The concluding volumefollowing Maos Great Famine and The Tragedy of Liberationin Frank Diktters awardwinning trilogy chronicling the Communist revolution in China. After the economic disaster of the Great Leap Forward that claimed tens of millions of lives from 19581962 an aging Mao Zedong launched an ambitious scheme to shore up his reputation and eliminate those he viewed as a threat to his legacy. The Cultural Revolutions goal was to purge the country of bourgeois capitalistic elements