 On the other hand, he was reluctant to disarm the military as he believed he needed them to stop insurrections from the extreme left.Illegal land occupation became widespread – poor tenant farmers knew the government was disinclined to stop them.By April 1936, nearly 100,000 peasants had appropriated 400,000 hectares of land and perhaps as many as 1 million hectares by the start of the civil war; for comparison, the 1931–33 land reform had granted only 6000 peasants 45,000 hectares.