Shining Path Throughout the 1980s, the Shining Path grew, both in terms of the territory it controlled, and in the number of militants in its organization, particularly in the Andean highlands. It gained support from local peasants by filling the political void left by the central government and providing "popular justice". This caused the peasantry of many Peruvian villages to express some sympathy for the Shining Path, especially in the impoverished and neglected regions of Ayacucho, Apurímac, and Huancavelica. At times, the civilian population of small, neglected towns participated in popular trials, especially when the victims of the trials were widely disliked.
Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Purges of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union (, "", "cleansing of the party ranks") were a Soviet ritual in which periodic reviews of members of the Communist Party were conducted by other members and the security organs to get rid of "undesirables". In her book "Everyday Stalinism", Sheila Fitzpatrick says that such purges took place especially during the 1920s, a period of the young Soviet Union that she calls its "cultural revolution" (echoing the name of the similar later period in China), "bringing excitement into the workday bureaucratic routine".