ABSTRACT
Maoist ideology was most clearly expressed in two extraordinary efforts to reshape the workings of rural communities. The first of these, as we have observed, was the new "class" system, and the second was a quintessentially "Maoist" system of remuneration that was supposed to promote selflessness. In some villages this new system was introduced prior to the eruption of the Cultural Revolution, and in many others it was first implemented at the end of the 1960s or in the early 1970s, in the years after the Cultural Revolution turmoil had ceased. To come to grips with the idealistic side of the Maoist ethos, it becomes illuminating to focus on this unusual program, its origins and the impact it had on community life.
