It is the actions of the masses, not great men, that truly shape history, Leo Tolstoy argued in War and Peace. Support for that theory might be seen in Lijia Zhang's "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China.
Zhang's book is a personal memoir, not a political one. That's why it is echoes Tolstoy's argument. Zhang was growing into adulthood during the birth pangs of new capitalism and democratization in China in the 1980s. Her life reflects and is influenced by changes that were wrought in part because of what the people were doing and wanted, not because change was dictated from on high by a post-Mao leadership.
Zhang lived in Nanjing (Nanking), located on the Yangtze River. The city's name means "Southern Capital," as it once served as a capital of the country. It is, however, some 700 miles from Beijing so it was not the center of political or social developments in the country. Yet the fact the changes were also occurring there is indicative of how activities at the local level grew and expanded until they were reflected nationally.
"Socialism Is Great!" begins in December 1980, when. as a teenager, Zhang's 43-year-old mother retires from her job at a state-owned missile production plant and she must go to work there. Her mother fears that if she doesn't retire now, dingzhi — a policy under which retirees could be succeeded in the workplace by their children — will disappear. Zhang's resentment losing any chance to go to college and her desire for a life other than as a factory worker helps drive her to further her education to the extent she can. Thus, she obtains a mechanical engineering degree through anew "TV University" program. She later learns English and becomes a translator largely through guided self-study. These pursuits reflect slowly growing change in the general population, a change where personal growth and freedoms begin to take precedence over the drab, gray and formalized structure under which the country has long operated.
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