Workers Organize Against Capitalist Exploitation

 Source: La Vie Ouvrière, March 16, 1923

Hồ Chí Minh toàn tập, Tập 1, Chính trị Quốc gia - Sự thật, Hanoi, 2011, pp. 185-186.

Translation: Foreign Languages Press, Paris, 2021.

Although large-scale industries and mechanization have not yet reached their full development in China and patriarchal mores have not yet entirely disappeared, about a million Chinese workers, doubly oppressed by foreign capitalism and native militarism, have already been affected, directly or indirectly, by trade unionist and revolutionary propaganda.

The Hong Kong Maritime Workers’ Union counts 20,000 members. It carried out a strike for four months (December 1921 to March 1922). In solidarity with the maritime workers, a general strike was declared by the non-unionized masses. The laundry workers and domestic workers also joined the movement. The result of the strike was a 20-40% wage increase.

The Shanghai Maritime Workers’ Union has a membership of 18,000. A three-week strike was called in July 1922. Result: a 20% wage increase. The cotton industry employs 72,500 workers, most of them women, and children under the age of eight. The working day was set at 12 hours. Strikes were held to push for improvements in their conditions.

Ninety-three silk factories employed 130,000 women and girls between the ages of 8 and 14. They worked 11 hours a day. Because of the heat produced by the continuously boiling water and the bad smell of the silk cocoons, the working conditions of these women workers were particularly difficult. In June 1922, a woman worker fell victim to the bad working conditions and ill treatment and a protest strike was spontaneously declared. This strike was supported by all the factories in Shanghai. The result: a reduction of two hours of work per day.

A strike of weavers in Nanjing was able to prevent the city’s silk monopoly from being handed over to a Japanese consortium.

At the end of 1921, the employees of foreign rickshaw owners, including 3,000 union members went on strike. Since the cutbacks on their salaries had been brought about by the French owners (concerning around 900 rickshaws), the starving strikers formed a procession of “beggars” who demonstrated in the French concession. The French police dispersed the demonstrators and arrest-ed and imprisoned their leaders. It should be noted that the French landlords have their own court and prison to prosecute and imprison rickshaw drivers who cannot pay their taxes. The prisoners are treated cruelly and many have died.

In recent years, about two hundred rickshaw drivers have been killed by these owners.

Of the twenty newspapers published in Hankou, the workers own two daily newspapers and one weekly. In spite of the efforts of the foreign and native capitalists to stifle and delay any emancipatory movement, the Chinese workers, powerfully aided by many committed intellectuals, are organizing them-selves with great insight and activity.

N’guyen Ai Quac.