With Forced Equality, There's Endless Violence

A few years ago, NPR did a fabulous story on China's rise from the ashes of Mao's Marxism to allow a modicum of freedom. The story takes place in the small village of Xiaogang in 1978. Several farmers had come together in a dirt-floor shack to sign a secret compact. To these farmers, this contract was dangerous. They still feared the terror of Mao and believed that if this contract were discovered, they could be executed.