I like how popular liberal history paints the mass land distribution as some spontaneous mass killing where anyone who owned at least two shacks was hacked to death overnight by SeeSeePee agents. In reality, many were resistant to reform and the CPC had to restrain the masses from ripping them limb from limb.
If I were a landlord and the revolution happened I would simply turn over my property to the people. Like it's not even hard and you'd get to have a fairly normal life afterward.
For some, becoming a part of the rabble is a fate worse than death.
Under Liu Wencai, peasants were cheated in their lease so that they lived in a state of permanent debt. At the end of the lease, peasants are driven from their homes by Liu, with some being forced to sell their children, or recruited into the military.
He died in 1949, shortly before the People's Liberation Army entered Sichuan.
Boo.
