China and the Soviet Union, Khrushchev's ouster, and the failures of the Great Leap Forward. They conclude that the movement was, at least in part, a legacy project to cement Mao's place in history, aimed to boost his prestige while he was alive and preserve the invulnerability of his ideas after his death. Varying academic focuses on power conflicts or clashes of personalities as underlying Mao's motivations, or alternatively on ideological reasons for launching the Cultural Revolution, are not necessarily conflicting. Mao's suspicions of those around him in power also reflected his longstanding concerns with the decline of revolutionary spirit and the potential rise of a new class-stratified society arising as the popular revolutionary movement of the party transformed into a socialist bureaucracy to govern. Historian Rebecca Karl writes that for Mao, the pursuit of power was never an end in itself, but rather the seizure of state power was to be used in making the revolution. Professor Yiching Wu argues that the typical historiography of the Cultural Revolution as an "era of madness" is simpleminded but writes that such narratives have a "remarkably tenacious ideological power:" See also Chinese Cultural Renaissance List of campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party List of massacres in China Burning of books and burying of scholars, Qin dynasty Morning Sun (film) International: Mass destruction of Japanese cultural heritage by the Japanese government in the late 19th century Meiji restoration July Theses, a mini–Cultural Revolution in Romania Cultural Revolution in the Soviet Union Mass killings under communist regimes General: Iconoclasm List of destroyed heritage Notes References Citations Sources "Li Peng, the 'Butcher of Tiananmen,' was 'Ready to Die' to Stop the Student Turmoil." AsiaNews. 2003. Retrieved August 21, 2011 Barnouin, Barbara, and Yu Changgen. 2006. Zhou Enlai: A Political Life. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong. . Retrieved on March 12, 2011 Ewing, Kent. June 4, 2011. "Mao's Army on the Attack." Asia Times Online. Retrieved on June 16, 2011 Fong Tak-ho. May 19, 2006. "Cultural Revolution? What Revolution?" Asia Times Online. Retrieved on June 15, 2011 Gao, Mobo. 2008. The Battle for China's Past: Mao and the Cultural Revolution. London: Pluto Press. . Retrieved on September 2, 2012. King, Richard, ed. 2010. Art in Turmoil: The Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966–76. University of British Columbia Press. MacFarquhar, Roderick, and Michael Schoenhals. 2006. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press. . Spence, Jonathan D. 1999. The