China and Chocolate: East Meets West 33
Selling Chocolate in China
As communism permeated China during the 1950s, its entire
commercial system converted from a supply-and-demand
market-driven system to a centrally planned command econ-
omy. Private property was eliminated and all commercial en-
terprises were put under state ownership and control. From
the 1950s through the end of the 1970s, privately owned retail
stores, and even street peddlers, were virtually nonexistent, as
they were banned by the state. During the Cultural Revolu-
tion, anyone who violated this ban risked the ire of Red
Guards—the radical youth brigades who would beat them on
the spot, brand them as counterrevolutionaries, and have
them imprisoned.
As Deng Xiaoping’s reforms began ...