上海五・三〇運動と勞働運動

Abstract

The May 30th Movement which took advantage of the May 30th Incident was the culmination of the second national anti-imperialistic movement following the May Fourth Movement. The labor movement fulfilled a great role therein. In the first phase of the May 30th Movement the workers of Shanghai responded to the protest strikes of students and merchants, and they gradually initiated strikes on their own. The Chinese Communist Party established the Shanghai General Workers Assembly (Zonggonghui 總工會) as the organization to lead the workers. These two movements formed the main force of the Shanghai May 30th Movement, and they established the framework for the general strike. The movement however showed a retreat in its second phase. The reasons for that were : (1) the bourgeoisie requested the dissolution of the coolie strike in the port of Shanghai ; and (2) the Ministry of Works, stopped the supply of electricity to the Chinese factories. At this point the leadership of the General Workers Assembly took a realistic stand and cooperated with the bourgeoisie to dissolve a part of the general strike and to soften its requests. That was rather a departure from the policy of the Communist Party. The structure of the general strike collapsed in the third phase, when : (1) the strike in the Japanese-run weaving factory came to an end; (2) the coolie strike failed: and (3) the sailors' strike was settled. The defection of the bourgeoisie from the movement was one reason but at the same time the collapse was the result of the realistic attitude of the leadership of the General Workers Assembly. The movement ended in failure when suppressed in September by the warlord of Fengtian 奉天. But the Shanghai May 30th Movement has a great meaning in the sense that the workers formed the mainstream of the national movement, and were able to build a working class movement.