This is the dramatic story of Chen Yonggui and his community, Dazhai, where he developed an agrarian collective which Mao Zedong hailed as a model for the reconstruction of all rural china.

But Ninth Heaven To Ninth Hell is not just the story of an incredible success, it is also the account of a heart-rending tragedy. For after the death of Mao, his successor, Deng Xioping, reversed the aim of China's revolutionary course. Deng rejected Mao's collective road and instead embarked on a free-market "Socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Summary: Important defence of a maligned epoch
Rating: 4

The manuscript of this book had to be smuggled out of China, where the reactionary government suppressed its publication. Today's Chinese "Communist" Party viciously slanders the achievements of collective agriculture in the community Dazhai and the visionary leader Chen Yonggui who helped to make it a success. Yet thousands of people, both Chinese and foreign, saw for themselves the development of this once backward village into a thriving, highly productive agricultural community. It prospered until the early 1980s, when it was forcibly disbanded by the central government. The effects of decollectivisation were dramatic and criminal: in 1987, Dazhai, formerly a prosperous collective, was not able to feed itself.

Qin Huailu is to be applauded for having the courage to record this important period of history in the face of oppression by the current counterrevolutionary régime. The accomplishments of Chen Yonggui and Dazhai will not be forgotten.