In 1983, left-wing conservatives initiated the "Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign". The Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign was a political initiative led by conservative members of the Chinese Communist Party that took place between October and December 1983. The campaign aimed to suppress Western-influenced liberal ideas among the Chinese population, which had been gaining traction as a result of the economic reforms that began in 1978. The term "Spiritual Pollution" was used to describe a wide range of material and ideas that were considered to be "obscene, barbarous, or reactionary," and which were said to run counter to the country's social system. Deng Liqun, the Party's Propaganda Chief at the time, characterized the campaign as a means of combating "every manner of bourgeois import from erotica to existentialism." The campaign reached its peak in mid-November 1983 but lost momentum by 1984, following intervention from Deng Xiaoping. However, some elements of the campaign were later reused during the "anti-Bourgeois liberalization" campaign of 1986, which targeted liberal party leader Hu Yaobang.