The Class Nature Under the Colonial System: A Critical Study of Old Shanghai as a Case

Abstract

In globalization, imperialism persists through more concealed forms of domination. Colonial history has not ended; it has been reconfigured within global political economy and cultural consciousness. This paper argues that the racial and national contradictions visible in colonial and semi-colonial settings such as old Shanghai were, at root, expressions of the global expansion of monopoly capital and class rule. Combining postcolonial critique with Marxist political economy, and drawing on Lenin’s theory of imperialism, the study analyzes old Shanghai through three dimensions: legal-spatial institutions, internal divisions within foreign and Chinese societies, and the cultural field. It shows that racial contradictions functioned less as fundamental causes than as surface forms and strategic instruments that concealed deeper class antagonisms. Reconsidering China’s anti-imperialist struggle from a class perspective, the paper stresses the historical unity of national liberation and working-class emancipation. Old Shanghai thus provides a historical lens for understanding the enduring entanglement of capital, cultural hegemony, and class struggle in both past and present global orders.

全球化时代，帝国主义以更隐蔽的方式延续支配逻辑。殖民历史并未终结，而是被重新嵌入全球政治经济结构与文化意识。本文认为，旧上海等殖民与半殖民场域中的种族与民族矛盾，本质上是国际垄断资本扩张和阶级统治的表现。本文结合后殖民理论与马克思主义政治经济学，并以列宁帝国主义理论为基础，从法律—空间制度、侨民社会与华人社会内部裂隙、文化场域三个维度分析旧上海。研究表明，种族矛盾并非根本原因，而更多是遮蔽深层阶级对立的表层现象和策略工具。通过以阶级视角重审中国反帝斗争，本文强调民族解放与劳动阶级解放的历史统一。旧上海因此成为理解资本逻辑、文化霸权与阶级斗争在历史与当代全球秩序中持续交织的重要棱镜。