 After the victory of the Popular Front in February 1936, the new government promised to start the land reform, but the agricultural unemployment was very high and the peasants started to illegally occupy large states.On 25 March 1936, 60,000 landless peasants in Badajoz led by the socialist's land union, the "Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de la Tierra" or "FNTT", took over 3,000 farms and started to plough.The government decided to legalise the land occupations.