"There were big differences between Mao during and after the revolution—I talked about this in my book The Historical Process of the Sinicization of Marxism. The most important distinction is that before the founding of the PRC, as Mao himself said, both he and the other leaders of the Communist Party were always "in a state of fear and trembling, as if treading on thin ice," fearing that the slightest misstep, or any strategic error, would send the Party into a deep abyss. This was based on Mao's principle of absolute strength, because in those days the Communist Party had too many enemies, and the situation was ever-changing, so a slight mistake could indeed cause big problems. Thus prior to 1949, Mao Zedong was always a cautious person, not very radical, not so "left." In fact it was quite the opposite, and in traditional party history, the Party had experienced three “left deviations.” At the time, everyone was left, and Mao Zedong was someone who resisted and criticized the left, and thus was more to the right. Indeed Mao was always regarded as a representative of rightist and conservative tendencies by the representatives of the Komintern and the CCP Central Committee. At the time, the basic policy of the leaders of the CCP, including the representatives of the Komintern in China, was to attack, so it was natural that there were many conflicts between the two, and it was inevitable that Mao Zedong would be under pressure. The biggest change in Mao Zedong after the founding of the PRC was that he was no longer cautious. It is not wrong to say that he was arrogant, but to be specific, what happened was that Mao Zedong's judgment of power differentials was increasingly wide of the mark."