#and there's a guy the communist party sent patiently trying to explain it to them

[boo-cool-robot]

I'm reading William Hinton's Fanshen, a case study of land reform in a Chinese village during the civil war and this story about a peasant committee arguing about the class status of a blacksmith is making me lose it:

"He's a middle peasant because he earns good money as a blacksmith, and besides his work is no good. Last year he cheated me. He charged me an awful price but the work was no good and even the iron was poor. He exploited me." "He's not skillful; we all know that," said a grey-bearded elder. "But if you don't want to be exploited by him you can always call in others to do the work. It's different with the landlords. With them you have no choice. You pay rent or you starve. But with Huan-ch'ao, if you don't like his work you can always take your job elsewhere." "Go ahead, say what you think," said [Huan-ch'ao] himself, scowling darkly. "Your opinions are very good and I would be the last to get angry." "Truth is," said a second widow, "the tools you make are no good. You really should improve your workmanship." "I accept your criticism," said Huan-ch'ao, desperately trying to hold back his rising temper. He knew that to explode now would land him in the middle-peasant category for sure. "He's never been a skillful blacksmith," the grey-bearded man said again. "But if you say that for this reason he exploits you, then all blacksmiths must become very gloomy indeed."

This is in fact very consequential because it will determine how much land might get redistributed to him, but fucking imagine having to go to a meeting where 20 of your neighbors go "His work sucks shit and he charges too much. He's a landlord!" and another 20 of your neighbors go "Hey! We all know his work sucks shit, but that doesn't make him a landlord!"