Chinese state media previewed an article to be published on Wednesday by genocidal dictator Xi Jinping in which he demanded complete loyalty from the nation’s labor unions and asserted the “importance of adhering to the overall leadership of the Party over trade unions.”

Xi’s article, to be published in the Chinese Communist publication Qiushi Journal, is being published on the occasion of “International Workers’ Day” or “May Day,” a holiday celebrating the murderous ideology of communism. In China, the ruling Communist Party typically encourages citizens to celebrate May Day through domestic travel and supporting propaganda films in their local movie theaters; the holiday is scheduled to last five days.

Xi Jinping’s menacing statement to the nation’s Marxist labor movement follows similar threats to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) following the appointment of its new leadership in October – and years of strife between avowed Maoist labor activists and the Xi regime, which the activists have accused of abandoning the ideals of Marxism to the benefit of a small and lavishly wealthy Communist Party elite. Tensions came to a head in 2018, when Maoist college students organized protests for workers in the tech hub of Shenzhen, prompting Xi’s regime to abduct and disappear some of the most enthusiastic protest leaders.

The Chinese flagship state news outlet Xinhua offered a preview of Xi’s article on Tuesday, emphasizing Xi’s call for labor unions, and the working class generally, to submit to the iron-fisted rule of the Party.

“On the work of trade unions, the article stresses the importance of adhering to the overall leadership of the Party over trade unions, and not wavering or deviating from it at any time or under any circumstances,” Xinhua paraphrased Xi as saying.

“Trade unions should earnestly safeguard the rights of workers and strive to solve practical problems concerning their vital interests, in particular for workers in new forms of employment, according to the article,” Xi reportedly demanded. “Besides, Party committees at all levels should strengthen leadership over trade unions and their work, and governments at all levels should help trade unions solve workers’ difficulties and problems, the article says.”

Xi reportedly demanded that unions move to pressure workers into “actively” helping the Communist Party in “the great cause of building China into a strong country.”

Labor unions are often the protagonists of May Day rallies in the free world, though hardline leftists also often participate in violent, destructive riots to mark the day. While such riots are common in places such as France, China’s government markets the holiday as a five-day vacation intended to give citizens an opportunity to reflect on the greatness of communism by consuming propaganda films and engaging in “red tourism,” travel to locations of interest in the history of Mao Zedong’s communist movement in China. Mao is believed to have killed at least 45 million people during his time in power.

This year, Xinhua reported that Chinese travel platforms are documenting a rise in “visits to off-the-beaten-path cities, self-guided driving tours and concert-focused excursions.”

“Hotel bookings in county-level markets have spiked by 68 percent year on year during the holiday,” the outlet observed, suggesting that improved infrastructure to facilitate travel – and not the dire state of the Chinese economy – is responsible.

The Chinese government has also approved several films to enter theaters for the May Day holiday, often one of the biggest weeks for the Chinese box office. At the top of the list of expected blockbusters is Formed Police Unit, a propaganda film praising Chinese peacekeeping troops abroad. A formed police unit is a United Nations peacekeeping squad, typically consisting of 140 officers, sent into “high-risk” locations. The Chinese state outlet China Daily reported on Tuesday that Formed Police Unit is leading the rankings in presale tickets for the weekend.

During his decade in power, Xi Jinping has dedicated much of his effort to crush dissent at home towards far-left communists who consider his leadership an aberration, adding to campaigns to silence, disappear, or exterminate religious groups, non-Han ethnicities, and openly anti-communist activists. In 2018, Xi launched a nationwide crackdown effort to silence Maoist websites criticizing the Xi regime for not sufficiently supporting the working classes and promoting worker abuse in factories. The largest targets of the crackdown were the websites “Red Reference” and the “Epoch Pioneer,” which published Maoist commentary that urged Xi to uphold workers’ rights, raiding their offices and disappearing key editors.

Preceding those raids was a growing anti-regime movement defending workers at the Jasic Technology factory in Shenzhen, who had demanded the creation of a labor union at the facility and condemned the government for allowing slave-like conditions to persist there. Maoist college students soon joined the movement at Jasic, posing a tremendous publicity problem for the Communist Party.

Communist propaganda sites blamed the Jasic uprising on alleged foreign interference, claiming a “Western NGO” had organized the effort through a Hong Kong workers’ solidarity group. Chinese authorities did not offer any material evidence to back the claim.

Xi ultimately resolved the Maoist uprising and the Jasic factory controversy with mass arrests and disappearances of college student activists and workers. The Xi dictatorship has since prioritized control and silencing of labor unions to prevent a similar situation from recurring. In Hong Kong, the massive crackdown on anti-communist political dissent that culminated in the de facto end of the “one country, two systems” policy culminated in the destruction of the city’s largest trade union.

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) disbanded in 2021, issuing a statement asserting that “it is politically uncertain to continue.”

The All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), meanwhile, has been completely usurped by the Party. Following the replacement of its leadership in October, Xi Jinping delivered remarks again warning union leaders to obey the Party.

“He stressed that the development of the Chinese workers’ movement has developed from very beginning under the leadership of the Party,” the Chinese government paraphrased Xi as saying at that event, “and trade unions are people’s organizations of the working class led by the Party.”

“Xi stressed the overall leadership of the Party over trade unions at any time and under any circumstances,” it concluded.

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