section_path: Leadership of China/Social reform
section_name: Social reform
paragraph_text: Social reform
  
  During the 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. The Campaign to Suppress Counter-revolutionaries targeted bureaucratic bourgeoisie, such as compradors, merchants and Kuomintang officials who were seen by the party as economic parasites or political enemies. In 1976, the U.S. State Department estimated as many as a million were killed in the land reform, and 800,000 killed in the counter-revolutionary campaign.
  
  Mao himself claimed that a total of 700,000 people were killed in attacks on "counter-revolutionaries" during the years 1950–1952. Because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution", the number of deaths range between 2 million and 5 million. In addition, at least 1.5 million people, perhaps as many as 4 to 6 million, were sent to "reform through labour" camps where many perished. Mao played a personal role in organising the mass repressions and established a system of execution quotas, which were often exceeded. He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.
  
  The government is credited with eradicating both consumption and production of opium during the 1950s. 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 region.