CHINA: Problem City

Shanghai is the biggest city a Communist regime has ever tried to digest. It has also proved the most indigestible. Tough, resilient, raised on the vigorous traditions of free enterprise, Shanghailanders made little effort to conceal their contempt when Mao Tse-tung's troops entered in 1949, chuckled with sophisticated delight at such jokes as the story of a young officer fresh from the caves of Yenan who washed the dust from his rice ration in a hotel toilet bowl. "Just wait and see," went a confident Shanghai refrain. "We'll change the Communists."

The Communists did all the changing. In 1952 and 1953,...

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