and begrudgingly gave self-criticisms. After the conference, Liu, once a powerful moderate pundit of the ruling class, was placed under house arrest in Beijing, then sent to a detention camp, where he was denied medical treatment and died in 1969. Deng Xiaoping was sent away for a period of re-education three times and was eventually sent to work in an engine factory in Jiangxi province. Rebellion by party cadres accelerated after the conference. Radicals seized power (1967) Mass organisations in China coalesced into two hostile factions, the radicals who backed Mao's purge of the Communist party, and the conservatives who backed the moderate party establishment. The "support the left" policy was established in late January 1967. As conceived by Mao, the policy was intended to support the rebels in seizing power; it required the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to support "the broad mases of the revolutionary leftists in their struggle to seize power." In March 1967, the policy was adapted into the "Three Supports and Two Militaries" -- support the left, support the workers, support the peasants, and military control and military training. The policy of supporting the left was flawed from inception by its failure to define "leftists" at a time when almost all mass organizations claimed to be "leftist" or "revolutionary." The PLA commanders had developed close working relations with the party establishment, many military units worked to repress radicals. Spurred by the events in Beijing, 'power seizure' (duoquan) groups formed all over the country and began expanding into factories and the countryside. In Shanghai, a young factory worker named Wang Hongwen organized a far-reaching revolutionary coalition, one that galvanized and displaced existing Red Guard groups. On January 3, 1967, with support from CRG heavyweights Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan, the group of firebrand activists overthrew the Shanghai municipal government under Chen Pixian in what became known as the "January Storm," and formed in its place the Shanghai People's Commune. Shanghai's was the first provincial level government overthrown. Within days, Mao expressed his approval. Provincial governments and many parts of the state and party bureaucracy were affected, with power seizures taking place in a remarkably different fashion. In the next three weeks, 24 more province-level governments were overthrown. Revolutionary committees were subsequently established, in place of local governments and branches of the Communist Party. For example, in Beijing, three separate revolutionary groups declared power seizures on the same