At no stage in its history has the Chinese Communist party had a more positive popular appeal than during the first six years of its rule—the period this book covers. There is of course no doubt about the significance of 1949. 1955, the year in which the study ends, was an almost equally critical year in Chinese history. During that year there was a drastic acceleration in the collectivization of land, which seems to have qualitatively changed the relationship between the regime and the majority of the peasants. In the late Forties and the first two or three years after the establishment of the new Government, Communist party members and cadres urged or compelled the peasants to expropriate the landlords and to punish them, often by death. Their land was then distributed among the poorer peasants. Therefore in China, unlike Russia, the Communist party could claim credit for having distributed the land. During the following four or five years the regime, while declaring its ultimate aim of collectivism, was extremely slow and cautious in its application. During these years there seems, among the peasants, to have been a very widespread feeling of identification with the regime which had fought the Japanese, driven out the corrupt and brutal Kuomintang, and had given them land and the beginnings of economic security. Many peasants at this time appear to have believed that the new government was “their government” in a real sense, and that the Communist party truly represented them. The rapid collectivization in the eight months following May 1955 seems to have broken this almost mystic link. By taking away the ownership of land, the government reverted in many respects to its traditional position in the eyes of the peasants, that of an incomprehensible power to which the small man must bend. Even after that date, however, the regime continued to hold one vital popular asset, its identification with the Chinese nation. There is no doubt about the nationalism of city workers, students, and school children in contemporary China, but it is difficult to assess how widely modern nationalism has diffused among Chinese peasants. Many experts say that it has spread very widely indeed, especially in Eastern China, where the differences between nationalities were brought home by the Japanese occupation. Whatever the real situation, the peasants, whether or not they have been reached by the new nationalism, are moved by the xenophobia that has existed in China for the last hundred years.