Wang Hongbin, 65, has an astonishing ambition: building a communist community that distributes goods and services according to one's needs, a goal of communism once proposed by Karl Marx himself.
Wang, secretary of Nanjie Village Communist Party Committee since 1977, has every intention of turning his dream into a reality.
A 16-story apartment building stands in the corner of his village in central China's Henan Province. Work on the interior is expected to begin next year. Costing 200 million yuan (29 million U.S. dollars), it should be completed in 2018.
"If you want to move into the 'proletarian apartments', all you have to do is handing over everything you own," Wang says.
The building can accommodate 800 villagers, and a round-the-clock canteen will provide food the residents need. Clothes, shoes, cosmetics, even jewelry will be shared by all, after sterilization.
"We will choose top brands and meet everyone's personal needs," said Wang, who has plans to accommodate all of Nanjie's 3,700 villagers in his utopian cloisters within 10 years.
In many ways, Nanjie is more like an industrial park than a village. Most young people in China cannot wait to get away from home and work in cities, but here 26 village businesses employ everyone who wants a job.
The village has only 33 hectares of arable land, nowhere near enough to feed the villagers. Only 21 people work on the plots dotted among factories.
Since the 1980s, Nanjie's fortune has come from food processing: beer, chocolate, flour, instant noodles, liquor, medicine and spices. The village raked in 2 billion yuan in 2015, 150 million yuan of which was profit.
Wang attributes the success to a collective economy and strong leadership, inspired by Mao Zedong, leading founder of the People's Republic of China. Mao's 123th anniversary of birth falls on Monday.
At a symposium marking the 120th anniversary of Mao's birth in December 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the Communist Party of China will hold high the banner of Mao Zedong Thought forever in pursuing the Chinese nation's rejuvenation.
Xi said Party members should adhere to and make good use of the "living soul" of Mao Zedong Thought, namely seeking truth from facts, the "mass line" and independence.
LONGEVITY OF MAO'S LEGACY
It is hard to find another village in China quite like Nanjie where Mao's principles of morality and collectivism live on.
Here, people still awaken to loudspeakers blaring "The East is Red," a classic anthem of the 1960s. Quotations of Mao appear on factory walls, in schools, shops and hotels, reminding people to sacrifice their personal interests for the benefit of the collective. Portraits of Mao hang in almost every living room.
In the village square, a nine-meter white marble statue of the great helmsman is flanked by portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. A banner flutters over the statue, unambiguously declaring that "Mao Zedong Thought shines over us forever".
In the early 1980s, like the rest of rural China, Nanjie dismantled communes and began to open up. Collective land was distributed among households and collective factories were contracted to individuals. It was not long before bankruptcy was the order of the day.
The village committee took over two factories in 1984 and by 1986 Nanjie had re-collectivized all its farmland, expanded its industries and began taking care of its residents.
Prosperity brought with it free water and electricity, then coal, gas, meat, eggs, flour and finally education. By the early 1990s, the village welfare system was complete. Even taxes and medical expenses were paid collectively. In 1991, Nanjie became the first village in Henan with sales revenue of 100 million yuan and the number of enterprises in the village grew to 19.
"A collective economy is the inevitable path to common prosperity and the basis of solving 'san nong' (farmers, villages and agriculture) problems," trumpets Wang Hongbin.
Wang believes Mao's greatest legacy in today's Nanjie is the socialist path to common prosperity, which conforms to the current government goal of building a well-off society by the end of 2020.
Nanjie, a village with no special resources or talent, is a model for other villages on their march toward prosperity, Wang says.
Collective economy does not oppose opening up and market reform, but benefits from them, he adds.
While Nanjie is not alone in its collective economy, its distribution of wealth is unique. Huaxi Village in east China's Jiangsu Province has a strong steel and textile industry. There, gold bullion is distributed to villagers, making everyone a millionaire. In Nanjie, Wang and more than 300 villagers, mostly cadres and factory managers, receive a monthly salary of only 250 yuan, hardly enough for a family meal in Beijing or Shanghai. Most factory workers get 2,000 yuan.
Locals' income consists of 30 percent cash and 70 percent in benefits. Wang plans to gradually reduce the cash and increase the welfare.
"Ultimately and inevitably, we will root out private ownership and distribute goods according individual needs," Wang says. "Enthusiasm inspired by cash will wither away. Strong philosophical commitment is the key."
WHOSE UTOPIA?
Feng Di's wedding was very different from those of her peers in nearby Beixuzhuang Village.
She married a Nanjie man in a group wedding with another 21 couples in East is Red Square on Oct. 1. The village paid for everything, including a parade, gowns, the banquet and accommodation for relatives and friends.
The happy couples bowed before the gleaming statue of Mao and each received a copy of the once ubiquitous red book of Chairman Mao's sayings, as well as a golden Mao badge.
"Nanjie is like a big family. There is nothing to worry about," said Feng, who was given a 120-square-meter apartment as a wedding present and a job in the village Communist Youth League.
As her cost of living is minimal, Feng has some spare cash to shop online and watch movies in downtown theaters.
Sheng Ganyu, once a township official in Xiangcheng County, came to Nanjie in 1994 after seeing a documentary on the village. He is editor-in-chief of the village newspaper and was awarded the title of "honorary villager" in 1996. He enjoys the same benefits as Nanjie natives. There are about 1,000 such honorary villagers.
Sheng also earns 250 yuan a month, the same as the Party secretary. If he really needs money, he can apply to the village committee.
In that way, Sheng's son, who studies film and television at college, was able to buy a professional camera and a computer worth more than 20,000 yuan.
Sheng recently took a group of villagers to Sanya, a tony coastal resort in the island province of Hainan, as a reward for "good performance."
Nanjie might seem like the land of milk and honey for the locals, but it is several more steps from paradise for the more than 6,000 migrant workers there.
Ding Xiaohui has been working in Nanjie's noodle factory since 2008. She dreams of becoming an honorary villager, but the village stopped granting such titles in 2003. Ding earns 2,000 yuan a month but without free food, no gifted accommodation, nor any of the other niceties Nanjie locals enjoy.
Seen by many as an Elysian communist Arcadia, Wang Hongbin admits exploitation still exists there.
"Exploitation of workers from other villages is reasonable during the transition from collective capitalism to communism," Wang intones. He is confident that the work of building a communist community will be completed within his lifetime.
His wife works in the laundry room of the village hotel and is a staunch supporter of her husband. Their three children, two daughters and a son, work as civil servants in the cities of Zhengzhou and Luohe.
"They neither discuss, nor support nor oppose my cause," Wang says.
