The weather that summer was spectacular, the best in years. It rained every night, and the days were sunny and mild, so there was no doubt that the fall harvest would be the best in China's history. All of China was in a frenzy, bubbling with optimism and excitement.

We traveled first through Hebei province, visiting several newly formed communes. The optimism of the peasants was captured in the names of the new organizations, all of which promised a glorious and revolutionary future—the Communist Commune, Dawning, Morning Sunshine, Red Flag.

Then we went to Henan, where first party secretary Wu Zhifu—small, fat, and honest—escorted us by car through the dusty, unpaved back roads of his province. We traveled in a cavalcade of cars, tens of people in all—a contingent of armed guards from Zhongnanhai under the supervision of Wang Jingxian, a group of Wu Zhifu's provincial security officers, reporters from the New China News Agency, and some journalists from the Henan party newspaper. Mao had cautioned me that the trip was secret, but the journalists made it public.

The August weather was scorchingly hot. We relied on big broad-brimmed straw hats to protect us from the sun and were greeted with wet washcloths each time we stopped. The two truckloads of sweet, juicy watermelons that followed us from place to place were our best relief from the heat. Mao, as usual, was little bothered by the weather and seemed indifferent to the watermelons, but many of us in the entourage gorged ourselves on the succulent fruit.

Mao enjoyed himself. He liked being among rural folk again. When he stepped on a patch of dung, dirtying his shoes, he was delighted and refused to let anyone wipe it off. “It's fertilizer—a useful thing,” he said. “Why wipe it off?” Only when he took off his shoes that night could one of his guards wipe them clean. The fields were lush with crops, crowded with peasants at work. In China north of the Yellow River women rarely work in the fields, but everywhere we looked women and girls, dressed in bright red and green, were laboring alongside the men.

In Lankao county, Mao wanted to swim in the legendary Yellow River and sent the faithful Sun Yong, who had encouraged him to take his first swim in the Yangtze, to test the waters. But the Yellow River suffers from oversilting and the water was a thick brown brew, only chest-deep. Sun and the other security officers sank in mud up to their knees at every spot they tested. Mao gave up his plan to swim.

On August 6, accompanied by the usual large entourage, Wu Zhifu took us to visit Seven Li village, in Xinxiang county. The fields en route were filled with chest-high cotton, and the white round bulbs were the size of a fist. The harvest for Seven Li village was going to be abundant.

As our cars pulled into the village square, a big red banner strung across the front door of the village headquarters cried out in greeting: SEVEN LI VILLAGE PEOPLE'S COMMUNE. Mao grinned as he stepped from his car. The huge new collectives had a variety of names. This was the first time we had actually seen the word people's commune associated with a place. “This name, ‘people's commune,' is great!” Mao said. “French workers created the Paris commune when they seized power. Our farmers have created the people's commune as a political and economic organization in the march toward communism. The people's commune is great!”

Three days later, in Shandong, Mao repeated his comment: “The people's commune is great!” An attentive New China News Agency journalist had been standing nearby and immediately the words appeared on the front page of newspapers all over the country, instantaneously becoming a new slogan. It was treated by party secretaries at every level as a new imperial edict to transform China's cooperatives into gigantic people's communes, organizations that would combine government and agricultural production and become the foundation of Communist party power in the countryside.

People's communes had already been established in most of the places we visited, and traveling from one to the other was an exciting experience. Something big was happening in the Chinese countryside, something new and never before seen. History was being made. China had finally found the way from poverty to abundance. The salvation of the Chinese peasantry was at hand. I, too, supported the movement to establish people's communes. Chairman Mao was right. People's communes were great.

Returning by train to Beidaihe, Mao was still excited. I had never seen him so happy. He was convinced that the problem of food production in China had been solved, that the country was now producing more food than the people could possibly eat.

We arrived in Beidaihe on August 13, and four days later Mao convened an enlarged meeting of the politburo, which lasted until August 30, 1958. In the midst of the meetings, on August 23, Mao's answer to Khrushchev became public. China began using those artillery shells Mao had said were wearing out and started a massive bombardment of Quemoy, an island just off the coast of Fujian province still held by the Guomindang. It was Mao's challenge to Khrushchev's bid to reduce tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, his demonstration of China's importance in the triangular relationship among China, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Seeing Khrushchev's efforts at world peace as an attempt to control him and China, Mao deliberately tried to trip up the game. Mao was convinced that Chiang Kai-shek wanted the United States to drop an atom bomb on Fujian province, and Mao would not have minded if it had. His shelling of Quemoy was a dare to see how far the United States would go. He shelled the island for weeks. Then on October 6, at Mao's instruction, the Communist party announced a one-week cease-fire. On October 13, the cease-fire was extended for two more weeks. When the American fleet moved in to protect the Straits of Taiwan, Mao ordered the bombardment resumed. On October 25, a new policy was proclaimed. If American ships stayed away, the communists would give the cannons a rest on even-numbered days and bomb Quemoy, and the island of Matsu, on odd-numbered ones.

Mao knew that “comrades” like Khrushchev—and some within China, too—thought he wanted to retake Taiwan. But that was never Mao's intention. He did not even want to take over Quemoy and Matsu. “Quemoy and Matsu are our link to Taiwan,” he said. “If we take them over, we lose our link. Doesn't everyone have two hands? If we lose our two hands, then Taiwan is no longer in our grip. We let it slip away. The islands are two batons that keep Khrushchev and Eisenhower dancing, scurrying this way and that. Don't you see how wonderful they are?”

For Mao, the shelling of Quemoy and Matsu was pure show, a game to demonstrate to both Khrushchev and Eisenhower that he could not be controlled and to undermine Khrushchev in his new quest for peace. The game was a terrible gamble, threatening the world with atomic war and risking the lives of tens of millions of ordinary Chinese.

Two momentous decisions were made during the enlarged politburo meetings that August. People's communes—huge amalgamations of agricultural cooperatives—were to become the new form of economic and political organization throughout rural China. The movement to establish people's communes was official. And China's steel production was set to double within a single year. Most of the increase would come through backyard steel furnaces.

The country was in a frenzy. Mao had said that people's communes were great, and suddenly the whole country had established people's communes. The enlarged politburo had decided to double steel production by relying on small backyard steel furnaces, and immediately the whole country was building backyard steel furnaces. Mao wanted to see them.