The Tragedy of Liberation

The Tragedy of Liberation: A History of the Chinese Revolution 1945-1957 by Frank Dikötter, Bloomsbury Press, 2013. 

Land Reform

Prior to the Communist takeover, ownership of farmland had been very egalitarian. The exploitation of the Chinese peasants by feudal landlords was mostly an imaginary problem. There was little feudalism or serfdom in China before the Communists took over. There were only mild inequalities in land ownership. Land reform was a solution to a non-existent problem.

Indoctrinating Peasants

When the Communists took control of a region, they forced peasants to attend indoctrination meetings where the peasants were taught to hate their landlords.

Kang Sheng

Kang Sheng, who had earlier served Joseph Stalin in the Great Terror of 1937,  led the land reform in Shanxi province in China in 1947. Kang Sheng had thousands of prosperous peasants killed.

Cost

At least half a million landlords were killed or driven to suicide by the Chinese Communist Party.