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the Communist State 1949 land ownership remained private Thus this was not a socialist revolution which would require the social as opposed to private landownership of land Speaking bitterness The new law encouraged peasants to decide who were landlords or rich peasants and which ones had treated people harshly However unlike the often uncontrolled violence that had accompanied pre 1949 land reform the new government tried to curb this in the hope that a more orderly land transfer would not disrupt production Unlike the urban bourgeoisie whose skills the government needed to carry through industrial modernisation and development the rural landlord class contributed very little to agricultural production Yet despite the government s hopes for an essentially peaceful reform process there was great bitterness in many rural areas against those who had ruthlessly exploited them before 1949 as shown by Sources 2 8 and 2 9 As a result a bitter class struggle made worse by the impact of the Korean War often took place at mass struggle meetings which CCP cadres could not always control Lucky landlords had to apologise for their past behaviour at these mass meetings the unlucky approximately 1 million faced summary execution many more were sent to labour camps after mass public trials SOURCE 2 8 Rather than simply distribute land to the landless CCP workers or cadres were assigned to villages across China After identifying the biggest landholders or landlords in the village their task was to organize meetings of the villagers to discuss the bitterness of the past and denounce the landlords as a symbol of the villagers past oppression Only after such speak bitterness meetings ended in a verdict on the landlords was the actual land reform carried out In some instances landlords judged by the villagers to be exploiters or bullies faced execution those not considered enemies of the people were denounced and then released with only enough land to support themselves and their families It is estimated that during the period of the land reform some 2 3 million landlords were executed by peasant tribunals led by Party

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