Leftist riots of 1967, Hong Kong

Leftist riots of 1967, Hong Kong

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Picture taken the 21th may of 1967, Confrontation between the HK Police and rioters in HK, 1967. By Roger Wollstadt (American journalist)

2017 is a special year for the hongkongese. Indeed, they’re gonna celebrate the the fiftieth birthday of the Hong Kong leftist riots which took place in 1967, from May to December, it was the bloodiest event of HK history.

At this time, HK was a poor city; mostly of his population were refugees from China. Slums were abundant, the living conditions were rough (population overcrowded). Consequently, many of the refugees found a job in the factories (which were also abundant), they became workers. The initial demonstrations and riots started in March 1967 were labour disputes, in a small factory called HK Artificial Flower Works (shipping taxi textile), and all of the 174 workers who participated were pro-communist and members of the HK Federation of Trade Unions, a political and labour group established in 1948 in HK, which has a long tradition of following the command of the Communist Party of China.

Concerning the documentary, this picture was taken the 21th may of 1967, and it is called “Confrontation between the HK police and rioters in HK”, by Roger Wollstadt (American journalist). We can split this picture into three parties, the rioters in the foreground (and background too), the policemen in the background, and this white man between them, certainly British.

-Rioters: In 1967, many of the locals were dissatisfied with the inequalities in HK’s capitalism system, led by a British government. In fact, there were two social classes, the workers, and the rich (who were often foreigners, so it created a sort of racism). Most of the population was worker, and really poor, so they were extremely angry by the fact that just a little part of HK population possessed all of wealth of the HK territory. But this tension was not new and went back from a long time ago, for example, in April 1952, Fei Yimin, the managing director of the pro Beijing newspaper Tai Kung Pao, denounced it in one of his articles, accusing the British imperialism of “savagely brutal offenses” in HK and of a “planned systemic massacre”. Furthermore, the HK riots of 1967 were not the first demonstrations against the British Government; riots erupted in the Portuguese colony of Macau, sponsored by pro communist, in December 1966, and also in April 1966, with 1966 Star Ferry riots, against the Star Ferry Company’s decision to raise the price of the ticket. Thus, we can think that the inequalities and injustices made by the British governement were the main argument for the rioters to protest like this. But there was another essential reason, concerning the PRC, Mao, and the Cultural Revolution. But first, I’m going to briefly explain the Cultural Revolution. Back in 1966, Mao Zedong, the actual leader of the PRC and of China, wants to consolidate his power, by “cleaning” the PRC from all revisionist members (person who question an ideology, a policy), by limiting bureaucracy’s power. He thinks youth generation can help him. Thereby, he creates the Red Guards, an “army” composed of young Chinese, inspired by communism’s ideologies, implanted through the Little Red Book. It’s a book of communism propaganda, which appeared in 1964, every Chinese kid had one of this, and was obligated to read and study it. Consequently, Mao Zedong had under control all the Chinese children; he could lobotomize them with his ideologies. The Cultural Revolution arrived quickly in HK, and, as we can see on the photo on the foreground, a big part of the protestors were students, they were young. They were demonstrating in the streets, brandishing copies of Little Red Book, shouting out communist slogans. It was communism, led by Yeung Kwong, the boss of the All Circle Struggle Committee (so indirectly led by PRC) against capitalism, led by British government.  

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