Returned emigrants and the families of emigrants fared badly as members of the landlord class targeted by communist land reform in China in the early 1950s. They suffered further discrimination during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), when they were branded as spies, traitors and counter-revolutionaries and persecuted. Restitution, including return of confiscated properties, was made after 1979, the great turning point in Chinese government policies (see Part IV).