Original link: https://www.ixiqin.com/2023/05/03/nanjiecun-trip/
Due to some personal matters on May 1st, I returned to Henan ahead of schedule, and I also went to Nanjie Village, a very interesting place, in my spare time.
Why go to Nanjie Village
I know Nanjie Village because of the instant noodles in Nanjie Village. As a Hui nationality, there are not many things I can eat. Nanjie Village has historically launched halal instant noodles—Beijing instant noodles.
However, I went to Nanjie Village this time not because of Beijing instant noodles, but because my mother mentioned that Nanjie Village is now positioned as “the first village of communism” .
This positioning is very interesting. Our country is a socialist country, and one of the villages uses “the first village of communism” as its propaganda slogan, and it also claims that it has always been a very good welfare village. I am very surprised, so , I did some basic research before going.
Some History of Nanjie Village
The following are some interesting points that I noticed when I was investigating Nanjie Village:
- In Nanjie Village, villagers are completely dependent on the collective economy. If they do not work in the collective, they will lose all income and welfare benefits. In order to reflect the superiority of building a “communist small community”, Nanjie Village built a city wall to separate itself from other villages.
Baidu Encyclopedia, Nanjie Village
The villagers of Nanjie Village are completely dependent on the collective economy, which requires the village to be completely self-sufficient economically. This is a very high requirement and requires an independent economy. In addition, he also isolated himself from other villages, a bit like an independent community, a country within a country.
There is a huge difference between Nanjie Village and other villages, that is, they put forward the goal of building a “communist small society” based on the concept of collectivism based on Mao Zedong Thought. Maoist collectivism lost its influence with the abolition of the people’s communes in the 1980s. However, Nanjie Village took Mao Zedong’s collectivism as its banner. Nanjie Village, which has become rich, is called the “Nanjie Village Phenomenon” and has attracted national attention. The core of the “elements of communism” in Nanjie Village is the unique egalitarian economic system. Villagers work in the village’s administrative agencies and village-run enterprises, and are paid a fixed salary of 150 to 200 yuan per month depending on the job content. Although wages are very low, villagers enjoy free rations of grain, meat, and oil. Housing, education, medical care, weddings and weddings are also free of charge. If villagers go to university, the tuition fees are also borne by the village. The welfare expenses enjoyed by the villagers average 6,700 yuan per person per year.
Baidu Encyclopedia, Nanjie Village
Villagers in Nanjie Village have to work in a village-run enterprise to enjoy benefits. After enjoying benefits, they can only enjoy a fixed salary of 150-200 yuan. In today’s materialistic era, life is relatively difficult. In fact, the annual welfare is not much, only 6,700 yuan per capita (there is a background here, Nanjie Village is a village-level unit, and villagers can only enjoy the village-level minimum living standard. According to the standard of Luohe City in 2023, Rural subsistence allowances are about 5280 yuan/year ). Considering the annual salary, the actual annual income is less than ten thousand yuan.
This money doesn’t matter to me, but it should be a good choice for farmers in Henan, especially in the village where farming doesn’t make any money. After doing this, at least they can enjoy certain benefits, at least It is more cost-effective than farming.
For Nanjie Village, such welfare costs are actually not bad. Nanjie Village now has 1,000 households, 3,000 people, and per capita welfare of 6,700 yuan, plus 2,400 yuan of wages, the annual cost per person is 9,100 yuan, and the cost of welfare + wages for the whole village is about 27,300,000, 27 million yuan. For some large state-owned enterprises Speaking, it’s not difficult. The allocated real estate belongs to the assets of the group, not to the individual, and does not need to be calculated separately.
Some questions I have about Nanjie Village & conclusions after traveling to Nanjie Village
1. Is the Nanjie Village model really communism? Is there a possibility that it can be promoted?
When visiting Nanjie Village, a sentence that the tour guide said during the explanation caught my attention:
In Nanjie Village, all means of production are surnamed “gong”
If it is said that all means of production are surnamed Gong, then this model is not special. Even after the reform and opening up, there are still a large number of means of production in my country that are surnamed Gong—for example, various state-owned enterprises. And if you understand it as a state-owned enterprise, then this model does not have the so-called feasibility of promotion. In fact, there are many similar attempts in the history of our country-such as public-private partnerships.
The only difference in Nanjie Village is that he provides more benefits. But if we think back to the state-owned enterprises in the 1980s and 1990s, these benefits are actually similar:
- Provided grain, oil, meat? In the 1980s and 1990s, they ate directly in the factory canteen.
- Accommodation provided? In the 1980s and 1990s, the houses were divided.
- Provided educational medical? In the past, state-owned enterprises had their own kindergartens and primary schools.
Compared with the previous state-owned enterprises, Nanjie Village only allocated more resources to everyone to meet the basic needs of life, instead of continuing to put into production, thus showing more “communism”, but in essence it is still a state-owned enterprise.
As for the model of Nanjie Village, if you want to promote it, in fact, as long as our current state-owned enterprises put more profits in welfare, it can actually be promoted on a large scale, and there is nothing special about it.
2. The Antarctic Village model seems to run counter to the reform and opening up. Overthrow the productivity liberation brought about by the household contract responsibility system?
This is also the problem that puzzles me about the Nanjie Village model. In my opinion, there are two problems with the Nanjiecun model:
- The products of Nanjie Village have no premium and are not well-known enough to support this welfare model for a long time.
- The product model of Nanjie Village is not helpful for retaining outstanding talents.
The products of Nanjie Village have no premium and are not well-known enough
During the tour, the tour guide took us to the sauce factory in Nanjie Village to promote the sauce in Nanjie Village. The children in the same group asked a question: “Why can’t I see this sauce outside?”
The Jingdong self-operated flagship store in Nanjie Village also does not have the sauce of Nanjie Village. 
Obviously, the sauce in Nanjie Village is not well-known overall. And most of the products in Nanjie Village are not that famous. This lack of fame determines that it is difficult for him to make high-profit products. The added value of the product is relatively small, and he earns hard money. It is difficult to support a high-welfare society (like social security) for a long time.
The Nanjie Village model does not help retain good talent
This problem is more serious and can even affect the previous problem. There are not many benefits in Nanjie Village. For a talented person, his choice must be to leave and not enjoy the benefits of the village. This selection mechanism makes the people who finally stay in Nanjie Village relatively mediocre, and it is difficult to maintain growth in the long run.
Under such circumstances, a person with great foresight and great leadership is needed to lead the whole village to continue to move forward. Then Wang Hongbin, the old party secretary of Nanjie Village, may be such a person, but after him, who will lead the whole village? Nanjie Village continues to move forward? Or will Nanjie Village finally usher in another reform of state-owned enterprises, and employees will be laid off?
Summarize
Nanjie Village is just an enhanced version of state-owned enterprises, and there is nothing special about it. If there is anything special, it is probably that Nanjie Village was able to provide villagers with good dividends and enjoy better treatment in the era of poverty and poverty. But Nanjie Village is not the answer to communism after all, we still need to continue to explore.
Some photos of Nanjie Village
Nanjie Village has a big “Chairman Mao’s thought shines forever”, and next to it are the statues of Marxism, Engels, Lenin and Stalin.
“Statue of Chairman Mao” in Nanjie Village
“Home of Science and Technology Workers” in Nanjie Village
“Red Special Road” in Nanjie Village
“Reception” with the characteristics of the times
Slogans everywhere in Nanjie Village 
The Chaoyang Gate in Nanjie Village is said to have been Little Tiananmen Square before, and it was changed to Chaoyang Gate due to suspicion of trespassing. But hanging a portrait of Sun Yat-sen is also a bit of a show.
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