How did Mao Zedong’s government treat landlords after the Chinese revolution?

During the Chinese Revolution, Mao Zedong’s government treated landlords with extreme hostility as part of a deliberate effort to dismantle the traditional village social structure and consolidate power.12

Beginning in 1946, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a land revolution that encouraged farmers to seize the fields and property of landlords. To overcome the traditional respect for property rights, party activists organized "speak bitterness" meetings, where the poor were encouraged to publicly denounce, punish, and often kill landlords. This period was characterized by widespread terror as the party sought to weaken the rural class base of its opponents.12

Following the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, this land reform continued until landlords were virtually eliminated as a class. Their land was redistributed to the peasantry, and the countryside was subsequently placed on a path toward collectivization. While the government later reached temporary accommodations with some urban capitalists and bureaucrats, the systematic destruction of the landlord class remained a foundational element of the CCP's rural social revolution.34