The Rebellion of Temporary Workers and the Chinese Cultural Revolution

With this general overview of the "People's Cultural Revolution" in mind, we now turn more specifically to the rebellion of temporary workers. As we have seen, the expansion and downsizing of the urban workforce between 1958 and 1962 had been a major source of conflict. In the winter of 1966, temporary workers used the Cultural Revolution and the ongoing critique of Liu Shaoqi to attack the system of contract labour as an anti-socialist form of exploitation. Liu was accused of masterminding the nationwide expansion of this system from 1964 onwards, with the aim of splitting workers into two classes and depriving temporary workers of their political rights. Particularly in Shanghai, temporary workers carved out a strong position within the rebel movement, and they used this platform to demand to be made part of the permanent workforce.

By late 1966, the old municipal government of Shanghai had given in to demands including higher wages, access to welfare and public housing, and financial support for a new "big link-up" to exchange revolutionary experiences with groups elsewhere in China. By this stage, strikes had already caused parts of certain industries to collapse.³⁶ In what became national news, on 26 December 1966 in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Jiang Qing met with delegates of the All-China General Rebel Regiment of the Red Labourers, an organization representing temporary workers. Jiang – who was not only Mao's wife but an important member of the central Cultural Revolution Leading Group – expressed her support for abolishing the system of temporary contract work and attacked the Ministry of Labour in a highly-charged speech.³⁷ On 2 January 1967, the General Rebel Regiment, the Ministry of Labour, and the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions issued a "common announcement" that during the Cultural Revolution, contract, temporary and outsourced labour should be abolished. Soon, temporary workers started to rebel against local authorities across broad swathes of China.

Central government leaders now began to worry about the immense cost of making all contract workers permanent employees – the very problem that had led to the expansion of contract work in the first place. Barely a few weeks had passed before the General Rebel Regiment fell victim to a Central Committee order that nationwide mass organizations be dissolved. Then, on 17 February, the Central Committee and the State Council declared that the "common announcement" abolishing contract labour had no legal basis.³⁸ The two bodies stated that temporary labour could be acceptable in some cases, and that full resolution of the problem should be deferred until a later stage of the movement. The decision emphasized the political rights of temporary workers to participate in the Cultural Revolution, and those who had been labelled as "counterrevolutionary" by their work units simply for joining a rebel organization were permitted to demand rehabilitation. However, infiltrators from among the "four elements" (landlords, rich peasants, and counterrevolutionary and "rotten elements") should be purged. Temporary workers were not to form their own rebel groups, although they could join the mass organizations of their work units. Participation was contingent on them returning to work in line with their existing contracts.

This dampening of the demands of temporary workers was in line with the wider campaign against "economism", backed by both the central government and the new rebel authorities in Shanghai. In an "urgent notice" issued on 9 January 1967, the Shanghai Rebel Workers' Headquarters listed the restoration of production and the fight against economism as top priorities. Rebellion in the cause of higher wages or other material demands was attacked as risking the ruin of the economy and as an expression of the "reactionary bourgeois line" advocated by "capitalist roaders".³⁹ Concessions given by the old party leadership to the workers were derided as a ruse to sabotage the Cultural Revolution. Some scholars have argued that Zhang Chunqiao and other radical leaders who assisted in the takeover in Shanghai were simply using temporary workers for their own political ends and were always set to betray their interests once the new government had been formed. Others have pointed to a silencing of social and economic demands as a result of the campaign against "economism".⁴⁰ In January 1968, the Central Committee and the State Council reaffirmed their stance that the "common announcement" of the previous winter was invalid and that temporary labour should continue to be used.⁴¹

With this conservative reaction in full swing, prospects for an end to the large-scale use of temporary labour seemed bleak. However, as we shall now see, there was in fact a surprising denouement to the tale, as many temporary workers did become part of the permanent workforce in the early 1970s.