The ‘Revenge of History’: Collective Memories and Labor Protests in North-Eastern China

Abstract

In the Rustbelt of China, state workers have become restive as market reforms have undermined their entrenched way of life. By comparing cases of worker protest in an industrial city in northeastern China, once the cradle of its planned economy, this article analyses the configuration of conditions underlying these labor protests. I have found that collective memories of Maoist socialism, enterprise residential communities and enterprise property helped overcome the crippling effects of demoralization and atomization in the wake of massive unemployment. At the same time, new identities based on citizens’ legal rights and political spaces in the realm of public policy and the law are also forged in the reform process, mediating workers’ activism. Labor resistance in a period of system transition draws on resources and influences from both state and market socialisms. © 2000, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved.