In most contemporary developing societies, the responsibility for directing broad social and economic change is assumed by the government. The success or failure of these government sponsored programmes often hinges narrowly on the degree of administrative capacity at the regional and local levels. Programmes which are otherwise well designed and funded at the national level may founder for lack of effective local organization.

The Great Leap Forward was an attempt radically to transform, or perhaps more correctly, an attempt to begin a process of radically transforming the political and economic face of China. In China's still relatively small, but crucially important industrial systems, the legacy of the Great Leap was a very ambiguous one. This ambiguity, it should be noted, flowed to a much greater extent from the tentative nature of many unprecedented experiments in organization and incentives in China's factories and planning systems, than from the application of a consistently and logically injter-related set of “radical” or “dogmatic” principles applied a priori to social reality.

It is very likely that in the near future the oceans will constitute the main source of international conflict. The world has an ever increasing need for the ocean's fish and minerals, and modern technology now makes it possible to exploit these resources to a degree previously unheard of. But only the industrialized countries can afford such exploitation because of the tremendous amounts of money and expertise involved. The less developed countries are no longer prepared to accept such a situation and they have called for the establishment of international regulations that would ensure a fair distribution of the ocean's resources. An attempt to deal with these problems was made at a U.N. conference held in Caracas, Venezuela, which opened on 20 June 1974.

One of the most effective weapons used by the Kuomintang in its struggle against the Chinese Communist Party during the Kiangsi period was probably the allegation that the revolutionaries had completely destroyed morals, collectivized women and contributed to sexual chaos. In 1931, a Kuomintang newspaper went so far as to affirm that units of the Red Army had revolted against Mao Tse-tung at Fut'ien in December 1930 because they were opposed to the partition of land and the practice of sexual liberty in the Kiangsi Soviet. In 1934, among the 42 anti-communist slogans adopted by the nationalist authorities, five had to do with the theme of sexual morality. Thus, in the “white areas” of Kiangsi, wall posters appeared bearing the words, “The red bandits wish to destroy virtue: they practise free sex. They are savage beasts who abandon themselves to debauchery!” Or, “If women wish to preserve their chastity and enjoy familial happiness, they must take up arms to exterminate the red bandits!“

This paper sets out to examine various aspects of the contemporary Chinese social system and their political implications by studying the social and political attitudes of a subgroup of Chinese society. The general area of interest is social stratification in China: the bases of social differentiation in the new society and how these are perceived by its citizens; the extent to which changes in the structure of society have been accompanied by changes in social attitudes; the extent to which ideological campaigns to change attitudes have been successful; the limitations placed by the stratified nature of society in its transitional stage of socialism on the effectiveness of ideological and political education.

Li Hsi-fan, currently Literature and Arts Editor of the People's Daily, is an influential leader in the shaping of China's literary policy. In recent issues of Chinese Literature he has written of the life and times of Lu Hsiin in terms which seem clearly intended to leave the reader inspired and eager to support China's continuing literary struggles. Perhaps justifiably, Li's judgments are expressed in black-and-white terms and girded with exclamation marks. This style, whatever its purpose, raises again the interesting question of the extent to which Chinese leaders actually view China's experience in such terms. Is the Chinese Literature style intended as a reflection of things as they are, or is it a tool used to project an ideal, while a fuller view of reality, including its various shades of grey, rests in the background?

It comes as no surprise to current visitors to China that their hosts place great emphasis on the accomplishments of the Cultural Revolution. While production increases and improvements in living conditions are repeatedly cited, the basic change is spiritual – before the Cultural Revolution, elitist and selfish attitudes were allegedly widespread; since the Revolution, a new commitment to the common good by cadres and masses alike has purportedly enriched Chinese life. This preoccupation with the Cultural Revolution stems from more than a need to justify past upheavals, it reflects an ongoing debate over the realization of goals sanctified by that movement. The twin efforts of rebuilding the system and institutionalizing Cultural Revolution reforms have apparently caused deep misgivings on the part of some leaders who see a thinly disguised effort to “restore the old.” Thus the question of how China has changed since 1965 is of current policy relevance as well as intrinsic scholarly interest.