The Waves of Strikes in Various Countries (July
14, 1919)
Just when the political magnates and financial tycoons of France, Britain, and the
United States were having a great time concentrating all their efforts on the Paris
Peace Conference, attempting to oppress defeated Germany and Austria with harsh
measures, a wave of strikes broke out suddenly in their own countries. Strikes are
actually a common occurrence in those countries. It is true that governments and
financial tycoons dare not take the laborers too lightly. Whenever the laborers unite
and go on strike, raising issues such as low pay, overly long work hours, inadequate
housing, unemployment, and various other grievances, they can’t avoid giving them
some small benefits. It is just like when a child is hungry and cries so hard that the
adult can’t help but give him a piece of bread with a smile. But at most this is only
trying to put out a burning cartload of faggots with a cup of water, how is it going
8 See the note to the text dated May 29, 1918.

to help? So the mainstream faction9 all laugh at the workers of Britain and France as
simpleminded. It is impossible to get chewed-up meat from a tiger’s mouth.
[As regards] the present wave of strikes in various countries, immediately after the
end of the World War (last December), a big strike involving various transportation
agencies and the fuel, mining, and shipbuilding industries took place already in England
and Scotland. For that reason, the strike this time around does not involve England10
proper. The strike in France was quite serious in the beginning, but ended with small
gains and did not have very good results. Some members of the mainstream faction
argued that they should have seized this opportunity to start a political movement
in Paris, but that did not become a reality. A portion of the telegraph and telephone
employees in the United States had a strike, with the intention of supporting the
majority of the Congress in opposition to joining the League of Nations. It certainly
was different in purpose
from the strikes that took place in Britain and France. The strike in Italy was a
movement started by its Socialist Party out of protest against the things done by the
government. Since the great defeat of Germany’s minority Socialist Party last winter,
the widespread strikes also have not had any good results. Since the reign of the majority Socialist Party, it has been as silent as a cicada in cold weather, and dares not
speak up. This time, signing the peace treaty could trigger strikes. But Scheidemann’s
cabinet fell, and the succeeding Bauer cabinet plays no different tune from the former
one. They are firmly in control of military forces that, though not strong enough to
defend against foreign invasion, are more than sufficient to suppress domestic rebellion.
Who dares to touch them? The mainstream faction’s radical political strategies certainly have no chance of being put into practice for the time being. It is no wonder that
their strikes did not materialize. Hungary has not been greatly affected by the strikes.
The cause of the strikes was entirely lack of food. Below I will describe separately the
strike situation in each country since January of this year.
France
Since the wave of strikes broke out on June 3, it has spread very fast. In Paris alone,
200,000 men and women workers walked off their jobs. There were different demands
from different walks of life, but they were unanimous in advocating the eight-hour
day. On the fourth it spread even more widely. It was estimated that 500,000 workers
were on strike. On the fifth, the laundry workers went on strike. Later, the number
of workers on strike increased. The subway, trolley, and street car employees decided
to continue the strike. The subway workers demanded that their minimum monthly
9 Lake Dongting, the largest lake in Hunan, can also be taken, like the Xiang River, as a symbol
for the province.
10 For the translation of guangyi pai as “mainstream faction,” in the sense of “genuine socialists,”
see the note to the next text, “The Arrest and Rescue of Chen Duxiu,” relating to the assassination of
Rosa Luxemburg. Here and elsewhere, Mao advances the view that though England and France had
won military victory, Germany and her Eastern neighbors were politically more advanced because of
the oppression visited on them by their adversaries.

salary be set at 450 FF (at a rate of 1 FF = 0.4 yuan, this is equivalent to 180 yuan
a month), that they be entitled to an old-age pension at fifty, and that after fifteen
years of service they should also be entitled to a certain pension. On the seventh, the
tide of the Paris strike turned. The workers and employers of the metal and machinery
industries agreed on several points. On the eleventh, the metal workers and subway
employees went back to work. The authorities took some necessary measures to deal
with the railroad strike. It looked as though all the coal miners might go on strike. On
the twelfth, the Chamber of Deputies passed a bill providing that the miners
should work only an eight-hour day,11 but the Miners’ Union was still not satisfied
and decided that the whole membership would go on strike, starting from the sixteenth.
So did the Sailors’ Federation. The General Confederation of Labor claimed that the
cost of living was extraordinarily high [Note by the author: Recently someone who has
just returned from Paris gave an example to show how expensive things were there:
an old toothbrush cost 2 FF and a pair of leather shoes, 60 FF.], and that at all
the African ports, there were thousands of tons of wheat piled up rotting. The goods
and merchandise were piled up at various ports like mountains, but neither the ships
nor the trains were willing to transport them. Shouldn’t we quickly stop the waste,
trickery, and monopoly of such a government? On the fourteenth, the wave of strikes
gradually subsided. The radical faction had a plan to seize the opportunity
to start a movement to overthrow Clemenceau’s authoritarian regime, but
this was rejected by the Railway Workers’ Union. Nevertheless, since the miners were
dissatisfied with the explanation of the government about the law regarding the eighthour day, they decided to go on strike on the sixteenth. It was feared that the workers
of the railroads, the mines, and the Transportation Federation would also strike in
sympathy. Old man Clemenceau panicked, got the representatives of the transportation
companies and the transportation workers together for negotiations and pleaded with
them to show some patriotic fervor during the national crisis. The workers ate up this
crude flattery and decided to behave conscientiously, and go back to work.
Britain
May 30 London wire: A strike on the third by the police of the entire nation has
been brewing. The government has promised to increase their wages and add some
benefits, but it will not recognize the Police Federation nor rehire the dismissed police.
There are also waves of strikes in the British colonies of Australia, Canada, and Suez.
On June 4, the workers of the Vickers armaments factory in Canada went on strike,
demanding a forty-hour work week. On June 5, the Suez Canal workers went on strike,
and the situation was rather atrocious. On June 9, the navigators of Australia walked
out on their work with a fierce momentum threatening to paralyze all industries. On
11 The Chinese here is Yinglun, not the transcription commonly used (Ying’gelan), but as we have
noted already such things were not yet standardized in 1919. There can be no doubt from the context
that Mao is referring to England, as distinguished from Scotland, rather than to Great Britain in general.

the 1 [X],12 the wave of strikes was still serious, and as a result more and more workers
of other industries are going idle every day.
America
On June 7, the Chicago telegraph operators scheduled a strike for eleven o’clock.
There were about 60,000 of them in all, 25,000 of whom belonged to the Telegraph
Operators’ Union. The president of this union, Mr. Cunningham, drew up strategies for
a nationwide strike. On the same day, the telephone operators of the entire nation were
ordered out on strike starting from the sixteenth, to show sympathy for the telegraph
operators. On the eighth, the secretary of the Telegraph Operators’ Union proclaimed
to all telegraph employees that everyone should go on strike, including the telegraph
receptionists. The aim was to stop the telegrams sent by President Wilson back and
forth to Paris, in order to make him pay attention to the fact that the people of the
country did not approve of the proposals he had made at the Peace Conference. On
the twelfth, all the telegraph companies announced that the telegraph operators’ strike
had failed.
Italy
On June 13, in La Spezia, Italy, riots erupted and shops were smashed because
of high prices for food. On the fourteenth, the workers in Genoa demonstrated, and
several hundred were arrested. The banks and shops were closed, and trolleys stopped
operating. Most of the workers in Turin stopped work on this day, in memory of [Rosa]
Luxemburg, the leader of the German Spartacists. The workers in Milan went on strike
in protest against the actions of the authorities of Genoa and La Spezia.
Germany
On June 13, the Greater Berlin Citizens’ Congress held a secret meeting and resolved
to go on strike. People in all professions and among the military agreed to support the
plans to stop all kinds of industrial work. Some expected that this would trigger a civil
war, and that middle-class society would seize power.
Hungary
On May 31, riots caused by hungry workers broke out in the capital of Hungary.
The Army of the Red Flag, under orders from the Communist government, entered all
the factories and suppressed the riots. There was hardly any food in the Hungarian
capital.
12 This and the subsequent passage in bold, like the names of the countries discussed, were underscored by Mao in the Xiang River Review, using dots alongside the relevant characters.