This book offers the first detailed study of the essential relationship between thought reform and the ampldquodangerous classesamprdquoampmdashthe prostitutes beggars petty criminals and other ampldquolumpenproletariansamprdquo the Communists saw as a threat to society and the revolution. Aminda Smith takes readers inside earlyPRC reformatories where the new state endeavored to transform ampldquovagrantsamprdquo into members of the laboring masses. As places where ampldquothe peopleamprdquo were literally created these centers became testing grounds for rapidly changing ideas and experiments about thought reform and the subjects they produced. Smith explores reformatories as institutions dedicated to molding new socialist citizens and as symbolic spaces in which internees cadres and the ordinary masses made sense of what it meant to be a member of the people in the Peopleamprsquos Republic. Drawing on extensive previously unavailable source material she offers convincing answers to muchdebated questions about the development and future of Chinese political culture.