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Book
Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution
This book is the memoir of Chinese economist's Yang Xiaokai. It tells the stories of more than two dozen characters he met while imprisoned in Changsha during the Cultural Revolution. Published in 1994, it was reprinted in 1997 and 2016. The English version is titled *Captive Spirits: Prisoners of the Cultural Revolution*, published by Stanford University Press in 1997.
Article
My Life: China's Direction
When the Cultural Revolution broke out, Yang Xiaokai was a senior high school student at No. 1 Middle School in Changsha. On January 12, 1968, he published an article entitled "Where is China Going?" which systematically put forward the ideas of the "ultra-leftist" Red Guards, criticized the privileged bureaucratic class in China, and advocated for the establishment of a Chinese People's Commune based on the principles of the Paris Commune. Yang Xiaokai recalled that his parents were beaten because they sympathized with Liu Shaoqi's and Peng Dehuai's views, and that he was discriminated against at school and could not join the Red Guards. As a result, he joined the rebel faction to oppose the theory of descent. Yang Xiaokai was later sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment for this article. Yang Xiaokai died in 2004. This article is a retrospective of his life.
Article
Yang Kuisong: A Study of New China's "Counter-Revolutionary Suppression" Campaign
How many people were "killed," "imprisoned," and "controlled" in the whole "anti-revolution" campaign? Mao Zedong later said that 700,000 people were killed, 1.2 million were imprisoned, and 1.2 million were put under control. Mao's statement was naturally based on a report made in January 1954 by Xu Zirong, deputy minister of public security. Xu reported at the time that since the anti-revolution campaign, the country had arrested more than 262,000, of which "more than 712,000 counter-revolutionaries were killed, more than 12,900,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were put under control, and more than 380,000 were released through education because their crimes were not considered serious after their arrest." (3) Taking the figure of 712,000 executed, it already amounts to one and two-fourths thousandths of one percent of the country's 500 million people at that time. This figure is obviously much higher than the one-thousandth of a percent level originally envisioned by Mao Zedong.
Article
Yang Kuisong: The Beginning and End of the CCP's Seizure of the Northeast after the War
The occupation of the Northeast was key to the CCP's success in seizing power in 1949. The author of this book, Yang Kuisong, is a professor and doctoral director of the Department of History at East China Normal University, and a researcher at the Institute of Modern History at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This book describes the CCP's taking of the Northeast as well as the competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union at that time. After reading it, you will understand: how the Soviet Union played a key role in the CCP's occupation of the Northeast.
Article
“China Labour Bulletin” Report Series on Labor Rights Protection in China
2025年6月12日，位于香港的NGO组织“中国劳工通讯”发布声明解散。这是香港《国安法》落地后又一个停运的中国民间团体。中国劳工通讯（China Labour Bulletin，CLB）于1994年成立，致力于推动中国劳工运动，长期关注中国劳工权利。该机构总部位于香港，创办人韩东方是1989年天安门民主运动中的工人领袖，是当时北京工人自治联合会创始人之一。
中国劳工通讯曾出版数十份中英文报告，涉及中国的工人运动，关注农民工、外卖骑手、女工、童工、煤炭开采和尘肺病等工人权益问题。在该机构宣布解散后，“中国劳工通讯网”也随即被关闭。民间档案馆网站紧急下载了其网站上相关的49个中文报告，予以留存。以下32个报告是中国劳工通讯2004-2024年之间发布的关于中国劳工权益保障的研究报告，包括《中国外卖行业研究报告》、《建筑行业权益报告》、《医护行业权益报告》、《制造业工人权益报告》、《中国工人十年集体行动启示》等。
文章
China Labour Bulletin Report Series on Trade Union Reform
On June 12, 2025, the Hong Kong–based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) announced its dissolution. This marks yet another Chinese civil society organization that ceased operations following the implementation of the Hong Kong National Security Law. Founded in 1994, CLB was dedicated to promoting the Chinese labor movement and had long focused on labor rights in China. Headquartered in Hong Kong, its founder Han Dongfang was a workers’ leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement and one of the founders of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation.
Over the years, China Labour Bulletin published dozens of reports in Chinese and English on China’s labor movement, addressing issues related to migrant workers, food delivery couriers, women workers, child labor, coal mining, and pneumoconiosis, among others. Following the organization’s dissolution, the China Labour Bulletin website was also taken offline.
In response, the China Unofficial Archives website immediately downloaded and preserved 49 Chinese-language reports from the site. The following 17 reports are studies concerning trade union reform in China.