Executed? This is the first time I've heard this allegation. The elites were sent to the farms, they weren't executed. And I'm sure it was exploited--that's bound to happen in a system like theirs. My wife is from a "black" family, what she has told me of those times is unpleasant enough that I avoid asking her about it because I do not want to stir up memories, but she's never mentioned any fear of execution or even serious violence.
Is your wife old enough to remember the early fifties?
en.wikipedia.org
Height of the landlord purge (1949–1953)
Shortly after the founding of the PRC in 1949, land reform, according to Mao biographer Philip Short, "lurched violently to the left" with Mao Zedong laying down new guidelines for "not correcting excesses prematurely."[1] Beatings, while not officially promoted by the party, were not prohibited either. While landlords had no protection, those who were branded "rich peasants" received moderate protections from violence and those who were on the lower end were fully protected.[21] In this vein, Mao insisted that the people themselves, not the secret police's security organs, should become involved in enacting the Land Reform Law and killing the landlords who had oppressed them, in contrast to the Soviet practice of dekulakization.[1] Mao thought that peasants who killed landlords would become permanently linked to the revolutionary process in a way that passive spectators could not be.[1]
Jean-Louis Margolin argues that the killings were not a pre-condition for land reform, because in Taiwan and Japan, land reforms were launched with little violence. Rather the violence was a result of the fact that the land reform was less about redistribution (because within a few years of the reforms, most of the land had to be surrendered to collective farms) than it was about eliminating "rural class enemies" and the assumption of local power by the communists. Margolin observes that even in very poor villages (which covered half of Northern China) where nobody could qualify as a landlord, some landlords were "manufactured" so they could be persecuted. In Wugong village, 70 households (out of a total of 387 households) were converted from middle peasants into rich peasants, making them acceptable targets for class struggle.[22] There were policies in certain regions of China (not necessarily obeyed)[citation needed] which required the selection of "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution".[4] An official reported 180 to 190 thousand landlords were executed in the Kwangsi province alone, in addition a Catholic school teacher reported 2.5% of his village was executed.[11] Some condemned as landlords were buried alive, dismembered, strangled or shot.[21] In many villages, landlords' women were "redistributed" as concubines or daughters for peasants or pressured into marrying their husband's persecutors.
Estimated number of deaths
Estimates for the number of deaths range from a lower estimate of 200,000 to 800,000,[25][3][4] and higher estimates of 2,000,000[3][26][27] to 5 million[28][26] executions for the years 1949–1953, along with 1.5 million[12] to 6 million[13] sent to "reform through labour" (Laogai) camps, where many perished.[13] Philip Short wrote that such estimates exclude the hundreds of thousands driven to suicide during "struggle sessions" of the three-anti/five-anti campaigns, which also occurred around the same time.[29] Zhou Enlai estimated 830,000 had been killed, while Mao Zedong estimated as many as 2 to 3 million were killed.[6] Deng Zihui, Vice Chairman of the Central South Military and Administrative Council, estimated that 15% of China's 50,000,000 landlords and rich peasants had been "sentenced to death", 25% had been "sent to labor reform camps for remolding through manual work" and 60% to "participation in production work under supervision".[11] Not all of those sentenced to death were actually executed and therefore there is no way of knowing the exact number of performed executions.
