Important sectors of Peru's rural population rebelled against the "popular war" utilizing a form of social organization that arrived to the Peruvian countryside during the second half of the 1970s. The peasant leagues became an important social movement that contributed in a decisive manner to the defeat of the Shining Path insurgency. This article describes how the peasant leagues organized, spread-out and grew in Peru; another objective of this article is to show their participation in the victory of the Peruvian State over the primary insurgent group in the country.