Coming to power in 1949, Chinese Communist Party leaders recognized that their enemies were by no means totally defeated. A persistent theme throughout the years of Mao’s rule was an effort to eliminate those enemies or convert them to the communist cause. Spies, imperialist sympathizers, those infected with “bourgeois values” such as materialism and individualism, landowners or capitalists yearning for the old life—all of these had to be identified and confronted. So too were many “enemies” within the Communist Party itself, people who were suspected of opposition to the radical policies of Mao. Some of these alleged enemies were killed, others imprisoned, and still others—millions of them—were subjected to endless self-criticism sessions or sent down to remote rural areas to “learn from the peasants.” This need to demolish the old society and old values is reflected in Source 21.1, a poster from 1967, the height of the Cultural Revolution (see “Communism and Industrial Development” in this chapter). Its caption reads: “Destroy the Old World; Establish the New World.”