It was also a very regionalized thing: in places where landlords lived in the same general area as their properties they tended to be put on trial and punished, but in places where they instead lived in cities and delegated management of the property to others it was their cronies who were punished while the landlords were allowed to either flee the country or cut a deal to peacefully hand over their properties and receive a job as a bureaucrat in return on account of the dire need for literate workers (a category that pre-revolution was systemically restricted to the rich and some skilled professionals).

[–] 420blazeit69@hexbear.net 4 points 7 months ago

I also thought I heard (maybe I'm getting this from Fanshen) that plenty of more-or-less OK landlords maybe had their rental properties confiscated, but were otherwise allowed to go on as before.

The landlords who received harsher penalties, including death, were acting more as feudal lords (with all the direct violence and depravity that comes with) than as some guy renting a second home at market rate. The latter is not something they should be allowed to do, but apparently Chinese peasants in the 50s weren't calling for blood over it.