social control

Thought reform is arguably China's most controversial social policy. If reeducation's critics and defenders agree on little else, they share the conviction that ideological remolding is inseparable from its Mao-era roots. This is the first major English-language study to explore one of the most important aspects of those origins, the essential relationship between thought reform and the "dangerous classes"-the prostitutes, beggars, petty criminals, and other "lumpenproletarians" that Communists saw as a threat to society and the revolution.