ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the evolution of workers’ attitudes toward the state—from class conflict to patronage-seeking. The main thesis postulates that the relationship between the Chinese Communist state and the workers is fundamentally an adversarial symbiosis. In 1947, Chinese sociologist Ta Chen wrote: “The psychosocial reactions of the Chinese workingmen are more socioeconomic and less political.” Chen’s description of the worker in China remained valid ten years later. Unlike the peasants whose resistance against the state was toughened by the crisis in 1960–1962, workers’ reactions to the famine tended to dampen their desire to confront the state. Instead, they seemed to have become more aware of their symbiotic relationship with the state after the crisis. The new strategy of the workers became obvious in their reactions to the Cultural Revolution. After the initial period of “economism”, workers were absorbed in factionalism and particularism.
