 69, 71, 85, 244. See also Three People’s Principles Su Zhaozheng, 65, 139 Syndicalism, 71, 75, 87, 155 Tailors, 110, 155 Telegraph and telephone workers, 17, 62, 100, 102, 158, 205, 206; telephone operatives’ union, 228, 232, 250 Third armed uprising (March 1927), 9,

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Index 365 215, 238, 241–49; aims of triple strike, 238; casualties in, 239; led by Communists, 239; Communists seek to embroil foreign powers, 243; compared with May Thirtieth Movement, 248; imperialists temporarily demoted as principal enemy, 237, 238, 248; liberty, not socialism, aim of, 244 –45; number of strikers, 238 –39. See also Citizens’ government; General Labor Union (glu); Shanghai municipal government; Show trials Three People’s Principles, 63, 200, 244, 253, 258; “people’s livelihood,” 63, 68, 106, 154; Society for the People’s Livelihood, 64; Comintern redefines, 190 Tilly, Charles, 3 Tobacco workers, 31, 177; skill level of, 19; union of, 137, 227, 228. See also British and American Tobacco (bat) workers; Nanyang tobacco company Tolstoy, Leo, 87, 290 n.71 Tongbao (compatriots), 42, 130, 164, 257 Tong Lizhang, 154, 253, 303 n.25 Townsend, James, 257 Tram workers, 31, 96, 100, 103, 113, 213, 223 Transportation workers, 15, 17, 18, 22 – 23, 65, 95; May Thirtieth Movement and, 174, 182 – 83. See also Dockers Twenty-One Demands, 77– 80, 99, 197 Union of Labor, Commerce, and Education (ulce), 170 –73, 175, 181, 186, 196 Union of Laboring Youth, 155 United Front, 148, 149, 190 Verdery, Katherine, 6 Vernacular literature, 41, 44 –45, 52

Viola, Lynne, 104 Voitinskii, Grigorii, 133, 178 Waldron, Arthur, 7, 193, 272 n.31 Wang Guanghui, 154, 155, 156, 303 n.25 Wang Jingwei, 40, 155 Wang Shouhua, 219, 241, 252 Wang Xiaolai, 241, 252 Warehouse workers, 113, 154 Warlords, 161, 193 –94, 214, 238, 246, 310 n.11; armed uprisings seek to overthrow, 236, 238, 243, 248; and nationalism, 5, 258; popular view of, 194, 258 Wasserstrom, Jeffrey, 161, 273 n.48, 291 n.10 West Shanghai Workers’ Club, 162 Women’s liberation, 76, 228, 231–32; nüjie, 128 –29, 251; women’s suffrage, 69, 286 n.59 Women workers, 18, 28, 102; aptitude for informal organization, 56, 57, 58, 232, 265; causes of low participation in labor movement, 228, 231, 232; Communists encourage unionization of, 229, 231; equal pay for, 28, 184, 218, 229, 236; feminist organizations and, 143; maternity-related demands of, 145, 229 –30; oppressed within family, 231; perceived as “backward,” 56; protective legislation and, 230 –31, 238; secret societies and, 31; sexual harassment and, 207, 230; strikes by, 54 –59, 141–44, 230; tension between sexual equality and sexual difference, 230 –31; willingness to join labor unions, 142, 227–28. See also Class discourse; General Labor Union (glu); Labor unions Work-study movement, 88 Worker-Merchant Friendly Society, 127, 145, 154, 227, 231, 253

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366 Index Workers, in the nationalist movement, 79, 92; defend honor of nation, 189; early discontent with foreign employers, 48, 90 –91; factory workers not at first involved in, 48, 54; participate as guild members, 48, 62; participate as secret society members, 62; political orientations not monolithic, 266 – 67; workers enter, 20, 115; utilize nationalist discourse for class ends, 53, 107– 8, 150. See also Class-inflected antiimperialism; May Fourth Movement Workers, in Shanghai: conditions of, 10; conflicts between men and women, 11, 28, 90; divisions between, 11; in Japanese enterprises, 96, 162 – 66; literacy of, 13, 19, 97, 273 n.57; number of, 17–18, 275 n.22; particularistic solidarities of, 36, 83, 263; regional diversity of, 21; skill level of, 19, 275 n.29. See also Contract labor; Workers, in the nationalist movement Wu Peifu, 148, 149 Wu Zhihui, 87, 112 Xie Zuozhou, 154, 155 Xing Shilian, 179, 181, 185 Xu Meikun, 161, 179 Xu Qiwen, 71, 72, 73 Xu Xilin, 143, 155, 166

Yang Jianhong, 179, 219 Ye Shengtao, 201 Yiqi (code of brotherhood), 25, 137, 165, 184, 299 n.28. See also Brotherhoods Yongan mill, 210, 213, 230 Young Women’s Association, 143 Yuan Shikai, 12, 24, 64, 66, 67, 70, 74, 76, 77, 79, 99 Yue Fei, 41, 61 Yu Xiaqing, 30, 51, 61, 65, 169, 170, 172, 181, 182, 184, 187, 213, 221, 249, 251, 252, 253 Zarrow, Peter, 42 Zeng Shaoqing, 45, 46, 49 Zhang Binglin, 40 Zhang Dongsun, 95 Zhang Guotao, 110, 163 Zhang Shuping, 224, 225 Zhang Weizhen, 208, 220, 221, 222, 225 Zhang Yizhang, 142, 143 Zhengke (self-seeking politicians), 68, 70, 72, 122, 146 Zhonghua book company, 85, 89, 97, 179, 212 Zhou Enlai, 227 Zhu Baosan, 64, 92, 140 Zhu Baoting, 100, 139, 140 Zhu Zhiyao, 71, 72

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steve smith is Professor of History at the University of Essex in England. He is the author of Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917–18 (1983); (with Diane Koenker) Notes of a Red Guard: The Autobiography of Eduard Dune (1993); and A Road is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920 –27 (2000). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Smith, S. A. (Stephen Anthony). Like cattle and horses: nationalism and labor in Shanghai, 1895 –1927 / S. A. Smith. p. cm.—(Comparative and international working-class history) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 0 – 8223 –2783 –x (cloth : alk. paper) isbn 0 – 8223 –2793 –7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Labor movement— China—Shanghai—History. 2. Nationalism— China—Shanghai—History. 3. China—Politics and government—20th century. 4. China—Social conditions—20th century. I. Title. II. Series. hd8736 .s64 2001 331.0951132 — dc21 2001050106

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