Omeka
chinesehistoryforteachers.omeka.net › exhibits › show › chinese-land-reform
Chinese Land Reform (土地改革) Overview · Chinese Land Reform ...
Land reform, in a Chinese context, denotes the abolition of the landlord class, and the returning of farmland to peasants in the spirit of Sun Yat-Sen’s proclamation ‘He who tills the land shall own it.’ Soon after the Chinese Communist Party won the Civil War, many peasants held the ...
Marxists.org
marxists.org › archive › deutscher › 1951 › chinese-landlord.htm
The Myth of the Chinese Landlord by Isaac Deutscher 1951
Recent reports from China indicate that the social structure of the countryside changed very little, if at all, from the 1930s till the moment when the Communists took power. Forty-Five-Acre Barons: On the face of it, this table seems to confirm the notion about the feudal character of China’s rural economy. Until recently, four per cent of all families living on agriculture possessed fifty per cent of the land. If landlords and well-to-do peasants are treated as one group, then ten per cent of the families owned nearly seventy per cent of the land.
Jacobin
jacobin.com › 2023 › 05 › china-history-land-reform-rural-modernity-class-struggle
You Can’t Understand Modern China Without Looking at the History of Land Reform
These simplistic class categories were a poor fit for the diverse economy of rural China. No matter. During the party’s land revolution, Red Army soldiers forcefully confiscated all landlord property, leaving them destitute.
Chinese campaign led by Mao Zedong
Factsheet
Simplified Chinese 土地改革运动
Traditional Chinese 土地改革運動
Literal meaning Land Reform Movement
Simplified Chinese 土地改革运动
Traditional Chinese 土地改革運動
Literal meaning Land Reform Movement
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Land_Reform_Movement
Land Reform Movement - Wikipedia
2 weeks ago - Landlords – whose status was theoretically defined through the percentage of income derived from exploitation as opposed to labor – had their land confiscated and they were subjected to mass killing by the CCP and former tenants, with the ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/historyporn › chinese peasant confronting his landlord, between 1949-1953 hundreds of thousands of landlords and rich peasants were systematically massacred by chinese communists
r/HistoryPorn on Reddit: Chinese peasant confronting his landlord, between 1949-1953 hundreds of thousands of Landlords and rich peasants were systematically massacred by Chinese communists
September 24, 2024 - That scene is set during the Cultural Revolution, which happened in the 1960s. ... I cringe everytime I see this opening. It's like watching an American merchant crying over all of his tea spilled over the Boston sea by those savage rioters ... This is why the US was so scared of communism in the 50s. ... Which is a little silly (but understandable) since the US has nowhere near the level of landlord/peasant dynamic that China had.
Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Chinese_Communist_Revolution
Chinese Communist Revolution - Wikipedia
3 days ago - According to William H. Hinton, author of a case study on how the Revolution impacted a village in north China: The land held by the landlords and rich peasants, while ample, was not enough in itself to make them the dominant group in the village.
School of Advanced International Studies
sais.jhu.edu › sites › default › files › resource-article › files › China-Studies-Working-Paper-2009-Park.pdf pdf
SAIS CHINA STUDIES Student Working Paper Series FALL/2009 Jason (Young) Park
Landlords and rich peasants were · forced to give up their land to the government. After the land was distributed to the poor peasants · and the landless, the remaining land was to be distributed to these richer classes so that they were · given back an amount equal at least to that of poor ...
NYTimes
nytimes.com › world › asia pacific
Grandson of China’s Most-Hated Landlord Challenges Communist Lore - The New York Times
July 26, 2016 - ANREN, China — To many Chinese, ... days, one who exploited his tenants, tortured those who fell behind on rent in a “water dungeon” and forced new mothers to breast-feed him as a longevity therapy....
Foreign Affairs
foreignaffairs.com › politics & society › mao's stratagem of land reform
Mao's Stratagem of Land Reform | Foreign Affairs
April 4, 2023 - At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese ... Nationalist law of rent limitation; land expropriation was practised only in cases of landlords accused of aiding or collaborating with the enemy....
Stanford University Press
sup.org › books › asian-studies › land-wars › excerpt › excerpt-introduction
Land Wars: Excerpt from Introduction | Stanford University Press
Sun’s vision, centered on the idea of transferring property to land-hungry farmers, posed a direct threat to wealthy landlords who relied on rental income.5 Meanwhile, the alliance with the much larger Nationalist Party provided new opportunities for Mao and the Communists to deepen their experiments in rural reform.
FAO
fao.org › 4 › y5026e › y5026e06.htm
Rural land tenure reforms in China: issues, regulations and ...
Soon after the Communists took power, the government confiscated the holdings of landlords and wealthy peasants and distributed the property among all farming households on an egalitarian basis; these households were then given full ownership to the land they farmed.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/communism101 › why are landlords allowed to exist in communist controlled states?
r/communism101 on Reddit: Why are landlords allowed to exist in communist controlled states?
September 21, 2020 -
The USSR virtually eradicated homelessness by providing state owned housing. What's preventing modern communist controlled states like China or Vietnam from doing this? Why do communist parties tolerate these parasites?
Top answer 1 of 8
96
Mostly because it can be more trouble than it is worth. China is currently focused on developing the standard of living for its people and its wealth. during the Chinese Revolution/Civil war, they began land reform in the villages by taking all the land and distributing it equally. By doing this, they alienated the wealthier, educated peasants who were the most advanced class/supporters of the communists. They eventually developed land reform solutions based off of creating wealth in general for entire villages, which equalized the wealth where many more peasants were no longer selling their own labor and owned their own land despite some level of inequality stillexisting. i would imagine the same is for China today, where landlords represent a lesser contradiction compared to that of imperialism which is a much more important task they must face. I do not know the specific answer, but I imagine that many landlords also participate in city planning which the party has much control over rather than being antagonistic to China's development.
2 of 8
63
Very simply put. It can be a very rough transition from Capitalism/Fedualism to Socialism. Especially if the country is not fully industrialized. Mao writes a lot about keeping revolutionary theory tied to reality especially in the context of PPW. The fact remains that landlords as a class have power and in the weaker stages of any revolution they are a necessary evil. After winning the civil war, China liquidated the landlords when the revolution was in a strong position.Much like the kulaks in Russia, they were tolerated until they could be tolerated no longer(specifically when they started inflating grain prices and then burning grain) and were destroyed. In regards to modern-day China and Vietnam, they very much intend to "harvest" and take advantage of foreign capital/expertise/technology to industrialize and modernize the country. Now, however, that China is on the cusp of or maybe even has already reached the status of a modernized country they will soon once again remove the landlords as a class. Even now landlords face severe government oversight and with the massive and recent reduction in corruption in China(A lovely study by Harvard shows the opinion of Chinese people that corruption as a problem has been very much reduced), the situation is improving drastically. If billionaires like Jack Ma can be cowed by the communist party so can the landlords. TDLR: landlords exist because they can be useful for a revolution's immediate gains, in the long run they will be liquidated once they either take direct action against the state(kulaks) or they are no longer needed for the survival of the revolution or the revolution has the power to remove them without risking collapse. (Chinese landlords 1950s). If you want to understand this better I recommend you read Mao's writing such as Continuity and Rupture EDIT: I just want to be clear that Landlords as a class are awful and abusive and should be removed ASAP from any Socialist State.
OpenEdition
journals.openedition.org › etudesrurales › 8416
On a slippery roof
May 20, 2008 - 18In many places in North China, landlords were executed under the charge of being “traitors.” For example, in the mountainous area of Kunyu (Shandong province), an elderly farmer recalls: The family name of these landlords was Feng.
Alpha History
alphahistory.com › home › agrarian reform
Agrarian reform
October 13, 2025 - Under Mao’s direction, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) developed a program of agrarian reforms. These reforms, while revolutionary and broadly popular, were often implemented and enforced by coercive and violent means. The Agrarian Reform Law (June 1950) was one of the republic’s first major policies. Its aim was achieve equitable ownership of farmland by seizing it from affluent landlords and redistributing it to landless peasants. Land reform was also first step in China’s march toward industrialisation.
Commonprogram
commonprogram.science › art27.html
Art 27 the common program of the people's republic of china 1949-1954 Agrarian reform
However, even modest efforts to ... and military intelligence to the Communist resistance armies. In 1944, when spontaneous expropriations of landlords occurred in certain Regions of northern China, Mao Zedong denounced these actions as an "ultra-left deviation."...
Alpha History
alphahistory.com › home › speak bitterness
Speak Bitterness
October 14, 2025 - They helped tear down old social hierarchies, stripping away the power and reverence of landlords by publicly humiliating them. “After Speaking Bitterness”, wrote one observer, “there could be no going back to the old ways”. Speak Bitterness ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/thedeprogram › so... what did mao do to land lords?
r/TheDeprogram on Reddit: So... What did Mao do to land lords?
March 9, 2024 -
I know he killed plenty, but I've always been curious as to what else was done to punish them. It always seemed pretty brutal, so I'm hoping to get a better understanding of the methods and reasoning.
Top answer 1 of 5
399
The landlords were able to choose one “property” as a main home and another as a vacation home and the rest given to their fellow countrymen, and they were given the option to finally work an honest job. The issue was that so many refused to give them up and told them they’d have to take the housing “over [their] dead body”, so the people’s government acted accordingly.
2 of 5
256
TLDR; my dad's family were landlords. They were treated just fine even though everyone knew they were landlords in the past. How you were treated really depends on how you acted before liberation. It wasn't always fair, but the western idea that all landlords died is a huge misconception and mistranslation of two key words, 房东 and 地主. In all, I actually don't think the landlords were treated harshly enough. Lots of reactionary ideas stayed alive among former landlords who were not reeducated during those years. Mao really didn't kill so many landlords. A bit about my family background: My great grandfather was a landlord in Anhui province. He was the patriarch of a multi-generation family clan that comprised nearly 400 members at their peak. He employed people from the villages as his servants and he even had the money to pay private tutors from the city to come and teach his sons poetry, the sciences, and politics. He controlled an arsenal of weapons but never used them to my knowledge. He was an educated man who kept up with current events. When the newspapers reported that the communists were making progress, my great grandfather collectivized his clan's land and divided it among his hundreds of kin and his former servants. After the revolution, the villagers remembered who the landlords used to be. They took out most of their anger with several wealthy families who had treated their servants poorly. My own family's experience shows that most landlords who had done something to anger their community got deserved justice for their actions. My great grandfather was a stern man but he had treated his servants well, even punishing his own nephews for disrespecting a servant's child by banishing them from the clan. He was treated well in his community after the revolution even though he never supported communism and personally wanted a return of the old ways (he was a landlord after all 😕) Most landlords were allowed to live their lives in peace, although their properties were distributed and their weapons were seized by the state. I will list a few key points below: Landlords are 房东(fangdong). These guys are your typical petty bourgeoisie aunties and uncles with multiple properties who probably asked for rent early and failed to fix the electricity again. Their tenants might hate them but they probably don't deserve to die. Feudal lords are 地主(dizhu). These guys were the powerful land owners who had arsenals of weapons, hundreds of servants or serfs, and sometimes a small private army. Mao Zedong punished the feudal lords (dizhu) for crimes against the people, collaborating with the Japanese, and later collaborating with the KMT and the Americans. The western narrative often fails to distinguish between the landlords and the feudal lords. In English the same word (landlord) is used for both and that misses this key difference between two very separate classes Does that mean landlords were off the hook? Not really. Many landlords faced the wrath of the people. If they were cruel, charged unfair fees and abused their tenant peasants, they faced retaliation after the country was liberated. Mao Zedong did not personally order this- but he did give the people the right to enact justice the way they wanted. This wasn't always fair, sometimes the landlord's children or grandchildren would be socially ostracized and unable to find spouses or work in their villages, even if they were born after liberation. My father's landlord family members never openly opposed the party, but in some ways their reactionary ideas were obvious. My grandmother absolutely despised Hui people and hated the fact that the government protected minorities like the Hui doctor who traveled around the villages with traditional halal medicines. This was "at the expense of Han people" she claimed. She called them slurs in front of her children but never said it directly to a Hui person. My father's family also remained extremely patriarchal and sexist, openly opposing women and girls' education, any form of university for any gender, and continuing to push for arranged marriages. None of them were ever forced to give up these views which they continued to hold alongside most of their village. Therefore in my opinion landlords were not treated harshly enough. The supposed "cruelty" they were subjected to is largely a figment of western narratives and fearmongering. My father's family never gave up on their owning and business dreams. During the period of mourning after Mao's death, my grandfather and his friends drank baijiu and celebrated. As soon as reform and opening up happened, my family members migrated to the cities to start businesses. Many of them were caught during Xi's anti-corruption campaign for scamming customers, bribing party officials (or accepting bribes), violating safety codes, and underpaying workers. When I visited them in their village, I heard some of the most racist and awful things ever said about Africans, Indians, and generally about people with dark skin. This bigotry should not exist in modern China and it wouldn't if the education system had been adequate. Sorry for the essay! I hope this clears some things up. Some of this is anecdotal of course so if anyone else has a similar background their take might be different
The Epoch Times
theepochtimes.com › special › special series › the dead end of communism
How Mao Radicalized Peasants to Kill Landlords
June 4, 2018 - Regardless of how many died, “within three years of the founding of” communist China, “landlords as a cohesive class, which had dominated rural society” since the Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago, “had simply ceased to exist,” Short ...
Reddit
reddit.com › r/communism101 › what do you think of the mass killing of landlords under mao?
r/communism101 on Reddit: What do you think of the mass killing of landlords under Mao?
June 17, 2018 -
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_of_landlords_under_Mao_Zedong
What do you think? Did it happen? Was it justified?
Top answer 1 of 29
197
Landlords are some of the worst, most exploitative criminals in existence. There should be no such thing as landlords, nor should housing be privatized. If you’re trying to establish socialism and there are capitalists standing in the way, be they landlords, kulaks, shareholders, or CEOs, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do given those material conditions.
2 of 29
180
Make destroy gentrify.
Rent is a fuck.
49 quadrillion dead landlords.