THE CHINESE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS 47 organize and activize the peasantry. Communist activity began in the northwest in the early twenties. Such Communist leaders as Liu Chih-tan and Kao Kang were among the first people to set up a Chinese Communist Party Youth Group in Shensi.7 In the late twenties and early thirties, the Party cadres organized a series of peasant movements in North Shensi and Kansu,8 carried out land redistribution programmes, organized peasant associations and set up Soviet governments. These policies were continued by the Chinese Communist Party Central Gommitee after their arrival in this area in 1935. From 1935 through 1936 the main attention of the Chinese Communists was focussed on gaining mass support through land redistribution programmes in most of the areas that would become the SKN Border Region, with the exception of Suite and Lung-tung regions which were added later.9 From various accounts, one can reconstruct the following pattern of the peasant mobilization process in these years.10 First, the Red Army entered the villages, organized mass meetings, explained its programmes in the meetings, and set up a peasant administration, that is, a revolutionary committee elected by popular vote. Then the revolutionary committees undertook investigations and gathered statistics on population, land ownership and distribution; they also gathered complaints against the oppressors of the poor, and the accused were brought to trial before another mass meeting. Finally, the revolutionary committees conducted the tedistribution of the landlord's property, including land, and set up peasant associations and peasant armed forces. Need for Propaganda and Organisation As a result of the land redistribution programme in the northwest over a long period of time, the Chinese Communists accumulated a great deal of experience in organizing the peasantry. Besides, the socio-political situation in the countryside had been sufficiently modified by Communist penetration to allow the peasants tp develop new revolutionary perspectives. Despite this, the Chinese Communists failed to gain widespread peasant support. Their experience proved that the peasants were quite willing to follow them in the interests of specific economic and political demands. However, they were considerably less wilting to foHo^w any one for the sake of achieving intangible goals not immediately relevant to their own situation. According to Communist accounts the cultural and political backwardness of the people in this area delayed the ready acceptance of new ideas, and made the peas^-