Dear Colleagues,
We are happy to announce the release of our new book, Proletarian China: A Century of Chinese Labour. You can buy a print copy from Verso Books or download it for free from the website of the Made in China Journal.
In 2021, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated a century of existence. Since its humble beginnings in the Marxist groups of the Republican era to its current global ambitions, one thing has not changed for the Party: its claim to represent the vanguard of the Chinese working class. History, however, tells a more complex story.
This volume looks back at the changes that took place in Chinese society over the past century from the vantage point of the working class. Spanning from the night classes for workers organised by student activists in Beijing in the 1910s to the labour struggles during the 1920s and 1930s; from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution to the social convulsions of the reform era to China’s global reach today, Proletarian China reconstructs the contentious history of labour in China.
Each chapter revolves around a specific historical event, making the volume a mosaic of different voices, perspectives, and interpretations of what being a worker meant, and how it was experienced, in China over the past century.
We hope you enjoy the book and help spread the word!
Best,
The Editors
Ivan Franceschini (ivan.franceschini@anu.edu.au) and Christian Sorace