The system of special commissioners and the early labor movement of the Communist Party of China: Illustrated by the history of the Anyuan workers’ movement (1921–1925)

Existing literature on the Communist Party of China (CPC)-led labor movement places particular emphasis on the revolutionary discourse and analysis of class struggle but pays less attention to the organizational form of the CPC-led labor movement from the perspective of organizational sociology. This paper uses the early Anyuan labor movement as its case study and analyzes and compares the work effectiveness of CPC special commissioners, Li Lisan and Liu Shaoqi, for the purpose of exploring the organizational form of the system of special commissioners in the CPC-led labor movement. Although Anyuan was an important early base of the workers’ movement of the CPC, the existing research contributes little on the subject of its historical process and the organizational form of the CPC-led Anyuan labor movement. This paper argues that Li Lisan created the Anyuan labor movement using his own personal resources, but his successor Liu Shaoqi failed to sustain the Anyuan movement. It shows that the system of special commissioners in the CPC was responsible for the rise and fall of the Anyuan labor movement. In the early stages of the CPC-led labor movement, neither the class consciousness of the workers nor the will of the central CPC committee determined the progress of the labor movement. Rather, this depended on the personal resources of the CPC special commissioners. The actual work effectiveness of special commissioners was related not only to their personal resources, but also to the commissioners’ positions in the CPC. The special commissioner system caused tension between the CPC unified leadership and individual commissioners. This led to the complex question of the relationship between professional revolutionary organizations and the masses in revolution. Specific analysis of the early system of special commissioners of the CPC helps us to focus on the organization of the CPC-led labor movement and also to understand the early forms of organizational development and evolution of the CPC.