Yangyi Commune is a social, productive and educational unit. The interest of this article for the World Year Book lies in the way education is related to the needs of the commune. Interestingly, technical problems appear (questions of motivation, innovation and obsolescence, the organization of job-rotation etc.) which are similar to those brought out in articles written against completely different social and political backgrounds. Editors.)

Prologue Over a fifth of mankind live in people's communes. To turn a blind eye to such a social organism is to deny a primary fact of twentieth-century life. For the commune, whether one likes it or not, has taken root and flourishes. Despite the doubts of some friends and the fears and obstructions of enemies its influence is spreading and will spread further in the course of the present decade.