NANJIE VILLAGE, China (AP) -- They line up before work shifts to sing of love of country and Communist Party. They spend time each week toiling in the fields. And all the residents of Nanjie village live in nearly identical apartments.
While much of China embraces capitalism and even the communist leadership talks more of markets than Marx, Nanjie seems an oasis of communism. Its orderly streets, shared prosperity and adoration of Mao Tse-tung stand in contrast to the chaos, chasms of inequality and spiritual confusion of much of China.As China gears up to celebrate 50 years of communist rule this Friday, the success of Nanjie's collective economy and the political support it has won show that for some the heady dreams of communism have not died.
"I give Nanjie high marks," said Duan Ruofei, a leading ideologue of the communist old guard. "I'm a socialist, and they have done collectivism well."
As chief editor of the Marxist journal Contemporary Trends in Thought, Duan belongs to an aging group of hard-core, committed communists, known in Chinese politics as "leftists." They favor state control over the economy and egalitarianism, and are suspicious of the West.
Although eclipsed politically since economic reforms started two decades ago, the staunch left champions issues of fairness that the more centrist leaders now running China fear could stir up farmers and state industrial workers angry over falling incomes and unemployment.
A younger group of largely Western-trained scholars has taken up the critique of capitalism and China's reforms. Sometimes called the "neo-leftists," they praise Mao and Nanjie for solving some of capitalism's predations.
"The Nanjie model is proof you can get rich together," said Cui Zhiyuan, a Nanjie booster and political science professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "It's proof that letting some people get rich first" -- a leading maxim of China's reform era -- "is not necessary for economic development."
Nanjie's top communist swears his policies are in line with Beijing's dictates and shrugs off support, whether it comes from "neo-leftists or neo-rightists."
"We're doers, not theoreticians," said party secretary Wang Hongbin.
"Selfishness comes from private ownership. So we determined to solve the problem of private ownership in Nanjie," Wang said. "Every brick, the grass and trees, every scythe and handful of dirt, every pair of scissors and wrench, all are surnamed 'public.' "
Tucked in the fertile, if crowded plains of central Henan province 450 miles south of Beijing, Nanjie was once a community of farmers but now looks more like a well-designed industrial park. Six-story, tiled apartment blocks house the 3,400 residents. Along the broad streets, propaganda replaces the advertisements that clutter most Chinese cities.
At the center of it all is Mao. A white stone statue of the revolutionary leader built in 1993, when most other places in China were tearing theirs down, towers over Nanjie's main cross-streets.
Nanjie made do although never prospered under Mao's rural collective schemes, local party members said. As they tell it, farmers tried their hand at private farming and business in the first few years of economic reform, but by 1983, locals asked to re-collectivize.
The result is a hybrid: Maoist social welfare for residents supported by shrewdly capitalistic food-processing factories. Only a fraction of Nanjie's able-bodied workers farm full time with most of the rest assigned to 26 enterprises.
Nanjie has drawn investment from Germany and Japan, and its top product, Yingsong instant noodles, is sold all over China and in Russia and Mongolia. So successful has Nanjie been that 10,000 migrant laborers now augment the local labor force.
Every Nanjie worker, from Wang down, earns no more than $30 a month -- paltry even by Chinese standards. But each gets monthly subsidies worth twice that. Meat, fish, poultry and eggs are distributed free, as are housing, medical care and education. All get fully furnished apartments with central heating and air conditioning.
In return for the largesse, Nanjie demands conformity. Every resident must do some farm work. There are no dance halls, karaoke bars or massage parlors.