The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective laborânot by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally established rules. ⦠I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. (Albert Einstein, 1949)
1 Why a Book on the Chinese Labor Movement?
The most prevalent accounts of China and its labor movement by Westerners are motivated by adversarial perceptions which mislead and manipulate readers with complex and challenging dynamics, seemingly unending changes in material conditions and realities, human experiences and institutional practices.
This book does not attribute motivations for conclusive yet often false narratives and analyses by Labor Studies scholars. However, popular accounts, descriptions and histories inform human cognition, perception and action, which in turn guide labor conditions and trade union activity. So, rather than presenting a familiar interpretation which confirms established opinions among Western readers without contesting them, here I strive to understand Chinaâs labor institutions relative to the goals and objectives of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) and the Communist Party of China (CPC). I assert that the party, trade union federation and thousands of constituent unions operate with unalloyed commitment to advancing the socioeconomic interests of Chinaâs working class.
In 1978, Chinaâs leaders endeavored to develop a plan to dramatically improve the standard of living for the countryâs working class. The policy, known as âthe opening up,â gave rise to the emergence of market socialism, setting into motion a planned industrial economy. In this book, I have attempted to distinguish honest from misleading criticism. Certainly, the transfer of hundreds of
Cultivate migrant workers into high-quality modern industrial workers. Focusing on industrial transformation and upgrading, strengthen skills training for migrant workers and widely implement the âStudy and Dreamâ program. Promote the integration of migrant workers into cities, further relax and expand urban settlement policies, and ensure equal access to basic urban public services for migrant workers. Increase public legal services to benefit migrant workers, protect their legitimate rights and interests, and promote stable employment. (Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the PRC 2024)
Collective land ownership in rural China differs from the land tenure systems in socialist countries like the Soviet Union, which is why it may have played a crucial role in determining the success of âChinese-style modernization.â The nationalization of urban land and the collectivization of rural land form the foundation of the Chinese workerâpeasant alliance. When viewed through a Marxist lens, the urbanârural dichotomy is considered an inevitable outcome of capitalist development and a challenge commonly faced by Global South countries during their developmental processes. (Lu 2024, 298)
In the context of the resiliency of Chinese socialism within a market economy, Western Labor scholars would do well to absorb the significance of Tiejun Wenâs instructive lesson that economic development cannot be solved instantly by governments but necessitates study and the passage of time to effectively respond to challenges. Only utopians and non-revisionist thinkers who do not consider dialectical materialism accept as true that revolution will lead straightaway to communism.
2 The CPC and ACFTU Guide Economic Development and Shield the Working Class
Despite the formidable challenges to economic development faced by China under market socialism, Western Labor scholars remain captives to the ideology of immediate unmediated outcomes in the absence of agency or institutions. Most do not take into account the significance of organizations for achieving economic development at the same time as improving wages and conditions for Chinaâs working class. But the Peopleâs Republic of China (PRC) is not evaluated in comparison to analogous challenges for capitalist states, which typically have not considered the interests of workers. Paradoxically the weakness of organizations and institutions in the West is a fixation and commodification of superficial individualism, turmoil, the spectacle and autonomy in the absence of a genuine capacity to sustain and codify success. Lacking accountable political parties which diligently advance the interests of
Consequently, Western Labor research about the PRC and the ACFTU has been nearly universally negative. One is extremely hard pressed to find even a single article published over the last 40 years or so which provides an accurate portrait of the ACFTU and its prodigious accomplishments. Opponents engage in deductive reasoning to convey the ideal political system for trade unions as liberal-bourgeois democracy operating within an economy integrated into the world capitalist system. This incongruous perspective fails to consider material conditions in the natural world. In Chinaâs case, the shift from a rural working class to a predominantly urban working class. Yet, Western Labor scholarship which criticizes China is silent on the relentless decline of trade union membership in the West to near irrelevancy, government crackdowns on public sector trade unions, court decisions narrowing the ability of trade unions to grow strong, the absence of democracy in Western-style trade unions and the rise of right wing populism among the working class: characteristics of institutional decay. Predictably, Western Labor scholars do not consider trade union growth as an indicator of success, since it implies (in their view) that workers are forced to join trade unions. On the contrary, compulsory membership is an objective of Western trade unions which seek closed shops and funding from member dues. As noted, the ACFTU and its affiliates have never aspired to require workers to join unions to receive equivalent wages and benefits.
3 Socialism, Trade Unionism and Industrial Policy
This book also has argued that the successful development of socialism in one state requires the coordination of the communist party and trade unions to grow and meet the needs of the working classes. Even if a communist party gains power, the state must guide economic development in urban and rural regions. In the two most prominent cases, the Soviet Union and the PRC, the
To diminish the possibility of a bourgeois restoration, trade unions are required to overpower petty bourgeois influences in the trade unions. For Lenin, the primary threat to the party emerged from Socialist-Revolutionary Mensheviks and anarchists, viewed as bourgeois forces and the fount of opposition to socialism.
Only among these trends has any considerable number of people remained who defend capitalism ideologically and not from selfish class motives and continue to believe in the non-class nature of the âdemocracy,â âequality,â and âlibertyâ in general that they preach. It is to this socioeconomic cause and not to the role of individual groups, still less of individual persons, that we must attribute the survivals (sometimes even the revival) in our country of such petty-bourgeois ideas among the trade unions. The Communist Party, the Soviet bodies that conduct cultural and educational activities and all Communist members of trade unions must therefore devote far more attention to the ideological struggle against petty-bourgeois influences, trends and deviations among the trade unions, especially because the New Economic Policy is bound to lead to a certain strengthening of capitalism. It is urgently necessary to counteract this by intensifying the struggle against petty-bourgeois influences upon the working class (Lenin 1922/1973, 195â196).
A sharp distinction should also be made between the correct policy of developing production, promoting economic prosperity, giving consideration to both public and private interests and benefiting both labour and capital, and the one-sided and narrow-minded policy of âreliefâ, which purports to uphold the workersâ welfare but in fact damages industry and commerce and impairs the cause of the peopleâs revolution. Education should be conducted among comrades in
the trade unions and among the masses of workers to enable them to understand that they should not see merely the immediate and partial interests of the working class while forgetting its broad, long-range interests. (Mao Tse-Tung/Mao Zedong 1977/2021, 199)
One hundred years ago, at the closing of the Second National Labour Conference, the slogan âstruggle, struggle, struggle to the endâ resounded throughout the venue, inspiring millions of labourers to persevere and forge ahead during the turbulent revolutionary years. Today, the Party leads over 1.4 billion people who are advancing with high spirits on the new journey of Chinese-style modernization. The times are different, missions and tasks have changed, but the spirit of arduous struggle, united struggle, and unremitting struggle will never change. Let us unite more closely around the Party Central Committee, work solidly with our feet on the ground, strive to forge ahead, struggle and dedicate ourselves, embrace the new era with creativity, forge new glory through struggle, and turn the grand blueprint of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation into reality one step at a time! (Xi 2025)
To restate a central argument of this book, striving for economic modernization under socialism compels all government institutions to be dedicated to a common mission, which takes time and effort to achieve. Economic modernization is normally accompanied by social dislocation, as Weil makes clear. But it is irrational to expect instantaneous outcomes. Torkil Lauesen reminds us that socialist economic development is gradual and methodical and is accompanied by challenges from internal and external forces (Lauesen 2024). Just as spontaneity must be consolidated to empower the working class, economic planning is not the equivalent of realizing economic development and the improvement of living conditions for workers and peasants.
4 Western Labor Studies and Social Imperialism
Research on historical materialism and the natural world is not composed of absolutes, conclusions or the end times. Historical materialism is implanted in dialectical conflict among imperfect human beings with impurities, gradients and asynchronous predispositions. Purity and ânon-revisionismâ can only exist
Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way that genuine evidence casting the ACFTUâs achievements in a good light is unsuitable to Western Labor scholars, creating a catch-22. Both the presence and the absence of actions are always undesirable. Verifiable findings which may reveal positive attributes about the ACFTU are ensnared through incontestable truths and subjected to ad hominem attacks impugning its integrity. The occurrence or absence of labor disputes is an example of this deductive reasoning which only leads to no-win double binds. For example:
In times of labor tranquility and the absence of strike activity, critics argue: The decline in strike activity in China can only be explained by the authoritarian character of the CPC and the ACFTU. The decline in strikes and the absence of mass labor disruption reveal the authoritarian nature of the Chinese state.
In times of labor conflict sparked by the ACFTU and elevated labor demands, critics argue: The rise of strikes in China suggests that the working class is opposed to the communist ACFTU as a representative of its interests. Growing labor conflict is an indicator that trade unions are unresponsive to workers.
Accordingly, regardless of whether or not the ACFTU initiates organizing campaigns, they can never contribute to the benefit of workers.
Most Western Labor scholars do not account for the fact that unions are organized spatially and the ACFTU represents workers in millions of labor disputes every year through labor courts which typically decide swiftly. More than 95 percent of all cases are decided on behalf of workers, who are almost always accompanied by ACFTU representatives. Collectively, Western Labor scholars agree to cast China unfavorably. Most have a reflexive reaction to the CPC and ACFTU as authoritarian and repressive, or what they call âthe party-state.â All scholarship deriving from within the PRC is viewed with distrust. In many instances, the very concept of the working class is downplayed, and individual action is elevated.
As demonstrated in this book, Western Labor Studies is in many ways authoritarian. Irrespective of empirical research which shows the effectiveness of the ACFTU in organizing and representing workers, the conclusions must find fault in Chinaâs trade unions or conclude with hyperbolic ad hominem attacks against the ACFTU. Increasingly, Labor Studies assessments of China rely on NGO accounts and interpretations of organizations, practices, and events over those which evenhandedly and honestly evaluate the history,
5 Actual Labor Disputes in China
A litany of books and academic articles has been published on low wages and poor working conditions in foreign subcontractors operating in China; for example, Foxconn Technology and Yue Yuen Industrial Holdings, subcontractors for multinational electronics and athletic footwear, both headquartered in Taiwan. In the aftermath of several disputes in Shenzhen, notably suicides by Foxconn workers in 2010, the ACFTU organized workers to form an enterprise level trade union with democratically elected leaders. Likewise, the ACFTU stepped in and resolved the pension dispute at Yue Yuen when workers went on strike. In each case, conditions dramatically improved as the ACFTU organized local enterprise trade unions. Subsequently, democratically elected enterprise unions negotiated significantly improved conditions for workers. But before a trade union can act, it must learn and develop strategies to combat multinational employers and their subcontractors in Taiwan.
Notwithstanding this, the literature wholly ignores the question of unequal exchange (Emmanuel 1972/2025), which is undoubtedly the most significant cause of low wages in the global South through the depreciation of the value of workersâ labor. While residents of the global North are beneficiaries of unequal exchange, the cost is shifted to those in poor countries. However, the CPC and the ACFTU counter this through increasing wages for workers producing high quality products in China. For example, in September 2023, Foxconn, the contractor for Huawei and Apple, hiked wages for workers and in turn the cost of mobile phones. The subcontractors for both Apple and Huaweiâs increased wages to Â¥8,500âÂ¥9,000 in 2023, or US$1,200 to US$1,300 a month. ACFTU organizing is increasing wages for workers along with competition for labor among subcontractors. Western consumers accustomed to low cost smartphones and technology are now paying more for their electronic products (Global Times 2023).
According to Jason Hickel and Dylan Sullivan, wage growth among Chinese workers and attendant higher cost products are a threat to multinational corporate profits in the US. The dramatic growth in wages is reducing wage disparities between China and the US, which have been the basis for unequal
6 Towards an Accurate and Reliable Evaluation of the Chinese Labor Movement
Most assumptions about and opinions on Chinese trade unions are formed in advance of obtaining proof, and, on occasion, entirely in the absence of evidence. Accurate assessments are not formulated on the basis of claims based on partial truths but on ârealitiesâ which are unable to be disproven. According to such confirmation bias, interpretations are only acceptable if they verify opinions. Inferences which contradict conclusions are dross which must be discarded as they challenge deductive truths. Accordingly, incontrovertible truths are advanced by adversaries of the PRC. Those who object or even contest the established tenets advanced by such hegemonic certainties are deemed to be heretics and offenders who must be isolated and purged.
Improve the democratic management system of enterprises. Improve the democratic management system of enterprises and institutions, with workersâ congresses as the primary form. Major matters affecting the vital interests of industrial workers must be reviewed and approved by the workersâ congresses in accordance with the law and the charter. Uphold and improve the system of employee directors and employee supervisors, deepen factory transparency, and actively utilize digital technology to provide more precise and convenient services for industrial workersâ democratic participation. (Ministry of Ecology and Environment of the PRC 2024)
As more Western Labor Studies literature repudiates its own models of trade unions, and others contemplate syndicalist unions deprived of power, the Chinese socialist model offers a realistic and constructive alternative for the reconstitution of socialist party-trade unionism throughout the global South. At present, a growing number of unions are seeking to build socialist alliances: for instance, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA). However, in the absence of a strong and resilient vanguard party dedicated to advancing workersâ long term class interests, even strong trade unions like NUMSA are limited in their capacity to develop socialism. Nor can they compel governments to invest in necessary technology to stimulate sustained socialist development. Socialist unions like NUMSA in capitalist states like South Africa are thwarted and vulnerable to capitalist investments intended to extract surplus value from their members. Consequently, it is necessary for a socialist vanguard party to lead a socialist trade union as the CPC, the ACFTU and its affiliates have done, where rank-and-file democracy is encouraged through state owned workersâ unions, enterprise unions and, at the grassroots, municipal and street level branches, with the support of the central federation.
7 Party Affiliated Trade Unions
This book argues that the ACFTU is a working class organization comparable to other trade unions worldwide which affiliate with a political party to advance the interests of the working class. In May 1925, at the Second National Labor Congress in Guangzhou, 166 trade unions all over China convened to form the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, dedicated to fostering working class
The ACFTUâCPC alliance is distinctive as it has retained power for a century. Like other socialist and communist trade union federations, the ACFTU strives to represent the entire working class rather than segments of the working class based on ethnic or confessional identity. Chinaâs ACFTU is a mass organization operating in the context of a socialist state. To comprehend the ACFTU, one must grasp how trade unions operate under socialism as opposed to capitalism. Just like the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the CPC is designed to reflect the subjective interests of the working class and functions within the context of a dictatorship of the proletariat. Unquestionably, working classes reflect the natural world and dialectical materialism. Thus, the party and trade union must reflect the collective interests of a diverse and endlessly changing Chinese working class.