ABSTRACT
Mao Zedong, a man whose name has become inseparably linked with peasant revolution, actually began his career as a Communist in an apparently orthodox way, as an organizer of urban labour. From late 1920 until the spring of 1923, for about two and one-half years, he led a remarkably successful effort to unionize the workers of Hunan, his home province. The prevailing wisdom regarding Mao's ideas during these years is that nationalism, not a class-conscious Marxism, was the fundamental inspiration behind his revolutionary urge, both before and after his experience with the unions. The most obvious questions regarding this movement are how the workers in a country that was so overwhelmingly peasant could play such a significant role in Chinese politics, and why they would follow the lead of Communist revolutionaries. Chesneaux's observation that the modern workers were concentrated in strategic places is, no doubt, true.
