Telegram from Labor Groups to the Upper
and Lower Houses of Parliament

(September 6, 1922)

To be forwarded to all publishing houses, labor unions, and other organizations
nationwide courtesy of the Beijing Morning News, Workers' Weekly, Shanghai
China Times, Republican Daily, Hankou Jiangsheng ribao, Changsha
Dagongbao, and People's Rule Daily: Our organizations have sent the following
telegram to the parliament in Beijing:

To the members of the upper and lower houses of the Parliament of the
Republic of China: The world economy changes more rapidly every day, as
the consciousness of the working class deepens day by day. The establishment
of a worker-peasant state in Soviet Russia is a model for all other countries in
the world! We, the laboring people, created civilization with our own hands,
but we ourselves have yet to benefit from it. Although the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China explicitly stipulates that there shall be no class
distinctions among the people, the workers, who make up the overwhelming
majority of the whole population, not only fail to be protected by law, but
instead often suffer its oppression. In all the world of men, is there any injustice graver¹ than this? How fortunate that the movement to establish a labor
law now reverberates throughout the land! What courageous and upright person does not rejoice in it? As representatives of the people, you gentlemen
surely know that authority in a republic rests with the whole people. To talk of
lawmaking without taking into consideration the working class, which constitutes the overwhelming majority [of the population]-would this not amount
to abandoning the entire people? Our organizations, in accordance with the
four cardinal principles of labor-(1) attainment of political freedom, (2) improvement in living standards, (3) participation in industrial management, and
(4) attainment of training and education-thoroughly subscribe to the nineteen
articles of the Outline for Labor Legislation put forward by the General Secretariat of Chinese Labor Organizations. We implore you, gentlemen, to uphold
justice and fulfill your sacred duty by quickly passing the proposed labor law
so that we, the workers, will no longer be a lawless people or have to resort to
unlawful activities. What great good fortune [this would create]! Otherwise,
you gentlemen will be irrevocably cutting yourselves off from the people, in

This telegram was published in the Changsha Dagongbao on September 10, 1922. We
have translated it from the text as printed in Mao Zedong ji. Bujuan, Vol. 9, pp. 121-22.
1. Reading the missing character here as shen (extremely).
which case we laborers throughout the land will have no choice but to exercise
our solemn authority and unite as one to battle for our freedom, for survival,
and for the rights to which we are entitled. And we will certainly not recognize
any of you as representing the will of the people in drawing up the constitution! Joint statement of the Hunan Branch of the Secretariat of Chinese Labor
Organizations, the Guangzhou-Hankou Railroad Workers' Club of Xinhe, and
the Guangzhou-Hankou Railroad Workers' Club of Yuezhou. We implore
each and every one of you to uphold strongly the cause of justice and firmly to
support our plea. We await your response most anxiously.

Attached is the Outline of Labor Legislation.

Submitted jointly by the Hunan Branch of the Secretariat of Chinese Labor
Organizations, the Guangzhou-Hankou Railroad Workers' Club of Xinhe, the
Guangzhou-Hankou Railroad Workers' Club of Yuezhou, and the Anyuan Railroad and Mineworkers' Club.

September 6