ABSTRACT
China's 1.2 billion people are awakening to their inner dreams and aspirations as never before under Communist rule. They are striving for greater wealth, more meaningful lives, and freedom from harsh state controls in a grassroots movement that is shaping China's future and moving the world. Chinese began listening to their inner voices in the late 1970s as they started to come to grips with the collective madness of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Deeply disillusioned, they asked why they had worshiped Mao as a god. China's reformers led by Deng Xiaoping seized on a radically different strategy to recover people's support and rebuild the country after the chaos and penury of the Mao years. Beginning in the early 1980s, Deng offered the people hard incentives: cash bonuses instead of equal wages for workers, family farming instead of communal toil for peasants, and promotions for professionals based on skill instead of Communist fervor.
