Editing Mao Zedong (section)

=== Social reform ===
During the [[Chinese Land Reform|land reform campaigns]], large numbers of landlords and rich peasants were beaten to death at mass meetings as land was taken from them and given to poorer peasants, which reduced [[economic inequality]].{{sfn|Short|2001|pp=436–437}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Scheidel |first=Walter |author-link=Walter Scheidel |title=The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century |publisher=[[Princeton University Press]] |year=2017 |isbn=978-0691165028 |url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10921.html |page=226 |quote="In Zhangzhuangcun, in the more thoroughly reformed north of the country, most "landlords" and "rich peasants" had lost all their land and often their lives or had fled. All formerly landless workers had received land, which eliminated this category altogether. As a result, "middling peasants," who now accounted for 90 percent of the village population, owned 90.8 percent of the land, as close to perfect equality as one could possibly hope for."}}</ref> The [[Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries|Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries]]{{sfn|Kuisong|2008}} targeted bureaucratic bourgeoisie, such as compradors, merchants and Kuomintang officials who were seen by the party as economic parasites or political enemies.<ref>{{cite book |first=Steven W. |last=Mosher |title=China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |date=1992 |isbn=0465098134 |pages=72–73}}</ref> In 1976, the [[United States Department of State|U.S. State Department]] estimated as many as a million were killed in the land reform, and {{formatnum:800000}} killed in the counter-revolutionary campaign.<ref>{{cite book |first=Stephen Rosskamm |last=Shalom |title=Deaths in China Due to Communism |publisher=Center for Asian Studies [[Arizona State University]] |date=1984 |isbn=0939252112 |page=24}}</ref>

Mao himself claimed that a total of {{formatnum:700000}} people were killed in attacks on "counter-revolutionaries" during the years 1950–1952.<ref>{{Harvnb|Spence|1999}}{{Page needed|date=January 2013}}. Mao got this number from a report submitted by Xu Zirong, Deputy Public Security Minister, which stated {{formatnum:712000}} counter-revolutionaries were executed, {{formatnum:1290000}} were imprisoned, and another {{formatnum:1200000}} were "subjected to control.": see {{Harvnb|Kuisong|2008}}.</ref> Because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",<ref name="Cambridge history of China">{{cite book |last1=Twitchett |first1=Denis |first2=John K. |last2=Fairbank |author2-link=John K. Fairbank |first3=Roderick |last3=MacFarquhar |author3-link=Roderick MacFarquhar |title=The Cambridge history of China |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0521243360 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ioppEjkCkeEC&q=at+least+one+landlord,+and+usually+several,+in+virtually+every+village+for+public+execution&pg=PA87 |access-date=23 August 2008 |year=1987 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> the number of deaths range between 2 million<ref name="Cambridge history of China"/><ref>{{cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice |author-link=Maurice Meisner |title=Mao's China and After: A History of the People's Republic |edition=Third |publisher=Free Press |date=1999 |isbn=0684856352 |page=72 |quote=... the estimate of many relatively impartial observers that there were {{formatnum:2000000}} people executed during the first three years of the People's Republic is probably as accurate a guess as one can make on the basis of scanty information.}}</ref>{{sfn|Kuisong|2008}} and 5 million.<ref>{{cite book |first=Steven W. |last=Mosher |title=China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality |publisher=[[Basic Books]] |date=1992 |isbn=0465098134 |page=74 |quote=... a figure that [[John K. Fairbank|Fairbank]] has cited as the upper range of 'sober' estimates.}}</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Feigon|2002|p=96}}: "By 1952 they had extended land reform throughout the countryside, but in the process somewhere between two and five million landlords had been killed."</ref> In addition, at least 1.5 million people,{{sfn|Short|2001|p=436}} perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million,{{sfn|Valentino|2004|pp=121–122}} were sent to [[laogai|"reform through labour"]] camps where many perished.{{sfn|Valentino|2004|pp=121–122}} Mao played a personal role in organising the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://hrichina.org/public/PDFs/CRF.4.2005/CRF-2005-4_Quota.pdf |title=Mao's "Killing Quotas." Human Rights in China (HRIC). September&nbsp;26, 2005, at Shandong University |last=Changyu |first=Li |access-date=21 June 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090729194758/http://www.hrichina.org/public/PDFs/CRF.4.2005/CRF-2005-4_Quota.pdf |archive-date=29 July 2009}}</ref> which were often exceeded.{{sfn|Kuisong|2008}} He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/jeremy50sessay.htm |title=Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China |last=Brown |first=Jeremy |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090627092313/http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/pgp/jeremy50sessay.htm |archive-date=27 June 2009}}</ref>

[[File:Mao, Bulganin, Stalin, Ulbricht Tsedenbal.jpeg|thumb|left|Mao at [[Joseph Stalin]]'s 71st birthday celebration in Moscow, December 1949]]

The government is credited with eradicating both consumption and production of [[opium]] during the 1950s.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Bottelier |first=Pieter |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YMhUDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA131 |title=Economic Policy Making In China (1949–2016): The Role of Economists |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2018 |isbn=978-1351393812 |pages=131 |language=en |quote=We should remember, however, that Mao also did wonderful things for China; apart from reuniting the country, he restored a sense of natural pride, greatly improved women's rights, basic healthcare and primary education, ended opium abuse, simplified Chinese characters, developed pinyin and promoted its use for teaching purposes. |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref><ref name="McCoy opium" /> Ten million addicts were forced into compulsory treatment, dealers were executed, and opium-producing regions were planted with new crops. Remaining opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the [[Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)|Golden Triangle]] region.<ref name="McCoy opium">{{cite web |url=http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi010.htm |title=Opium History, 1858 to 1940 |first=Alfred W. |last=McCoy |access-date=4 May 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404134938/http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi010.htm |archive-date=4 April 2007}}</ref>