Comrades: It has now been one year since the Sixth National Congress of Labour.
The political program and working guidelines for the Chinese workers’ movement adopted at that congress are entirely correct and must be implemented.
Over the past year, the overall situation has undergone significant changes, necessitating a great deal of work on our part.
This trade union work conference is intended to resolve many specific issues in our operations.
We have accumulated considerable experience—some of it successful, and some less so.
Comrade Li Lisan pointed out that our work exhibits tendencies toward organizational closed-doorism, as well as formalism and bureaucratism in our methods.
Today, our country boasts nearly twenty million workers, yet only a small fraction of them are organized.
Trade unions have developed very little in the old liberated areas, while in the newly liberated regions their development has only just begun.
With the exception of saboteurs and capitalists, all workers—including those who are politically backward and even personnel from Kuomintang-affiliated unions—should be incorporated into trade union organizations, provided they show potential for transformation.
As for the backward and those who have made mistakes, we ought to adopt a policy of unity and education, starting from a genuine desire for unity, proceeding through criticism or struggle, and ultimately achieving unity.
Otherwise, we would remain a minority within the factories and find ourselves isolated.
Of course, saboteurs must not be allowed to join the trade unions; indeed, certain individuals with solid evidence of wrongdoing should even be arrested.
Failure to remain vigilant against them would constitute a grave error.
Opening our ranks means welcoming progressive workers, those less advanced, and the backward—including those who previously erred but still hold promise for reform—so that we may have ample grounds to isolate the reactionaries.
On the surface, the Kuomintang has been defeated, but in reality it has not yet been completely vanquished.
They continue to organize secret societies such as the I-Kuan Tao, which already numbers 100,000 members in Anhui and Henan provinces.
Among the workforce as well, there are hidden hostile elements actively opposing us.
Should we adopt a closed-door approach, we would be unable to isolate them.
The correct course is to win over the middle strata and, wherever possible, to draw the backward into our ranks as well.
Those engaged in trade union work should assume an active stance, proactively cultivating good relations both with employers and with administrative authorities (and encouraging factory directors to take a similarly proactive attitude, much like Director Song in the film “The Bridge”). After all, the Party, the government, and the trade unions all share the common goal of boosting production; what problems could possibly remain unsolved?
You must carry out extensive propaganda efforts—not only among city party secretaries and mayors, but also directly to us, since our responsibilities span numerous domains and we cannot devote ourselves exclusively to any single task as you can.
By actively uniting progressives, moderates, and the backward; by proactively fostering harmonious relations with all relevant parties; by rallying the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty bourgeoisie, and the national bourgeoisie—we shall utterly destroy imperialism and all reactionary forces!

Printed from the verbatim record preserved in the Central Archives.
Notes ︹︺１ This is Mao Zedong’s address delivered at a banquet held during the National Trade Union Work Conference. ︹︺２ The Sixth National Congress of Labour was convened in Harbin from August 1 to 22, 1948.
The congress deliberated on ways to further consolidate and expand the unity of the working class, to unite people from all social strata across the country in vigorously supporting the People’s Liberation War, to completely overthrow the reactionary rule of the Kuomintang, and to establish a new China under the people’s democratic dictatorship.
It adopted the Resolution on the Current Tasks of the Chinese Workers’ Movement and decided to restore the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, approving its Statutes. ︹︺３ Li Lisan, then Vice Chairman and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. ︹︺４ “The Bridge” is a narrative feature film completed in April 1949 by the Northeast Film Studio.
The film recounts how, during the Northeast Liberation War, the working class, under extremely arduous conditions, repaired the damaged Sungari River railway bridge.
In the film, Director Song fully relied on the masses, mobilizing everyone to pool their wisdom and collectively overcome one difficulty after another.