On the eve of the auspicious Year of the Rooster, more specifically, during the last days of the year 4,072 in the Chinese calendar, I met Wang-Hongbin, that charismatic and visionary peasant leader of the paradisiac Nanjie commune, in the proximity of the Yellow River—cradle of my Chinese civilization—in the central province of Henan.  As I shook his hands, those rough and sturdy hands of his, chiseled by the inclemency of the harsh weather and which are distinctive of the man who toils the land day and night, hands that belong only to those who build imperishable utopias, I felt extolled at the austere, imposing presence of this quasi-legendary man.

 In the mid-70’s, when Deng-Xiaoping announced the opening of the Chinese economy and the establishment of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (read: capitalism-with-feudal-characteristics) in the Land of the Yellow Dragon, Nanjie, like the other communes, was dismantled to follow the path that was outlined to the rest of the nation by those reactionaries within the Communist Party who had taken power with the sole purpose of enriching their own pockets and the European-made, brand name purses of their concubines.

After trying a hand at capitalism and experiencing numerous trials, the noble people of Nanjie became poor and destitute.  Their commune came to be considered one of the poorest of the nation, lacking drinkable water, electricity, roads, public schools, clinics, and an endless list of social services and programs that were commonplace in the big cities except in the little villages of this millenary country.  After a few years of embracing the market system, Nanjie seemed to have been transformed into a ghost town of mendicant farmers.  While in the big cities a new oligarchy was surging, in Nanjie, misery, hopelessness, and depression had invaded the fighting spirit of its 3,500 inhabitants.

It was under those precarious circumstances that a native son of Nanjie who had just graduated in economics, returned to his birthplace to contemplate with profound sadness the rampant poverty that had unleashed like a tsunami on his humble village. Possessed with a ferocious and unbreakable will power, the young Wang gathered the people of his village, and after a long discussion, all of them agreed that only by returning to Communism they could enter into the future, the brilliant future that awaited them with open arms. Endowed with a super-human and methodical determination, they gathered their small parcel of lands to put them to work for the collective welfare.  Thus, while the rest of the nation walked toward a system of the past that ostensibly displayed an apparent opulence, in short, a bankrupt system that has failed for the majority of the people of the world, Nanjie turned its clock backwards to cross the threshold of that brilliant future that was theirs once.  That memorable and historic day, Wang-Hongbin proclaimed that they would be turning a new page in the history of their village and re-embracing Mao-Zedong Thought.  Marxism-Leninism-Mao-Zedong Thought had worked for them in the past while the recycled market system had only brought them suffering and misery.

 One of the first collective enterprises was a factory that manufactured bricks.  After its success, they used its profit to start new projects: a brewery, an instant noodle factory, a sophisticated, hi-tech printing company that caters to the entire province of Henan, and a dozen more different enterprises. Nowadays, Nanjie is one of the wealthiest communes in China, employing more than 20,000 migrant workers from the neighboring villages.  Its pedagogical institutions and hospitals enjoy the best equipment and the most modern instruments.  Its 3,500 residents have free access to these institutions. Money does not have much value in Nanjie: all its residents receive a generous portion of food and products made or grown by the commune such as rice, fresh vegetables, beef, beer, and other amenities.  Its condominiums have all the essential luxuries for a pleasant and comfortable life. Unlike the rest of the nation, petty or violent crimes, prostitution, drug addiction, are inexistent in Nanjie.

That unforgettable winter afternoon, as we wrapped up our informal meeting, I expressed to Wang-Hongbin my eternal gratitude, for allowing me to have a glimpse, though ephemeral, of what will be one day, hopefully sooner than later, the brilliant future of mankind. The next morning, as I prepared to bid farewell to this extraordinary commune, I managed to hear in the distance the inspiring and encouraging crow of a rooster that was announcing, with all the might of his lungs, this new and inevitable dawn.