Making of China’s Working Class

Marc Blecher is James Monroe Professor of Politics and East Asian Studies at Oberlin College. He has served as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley Center for Chinese Studies, a Visiting Professor ofPolitical Science at the University of Chicago, and a Visiting Fellow at The Institute of Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex. His specialty is Chinese politics, on which he has published five books and dozens of articleson political science, rural and urban politics, popular participation, political economy and political sociology.

In this bold, original treatise on the variegated fortunes of China's workers over more than a 100-year period, Marc Blecher considers their heterogenous fortunes and their disparate levels of agency by place, gender, skill, and political dauntlessness over time. He draws on a wealth of studies of these laborers and his own interviews, and grounds his analysis in the thinking of E.P. Thompson, Ira Katznelson, Gramsci, Karl Marx, and Michael Burawoy. There is much to chew over in his thoughtful, compassionate account.Dorothy J. Solinger, Professor Emerita, University of California, Irvine

• Introduction1. Revolution: The Making of China’s Working Class2. Radicalism: The Apotheosis of China's Working Class3. Structural Reform: The Fall of China's Working Class Conclusion: The Making, Apotheosis and Fall of China's Working Class Commentaries4 Viewing The Making of China’s Working Class Through a Russian LensStephen Crowley5 Commentary on The Making of China’s Working ClassElaine Sio-ieng Hui6 The Challenge of Building Durable Political PowerPaul Pierson7 Response: Entrenchment, Hegemony, RussiaMarc BlecherIndex