This chapter on the peasant movement could usefully be balanced by one devoted to the peasant condition and its evolution. K'ang-tsu (resistance to land rents) is a privileged category among the non-Communist peasant actions recorded in the People's Republic of China, because it best represents the struggle of the exploited against the exploiters. By the early 1940s, the iniquities of conscription and the exactions of the army had become comparable even to taxation as a factor leading to peasant agitation. The spontaneous peasant movements show three main characteristics. The first is the weakness of class consciousness among the peasantry, a weakness illustrated by the comparative rarity and traditional nature of the social movements directed against the wealthy. The second is their parochialism. The third characteristic of peasant agitation, namely its almost invariably defensive nature. The first encounter between professional revolutionaries and villagers was led by the pioneer of the Communist peasant movement, P'eng P'ai, in two counties of eastern Kwangtung.