text: Class (jieji) in the context of early PRC history carried both economic and political connotations. According to the party's official document about rural class, “landlords (dizhu)” refer to people who possess land but do not work by themselves or who only do labor incidentally and live primarily on exploiting other people's labor. The category of “landlords” also includes the butlers of landlord households because they helped the rich “landlords” collect money and exploit others. “Rich peasants (funong)” are those who often depend on the exploitation of the other's labor as part of or a significant part of their sources of living. They usually have relatively high-quality production tools. One important indicator is that “rich peasants” hire long-term laborers (changgong) to work for them. “Middle peasants (zhongnong)” may or may not possess land, although most of them do, and they possess a considerable amount of production tools. “Middle peasants” live on their own labor entirely or almost entirely and have a decent amount of production tools.  As a result, they slightly exploit or do not exploit others at all. In comparison, “poor peasants (pinnong)” have less or no land, fewer production tools, and are often exploited. “Workers (gongren)” barely have any land or production tools and need to trade the entire or most of their labor for a living.
  However, in practice, the use of the class labels often deviated from its definitions in Land Reform law and policies and often carried highly politicized purposes. During the Land Reform, people classified as “rich peasants” or “landlords” sometimes did not really meet the definition, but cadres arbitrarily labeled them. Cadres also assigned class labels based on the conditions of one's earlier generations. Lineage relations were also a critical consideration for cadres and villagers to label their neighbors as “rich peasants” or “landlords.” Overall, the practical implementation of class labeling still remains under-researched for now.