Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Land Reform Movement" in English language version.
According to documents collected and circulated by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao said in April 1956 at an enlarged meeting of the Party Politburo that "two to three million counter-revolutionaries had been executed, imprisoned or placed under control in the past".55 [....] 55 Mao Zidong Sixiang Wansui (Long Live Mao Tsetung Thought) 1969, pp. 38- 39. This collection presents texts of Mao's writings and talks from 1949 to 1968, as gathered by Red Guards. Many of these texts, including the one mentioned here, have not been officially published. They are generally believed to be authentic, but their accuracy is difficult to assess. Some of them are now available in Volume V of Mao Tsetung's Selected Works which presents an edited version of the original texts.
In these circumstances it is impossible to know how many people were officially executed in land reform, how many were lynched by enraged peasants, how many committed suicide. Rough orders of magnitude can, however, be suggested. It would appear that somewhere between 400,000 and 800,000 people were killed officially after 1949. What portion of these were landlords and members of the rural power structure (including rural police. Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) troops and commanders, rent collectors, etc.) cannot be said for certain, but it is possible that the rural revolution could have cost 200,000 to 800,000 lives. The Chinese Communist leadership had estimated that landlords and their families constituted 4—5 per cent of the rural population — about 20 million people. This would imply that 1 to 4 percent of landlords' families met death. If a half-million people were killed in land reform, this would be 0.1 percent of the rural population or 2.5 percent of the landlord class and would represent roughly one death in six landlord families.
Estimates of the number of landlords and rural power-holders who died range from 200,000 to two million.
There was Chou En-lai's [Zhou Enlai's] statement several years ago that 830,000 "enemies of the people" had been "destroyed" during the war over land confiscation, mass trials of landlords, and the subsequent roundup of counterrevolutionaries which ended, as a "campaign," in 1954. (Incidentally, the term hsiao-mieh, usually translated as "destroyed," literally means "reduced," "dispersed" or "obliterated," but not necessarily physically liquidated.)
The original report was purported to have been compiled by an underground group in China calling itself "Democratic Revolutionary League," and to have been sent out of China by its secretary Way Min (Wei Min meaning "for the people"?) on July 24, 1952. For evidence and sources, the document merely reported "evidence and data obtained by the League; abstracts compiled by the league." No sources were cited which could be checked. It is highly probable that this report, which has provided the foundation for much scholarship, is bogus.10 The committee that released the report the Free Trade Union Committee of the AFL — was funded substantially (if not entirely) by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency's International Organization Division.11 One common activity of the CIA is the creation and spreading of propaganda and "disinformation" through a wide range of publications.12 All the connections cannot be demonstrated conclusively in this case, because the authorship and methodology of the original report remain obscured. In the case of Vietnam, it has been demonstrated convincingly that the CIA helped to finance writers, generate numbers, and spread stories which vastly overestimated the violence of land reform.13
For a careful review of the evidence and a cautious estimate of 200,000 to 800,000 executions, see Benedict Stavis, The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 25–30.
In addition, the work teams sought to mobilize the entire village against the landlords through such devices as "speak bitterness" meetings and mass trials. These methods subjected the landlords to public humiliation, and the trials also resulted in the execution of members of this class on a significant scale, perhaps a million to 2 million individuals.24 [...] 24 In the absence of official statistics it is impossible to know the numbers involved, but it appears clear that early 1950s estimates by anti-Communist sources of 14 to 15 million deaths are far too high. For a careful review of the evidence and a cautious estimate of 200,000 to 800,000 executions, see Benedict Stavis, The politics of agricultural mechanization in China, 25-30. A larger number is suggested by reports based on refugee interviews of a "policy to choose at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution." A. Doak Barnett with Ezra Vogel, Cadres, bureaucracy and political power in Communist China, 228
Have there been any people unjustly killed? Yes, at the time of the great [campaign] to eliminate counterrevolutionaries [sufan], 1950, 1951, 1952, in those three years of the great sufan, there were. [When] killing local bullies and evil gentry [tuhao lieshen] in [the campaign against] the five types of counterrevolutionaries, there were. But basically, there were no errors; that group of people should have been killed. In all, how many were killed? Seven hundred thousand were killed, [and] after that time probably over 70,000 more have been killed. But less than 80,000. Since last year, we have not killed people; only a small number of individuals have been killed.
The basis of Mao's numbers was a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, in January 1954. According to this, 2,620,000 people had been arrested in the country throughout the Zhenfan campaign. Among these, "712,000 counter-revolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were subject to control at various times. Among those arrested, 380,000 guilty of minor crimes have been released after receiving education."61 [....] After Mao began to slow down the campaign and even mildly criticize some regions for excessive killing in April 1951, what followed was the concealment of the real rate of executions by local officials. It is very likely that the actual number of executions was much larger than the reported 712,000.63 [....] 61 "Xu Zirong's report on several important statistics since zhenfan, 14 January 1954," original in the Central Archives [....] 63 Some evidence can be found in the monthly reports on executions of counterrevolutionaries filed by the court of Chuannan district, Sichuan. Two of the court's reports have exact the same dates but the numbers reported are different. See document no. Jiannan/010/61–65, 93–96, Archives of Sichuan Province.
The basis of Mao's numbers was a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, in January 1954. According to this, 2,620,000 people had been arrested in the country throughout the Zhenfan campaign. Among these, "712,000 counter-revolutionaries were executed, 1,290,000 were imprisoned, and 1,200,000 were subject to control at various times. Among those arrested, 380,000 guilty of minor crimes have been released after receiving education."61 [....] After Mao began to slow down the campaign and even mildly criticize some regions for excessive killing in April 1951, what followed was the concealment of the real rate of executions by local officials. It is very likely that the actual number of executions was much larger than the reported 712,000.63 [....] 61 "Xu Zirong's report on several important statistics since zhenfan, 14 January 1954," original in the Central Archives [....] 63 Some evidence can be found in the monthly reports on executions of counterrevolutionaries filed by the court of Chuannan district, Sichuan. Two of the court's reports have exact the same dates but the numbers reported are different. See document no. Jiannan/010/61–65, 93–96, Archives of Sichuan Province.
For a careful review of the evidence and a cautious estimate of 200,000 to 800,000 executions, see Benedict Stavis, The Politics of Agricultural Mechanization in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978), 25–30.
