Between 1949 and 1976, the establishment of the legal system in the PRC was far from satisfactory. Legal codes on criminal and civil procedure law were not even compiled. What, then, constituted a criminal act of a peasant? Hitherto, research works stress the factor of politics, whereas this paper highlights the connection between economic factors and local "crime." The case of Zhou Zhong, the "antirevolutionary," should be understood within the micro-history of Jizhuang, his village. The so-called "political conflict" or "power conflict" was, in fact, an "economic conflict."