[Editorial Note: We are publishing an unofficial translation of the statement by the League of Struggle of Compatriots in North America (Meidoutong), originally in Chinese. We welcome any correction of the translation from the readership. A PDF of the Chinese original that we have received can be found attached at the end.]
Workers of the world, unite!
Declaration of the League of Struggle of Compatriots in North America
Workers, students, and progressive overseas compatriots residing in North America!
Exactly fifty years ago, the bourgeoisie within the Communist Party of China launched a counter-revolutionary coup, transforming the Communist Party founded by Chairman Mao himself into a revisionist party, and turning our great socialist country into a capitalist country. Across the vast territory of our motherland, capitalism was restored, and a fascist bureaucratic-bourgeois dictatorship was established. The Chinese people, who had once stood up, were once again subjected to oppression and exploitation; the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat in our country suffered a temporary defeat.
Today’s China is a social-imperialist country, an enemy of our country’s proletariat and the people of the world. Since 1976, the revisionist traitor group has implemented a fascist dictatorship and brutally suppressed the laboring people of our country. The so-called “Chinese Miracle” is built upon the blood and tears of workers and peasants. According to official records, the average national working time in 2026 reached 48.6 hours, while in reality, working hours in many factories exceed 70 hours per week. Since the 1976 coup, the revisionist traitor group set out to implement the “one-man management” system. By concentrating management power in the hands of technocrats and cadres, they undermined the political power of workers and peasants in factories and communes. Through continuous bourgeois “reforms,” the revisionist traitor group dissolved the People’s Communes, abolished the Constitution of the Anshan Iron and Steel Company, and established a highly centralized monopoly system centered on finance capital and military-industrial capital. Leveraging state-owned enterprises and political institutions, two factions formed within the grand bourgeoisie—the bureaucratic bourgeoisie and the private bourgeoisie—firmly control the national economy, using state apparatuses to mediate their interest disputes. Among them, the bureaucratic bourgeoisie controls land resources and other sectors generating the most profit, while the private bourgeoisie controls most of the industry and service sectors. The bourgeoisie willfully destroyed the proletarian-centered economic policies of the socialist period. Using “profits in command” as an excuse, they dismissed workers in large numbers, closed factories, and destroyed basic rural industries. Simultaneously, a large number of “sweatshops” sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain; brutal management and industrial accidents have become the norm for hundreds of millions of laboring people. Since 2018, to alleviate increasingly severe economic problems, the revisionist regime began to aggressively push so-called “flexible employment” policies. Large numbers of contract workers were forced to become temporary workers, allowing the bourgeoisie to oppress the laboring people at will, turning the so-called “Labor Law” into a mere scrap of paper. To mediate the increasingly fierce class contradictions since the capitalist restoration, the revisionist regime began constructing a national welfare system in the mid-1990s, essentially to further monitor the poorest laboring people while masking the increasingly extreme wealth gap and urban-rural divide. In the past few years, as the capitalist crisis has further worsened, large numbers of people have fallen into unemployment. In ethnic minority regions, especially Xinjiang, the revisionist regime has implemented ethnic oppression, undermining the rights of ethnic minorities to autonomy and self-determination. The essence of the national question is a class question. In short, the primitive accumulation of Chinese social-imperialism is achieved through the savage oppression of the proletariat and the people.
Internationally, Chinese social-imperialism both colludes and struggles with US imperialism, attempting to replace it and become the number one enemy of the people of the world. In 1979, only three years after the capitalist restoration, the traitor Deng Xiaoping brazenly invaded Vietnam, murdering countless Vietnamese soldiers and civilians under the instruction of US imperialism. Today, under the banners of the so-called “Community with a Shared Future for Mankind” and the “Belt and Road Initiative,” the revisionist traitor group runs rampant everywhere, practicing neo-colonialism and suppressing the anti-imperialist and anti-hegemonic struggles of the revolutionary people of the Third World. From Myanmar and Sri Lanka in Asia, Ethiopia and Congo in Africa, to Argentina and Ecuador in Latin America, the revisionist regime exports capital everywhere, carrying out expansionist infiltration, control, and interference in the name of “aid” to Asian, African, and Latin American countries, willfully interfering in internal affairs and plundering the resources and wealth of oppressed peoples. The revisionist regime seeks to re-divide the world, creating contradictions with other imperialist countries. Therefore, the contradictions between the revisionist traitor group and other imperialist countries, especially US imperialism, are irreconcilable.
To maintain its reactionary rule, the revisionist traitor group brutally suppresses the resistance of the broad laboring people and bloodily crushes the progressive struggles of the people, intensifying the implementation of fascist rule domestically. To meet the needs of suppressing the people, the revisionist traitor group continuously strengthens the state apparatus, including the military, police, prisons, and courts. In 2026, China’s military spending reached 1.974 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7% from last year. Nationwide, the revisionist regime has built the world’s largest video surveillance system, attempting to strangle all people’s struggles in their cradle.
The great leader Chairman Mao taught us: “Where there is oppression, there is resistance.” This is an irrefutable historical truth. After the counter-revolutionary coup of 1976, proletarian revolutionaries across the country had already launched heroic armed struggles, sacrificing their lives to defend socialism. With the development of bureaucratic monopoly capitalism, our country’s working class has also gradually grown through struggle, increasingly recognizing its historical mission. City-wide and national strikes, as well as revolutionary violence against exploiters, are no longer anything new. In 2024, according to statistics from bourgeois media, there were nearly two thousand strikes across the country, expanding from traditional construction and manufacturing to the service and logistics industries. Under the major trend of informatization, emerging industries such as food delivery workers—leveraging the internet—have also joined the ranks of struggle, thoroughly sweeping the “theory of weapons only” and “theory of technology only” advocated by the revisionists into the dustbin of history.
“The four seas are rising, clouds and waters raging; the five continents are rocking, wind and thunder roaring.” As the global economic crisis further develops, people worldwide are increasingly subjected to brutal exploitation and oppression, and all contradictions of imperialism are daily intensifying. Throughout the world, especially in Third World countries, a storm of revolution is brewing. In the Philippines, Turkey, Peru, India, and other countries, revolutionary people’s wars led by proletarian parties are developing. In China, as in other countries, only through the seizure of political power by revolutionary armed forces led by the proletariat can the capitalist crisis and the entire capitalist society be swept into the dustbin of history, and a socialist society where the proletariat and laboring people are the masters be established. Without the leadership of the Party, without a revolutionary party armed with Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and tempered in struggle, the proletariat cannot achieve victory. Today, the most urgent task facing the revolutionaries of our country is to reconstitute the great, glorious Communist Party of China to lead the socialist revolution and to completely eliminate Chinese social-imperialism through People’s War.
Workers, students, and progressive overseas compatriots residing in North America!
The glorious task of constituting the Communist Party of China is one that history has entrusted to us. This task can only achieve victory within class struggle. Overseas Chinese in North America cannot lead this task; we are merely a relatively secondary component of it. However, abroad as at home, laboring people everywhere are subjected to the exploitation and oppression of imperialism. Since the 1990s, as Chinese social-imperialism further entered the world capitalist system, hundreds of thousands of the Chinese proletariat and laboring people left their homes for a better life and came to all parts of the world. The task of revolutionaries is to organize, to integrate with the broad masses of the people, and to take root and sprout among the masses like seeds. Only in this way, amidst the great winds and waves of class struggle and the struggle between two lines, can revolutionaries gradually grow and make due contributions to the cause of reconstituting the Party in the future.
The struggle of the Chinese proletariat is an important component of the world proletarian revolution. We must not forget the examples of Chinese communists and revolutionary people living abroad in the 1920s and 30s. In countries like Thailand and Myanmar, Chinese communists established communist cells among overseas Chinese worker groups with the same language and culture, which later became the prototypes of the Communist Parties of Thailand and Myanmar. In countries like Malaya, the Philippines, and North Kalimantan, overseas Chinese played an important role alongside the local people in the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the national liberation struggles. After the liberation of the whole country, many overseas Chinese returned to the motherland and contributed to our country’s socialist construction. The descendants of Chinese who had long taken root in Southeast Asian countries, as indispensable ethnic minority components of those countries, also played a certain role in the subsequent New Democratic Revolutions. In North America, overseas Chinese laborers joined the Communist Party of the USA, the Communist Party of Canada, and the Communist Party of Mexico, fighting side by side with people of all ethnicities, while supporting China’s New Democratic Revolution through propaganda and material aid.
In the 1930s, Chinese communists studying in the US formed the Chinese Bureau of the Communist Party of the USA. Subsequently, people’s organizations led by it were established, such as the Chinese Hand Laundry Alliance (CHLA, or “Yi Lian Hui”) and the Overseas Chinese Anti-Imperialist League of America. Under the leadership of the Chinese Bureau of the CPUSA, overseas Chinese workers fought side by side with American workers of all ethnicities, actively participating in economic and political struggles including opposing racial discrimination and striving for better working conditions and wages, achieving many victories. The “Yi Lian Hui” at one point grew to over 2,400 members. In California, Hawaii, and elsewhere, overseas Chinese workers joined the fishery and farm worker movements led by the CPUSA alongside immigrants from the Philippines, Japan, and Mexico. As the War of Liberation approached victory, members of the CPC organized or led organizations such as the Chinese Students’ Christian Association in North America and the Chinese Association of Scientific Workers in the USA, propagating progressive ideas among students and scholars in the US. The communist movement of overseas Chinese in America contributed a series of communists to the Chinese revolution, such as the revolutionary martyr Shi Huang and the diplomat of New China, Xu Yongying.
In Canada, overseas Chinese workers joined the Communist Party of Canada, established Chinese branches, and organized long-term fundraising activities for the Chinese people’s revolution together with Chinese communists in the US. Chinese communists in the US and Canada also participated in coordinating the work of the internationalist fighter Comrade Norman Bethune’s mission to China. In Mexico, the Communist Party of Mexico organized against the anti-Chinese movements of the old Mexican state in the 1930s. In other North American and Caribbean countries, overseas Chinese also actively participated in the revolutionary struggles of the laboring people. In Cuba, CPC member Huang Taobai established the Overseas Chinese Socialist League of Cuba, leading the struggle of overseas Chinese workers and merchants against bullying and oppression. In 1930, the old Cuban state, in collusion with Kuomintang agents, brutally murdered Huang Taobai, but the progressive struggle of the overseas Chinese laboring people in Cuba was not intimidated. Many overseas Chinese communists participated in the Cuban Revolution.
In the 1960s and 70s, Chairman Mao personally led the great struggle in the international communist movement against modern revisionism headed by Soviet social-imperialism and led the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, greatly inspiring the revolutionary movements of people worldwide. Under the guidance of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought, People’s Wars in the Third World surged, and anti-revisionist movements in the First and Second Worlds shone brilliantly. In the United States, hundreds of thousands of revolutionary proletarians, Black people, and students took to the streets, launching a powerful struggle against violent repression. Black people in America organized the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army, creating a new climax in the revolutionary armed struggle in the US. In this environment, overseas Chinese students living in the US (all from Taiwan, sent by the Kuomintang reactionaries occupying Taiwan) were also deeply moved by the revolutionary atmosphere and responded to the great call that “It is right to rebel.” In 1970, the People’s Socialist League of Taiwan was established. On April 10, 1971, massive overseas demonstrations to defend the Diaoyu Islands were held in major US cities like Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with tens of thousands of overseas Chinese participating. In September of the same year, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the US organization of students from the Taiwan Kuomintang reactionaries passed a series of resolutions by an absolute majority, taking the People’s Republic of China, rather than the “Republic of China,” as their motherland, supporting New China’s entry into the United Nations, supporting the unification of the motherland, and taking the principles of Mao Zedong Thought as the basis for their actions.
Although these struggles eventually failed following the counter-revolutionary coup in our country, they left a brilliant page in the history of the revolutionary movement in North America. The history of overseas Chinese in North America is a history of struggle, a history of integrating with workers, peasants, and revolutionaries of all ethnicities.
Workers, students, and progressive overseas compatriots residing in North America!
The heavy responsibility of conducting propaganda and agitation for the revolutionary movement of the motherland rests on our shoulders. As workers, students, and all progressive personages, we have the responsibility and obligation to propagate the history of the struggle of overseas Chinese in America, the history of our country’s revolution led by Chairman Mao, and the struggle of our country’s laboring people against Chinese social-imperialism for socialism and the reconstitution of the Party. Within overseas Chinese groups and communities, we must make every effort to create materials, launch actions, and propagate the situation of the Chinese revolutionary movement to both our compatriots and the American laboring people. We must at all times arm ourselves with the three great styles of work—integrating theory with practice, forging close links with the masses, and practicing criticism and self-criticism—and establish progressive organizations belonging to the overseas community everywhere. At the same time, we must not drift along with the propaganda of US imperialism. US imperialism is the number one enemy of the people of the world and the sole imperialist superpower.
Chairman Mao taught us: “Our Communists ought to face the world and brave the storm; the world of mass struggle and the storm of mass struggle.” The Chinese social-imperialism we face is a vicious enemy of our country’s proletariat and the people of the world. It is not enough to call oneself a revolutionary or a Marxist-Leninist only in words. This applies both at home and abroad. In the past decades, precisely due to the leadership of the petty bourgeoisie, the revolutionary movement of our country has failed to master the correct methods of struggle, leading itself to repeated defeats. Only in the fires of class struggle, by closely following the proletarian revolutionary line, can revolutionaries grow, become familiar with society, with the masses, and with class struggle, endure great winds and waves, and receive all kinds of tempering. Only in this way can we avoid wasting our time and, upon returning home, establish merits for the cause of the proletarian revolution of the motherland and for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of China.
Today, the number of overseas Chinese in the US is not small. In 2026, there are more than 300,000 Chinese students studying in North America, composed of children of the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie. It is estimated that there are over one million overseas Chinese workers in the US, mainly engaged in occupations such as catering, domestic service, nail salons and beauty, and logistics and warehousing. A significant portion of them are undocumented immigrants. As the economic crisis in the US continues to deepen, overseas Chinese workers have suffered brutal oppression from the ruling class. In New York City, overseas Chinese domestic workers and Latino workers have launched a struggle against the 24-hour workday. US imperialism attempts to use immigrants and ethnic minorities as “scapegoats” to obstruct the great unity of the proletariat. Therefore, many overseas Chinese suffer persecution from the US imperialist state apparatus targeted at immigrants.
The struggle of overseas Chinese in America cannot be separated from the righteous struggle of the American proletariat and oppressed people against oppression and exploitation. Our direct enemy at present is US imperialism. Our history tells us that today, as in the past, overseas Chinese in America must unite with the North American proletariat of all ethnicities and their progressive organizations, “coming from the masses and going to the masses.” Students must integrate with the struggle of the overseas Chinese working class, taking root and blossoming among the masses. Progressive children of the petty bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie must remold themselves in the great winds and waves of revolution, tempering themselves into proletarian revolutionary fighters who dare to struggle and dare to win. Only in this way can we become true proletarian internationalist fighters, taking practical internationalist actions to oppose imperialism instead of remaining at the level of words.
Workers, students, and progressive overseas compatriots residing in North America!
Although we are on the other side of the ocean, thousands of miles away from the motherland, we are still part of the proletarian struggle. Lenin once remarked: “A conscious worker, no matter what country he comes to, no matter where fate throws him, no matter how much he feels himself a stranger, without language, without relatives, far from his motherland—he can find himself comrades and friends by the familiar tune of the Internationale.” Let us sing the Internationale and find ourselves comrades and friends!
Workers, students, and progressive overseas compatriots residing in North America!
Chairman Mao taught us: “Correct things always develop in the process of struggling against wrong things. The true, the good and the beautiful always exist in comparison with the false, the evil and the ugly, and grow in struggle against them.” Ahead of us is a tortuous road. But as long as we dare to struggle and are good at struggling, we will certainly be able to thoroughly overthrow the fascist rule of the revisionist traitor group. On the vast territory of the motherland, the working class is rising in struggle—let us join their ranks! Today we are few, but tomorrow we will be tens of thousands.
Down with Chinese Social-Imperialism!
Long live the struggle for the reconstitution of the Communist Party of China!
Long live Marxism-Leninism-Maoism! Long live, long live, long live!
