---
title: '中共土改真相 大陸農民厄運 (The Real Story of Red China''s Land Reform: Misfortune of the Mainland Peasants), U.S. photo poster'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/real-story-red-china-land-reform-usia-poster-1952/
description: A Chinese-language photo poster built from eight photographs of one public trial in Fogang County, Guangdong, headed 'The Real Story of Red China's Land…
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

**Content note:** Eight photographs of a public trial in Guangdong, including a kneeling man about to be shot and bodies lying on a riverbed. This object is shown as it was published. [Why](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/#as-it-was)

[![中共土改真相 大陸農民厄運 (The Real Story of Red China's Land Reform: Misfortune of the Mainland Peasants), U.S. photo poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/real-story-red-china-land-reform-usia-poster-1952.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/real-story-red-china-land-reform-usia-poster-1952.jpg)

# 中共土改真相 大陸農民厄運 (The Real Story of Red China's Land Reform: Misfortune of the Mainland Peasants), U.S. photo poster

A Chinese-language photo poster built from eight photographs of one public trial in Fogang County, Guangdong, headed 'The Real Story of Red China's Land Reform'. One county, one day and one set of pictures (a crowd of umbrellas, men kneeling before a table, a shooting, bodies on a riverbed) stand for the whole land-reform programme, and the yellow text box supplies the rule for reading them: small holdings, 'evil-tyrant landlord' labels, eleven shot, nothing gained by the poor. The tell is that a single photo series carries a claim about the entire campaign (card-stacking).

## Text on the object

Original (Chinese (traditional characters)) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
中共土改真相
大陸農民厄運

這裏印出的八張照片，是由一個逃亡的共幹從大陸偷帶到香港的。照片所拍攝的事實發生在廣東佛岡縣，時間是民國四十一年七月廿三日。卅一名善良的農民被共幹押解到羣衆大會上受公審。他們所有的田，都沒有超過三畝（約合五分之一甲）。但照毛澤東在卅年前手訂的階級劃分法，他們都已算做剝削人民的「惡霸地主」。他們被鬥爭，被判重刑。其中十一名當場被槍決。他們的財產全被沒收，分配給上千的貧農。其中最邀寵的，都拿不到二分田。土地的所有愈分散，中共的統治愈容易，這就是中共土改的真相。

慘慘慘慘！
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
The Real Story of the Communists' Land Reform
Misfortune of the Mainland Peasants

The eight photographs printed here were smuggled from the mainland to Hong Kong by a fleeing Communist cadre. The events the photographs record took place in Fogang County, Guangdong, on 23 July of the 41st year of the Republic [1952]. Thirty-one good peasants were escorted by Communist cadres to a mass meeting and tried in public. None of the fields they owned exceeded three mu (about one-fifth of a jia). But under the class-division method that Mao Zedong drew up thirty years ago, they were all counted as 'evil-tyrant landlords' who exploit the people. They were struggled against and sentenced heavily. Eleven of them were shot on the spot. Their property was all confiscated and distributed to thousands of poor peasants, of whom even the most favoured got less than two fen of land. The more dispersed the ownership of land, the easier Communist rule becomes. This is the real story of the Communists' land reform.

Tragic, tragic, tragic, tragic!
```

Cross-checked against the Chinese text in the NARA catalog record. The numerals in 'thirty-one peasants' and 'thirty years ago' print as the same glyph. Eight small vertical photo captions (1) to (8) are not transcribed. The last glyph of the red column is read as an exclamation mark. Translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader.

[← Caricature panel of a US soldier with workers at an exit door, Rössing photograph](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-us-soldier-caricature-panel-1952/) [공산당도배들이 한국에 들어오기전에는... (Before the Communists Came to Korea...), leaflet 1321 →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/un-command-leaflet-1321-confucian-scholar-1952/)

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- [Passional Christi und Antichristi: the emperor kisses the pope's foot (leaf 'Antichristus')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passional-christi-antichristi-emperor-kisses-pope-1521/) (Electoral Saxony · 1521 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770 by a party of the 29th Regt.](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/revere-bloody-massacre-king-street-1770/) (Province of Massachusetts Bay · Mar 1770 · Name-calling, Card stacking). Content note: Hand-coloured engraving of bloodied dead and wounded colonists after soldiers fired on a crowd.
- [The Virginia Argus, "Letter to Mazzei" and rebuttal, 16 September 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/virginia-argus-letter-to-mazzei-1800/) (United States · Sep 16, 1800 · Name-calling, Card stacking)
- [The Examiner, No. 608, 22 August 1819, 'Disturbances at Manchester' (Peterloo)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/examiner-disturbances-at-manchester-1819/) (United Kingdom · Aug 22, 1819 · Card stacking)
- [Punch, 'Laurels at Ningpo' column on the First Opium War, 1842](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/punch-laurels-at-ningpo-1842/) (United Kingdom · 1842 · Card stacking). Content note: Period satirical prose describing the killing of Chinese soldiers at Ningpo in graphic terms, using period terms such as 'pig-tail' for Chinese people.
- [La paz según el Perú – La paz según los chilenos (Peace According to Peru, Peace According to the Chileans)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/la-paz-segun-el-peru-el-banquillo-1880/) (Peru · Jun 12, 1880 · Card stacking)
- [New York Journal and Advertiser, front page, 17 February 1898 ($50,000 reward, Maine 'work of an enemy')](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ny-journal-maine-destroyed-enemy-1898/) (United States · Feb 17, 1898 · Card stacking)