46 SOCIAL SCIENTIST in terms of stable Communist rule and the implementation of its programmes. Conditions in the Shensi'Kansu-Ninghsia Border Region The Chinese Communist Party had established the Shensi-Kansu-Ninghsia (SKN) Border Region Government in September 1937. Geographically the SK.N Border Region was composed of parts of the provinces of Shensi, Kansu, Ninghsia and small areas of Mongal land in Suiyuan in northwest China. The Border Region included 31 hslen (counties) and the municipality ofYenan, according to Communist claims.1 These hsien were grouped into five regional governments at Yenan, Suite, Sanpien, Lungtung, and Kuanchung. The Border Region had a population of 1.5 million, a great majority of whom were peasants living in poor social, economic and cultural conditions.1 Culturally and socially the northwest was one of die most backward areas in China. Poverty, banditry, vagrancy, and ignorance were the principal characteristics of the countryside in pre-Gommunist society. The areas that later became the SK.N Border Region were in particular characterized by three major problems: first, the primitive state of society which bred illiteracy, superstition, disease and extremely low standards of living. For instance, it was an area with an infant mortality rate of 50 percent and a one percent literacy rate.8 Secondly, the area was characterised by poor economic conditions combined with exorbitant rents, taxes, and interest rates and the stranglehold which the landlord and gentry held over rural economy. Moreover, because of the recurrent severe floods, drought and wind, the land had become extremely barren and unproductive.4 Finally, the country was ruled by an authoritarian government which represented the interests of the landed gentry and the merchants, and considered that "the peasant was unfit for self-rule"^ The gentry headed the village administration and ran the economic and social institutions. The Chinese peasant who had no knowledge of the administrative system, regarded all government merely as soniething to be endured. The behaviour of the Kuomintang officials wa& in Hne with the corrupt traditional practices of the imperial bureaucrats; they regarded peasants as nothing but an endless source of money, food and conscripts.6 Role of The Communists in the Redistribution of Land An ameliorating circumstance in thea? years was the rise of the Communist movement in the area, which began to politically