In China, The Communist Party's Latest, Unlikely Target: Young Marxists

When he started at Beijing's Renmin University, one of China's best schools, a freshman scanned a list of student clubs and landed on the one that made him the most excited: Young Marxists.

"I'm from a working-class family in the countryside," he says. "Very few students with my background could have made it to my school. I liked that this group pays attention to the issues of workers and farmers, so I joined."

He was also interested in studying the works of 19th-century philosopher and economist Karl Marx; works that inspired the founders of China's Communist Party. Young Marxists aim to put the thinker's ideas into practice on Renmin University's campus.

The student, now in his senior year, is not being named to protect his identity from authorities. Young people who belong to Marxist groups have recently become the unlikely targets of a state crackdown due to their zeal to help educate and mobilize China's working class to fight for their rights. The conflict has exposed a paradox between a party founded on Marxist principles and the very young people it has tasked with carrying those principles out.