The Chinese Communist Party highlighted the class status of villagers with color-coded strips of cloth: white for landlords, yellow for middle peasants, and red for poor peasants. This served to help the populace see one another primarily as a totem of his group identity and identify which individuals deserved retribution for their class background. Party leaders orchestrated “struggle sessions” in an effort to correct and deter any dissent among the people. Those suspected of harboring old ideas