Generational politics: revolution versus production in Shanghai factories in the early years of the people’s republic of China

Following the takeover of Shanghai, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used ‘generation’ as a key regulatory technique to mold the working class into a reliable leading class. From 1949 to late 1952, through a series of political movements, junior workers (qinggong), who had been professionally incompetent, were granted the identity of ‘activists’ and elevated to a politically superior position over senior workers (lao gongren). From late 1952, however, the CCP became reliant on skilled senior workers after the consolidation of the new order and the launch of industrialization. During the handling of the 1956–1957 Shanghai Strike, the CCP protected senior workers and blamed junior workers, thus finalizing the logic of ‘junior workers learning from senior workers,’ which persisted until the eve of the Cultural Revolution. This article argues that the CCP strategically divided the working class into junior and senior workers and employed generational politics as a tool for regulating the working class.