The Institute for Chinese Studies presents:
"The Making of China’s Working Class: A World to Lose"
Marc Blecher
Oberlin College
Abstract: My forthcoming The Making of China’s Working Class: A World to Lose asks: what kind of class is China’s working class?; what are the historical forces and processes that have formed it?; and how does the pattern of class formation help explain the working class’s reactions historically, presently, and even prospectively? Despite impressive activism in the Republican period, it was never incorporated into the Party or revolutionary politics. The Maoist decades radicalized the working class but left it in a weak position when Cultural Revolution failed. That opened the door for the structural reforms, which subjected it to new depredations.
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