HUIZHOU, China — They were exactly what China’s best universities were supposed to

produce: young men and women steeped in the ideology of the Chinese Communist
Party.

They read Marx, Lenin and Mao and formed student groups to discuss the progress of
socialism. They investigated the treatment of the campus proletariat, including janitors,
cooks and construction workers. They volunteered to help struggling rural families and
dutifully recited the slogans of President Xi Jinping.

Then, after graduation, they attempted to put the party’s stated ideals into action,
converging from across China last month on Huizhou, a city in the south, to organize
labor unions at nearby factories and stage protests demanding greater protections for
workers.

That’s when the party realized it had a problem.

The authorities moved quickly to crush the efforts of the young activists, detaining
several dozen of them and scrubbing the internet of their calls for justice — but not
before their example became a rallying cry for young people across the country unhappy
with growing inequality, corruption and materialism in Chinese society.

“You are the backbone of the working class!” the protesters chanted at one rally,
addressing workers at an equipment factory. “We share your honor and your disgrace!”

Protests are common in China, especially by workers who have nowhere else to turn in a
nation without independent unions, courts or news media. But the demonstrations in
Huizhou were unusual because they were organized by students and recent graduates
from some of the country’s top universities, who have generally stayed off the streets
since the 1989 pro-democracy movement that ended in bloodshed outside Tiananmen
Square.

In the decades since that massacre, university students have generally helped advance
the party’s economic and political agenda, focusing on jobs, homes and other aspects of
material well-being while supporting authoritarian rule, or at least eschewing politics.
As economic growth has slowed, party officials have grown more nervous about Western
influences on the nation’s youth, who are more worldly and digitally connected than
ever before.

But the Huizhou activists represent a threat the authorities did not expect.

Carrying portraits of Mao and singing socialist anthems, they espoused the very ideals
that the government fed them for years in mandatory ideological classes, voicing
grievances about issues like poverty, worker rights and gender equality — some of
communism’s core concerns.
“What we are doing is entirely legal and reasonable,” said Chen Kexin, a senior at
Renmin University in Beijing who took part in the protests. “We are Marxists. We praise
socialism. We stand with workers. The authorities can’t target us.”

But they have. On the morning of Aug. 24, police officers wearing riot gear raided the
four-bedroom apartment the activists were renting in Huizhou and detained about 50
people. As the police burst through the door, the activists held hands and sang
“L’Internationale.”

Though some have been released, 14 activists and workers remain in custody or under
house arrest, according to labor rights advocates. The local police accused the workers of
acting on behalf of foreign nongovernmental organizations.

Since President Xi took power in 2012, the party has sought to restrict the use of
Western textbooks and stop the spread of “Western values” on campus, referring to
ideas about rule of law and democracy that could undermine its hold on power.

At the same time, Mr. Xi has demanded that universities expand their teachingson Mao
and Marx. In May, he visited Peking University and encouraged students to promote
Marxism, saying it was important for the university to “take Marxism as its surname.”

But some in the party seem uneasy about the proliferation of student groups devoted to
Marxism and Maoism, apparently worried that their calls for greater economic equality
and worker rights could undermine China’s modern-day embrace of capitalist markets.

While only a small minority of students are involved, they represent a leftist critique of
Chinese society that seems to be gaining traction on college campuses, partly because
the authorities have been more hesitant to suppress it than other political discussion.

On the Chinese internet, thousands of young people participate in vibrant Maoist and
Marxist chat rooms, and some have started leftist news websites, posting commentary
on topics like pollution, globalization and economic theory, without much interference
by censors, until recently.

This week, school officials harassed young Marxists at a half-dozen universities and
prevented some from meeting, activists said. And last year, the police in Guangzhou, the
capital of Guangdong Province, arrested Zhang Yunfan, the young leader of a Maoist
reading group, accusing him of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order.”

Younger Chinese are often described as apathetic, selfish and obsessed with money. But
Eric Fish, a writer who has studied Chinese millennials, said that the generation born
after the Tiananmen Square massacre lacks the instinctive fear of authority of older
generations.

“They’re more willing to go out on the street and stick their necks out,” he said. “There is
not as much appreciation for what could go wrong.”
The dispute in Huizhou began in July, after Jasic Technology, a manufacturer of
welding equipment, prevented its workers from forming an independent union. China
allows labor organizing only under the auspices of the official, party-controlled All-
China Federation of Trade Unions.

The workers said managers had seized control of their branch of the official union.
Complaining of being underpaid and treated like slaves, they began to organize a
petition before the police intervened and detained several of them.

The young activists learned of the workers’ plight on internet messaging apps and took
up their cause, with about 40 students and recent graduates going to Huizhou, a
manufacturing hub of 4.8 million people in Guangdong Province. Hundreds of others
spoke out in support online — so many that several universities warned students not to
go to Huizhou.

“I could not sit still,” Yue Xin, a recent graduate of Peking University who majored in
foreign languages, said in an interview before she was detained. “I could not let myself
be a mere internet commentator. I had to stand up.”

Zhang Shengye, 21, who graduated in June from Peking University with a degree in
pharmacology, said he was inspired to join the protests by his family’s own struggles.
His father, a sailor, was laid off from a state-owned firm during a wave of privatization
in the 1990s, an experience Mr. Zhang described as a “financial and emotional
apocalypse.”

But it was in college that he decided to answer Marx’s call to “work for mankind,” he
said. Frustrated by the low wages and poor treatment of workers on campus, he and 60
other students, calling themselves the Marxist Research Association, published a report
documenting labor violations.

“We share a very simple sympathy for workers and the aspiration of a better future for
communism,” he said.

Image

In Huizhou, the young activists called each other “comrade” and wore T-shirts with
images of clenched fists and the slogan, “Unity is strength.” They marched alongside
workers, holding banners that declared, “Forming unions is not a crime.” They staged
re-enactments of the abuse the workers said they endured at the factory.

Though they identify as Maoists, the activists are decidedly nonviolent, unlike Maoist
rebels in countries like Nepal and India who embrace violent revolution. Their
philosophy also differs from China’s older Maoists, who largely focus on rooting out
Western influences in Chinese society and are less confrontational toward the party.

The young protesters insist that they are good communists who support President Xi.
Before she was detained, Ms. Yue wrote an open letter to Mr. Xi saying that she had
been inspired by his fight against corruption and his time working in an impoverished
village in the countryside as a young man.

She added that the campaign in Huizhou had its roots not in foreign ideas, but in the
May Fourth Movement of 1919, a student-led uprising in China that the party considers
a precursor to the Communist Revolution.

Ms. Yue, also a leader of China’s #MeToo movement who spoke out against sexual
harassment and assault on campus, has not been heard from since the police detained
her during the Aug. 24 raid.

Friends are also worried about Shen Mengyu, one of the first students to call attention to
the workers’ campaign. She was held by security officials at a hotel and is now under
surveillance at her parents’ home, activists said.

Several workers at the equipment factory have also been formally arrested and charged
with disturbing social order. Huang Lanfeng, whose husband, Yu Juncong, was among
those detained, said the government was unfairly punishing workers while ignoring
factory abuses.

“We will never give up,” she said. “We swear to fight the evil forces until the end.”

As the school year began, the activists vowed to press their campaign. Mr. Zhang and
others staged a rally in Mao’s hometown, Shaoshan, on the 42nd anniversary of the
Chinese leader’s death this month, and called on the government to release their friends.
The police broke up the protest and briefly detained Mr. Zhang, who was also held and
released after the Aug. 24 raid.
当爱党的青年走上街头
赫海威
2018 年 9 月 29 日

中国惠州——他们正是中国最好的大学应该培养的学生：沉浸在中国共产党
意识形态中的青年男女。
他们读马克思、列宁和毛泽东的著作，组建学生小组讨论社会主义的进步。
他们调查校内无产阶级的待遇，包括门卫、厨师和建筑工人。他们自愿帮助
陷入困境的农村家庭，并且自觉背诵习近平主席的口号。
然后，毕业了，他们试图将党所宣称的理想付诸行动，上个月，他们从中国
各地汇聚到南方城市惠州，在附近的工厂组织工会，并举行抗议活动，要求
为工人提供更多保护。
这时党开始意识到它有问题。
当局迅速采取行动，镇压这些年轻活动人士的努力，拘留了数十人，并在互
联网上擦去他们的正义呼吁——但他们的榜样已经成为全国各地的年轻人的
战斗口号，他们对不平等、腐败和中国社会的拜金主义感到不满。
“你是工人阶级的硬骨头！”抗议者在一次集会上高呼，向一家设备工厂的
工人发表讲话。“同荣辱，共进退！”
抗议活动在中国很常见，尤其是那些在这个没有独立工会、法院或新闻媒体
的国家走投无路的工人。但惠州的示威活动却不同寻常，因为它们是由中国
一些顶尖大学的学生和近期的毕业生组织的，自 1989 年以天安门广场周围的
流血事件告终的民主运动以来，大学生一直避免走上街头。

订阅“早报”和“每日精选”新闻电邮

自那次屠杀后的几十年里，大学生普遍帮助推进党的经济和政治议程，重点
关注就业、家庭和其他物质福利方面，同时支持威权统治，或者至少也是避
开政治。随着经济增长放缓，政党官员越来越担心西方对中国青年的影响，
这些年轻人前所未有的世故，依赖数码技术相连。
但惠州的活动分子代表了当局没有预料到的威胁。
他们携带毛泽东的肖像，唱社会主义歌曲，信奉政府多年来在强制性意识形
态课堂上给他们灌输的理想，表达对贫困、工人权利和性别平等等问题的不
满——这是共产主义的一些核心关切。
“我们做的事情完全合法合理，”位于北京的人民大学一名参加了抗议活动
的大三学生陈可欣说，“我们所做的事是完全合法的。我们是马克思主义者，
我们赞扬社会主义，我们和工人阶级站在一起，政府不能针对我们。”
但当局这么做了。8 月 24 日的早上，穿着防暴装备的警察冲进了这些活动人
士在惠州租住的四室一厅公寓，将近 50 人拘留。随着警方冲入大门，活动人
士们手拉着手高唱《国际歌》。
据劳工权益倡导人士表示，虽然有些人获得了释放，但仍有 14 名活动人士和
工人被关押或软禁在家。当地警方指控这些人是代表外国非政府组织行动的。
自习近平主席 2012 年上台以来，共产党一直谋求限制西方课本的使用，并且
阻止“西方价值”在校园里进行散播，这些“西方价值”指的是会破坏共产
党掌权的、关于法治和民主的观念。
与此同时，习近平已经要求各大高校扩大对毛泽东和马克思的教授。五月，
他前往北京大学，鼓励学生宣扬马克思主义，表示这所大学一定要“姓马”。
但该党内部的一些人对这些组织的扩散似乎感到不安，他们明显担忧这些组
织对更大经济平等及工人权利的呼吁，会破坏当代中国对资本主义市场的接
纳。
尽管只有一小部分学生牵涉其中，他们仍代表着左派对中国社会的批判，这
种批判似乎在大学校园里获得追捧，部分是因为与其他政治讨论相比，当局
在压制这个问题方面较为犹豫。
在中国互联网上，数以千计的年轻人加入了活跃的毛泽东思想和马克思主义
聊天室，一些人还设立了左派新闻网站，在污染、全球化及经济理论等主题
上发布评论，直到最近，这些都没有受到审查的多少干预。
活动人士表示，本周，有六所高校的校方工作人员对年轻的马克思主义者进
行了骚扰，并且阻止了一些会面。去年，广东省会广州市警方逮捕了张云帆，
他是一个毛泽东思想读书小组的年轻领导人，警方指控他“聚众扰乱社会秩
序”。
年纪较轻的中国人往往被形容为冷漠、自私，拜金。但一直研究中国千禧一
代的作家埃里克·菲什(Eric Fish)表示，生于天安门广场大屠杀之后的一
代人没有对老一辈权威的本能惧怕。
“他们更愿意上街，勇于冒险，”他说。“他们不太去想事情出了差错会怎
么样”。
七月，在生产焊接设备的佳士科技对工人组建独立工会进行阻挠后，惠州的
风波就开始了。中国仅允许官方的、由共产党控制的中华全国总工会主持的
劳工组织存在。
工人们表示，经理们控制了他们官方工会的分支机构。对报酬太低、遭到像
奴隶一般对待怨声载道的他们开始组织一场请愿，之后警方介入，拘留了其
中一些人。
年轻的活动人士们在互联网信息软件上得知了工人们的困境，继续了他们的
事业，约有 40 名学生和新毕业生前往人口约 480 万的广东省制造业中心惠州。
还有数以百计的人在网上发声支持——人数如此之多，好几所高校都警告学
生不要前往惠州。
“我坐不住，”一名近期从北大毕业的学生岳昕在被拘留前接受采访时表示，
她的专业是外语。“我不能让自己只在网上评论。我必须要站起来。”
21 岁的张圣业六月刚从北京大学毕业，获得了药学学位。他表示自己是因为
受到家人的苦难所启发，所以参加了抗议。他的父亲是一名海员，在 1990 年
代的私营化浪潮中下岗，他将这一经历“ 对于这个家庭来说往往是灭顶之
灾，这不仅是物质上的，还有精神上的。”
但他说，自己是在大学期间决定响应马克思“为人类牺牲”的召唤的。由于
对校园里工人的低工资和待遇差感到不满，他和其他 60 名自称为“马克思主
义研究协会”的学生发表了一份报告，其中记录了违法用工的情况。
“对工人的朴素同情，对共产主义美好未来的朴素向往，我们大家都是有
的，”他说。
在惠州，这些年轻的活动人士们互称“同志”，穿着有握拳图片和“团结就
是力量”口号的 T 恤。他们与工人们一道游行，举着写着“组建工会无罪”
的横幅。他们用演出再现工人们自称在工厂经受过的遭遇。
尽管自称毛泽东主义者，这些活动人士与尼泊尔和印度等国崇尚暴力革命的
毛主义反叛人士不同，他们绝不使用暴力。他们的理念也与中国老一辈的毛
主义者不同，后者基本上着重于根除西方对中国社会的影响，较少与共产党
进行对抗。
这些年轻的抗议者坚称，他们是支持习近平主席的优秀共产党员。
在被拘留前，岳昕向习近平写了一封公开信，其中表示她受到了他反腐和年
轻时在乡下贫困村庄工作经历的鼓舞。
她还表示，惠州的行动根源不在外国思想，而是源于 1919 年的五四运动，这
是中国一场学生领导的起义，共产党将其视为对共产主义革命的迫害。
岳昕还是中国“#我也是”(#MeToo)运动的一名领导者，她公开反对校园里
的性骚扰及性侵事件，自警方在 8 月 24 日的突击行动中将其拘留后，她一直
杳无音讯。
朋友们也十分担忧沈梦雨的境况，她是第一位让人们关注到工人行动的学生。
活动人士表示，她一度被安全官员们关押在一个酒店里，目前在父母家受到
监视。
这家设备工厂的多位工人也遭到正式逮捕，并且被控违反社会秩序的罪名。
黄兰凤表示，政府是在不公正地惩罚工人，无视工厂的虐待行为。她的丈夫
余浚聪也遭到了拘留。
“我们绝不放弃，”她说。“誓与黑恶势力斗争到底。”
随着新学年开始，活动人士们誓言要继续他们的行动。毛泽东本月去世 42 周
年之际，张圣业与其他人在这位中国领导人的故乡韶山举行了一场集会，呼
吁政府释放他们的朋友。警方打断了抗议活动，一度将张圣业拘留，他也在
8 月 24 日的突击行动中曾遭到拘留，后被释放。
张圣业四处传播一份请愿，呼吁共产党处罚当地官员。他写道：
“我们来了，只因为我们深知自己做的，是合理合法、正义的事情。
“我们来了，只因为我们觉得自己求学多年，唯有将所学回报给劳动人民，
才无愧于心。
“我们来了，只因为我们不愿意相信，在我们所生活的世界，恶势力可以在
暗中狞笑！”