Revolutionary Shanghai: Rethinking Class and the Politics of Difference Through Chinese Communism

A major theme in Hardt's and Negri's work concerns how domination is exercised in the era of empire. Current capitalist globalization results in the rise of immaterial labor - a phase in which capital subordinates labor through biopolitical domination. Along this new form of domination which engulfs more social groups than before, a new subject of resistance has emerged - the multitude. These changes highlight the weakness of earlier forms of communist politics: that they focus only on a homogenous working class as the revolutionary subject. The Chinese communists' strategies of mobilization in early 20th-century Shanghai challenge their argument. First, the Chinese case shows that. previous communist. resistance was not blind to the centrality of non-class categories in the struggle against capitalism. Second, it suggests, in lieu of Hardt's and Nergi's "multitude," an alternative conception of the common ground among various counter-hegemonic social groups and classes.