Mao put the dead at about 100,000. The historians who have counted since put them in the millions.
Contested. Official and scholarly figures differ by an order of magnitude.
A village landowner bound on his knees before armed peasant militia and assembled villagers during a public land reform struggle tribunal.
Under the June 1950 Agrarian Reform Law, work teams dispatched to hundreds of thousands of villages classified every rural household by class status and organized face-to-face struggle meetings (douzhenghui) to confiscate land and shatter the traditional rural gentry through public violence.
01June 1950. The Land Reform Law carries the redistribution of land into the newly conquered south, and the violence comes with it.出处： 冯客 Frank Dikötter, The Tragedy of Liberation (Bloomsbury, 2013), Part Two "Takeover (1949-52)", chapter "The Hurricane".
见载02工作队进了村。先挑出穷苦农民，训练他们，再叫到一起开小会诉苦。然后开斗争会，当着地主的面把苦再诉一遍。出处： 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, 《土地战争》（斯坦福大学出版社，2019），序言，第ix页; 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, 《土地战争》（斯坦福大学出版社，2019），第53、59页.
有据03每个村民都定了成分，最怕的是“地主”。地主要挨斗，当着全村挨打受辱。DeMare写道，这样斗死的人数不清。出处： 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, 《土地战争》（斯坦福大学出版社，2019），序言，第ix页; 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, 《土地战争》（斯坦福大学出版社，2019），序言，第ix页.
有据04Mao put the dead at about 100,000. That is the man who ran the campaign, counting his own work.出处： 左慈 Zuo Ci, An Analysis of Execution Ratios in the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Twenty-First Century (CUHK) 178, April 2020.
分歧05Frederick Teiwes gives one to two million executed.出处： 费立克 Frederick C. Teiwes, "The Establishment and Consolidation of the New Regime", in The Politics of China (Cambridge University Press, 2011), as cited by Jeffrey Javed.
分歧06Brian DeMare gives at least two million killed.出处： 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, Land Wars (Stanford University Press, 2019), as quoted in a published review.
分歧07Julia Strauss gives one to five million, for land reform and the campaign against counterrevolutionaries together, because the two overlapped.出处： 施拉丝 Julia C. Strauss, Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign, The China Quarterly 188 (2006).
分歧这件事落到每个人头上，是什么样子：听他们自己说，或看留下的记录。
海外归来的华侨，1951年随土改工作队下到广东
她从没见过枪毙人。民兵打死村长以后，她掏出借来的枪，又朝他开了一枪。
她在马来亚长大。新加坡当局把她当共产党关起来，1950年驱逐回中国。
1951年3月，她加入广东的土改工作队。她对农村一无所知。
工作队走进一个一百六十口人的村子。她住在一个穷寡妇家里。
每次斗争会之前，工作队都先找好苦主。他们煽起苦主的仇恨，教他们上台怎么说。
村长被反绑着双手站在台上。几百人围着看。两个民兵开枪打死了他。
他倒在地上，她朝他背后开了一枪。人群欢呼，有人往尸体上吐口水。
五十年后，她仍说土改是正确的、英明的、关键的。
“I'm sure he was already dead, but I was so outraged I just had to do it.”
土改不只是杀人。它教会了普通人杀人，还教他们为此自豪。
出自 《中国记忆》, 第32、33、34、37、38、40页. 核阅于 9 October 2026.
The killing is not in doubt. Only the size of it is. Land reform taught every village that a label could decide who lived.
Strauss gives 1 to 5 million, as one figure for land reform and the campaign against counter-revolutionaries together, because the two overlapped.出处： 施拉丝 Julia C. Strauss, Morality, Coercion and State Building by Campaign, The China Quarterly 188 (2006).查阅原文 ↗ · 核阅于 4 October 2026 · 收录于 5 October 2026
分歧DeMare gives at least 2 million killed in land reform. We have this from a published review of the book, not from the book itself.出处： 迪马雷 Brian DeMare, Land Wars (Stanford University Press, 2019), as quoted in a published review.查阅原文 ↗ · 存档副本 ↗ · 核阅于 4 October 2026 · 收录于 5 October 2026
分歧Teiwes gives 1 to 2 million executed. We have this through Javed, not from the original.出处： 费立克 Frederick C. Teiwes, "The Establishment and Consolidation of the New Regime", in The Politics of China (Cambridge University Press, 2011), as cited by Jeffrey Javed.查阅原文 ↗ · 核阅于 4 October 2026 · 收录于 5 October 2026
分歧Mao himself put land reform killings at about 100,000. This is what Mao said, a political actor reporting on his own campaign, not a finding about what happened.出处： 左慈 Zuo Ci, An Analysis of Execution Ratios in the Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries, Twenty-First Century (CUHK) 178, April 2020.查阅原文 ↗ · 核阅于 4 October 2026 · 收录于 5 October 2026
分歧The numbers here are contested. They appear only with every named position beside them.
分歧