Anyuan Coal Mine Museum

The Anyuan Coal Mine Museum (安源煤矿博物馆) in the Anyuan district occupies the site of the Anyuan-Pingxiang Coal Mine, where early Communist organizers including Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, and Li Lisan conducted significant labor organizing work from 1921 to 1925. The museum covers the history of the mine and the labor movement with unusual specificity about the industrial conditions, the union organizing process, and the political context in which early Chinese Communists found industrial workers as a constituency.

The exhibits are serious and historically detailed, going beyond the standard revolutionary hagiography to engage with the specific conditions of early twentieth-century Chinese coal mining. For visitors interested in labor history, early Marxism in Asia, or Chinese industrial heritage, this is a genuinely worthwhile stop.

things to do museum sight
A story
The Anyuan Miners' Strike of 1922, organized by Mao Zedong and Liu Shaoqi, succeeded in winning an eight-hour workday and recognition for the workers' union — a remarkable outcome for its time in China. The famous propaganda painting "Mao Going to Anyuan" (毛主席去安源), depicting a young Mao striding purposefully toward the mines in a scholar's gown, was reproduced an estimated 900 million times during the Cultural Revolution, making it arguably the most widely reproduced artwork in human history. The original hangs in the National Museum of China in Beijing.