In his book, Stories, Identities, and Political Change, Charles Tilly highlights the power of the story to shape people’s identity, and in turn, to sustain social movements. One sees just such a dynamic at play in New China Daily (1938-1947), the Chinese Communists’ first legal newspaper in Nationalist China. New China Daily innovated participatory journalism—soliciting letters from women, laborers, industrial workers, and youth. The paper published approximately 500 letters and testimonials written by individuals and groups of workers. The stories— about people’s tribulations and suffering, reports on wartime social life, and narratives of injustice and aspiration for a better life—were read and read again out loud in groups; they created a community of class that fueled the post-war labor movement.

By 1945, under the guidance of Zhou Enlai and the CCP’s Southern Bureau, the paper pivoted from its wartime policy of “justification, advantage, and restraint” to mobilizing workers and students into social movements. New China Daily contributed to workers’ politicization by sympathetic reporting on their demands, and by enlisting support for labor actions. The workers’ familiar calls resurfaced in the labor movement.

Several violent episodes—the Hu Shihe Incident, the March 23 (1946) Incident at the Dadukou Steel Mill, and the death of Luan Chunsheng at the Minsheng Machine Plant—show how New China Daily mobilized readers and writers. Each incident had its distinct element, but the Communist press shaped an overall narrative of injustice, reporting that workers’ reasonable demands were met by police, spies, and military force. The Nationalist Party Executive Committee commented that [New China Daily] “highlights grievances of class inequality to foment class struggle.”¹ Indeed, the articles related the death and injury of workers, the imprisonment and torture of labor activists, and the disregard for the proper burial of worker victims. New China Daily called these incidents “massacres” (can’an) and, coming amidst a more general news blackout, the coverage prompted expressions of worker solidarity across Chongqing even as government and factory authorities disputed the reports.

New China Daily’s reportage of the labor movement drew on the moral language of class that was familiar from earlier worker testimonials. In articles during the war, workers condemned the state for betraying workers’ wartime sacrifices. This reinforced workers’ class consciousness. The moralistic tales of workplace massacres, propagated in elegiac couplets, pitted workers against factory authorities and agents of the state. At the same time, reporting on the conflicts was foundational for bringing people to class consciousness. The press pressured the government to persuade labor, capital, and the state to seek compromise on wages and distribution of welfare benefits. But the CCP downplayed worker activists’ more political demands. Where the activists wanted to have a say in management and to unionize, the CCP feared that “adventurism” would doom their enterprise. Instead, the Communist press used events to brand the Nationalist government as a militarist regime reliant on spy networks to maintain power. The moralistic narrative of a state devoid of humanity aligned with the CCPs ongoing criticism of bureaucratic capitalism. Pitting the broad masses against the bureaucrats while shielding national capitalists, helped to withstand the immediate postwar unemployment crisis.

Human dignity was central to workers’ testimonials. It is not surprising that the Hu Shihe Incident revolved around human rights. Hu was an electrician gunned down in Chongqing by Tian Kai, a Nationalist spy, on February 20, 1945. Massive crowds gathered for two days where Hu’s body lay in state. Some 86,000 visitors paid their respects on February 26, and 50,000 the following day, with 10,000 signing condolence booklets. The city-wide funeral drew 80,000 people.² New China Daily and the CCP’s Youth Division politicized the event. During seven weeks the newspaper ran 39 pieces that galvanized public opinion against the Guomindang and its secret service. The articles framed the incident in moralistic and Manichean terms. Tian Kai was described as murderous, “He stops at no evil, and there is no knowing how many crimes this monster and demon has committed in Chongqing.”³ Tian Kai was the representative of a privileged minority that stole one quarter of the electricity consumed in Chongqing.⁴

Jeffrey Wasserstrom has noted that student activists will utilize public memorial services to voice their demands; the funeral ritual provides protection and allows the expression of moral outrage.⁵ New China Daily and Chongqing workers likewise used the deaths of worker colleagues to fuel the labor movement. The key organizer behind the Hu Shihe movement was Communist Liu Guang, who directed the Southern Bureau’s Youth Organization.

Under Liu Guang’s guidance, hundreds of elegiac couplets commemorated Hu Shihe and conveyed the public’s grievances. Activists and union organizers relied on the unified labor force at the Electric Power Company to write the couplets identifying Hu’s death with their own struggles and pressing for democratic reform.⁶ Another hundred couplets were written on banners carried in the funeral march also voicing moral outrage and demands for human rights and democratic change. Within a week, several dozen couplets were reprinted in New China Daily and Chongqing workers federation press issued the Worker Hu Shihe Commemorative book (Hu Shihe gongyou jiniance).

The couplets echoed the moralistic tenor of worker letters. They juxtaposed Hu Shihe’s sacrifice for the public good with the Nationalist bureaucrats and militarists, whose security apparatus were cast as demons and monsters. In a couplet of cross-class unity between intellectuals and workers, university students attacked the privileged classes. “You workers and we students have been bullied and oppressed, suffocated by the dense fog. These spies and those bureaucrats have special privileges who singlehandedly blot out the sky.”⁷ Dark forces served as a metaphor for oppression; light signified liberation. An electrician’s couplet conveyed the gulf between them: “Hu died while striving for the light and to give me freedom. He fought tirelessly against the dark forces and wanted to see how long you will run amok?”⁸ Employees at the Chongqing Printing Factory condemned spies and military conscription. Their hopes lay in the laboring masses. “How can there be so many demons and monsters in the capital?”—they asked. “There will be ample time for the great masses working hard to uphold justice and abolish the powerful.”⁹

Some couplets rang with optimism that solidarity would triumph and effect democratic change. Others underscored helplessness in the face of brute force. “We workers are weak, what else do we have besides hooks and shovels? But you spies have firepower with more foreign guns and artillery placed backstage.”¹⁰

Liu Guang’s own assessment of the Hu Shihe Incident reflected ambivalence about the potential for worker’s power. His adherence to the United Front principle of class unity was apparent. That same year, Liu credited the execution of Tian Kai and the blow struck against the GMD’s “corrupt rule and spy activities”—to “the sustained efforts of the electric power company workers along with the assistance and support of Chongqing factory workers, residents and public opinion.”¹¹ Simultaneously, Liu maintained that whenever the “interests of workers and industrialists coincide we should sincerely unite them to oppose fascist and economic monopolistic policies even during the process of conflict when capitalists express weaknesses, wavering and compromise…”¹² Liu also advocated cooperation between staff and workers in factories with GMD controlled unions, believing it made it easier for staff to express workers’ opinions to management. This orientation risked downplaying working class interests and blunting class antagonisms—framing the political struggle as between the working masses and the Nationalists. A contradiction soon emerged between the Party’s adherence to the conciliatory politics of the United Front and the workers’ propensity for class struggle. 

In 1946, Chongqing’s Dadukou Steel Mill was the largest metallurgical plant in Nationalist controlled China. Run by a military officer, the factory had over 500 guards and two dozen men on an investigative squad. Workers, facing intense economic hardship, including the loss of their cloth ration, blamed the festering corruption among administrators, and pushed for a union.¹³ On March 19, the Ordnance Department issued a circular that discussed raising wages by 100 percent. When rumors circulated that the Personnel director had agreed to only a 20 percent increase, more than a thousand workers assembled outside the factory.¹⁴ The chief of security, Yuan Shizhong, came out with plainclothes police. Yuan’s reputation had earned him the title of “King of Hell.” But this day, faced with an irate crowd, he asked the workers to select representatives and promised their safety.

The workers selected 46 representatives and formed a union with a graduate of the skilled workers’ school, Xiang Dongshan, elected as chairman. They presented economic and political demands that clearly manifested workers’ desire for economic democracy, including 100 percent wage increase, an 8-hour workday, and guaranteed safety for worker representatives. They demanded the freedom to organize and to send representatives to management meetings. They also wanted freedom to elect supervisors and foremen, to read books and newspaper, and to assemble. They pressured the company to compensate for injury or death resulting from an industrial accident and promised to fight so that dependents of deceased workers could remain in the factory. Non-GMD workers wanted to end automatic deductions from their wages for GMD party dues. Workers threatened a factory-wide strike if no response was forthcoming within 12 hours.¹⁵

The factory’s response was military force. After a secret meeting on the 22nd, they ordered machine guns placed overlooking the factory. Department heads, the security chief, and the deputy chief of the investigative squad strategized to divide the workers and suppress the strike. Colonel Xia Zhenxie of the inspection squad, told workers to steer clear of unionizing lest they fall under the sway of the Communists, warning, “Xiang Dongshan and others’ proposal to organize a union and other demands like participating in factory meetings are prohibited by the military law and discipline of this factory and are meant to fan the flames by the traitorous party elements.”¹⁶

At dusk on the 22nd, the Ordnance Director and Investigative chief ordered an attack. At 9 pm martial law was declared, and sentries were placed throughout the steel mill. Guards arrested seven worker representatives in the middle of the night.¹⁷

By the morning of the 23rd, news of the arrests had enraged the workers and motivated them to pursue direct action. Some 600-700 workers stormed the power station and breached the line of military guards. Cutting off power to the mill, they formally began the strike. Workers rushed to find the arrested worker reps. On the road they beat up the fire station leader. One worker wielding a steel rod, beat a security section leader into unconsciousness. An officer driving to the city center on business, was dragged out of his car. “He was covered with bruises and blood ran over his entire face.”¹⁸ As the workers approached the assembly hall, they saw security chief Yuan Shizhong fully armed and riding a horse. 

Accounts of the incident vary widely but follow predictable lines. The report issued by factory director Yang Jizeng said a minority of extremist workers provoked the military to respond, “(workers) tried to entice, surround, and arrest Yuan, chief of the guard battalion. He fled from the top of a hill and began to escape. The extreme elements seized a machine gun. The guards were forced to fire their guns into a clear space to strike fear into them. Workers gradually began to disperse.”¹⁹ Historian Huang Shujun has reconstructed the episode based on oral narratives from the 1950s. Yuan, sensing danger from the crowd, galloped off, firing three shots to signal the security forces to fire their machine guns on the workers. Four workers lost their lives. Eight were critically wounded and countless others suffered injuries.²⁰

After the violence, the authorities surrounded the factory with an armed battalion, proclaimed ongoing martial law, and imposed a news blockade. The residential area where staff and security lived was cordoned off from the workers’ wrath. New China Daily compared the factory complex to a war zone: “The entire factory is now manned by guard posts with six soldiers at each post armed to the teeth. They even hang their hand grenades on their chests. There is a team leader for each machine gun installed. Workers cannot go across these check posts. An ominous mood hangs over the factory.”²¹

A ritual was imposed on workers to determine who wanted to remain and who would return home. Before being allowed to work, close to 5,000 workers were forced to register with their foremen and take a loyalty oath recognizing the authority of the factory command. Not until April 4 would the steel mill resume production.²²

For the CCP, the Dadukou Steel Mill conflict – dubbed the March 23 Massacre – was so important to labor and such an outstanding opportunity to assail the Nationalists, that New China Daily published twenty-three articles between March 23 and June 6 documenting the episode and its aftermath. In a March 26th testimonial, New China Daily framed the event in highly moralistic terms. branding it a “massacre” five times in the first paragraph alone. The terms atrocity (baoxing), massacre (cao’an), and slaughter (tusha) invariably appeared in all subsequent publications irrespective of the death toll. The paper published two lengthy testimonials representing the view of 1400 workers. Five articles published condolences and expressed solidarity, reporting on the donations raised for the victims’ families. 

The same worker testimonial published on March 26, was headlined “Dadukou steel mill workers issue their indignant grievances to the entire nation and demand redress of this atrocity that has defied the laws and heaven.” It highlighted the brutality against defenseless workers. The manifesto proceeded to document the carnage and accuse the authorities of a news blackout. Appealing for public sympathy from “compatriots from all walks of life,” the letter concluded with demands written in a moderate tone in line with the United Front.²³ This testimonial underscored the economic distress that motivated the workers to action. A wage increase, an end to repression, and reinstatement of welfare benefits topped their list of demands. Subsequent reporting on the struggle, however, failed to highlight the demands for unionization and participation in management. The CCP and its newspaper were not averse to describing violations of personal freedom, but local Communist officials viewed the call for unionization as too “leftist” and a tactical mistake.²⁴ Instead, the portrayal was of workers betrayed because their wartime sacrifice was not recognized, their representatives were arrested despite guarantees of safety, and the four virtues of Chiang Kai-shek’s New Life Movement—rites, righteousness, honesty, and shame—were violated by corrupt factory officials. In keeping with the rhetorical strategy of rightful resistance, workers sought to sway public opinion by appealing to Chiang Kai-shek’s code of conduct for officialdom and citizens. Above all, the testimonial highlighted the ruthless security guard chief, Yuan Shizhong, saying: “Yuan Shizhong was the prime culprit of the massacre, he first opened fire and murdered workers.”²⁵ Yuan Shizhong, like Tian Kai, the nationalist spy of the Hu Shihe Incident, became the face of a corrupt and militaristic regime.

The reporting focused, too, on the callous indifference of Dadukou’s director Yang Jizeng, who acknowledged in an interview that violence had been used to suppress the workers. Expressing no regret, Yang “reaffirmed that the steel mill was a military establishment and that it was the right decision to arrest the workers on the night of the 22nd and that the next day’s machine gun fire that killed workers was justified.” The dead and wounded “had only themselves to blame. It was out of the question to speak about relief aid for the dead and wounded workers because workers had violated the ‘Riot Act.’” Seeking to defuse criticism of obvious human rights abuses, Yang said this was a “mistaken view” that didn’t recognize the steel mill as a military institution.²⁶

The interview confirmed Yang’s authoritarianism but neglected his view that workers’ demands for unionization and factory representation were an affront to the natural order of things, which he conveyed in his report. “Obviously, besides the adjustment of wages, these were side issues raised to create obstacles…. We cannot accept these clauses, especially if we are restricted to answering within twelve hours as if it were an ultimatum. Their abnormal behavior was preposterous.”²⁷ To be fair, Yang may not have disclosed these views in his interview, but if he had, we could conjecture that the Communist daily preferred to underscore his moral failings rather than confront the political issue of unionization.

In a violation of powerful social taboos, the corpses of bullet-ridden workers were thrown into the river. New China Daily accused factory management of a cover up. When witnesses stopped the security guards from throwing a corpse into the river, the factory resorted to other “shameless methods.” For example, they agreed to bury the body if the family signed a document stating that the worker died from illness. When a family refused, ten days passed before the body was buried in a cheap coffin.²⁸ Disrespect for workers’ humanity was reflected in the disregard for their remains and contempt was shown in the way in which victim families received death benefits. One reporter wrote of worker families having to pay their own burial fees, “while the security guards who shot the workers were each awarded a catty and a half of meat.”²⁹

New China Daily published letters of condolence that expressed indignation at the massacre and solidarity with the victims. Workers’ expressions of support tied the steel workers’ deaths to the struggle for status recognition and human dignity. As a group of banknote workers put it, “Our brothers at the Dadukou Steel Mill were tragically slaughtered making us realize even more the ferocity of those thugs. We are not afraid, and we are even more determined not to be treated like cattle or horses!”³⁰ Chongqing’s youth federation called out the “one-party dictatorship” as hypocritical for touting democracy, “Even though the regime today speaks loudly about implementing democracy and safeguarding people’s freedom, it continues to break its word by staining its hands in the fresh blood of the people.”³¹ 

The Communist daily employed a similar repertoire of collective action following the police shooting of machinist Luan Chuansheng on Oct.17, 1946. A factory wide strike at the Minsheng machine plant ensued, and a petition drive to punish the culprit gained steam. New China Daily published fourteen reports on Luan’s shooting, reiterating the theme of a fascist regime abusing the Chinese people. The paper wrote that killing Luan Chunsheng had led “terror and indignation to coexist among the people of the hilly city [Chongqing]. Workers once again are reminded of how they continue to be slaughtered in these tragic and violent cases. They sell their labor power only to be killed by such people.”³² The Minsheng union worked with New China Daily to shape public opinion through the mourning process. Luan’s corpse was placed near the factory entrance to accommodate visitors. On October 20, over 5000 workers, merchants, intellectuals, and civic associations visited to express condolences and submit over 200 elegiac couplets.³³ New China Daily publicized the public memorial by quoting workers who had come to pay their respects. Invariably the printed condolences contained a political edge. Like the elegiac couplets at the Hu Shihe Incident, workers commemorating Luan Chunsheng declared that he was the victim of a violent, corrupt, and militarized regime. A couplet from the barge workers’ union used imagery of blood and darkness to evoke the violence and death that permeated society. One anonymous writer was explicit about the class divide. “The powerless commoners may lose their lives at any time; the powerful class murders at will.”³⁴

Arguably, it was only a militant minority who envisioned a radical restructuring of society that promoted the Communist press in wartime Chongqing. But the popularity of New China Daily indicates that the press’ ideas resonated with the workers. A sense of injustice and desire for equal treatment was foundational for the impulse toward a class movement and class organization. By the mid 1940s, workers’ view of the world increasingly adopted class as their point of reference. This was evident in the concentrated, violent, and often coordinated struggles of workers in the aftermath of the Anti-Japanese War. It was also apparent in workers’ demands for unionization and the leftward push of corporatist labor organizations, most notably the Chinese Association of Labor. Bringing class into the discussion may cause us to rethink our view of politics in wartime Chongqing, and by extension, Nationalist China. From the very first press reports issued from the hilly city, journalists described the Nationalist regime’s inexorable decline as part of its own endemic sicknesses—corruption, bungled fiscal policies, and factionalism. Conversely, while historians continue to debate how the Communists mobilized peasant support in their ascent to power, they should no longer minimize the CCP’s popular appeal in urban China prior to 1949. To be sure, Chongqing was not ‘Red Chongqing,’ but its political colors were undoubtedly more vivid than its infamous grey fog.