It could have been a Forbes cover story: In 1978, a destitute Chinese village doomed to crop failure siphons off state irrigation funds to buy a crude steel strip mill. Within a year, the village earns more than all its profits since the 1949 revolution combined. By 1990, with 200 subsidiary companies and revenues of $110 million, it has become China's richest village, producing 3 percent of the country's entire steel output.
Then the success story turns sour. The pioneering capitalists heading the village are imprisoned as "ideological enemies of the Communist state," as Bruce Gilley explains in his account of northeast China's tiny Daqiu village.
Gilley, contributing editor at Hong Kong's Far Eastern Economic Review, has a clear aim -- to vindicate the disgraced peasant leader Yu Zuomin, who proves to be an outspoken champion of free enterprise in a hostile environment. His book is a fascinating read on the contradictions in communist China since its "opening" 23 years ago.