For the first time it was a success. But it was introduced in some big European companies in 19th century, and there were different labour movements asking for this too, so basically idea wasn't really new in the wectern countries (as well as socialist movement, Marx didn't wrote his books in Russian Empire).
And what's more importantly, a lot of Chinese people work more than 40 hours. Much more than people in Europe where 32 and 26 hours week is popular too nowadays.