Frank Dikotter Historian Perspective:Mao used the people (neighbors, families, social groups) themselves to incite terror and take away each other's power, which is what makes him a more dangerous ruler than Stalin or Hitler, who used the secret police for this responsibility. There was no escaping the ideology or policies because each person was tied to the party in a blood pact where their own fear, crimes, and the party were one.
Land Reform was a way of manipulating the people into carrying the weight of the party on their shoulders and ensuring they could not rebel because they were the ones killing their own landlords and redistributing the land.