Part 1/10:
The Rise and Fall of the People’s Communes in China
In the late 1950s, a grand vision was embarked upon by the Chinese Communist Party under the leadership of Mao Zedong: the establishment of People’s Communes. This massive social engineering initiative aimed to transition China towards a collectivist society, which Mao believed would herald a new era of prosperity and equality. These communes were promoted as revolutionary structures that would energize the economy and transform social relations, but the reality proved to be starkly different.