Introducing «The Chinese Worker»

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of Introducing «The Chinese Worker» has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the following edition: Introducing «The Chinese Worker», in the Selected Works of Mao Zedong, First English Edition, Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Press, Beijing, 1965.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an editorial drafted by Comrade Mao Zedong for the inaugural issue of The Chinese Worker in Yan'an, Shaanxi, China on the 7th of February, 1940.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#INTRODUCING THE CHINESE WORKER

#Mao Zedong

#7th of February, 1940

#★

The publication of The Chinese Worker¹ meets a need. Led by its own political party, the Communist Party of China, the Chinese working class has waged heroic struggles for the past 20 years and become the most politically awakened section of the people and the leader of the Chinese revolution. Rallying the peasantry and all revolutionary people against imperialism and feudalism, it has fought to establish a new-democratic China and to drive out Japanese imperialism, and its contribution has been outstanding. But the Chinese revolution has not yet triumphed and great efforts are still needed to unite the working class itself and to unite the peasantry and the other sections of the small bourgeoisie, the intellectuals, and the entire revolutionary people. This is a tremendous political and organizational task. The responsibility for its accomplishment rests on the Communist Party of China, on the progressive workers, and on the entire working class. The final liberation of the working class and the people as a whole will be achieved only under socialism, which is the final goal the Chinese proletariat must struggle to attain. But before we can enter the stage of socialism, we must pass through the stage of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal democratic revolution. The immediate task of the Chinese working class, therefore, is to strengthen unity in its own ranks and unite the people, to oppose imperialism and feudalism, and to struggle for a New China, a China of New Democracy. The Chinese Worker is being published with just this task in view.

Using simple language, The Chinese Worker will explain the hows and whys of many issues to the workers, report the realities of the working-class struggle in the War of Resistance, and sum up the experience gained, and in this way, it will endeavour to fulfil its task.

The Chinese Worker should become a school for educating the workers and for training cadres from their midst, and the readers will be its students. It is necessary to educate many cadres from among the workers, knowledgeable and capable cadres who do not seek empty fame, but are ready for honest work. It is impossible for the working class to attain liberation without large numbers of such cadres.

The working class should welcome the help of the revolutionary intellectuals and never refuse it. For without their help, the working class itself cannot go forward nor can the revolution succeed.

I hope that the journal will be well edited and that it will publish a good deal of lively writing, carefully avoiding wooden and trite articles which are flat, insipid, and unintelligible.

Once started, a journal must be run conscientiously and well. This is the responsibility of the readers as well as of the staff. It is very important for the readers to send in suggestions and write brief letters and articles indicating what they like and what they dislike, for this is the only way to make the journal a success.

With these few words I express my hopes; let them serve as an introduction to The Chinese Worker.