We Workers

We Workers is the first book-length study examining the Chinese communist press and its relationship to the growing labor movement. New China Daily, a leading Chinese Communist Party newspaper during the Second Sino-Japanese War, preserves a unique record of workers' stories through columns dedicated to readers' letters. Long a neglected resource, the participatory journalism in New China Daily enables conflicting theories about the formation of working-class identity to be tested. Chinese workers wrote of their suffering, of wartime social life, of injustice, and of their aspirations. Their stories were read, shared, and created a community of class that ultimately fueled post-war labor's demands for rights and job security, and that contributed to the formation of post-1949 industrial citizenship.

Drawing from New China Daily articles, CCP documents, memoirs, and other historical sources, We Workers explores how participatory journalism shaped a language of class and citizenship during a crucial period of political transformation in China. As the Chinese working class reconstituted in the People's Republic of China, the worker correspondence pioneered by New China Daily became a nationwide model for newspapers that sustained the practices of propaganda and mass work, offering workers a vital forum for political participation.